Posts by Cassius

Quote from JJElbert

Cassius , are you certain you have the translation right?

Thank you for catching that Joshua -- I am not sure where that came from! I will correct. As I write this I can't remember if I had a source for that particular version or just mashed them together in a way that seemed logical at the time.

That's part of the reason for my exercise in doing this because I'd like to check each one of the "slides" in this presentation and then use it for a systematic presentation of the philosophy.

So thank you!

I guess the vicissim opteritur is what I haven't drilled into far enough

Don what do you think about the "terror" / "fear" versions? Is there anything in the Latin to justify that or is that just more translator editorializing ?

Yes I agree that some form of "to the skies" is a good non-religious metaphor that makes the most sense.

As for the line numbers i will probably go to my grave never being happy with a numbering system. I've taken lately to using the Loeb numbers and I kept all this designated at under line 62 because Loeb doesn't give another line number until 80. I presume that these are just discretionary paragraph divisions so I think as a compromise from here on out I am going to make all my digital versions conform to Loeb paragraph numbering for the sake of some kind of ability to cross-reference.

Thanks for the commentary!

By his victory, the terror of religion is trampled underfoot, and we, in turn, are lifted to the stars.

Quare religio pedibus subiecta vicissim opteritur, nos exaequat victoria caelo.

This highly memorable line is a good one to review the Latin and alternate translations. Here are several renditions in English, and all of them make much the same point.

It appears to me that Munro might be the most strictly literal, with Brown and Humphries emphasizing the terror / fear of religion, while Bailey inserts "in revenge." Humphries' and Munro's "trampled" would seem to be a good rendition of "subjected to the feet."

However Loeb and Smith are particularly disappointing in choosing to deflect the blow against "religion" by inserting "superstition" in its place. While I think that is probably a defensible choice if one takes the position that the Epicureans considered their view of the gods to be "true religion" and the standard views of the majority as "superstition" - that editorial choice really does not seem warranted given that the Latin is "religio" and in our modern context the clear indictment by Lucretius and Epicurus was against what we today regard as "religion."

At any rate, anyone who seeks to soft-pedal Epicurus' views on the harm caused by standard supernatural religious viewpoints will be hard-pressed to deal with this passage.

Brown: And so Religion, which we feared before, by him subdued, we tread upon in turn. His conquest makes us equal to the Gods.

Munro: Therefore religion is put underfoot and trampled upon in turn; us his victory brings level with heaven.

Bailey: And so religion in revenge is cast beneath men’s feet and trampled, and victory raises us to heaven.

Loeb: Therefore superstition is now in her turn cast down and trampled underfoot, whilst we by the victory are exalted high as heaven.

Smith: So now the situation is reversed: superstition is flung down and trampled underfoot; we are raised to heaven by victory.

Humphries: Religion, so, is trampled underfoot, And by his victory we reach the stars.

I think you are illustrating the main point with your practical examples - the point being that while the word humanist carries a genetic implication that is benevolent enough, it also carries in philosophy some very specific connotations that can be very different, and the devil is in the details.

As you say it's not normally an issue to be concerned about except in dealing with people for whom the word holds a special meaning, and I think it is fair to say that the more a person cares about the word , the more they are likely to be caught up in the special meanings which frequently contradict Epicurean philosophy.

In that sense even to be small-s stoic can sometimes be the proper course, but the more one drills down to what is meant by Stoicism the more one sees that there are serious implications to erecting a philosophy around it.

Also in this thread I think it would be good to point out that Cicero's "On Duties" would be an important point of reference that will help compare and contrast the view I am suggesting is in common between Stoicism and Humanism against that of Epicurus. Don I cannot remember if you and I have discussed whether you read that. Years before I converted over to Epicurus, "On Duties" was one of my favorite classical works, and now in retrospect I think my affection for it made it a lot easier for me to come to terms with the dramatic difference between the "mainstream Greek" approach vs. Epicurus.

Although i don't recall that very much of it explicitly names Epicurus, views such as those of Epicurus are clearly the target. if I recall correctly you could pretty much characterize the whole think as "The Anti-Epicurean" almost as much as you could consider Nietzsche's "AntiChrist" to be anti-Christian.

Quote

Now, among the many important and useful subjects in philosophy that have been discussed by philosophers with precision and fulness of statement, their traditions and precepts concerning the duties of life seem to have the widest scope. [4]Indeed, no part of life, whether in public or in private affairs, abroad or at home, in your personal conduct or your social relations, can be free from the claims of duty; and it is in the observance of duty that lies all the honor of life, in its neglect, all the shame. This, too, is a theme common to all philosophers. For who would dare to call himself a philosopher, if he took no cognizance of duty? Yet there are some schools of philosophy that utterly pervert duty by the view which they propose as to the supreme good, and as to the opposite extreme of evil. For he who so interprets the supreme good as to disjoin it from virtue, and measures it by his own convenience, and not by the standard of right, — he, I say, if he be consistent with himself, and be not sometimes overcome by natural goodness, can cultivate neither friendship, nor justice, nor generosity; nor can he possibly be brave while he esteems pain as the greatest of evils, or temperate while he regards pleasure as the supreme good. These things, though too obvious to need discussion, I yet have discussed elsewhere.1 Those schools, therefore, can, if self-consistent, say nothing about duty; nor can any precepts of duty, decisive, immutable, in accordance with nature, be promulgated, except by those who maintain that the right is to be sought solely,2 or chiefly,3 for its own sake. This [5]prerogative belongs to the Stoics, the Academics, and the Peripatetics; for the opinions of Ariston, Pyrrho, and Herillus1 were long since exploded, though they might fittingly have discussed subjects pertaining to duty, if they had left any ground for the preference of one thing over another, so that there might be a way open for the ascertainment of duty. In this treatise I shall follow the Stoics, not as a translator, but drawing from their fountains at my own discretion and judgment, as much, and in such way, as may seem good.

I can't recall at the moment whether the above thread makes reference to Cicero's "De Officiis," but i have started scanning that again in reference to a comment from Shahab about "Duties," and i think there is probably much in it, especially the opening part, which would be useful in drawing the parallels between Stoicism and Humanism.

Quote from Philia

It was the Stoics and Cicero who concocted and publicized the false report that Epicurus counted pleasure as the greatest good. This is mistakenly asserted in all our handbooks."

You will find that there is a lot of subtlety both in Epicurus and the way DeWitt presents Epicurus, much of which you'll probably appreciate no matter how far you get, and some of which you'll not accept - but having considered it will help you anyway, I would argue.

In this case, I would liken DeWitt's observation to his reference to the multiple meanings of the word "true" in the "all sensations are true" statement.

DeWitt wrote an article on the "Summum Bonum Fallacy" and you'll want to read that part of his book and consider it in detail. I think one way of interpreting what DeWitt and/or Epicurus was saying is that there are mutiple meanings of the word "good" / "greatest good" that have to be considered.

A phrase that I remember from DeWitt is something to the effect that "pleasure and pain have meaning only to the living" and I think that is a very valid point - that Epicurus knew (PD2) that being alive is a precondition even to experiencing pleasure or pain. If that's part of the point, perhaps the issue is that a good can refer to an "asset" (such as for example a house) such that your greatest "good" may be your house (in terms of money value anyway) while it's also understood that in a more basic sense your greatest good is your life or health that allows you to live in it. And there's also "greatest good" in the sense of a "goal" or a "guide."

It does seem clear that Epicurus was wrestling with the Platonists and Peripatetics over straining too much over the meaning of the word "good" as further referenced by that fragment about those who walk around endlessly prattling about the meaning of good.

I sometimes think that it is better to think of pleasure as a "guide" rather than a "good" -- and indeed there's a phrase in Lucretius that Don can help us with the latin on where Lucretius calls Venus / Pleasure what is translated as "divine pleasure, guide of life" (I think it's "Dux vitae, dia voluptas".) Book Two:

As i see it I don't disagree with Don's perspective and it is largely what I am trying to convey in my "both are true" comment. Yes I do think it is possible to generalize, but it is generalizing within a context, and the generalization is going to hold true only so long as the facts supporting it are true. And the main fact which is at the starting point is that there is no universalizing supernatural force or extradimensional ideal which can take the place of a contextual analysis.

I feel sure that people like Don and I would have no difficulty agreeing on many generalizations, and that have no issue with seeing the limits of our generalizations. But I think world human history shows that there is a great danger that these limits are very easy to forget, so my perspective is to stress the warnings that I think are even today very frequently needed.

And a large part of my view is influenced by some Latin that I used to think was exactly the right view until I saw it as the polar opposite of Epicurus, the part from Cicero's Republic which I think speaks directly to why we started discussing humanism. I believe this view was known to Epicurus and helps us see how his views are in opposition. Here is a version of the quote which I found at the link below, though I usually see it translated "True law is right reason in accord with nature...."

https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4104&context=ndlr

This below is the version I usually see, and to which I would point as the common thread of there being a "one eternal and unchangeable law [that] will be valid for all nations at all times." Of course Cicero wrote this long after Epicurus' time, but as Cicero fancied himself part of the "New Academy" I would think that some similar statement, or at least the seed of the idea, comes down from at least as far back as Plato himself.

It is almost as if the last ten PD's were written with the view of exactly refuting such a "one law for all people at all times" point of view.

More seriously, after laughing with Don -- I do find that (in my humble opinion) this is one of the hardest but most important issues to see through. We all have (and I think SHOULD have) our own personal views of what is the right way that we want ourselves and our friends to live.

But that's light-years away from taking the position that there is some justification (in the gods, or in idealism of some kind that is non-religious) that there is a set way for EVERYONE to live.

I think it's very possible and critical to understanding of Epicurean philosophy and the Epicurean view of the universe that both things can be true at the same time. If you don't hold fast to your own view of what is the "right" way for you to live, then you'll likely fall into nihilism or some other form of despair. But if you think that "your" view is the best for everyone, and that something gives you the right to enforce that view on everyone else, then you'll eventually fall into something that is (admit it or not) tyrannical in nature.

Quote from Don

Welcome to the club

LOL

Quote from Philia

I guess I still need to examine my personal hang-ups with the word "pleasure" that come from a protestant upbringing.

Yes that would appear to be the issue!

The terminology "life worth living" is heavily weighted with its own Platonic / Aristotelian / Stoic / Religous baggage, since it implies that you have to look outside Nature's faculties (pleasure and pain) for justification and guidance.

I''ll post this to bump this thread, make sure no one gets a "this thread is too old to post in now" message, and point out that due to a discussion going on elsewhere we may get the thread a new lease on life: RE: Review of the "What is Epicureanism and Is It Compatible with Stoicism?" video by Vox Stoica

If anyone wants to get into a longer discussion about humanism (and this evoked considerable debate before, and will again) let's do it over in this thread: Epicurean Philosophy Vs. Humanism

As you will see there, Hiram responded negatively, and dispute over this issue is probably fair to say the reason why this website and the Society of Epicurus ended up parting ways, leading to the "Not-NeoEpicurean" position statement and several of the other posting guidelines here against political debating.

[Note: Now that I have updated that last post with some links, let me put in a plug that "this is what an internet forum is all about." There's no way I could have so quickly found and put together our material about this issue so quickly without the organization provided by a forum software like the one we use here.]

Here is the text of that review referenced in the first post:

Opinion Piece: Thomas Jefferson, Despicable Racist and Epicurean

An essay was submitted to us last week by a member. I am posting it here with my own commentary, which represents my personal response and not a group admin response. To best understand my post, I recommend that you read the linked article first. I am not posting the article as a stand-alone because it violates our group rules against promoting neo-Epicurean perspectives. As you read it, see if you can notice the errors on your own before you come back and read my response, which I offer to the author and to you in the spirit of friendliness, hoping that is how you will receive it. I think a friend would not let me persist in errors likely to cause me pain without speaking up, because my pain would be painful to my friend.

Before I proceed, I want to explain the description “despicable racist” in my title. This is _my_ title for my response here, not the title of the essay I'm responding to. This is my personal feeling about Jefferson. I dislike him intensely—I find him vile. I want my friends to know how strongly I feel. I feel strongly enough that it is even an effort to be articulate in this post. I told the author I was tempted to write “Thomas Jefferson, You F***ing Racist A**hole!”, and that’s the more accurate translation of “despicable racist” here. I have undertaken a more detailed response only because I hope that some of you may gain pleasure because of it. Maybe it will help you find ways to develop responses to the Jeffersons you meet in life today.

The first problem I notice is that the author starts from saying Epicurean Philosophy is a philosophy not only of happiness but of liberty. This is not true. The single aim of Epicurean Ethics is pleasure. Liberty is included insofar as it produces pleasure. Indeed, for every human I’ve personally met, a subjectively sufficient liberty is essential for a pleasurable life. There may be exceptions, but I proceed on the basis that whoever is front of me likely finds liberty pleasurable until the person tells me otherwise. It seems to be a strong characteristic of our species.

It is also true that EP is not only about ethics. It is fundamentally about physics, about how we know what is real and what isn’t. It is a philosophy of material reality and not idealism. In brief, we know what is real through our senses (including reading instruments which examine the material world), our prolepses (which I personally interpret as innate pattern recognitions), and our feelings of pleasure and pain. Each of these ways of knowing about reality is different, and we use all three together. It is critically important to understand that each of these is _subjective_. I do not mean subjective as in opinion. I mean that we perceive reality as subjects, with our own particular bodies located in particular times and places. I do not know of any absolute, objective, completely outside of everything point of view.

Using feelings to know what is real is counter to much popular ideology, but it is science-based. It is not that we use pleasure to know whether a pepper is red, anymore than we use our ears to hear the color of the pepper. Our feelings tell us what is happening in our bodies. If we eat a hot pepper, the capsaicin is in the pepper, but the pain is in our bodies, along with (at least for some of us) the pleasures of the taste and of the endorphins produced in response to the pain. Feelings are _part_ of reality because our bodies and the processes of our bodies are real.

“Justice” is one of the Epicurean prolepses. The essay makes a serious error in understanding justice—he frames it as something that can be measured “from the outside”. Justice is not so much a concept, although we do build concepts around it, as it is an innate sense. There is research suggesting we and other species have an inborn “tit for tat” system, a neurologic pattern recognition, by which we keep track of symmetry in social interactions. I suspect this is the basis for the prolepsis “justice”—but even if you think of prolepses differently from me, a material reality-based philosophy means that justice is subjective. We are not imagining the possibility of an absolute pattern or thing “justice” which can be objectively measured. Whether an interaction is just or not will depend on individual perception. We will have a broad similarity in our perceptions because we are in the same species, especially if we have been exposed to the same cultural rules.

Here is Principal Doctrine #36: In its general aspect, justice is the same for all, for it is a kind of mutual advantage in the dealings of men with one another; but with reference to the individual peculiarities of a country, or any other circumstances, the same thing does not turn out to be just for all.”

The sensation of “mutual advantage” is _felt_ by the subject. It has no universal definition—it is a sensation in the mind. The universality of justice is similar to the universality of pain and pleasure—not universal in what produces the sense of justice, pain, or pleasure, but in the type of sensation we label as justice, pain, or pleasure.

One person in a two-person interaction may passionately sense the advantage is symmetric and just, even if the other person finds it asymmetric and unjust. For each person perceiving just or unjust interactions, a just situation seems to be linked tightly to the pleasure pathways in the brain and unjust to pain pathways. I have not met a human for which this wasn’t the case and suspect it is typical enough to be treated as a species characteristic. This tight linkage of pleasure with subjective justice is actually the only reason I care about justice. The pleasure of others in feeling justly treated causes me significant empathetic pleasure. If justice were primarily painful, why would anyone seek it out? It has no inherent value apart from pleasure, nor does anything else.

The essay proceeds as if it is possible to define “natural justice” in a way which will give the same answer for every observer. This is counter to physics, counter to biology (which depends on physics), and thus counter to Epicurean Philosophy. All perceptions occurring in reality are by definition “natural”—the alternative is something unreal, something that can’t exist. Ironically, what is conceived as “natural justice” here is actually idealized justice, a concept without existence in reality.

The author calls Jefferson not Epicurean because he does not seek [idealized] justice. He also points out that slavery caused Jefferson pain yet he owned other humans anyway. What the author omits is that we have no evidence Jefferson experienced more pain than pleasure in treating other people so. In fact, Jefferson called himself an Epicurean and appeared to understand how to make life decisions in order to have more pleasure than pain. For such an important decision, whether or not to own other humans, I doubt he failed to apply this decision-making process. The same is true of his household economic decisions. The author assumes this was not Epicurean because going into debt can cause more pain than pleasure. But was that Jefferson’s assessment of his particular decisions? Only Jefferson would be able to tell us.

The author says that Jefferson ignoring sense evidence about Black people is non-Epicurean. I put it to you that all of us cherry pick what we are going to pay attention to and what we will exclude from our thoughts—I don’t know of a human who doesn’t do that, and it is usually not done in a conscious way. This isn’t non-Epicurean, or if it is, there have never been Epicureans. A non-Epicurean would assert that we can’t use our senses to know what is real, and I don’t know of Jefferson ever doing that.

However, I am not convinced that Jefferson was actually ignoring sense data. I suspect he was writing this way as a persuasive tactic, to get himself off the hook interpersonally and possibly intrapersonally. I can’t prove that, but it seems likely considering that he was strategic in other ways about expressing his opinions to different groups of people. He deliberately did not express his lack of a belief in supernatural gods to the general public, for instance.

Thinking that Jefferson understood and practiced Epicurean Philosophy is part of what leads me to call him despicable—because I believe that he knew exactly what he was doing to other humans and found his decision to be more pleasurable than painful! This causes me pain.

I use the term despicable in the only way it can be used—as an expression of my own strong feeling. There is no universal standard of despicable. Jefferson and the humans he enslaved certainly had their own prolepses and feelings about justice. And I, along with other readers of today, will naturally experience feelings about justice from learning about what he did. Although I have said justice is subjective, I am also a subject, and my prolepsis of justice is valid even if it is different from yours. It tells me about the reality of my brain’s pattern recognitions. My sense knowledge tells me that humans generally dislike being coerced; I also have read what enslaved humans have said about slavery. It’s not surprising to me that when I read Jefferson’s words, I am angry at him and find him despicable—not a person I would want as a friend but someone I would be pleased to oppose.

This brings me to one of the most important points I want you to understand. Whether someone is an Epicurean or not has nothing to do with whether you or I will find them admirable. Jefferson may have used our philosophy very skillfully to obtain pleasure for himself. That does not mean any of us have to like him. There is not a single absolute standard we can point to that will tell us who is likable and who is not, because liking someone is a feeling of pleasure produced by the character and actions of another person.

You, reading this, may have entirely different feelings about Thomas Jefferson. Your politics could completely be opposed to mine. I could feel a strong desire to persuade you to change your mind about your positions. Yet if you understand that reality is material, that we know what is real by our senses, prolepses, and feelings, and if you have chosen to use pleasure as your guide and goal, then we are both Epicureans. Within that same philosophy, we may find each other to be beloved friends or despised enemies.

When you understand this point, it will help you choose your friends and understand your own political positions and feelings. It will help you recognize when you are being misled into using idealistic philosophies and keep you on the path of pleasure.

This is a good question and -- without trying to open a can of political worms that would contradict one of our other core principles here at the forum - this is a point that we discussed back when we were developing the "Not NeoEpicurean But Epicurean" graphic and statement for the forum itself: Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean

I believe we discussed this in one or more Lucretius Today episodes, and I think we have some longer posts on this here and at facebook. I remember Elayne having some very pointed things on this position with which I agreed as well. It's also very possibly included in the lengthy thread we had about the proposed statement of principles of the Society of Epicurus. I will compile some links and suppplement this post but in the meantime I will summarize by saying that: most definitions of humanism appear to be consistent with this page by the American Society of Humanists. Among the key aspects of that are statements like this:

Quote

Definition of Humanism

Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism or other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good.

– American Humanist Association

Terms like "progressive," "ethical lives," "responsibility," "personal fulfillment," and "greater good" point to the unifying aspect of Humanism being an essentially idealist or even political movement which asserts a "best" way of life for all men, which would contradict Epicurus's view of the universe in which there is no natural basis for such an assertion. One of the most clear statements of this conclusion comes in the final ten principal doctrines that maintain that there is no such thing as absolute justice.

I think it's pretty clear from many popular articles that Stoicism is, like humanism, a philosophy that asserts that there is a "greater good" which can be stated in absolute moral terms (virtue) that is the same for all people. Now of course many humanists will disagree with many Stoics as to how the "greater good" should be defined, but that simply points out the commonality further -- their unifying aspect is that they agree that there is a "one size fits all" morality and virtue. I would argue that Epicurus would reply that there is no standard of judgment at all other than pleasure and pain.

Maybe an even shorter way to capsulize the issue would be to say that there is a strong case to be made that most versions of "humanism" are in essence a form of "idealism" not so far at all from "Platonism.". And that commonality helps draw the parallel between humanism and Stoicism.

This is how we stated it in the original Not-NeoEpicurean graphic:

Additional references:

The first links one may be among the best:

Thread

Epicurean Philosophy Vs. Humanism

I have never considered Epicurean philosophy to be a form of "Humanist" philosophy any more than it is a form of Stoicism or Platonism. I haven't written extensively on this, in part because many Humanists are allies on certain important points, such as rejection of Supernatural Religion.

But I was reminded of this point today and I think it is time to start a thread on it. My position is that "Humanism" is just another "-ism" that has a goal at its center which is very different from…

Cassius

May 27, 2019 at 3:48 PM

Thread

A Pattern I Observe In The Connection (Or Lack Thereof) Between Humanism And Epicurean Philosophy

My goal in the discussion of "Humanism" has been to generate "light" rather than "heat," but since the goal of life is "light" (pleasure), and not the avoidance of "heat" (pain), I have more to add. The accompanying graphic is not a "proof" of anything. It is simply a summary of my observation, over many years, of a common thread that binds what I find to be the majority view of "Humanism" to what I find to be a popular but flawed view of Epicurus.

The text on the left is from an article that…

Cassius

May 30, 2019 at 8:17 PM

Post

RE: Why Does Stoicism Seem to Be More Popular Than Epicureanism, Especially In England?

Yes that wikipedia article goes into what I would expect the issue to be: What does "positive" mean? Why use the word "positive" rather than 'pleasure"? Do they resolve "positive" as meaning things beyond pleasure? And yes according to this they head right back into the "virtue ethics" issues that seem to characterize humanism. And to these extent these categories are accepted as ends in themselves, this would definitely appear to be an Aristotelian, rather than Epicurean, approach:

…

Cassius

October 3, 2020 at 5:05 PM

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Elayne Reviews Alan Reye's Editorial on Thomas Jefferson

Elayne has undertaken an Augean Stables (not sure that is the correct analogy) of reviewing Alan Reyes' article on Thomas Jefferson. I don't personally share Elayne's feelings about Jefferson, but I think her thoughtful discussion of all the issues is well worth reading and does a great job of unwinding much confusion about Epicurus' views on virtue and justice.

I presume that at some point we will get a version of it here at Epicureanfriends.com, but I also see that it is unique exchange with…

Cassius

October 11, 2020 at 3:27 PM

Outside Article: Nietzsche's Overcoming of Humanism

Wikipedia: - Section on "Criticisms of Humanism" I suspect that wikipedia article is subject to a lot of changes, so here is how it appeared back in 2019: RE: Epicurean Philosophy Vs. Humanism

This post has a PDF attached to it which preserves some of the Facebook exchange - RE: Epicurean Philosophy Vs. Humanism

Further as to Jefferson, presuming this is his own handwriting this is a key part of his letter to William Short - his "outline" at the end of the letter. To me he seems to clearly get that "utility is the test of virtue" correctly, but it worries me that he isn't then also clear (utilty toward what? - to which the answer should be 'pleasure' in the full context that Epicurus places it).

Then in combination with "happiness the aim of life" he is again muddying the identification of happiness with pleasure, but you can cut him slack there for following the passage in the letter to Menoeceus. But while Epicurus then proceeds to articulate the clear central role of pleasure, Jefferson really doesn't.

By the time Jefferson gets to stating that the summum bonum is not to be pained in body or troubled in mind, he has pretty well botched the clear statement in "On Ends" (which he surely read) identifying the summum bonum as pleasure. He has also contradicted his conclusion in the head and heart letter, and much of the implication of what he has previously written in the same letter to William Short.

It's as if we're seeing in Jefferson's writing the same wrestling we continue to have today about how to state these issues clearly, and that Jefferson himself left the issues unclear. Of course he wasn't writing a philosophical treatise, so again I cut him a lot of slack, but I am afraid he was doing exactly what we tend to do try -- trying to make the issue more palatable to orthodox case by intentionally putting a gloss on the role of "pleasure" -- something I don't think Epicurus himself was guilty of doing, despite the controversial passages of the letter to Menoeceus that "can" be read in that direction.

Here's the slide that bothered me. It's probably pretty close to the thrust of Epicurus' doctrine, but it's not a direct quote from the letter to Menoeceus or the Principal Doctrines, is it?

The Bailey version of the letter to Menoeceus is below; I don't recognize the part of the graphic starting with "...and therefore in death..."

Quote

Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but death is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality. For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living. So that the man speaks but idly who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when it comes, but because it is painful in anticipation. For that which gives no trouble when it comes is but an empty pain in anticipation. So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.

Thank you for those links Don! I thought it sounded like Head and Heart - I should have checked myself. Hard to understand how that citation got mixed up.

I also noted a strange phrase in one of the quotes attributed to Epicurus - I will go back and look for that. It sounded like a variation I have never seen but it wasn't too far from the standard so I did not comment.

Godfrey I guess as to Jefferson I have a combination of reactions -- I cut him some slack for his usefulness and his perceptiveness in seeing Epicurus to be the superior of all Greek philosophers, but there are definitely some phrasings as you point out that tend toward asceticism. For example in the letter to William Short he combines the "don't be a slackard" comment (which is good) with some comments in his outline about "In-dolence is the absence of pain, the true felicity." That plays right into the hands of those who are giving the "abscence of pain" idea an absurd construction, and Jefferson should have realized that and been more articulate.

It's been a while since I read the "head and heart" letter but I do seem to remember that if you read the whole thing, and drill down to the conclusion, that Jefferson makes clear that pleasure / feeling trumps the dictates of "reason," so that is excellent. So that's the context if I recall correctly that that "retire within ourselves" comment may occur - but again I'd have to go back to the source. If indeed he meant "the art of life is the art of avoiding pain" as a stand-alone point that he emphasized as if it were clear on its on -- that definitely would be a huge problem for the way he is articulating the theory -- and certainly does not seem to be consistent with the way he lived his own life, so that would be very hypocritical.

Also Godfrey if you were to watch the video and listen to the narration, the writer goes significantly further in the wrong direction than the slides indicate. Maybe I will find the time to flesh out more of the transcript, but there are indeed statements made in the narration that are worse than the slides, and deserve to be pulled out and provided a response.

My comments here are rambling -- sorry -- but the ultimate point on Jefferson, Godfrey, would be that if Don is correct and that paragraph is an excerpt from the very long and detailed "head and heart" letter, then the probable response to the section that is quoted is that that is a part of the back and forth "debate" which is used a device in the letter, and by the time you get to the end of the letter it seems clear that Jefferson is rejecting excessive rationalism in favor of the position that the values of the heart - which presumably means pleasure - are what is really important in life.

If someone goes back and reviews the Head and Heart letter and disagrees with my characterization of it, please let me know. It's basically a love letter to a married woman (if I recall) so it's not written as an absolutely clear philosophical piece, and if I recall the very last part of it trails off into the ambiguity that arises from the context in which it is written. But I remember the effect it had on me was to very strongly state a winning case for "the heart" against the case for "the head."