Posts by Cassius

More on that issue of "incapable" --

Somewhere I recently saw a variation of this picture from one of the Planet of the Apes movies:

The reason it comes to mind is that I think is would be core to Epicurus that despite the talk about the gods speaking Greek, there was ultimately nothing "special" to Epicurus about Greeks or humans or any other animals or things. At least if "special" means "ordained by God" or "ordained by the Universe" then that just doesn't comport with Epicurus' system, in my view. Things are as they are without any blessing that it is "right" that they be that way, and within the limits of nature things can change dramatically over time, since there is no "fate" or "hard determinism" that things must be the way they are now, at least among "higher animals" that have agency.

Ha - I hope my graphic there isn't inappropriate. I am not really a planet of the apes fan and don't remember much of anything about those movies except the statue of liberty on the beach scene! But to me the photo has that kind of "shock" effect that maybe helps make the point that there is no divine order. We get caught up in our idealized categories when there really isn't any higher justification for them at all, other than the facts of experience as they exist today. And that can easily change quickly.

Quote from Don

NOTE: What does this mean? How does this connect with the evangelical nature of the philosophy? We know women were a part of the Garden and wrote treatises, so the "state of body" can't exclude women. And Epicurean communities were in "barbarian" lands. How to interpret this? Is this where DeWitt is getting that Epicurus said non-Greeks couldn't achieve wisdom? I can certainly see that if someone is incapable of studying and applying the philosophy due to mental illness, brain injury, or other condition. I can also see some "nations" not being conducive to allowing or encouraging study and application because of repression, culture, exposure to the philosophy, etc. I would be reluctant to say (for modern applications) anything akin to "women can't be sages" or "Russians can't be sages."

On this one, which i also agree is important, I don't think there is a conflict between (1) we are evangelical toward those who either are or could be our friends, but also (2) we acknowledge that some people just aren't and arent' going to be our friends. I agree with you that mental illness and brain injury are two categories , but there are probably lots of other circumstantial categories, at least at particular times, like age, health, culture etc. That's why I would definitely agree with you that Epicurus would not say "women can't be sages" (though he might generalize more than we would prefer, in the same way he might say that "children" or "the very aged" or someone else who due to personal circumstance would be facing an emergency or some obstacle that infringed on their freedom of action or thought).

But again , what is a "sage"? Do we limit "sagehood" to "teachers" or "leaders of schools"? If we did that, then it would probably be possible to say that there are a wider variety of obstacles toward being such a leader, such as personality issues.

But I still tend to think that "sage" in this context means more like "any human acting wisely under their circumstances" so I personally would draw a much tighter circle on who is "incapable" of it. I would say today that "incapable" would mean mostly just some mental or physical handicap that we'd agree would have to be significant. However if we used "incapable" more broadly to mean "incapable under their current circumstances" then the net would be much wider and contain all sorts of people who due to personal circumstances have been hindered or brought to a point where they just can't see their way past the problems of the moment to a wider perspective.

In fact that approach is probably the key to what I would propose as the answer. Given enough time and education and resources virtually everyone has great potential. But if you focus on the immediate present, which is probably a very valid way to look at it since we're trying to stay away from idealism, then you have to be more practical about the question of who is capable of "being a sage" now, or next week, or next month, or next year.

So maybe I am thinking that we are sensitive about this analysis because we are looking to avoid overgeneralizing, but maybe Epicurus was just looking at the relative near term and judging more practically based on experience, and that he was in fact totally talking without reference to categories or overgeneralizing. Every time I think about Epicurus' approach to "categories" I think (Hey, that sounds like Aristotle and Plato, there are no "natural categories" in an atomist natural universe) -- and I tend to then think that Epicurus is saying "don't get caught up in categories, just look at the facts of the present and the foreseeable future."

Sorry we just crossposted and I elaborated on my earlier post....

But I think your comment emphasizes my question. "Can't"? What does "can't" mean with a human nature possessing agency, and absence of fate?

"The sage, once wise, won't fall back into ignorance, nor will they willingly do this on purpose."

Just now finding time to start detailed comment. That one has always caused me concern as being mangled, because I hear in it something that conflicts with the "free will" position. If it means that the wise man definitely won't fall back into ignorance, then it almost sounds to me like a Christian "once saved always saved" argument. If it means that the wise man probably won't fall back, then does that really mean anything other than a "truism"?

I always presume that Epicurus either is saying something important, or he is repeating for emphasis and clarity something that he already has said that is important.

So I am thinking there is more than meets the eye, or maybe I am really agreeing with what you indicate is one of the alternate translations in consolidating the passages into a point about the wise man not being generally susceptible to being overcome by emotion and pushed back into ignorance.

Is there another alternative for meaning here?

Thanks and yes t hat looks much better. For the benefit of anyone else reading, it's not necessary to go into the code view if you just block select the text that is hard-coded, then select the Font Size, Font Family, or Font Color option in the editor menu. Click on that button and the last option at the bottom of each is "Remove....." and that lets you remove the hard-coding using the GUI. But either method works fine.

Yes great work Don! Also, would you mind editing your post by blocking it all and selecting "remove color" from the menu? Pasting it from Google brought over hard-coded dark text which is hard to see using a dark forum style. Might be good to "remove font" too so that it looks best on all forum styles. I could do it myself but once you see how that works you ll know for the future.

Fascinating! Thanks Joshua!

And also, once you prepare a full-size final version, you would be potentially be able to 3d scan so that replicas could be made?

Oh That's great Joshua! I really like the intended end-point. I will see what I can do with the imgur links but I see that pasting the picture in the last message worked. Were you running up on file size limitations in posting the others?

I can't remember the details as I write this, but some time ago I came across the article "The False Promise of Stoicism" by Aaron Smith, who has been an assistant professor in philosophy at the University of Maryland, and now works for the Ayn Rand Institute. I don't have the time or inclination to repeat all my standard caveats and hesitations to even mention Ayn Rand, so I will pass over that with just a few comments.

Regardless of what you think of Rand, I do think that some of their material about Aristotle from the Randian viewpoint can be helpful to us as Epicureans in analyzing what Epicurus thought both about Aristotle (who we know Epicurus did not hold in totally high regard) and Rand. I therefore write this post because I think it can help us sharpen our understanding of Epicurus.

Tonight I was forwarded the link below to a 30 minute podcast entitled "Did Ayn Rand Improve on Aristotle" at the Classical Wisdom" youtube page. I can't get a fix on who produces the Classical Wisdom page, but even though the interviewer sounds very young, the material looks to be reasonably well done. The only episode I have listened to is this one by Aaron Smith, and rather than following the title it is more of a generalist review of the significance of Aristotle. I think Aaron does a very articulate job of discussing Aristotle and explaing from the Rand perspective how he differs from Plato. It's those differences that are what interest us as Epicureans and why I post this.

Be assured that this podcast is not a standard Rand political piece about the ethics of capitalism or selfishness. Instead, it's an articulate presentation of some important philosophical issues in understanding Aristotle. I think you can pretty safely put aside any pre-existing opinions of Rand that you have and appreciate this podcast episode purely for the light it shines on Aristotle.

I listened to the full 30 minutes, but I would particularly point to the area starting around the 18:45 mark where Aaron distinguishes Rand from Aristotle. He does this by pointing out what he says Rand saw as problems in Aristotle's ethics, and I think it is very interesting for us to think about whether (1) we would agree with Rand's criticisms, and (2) whether we would agree with Rand's "solutions."

I think all of us here wrestle regularly with understanding and appreciating Epicurus' view of the proper role of "logic" and "reason." I think listening to this part of the podcast is of help in seeing why Epicurus was so cautious about the role reason/logic in his "canon of truth."

Listen to Aaron's formulations and see if you don't hear echos of the same problem that Epicurus addressed but Rand did not.

What I hear, when I hear Aaron's criticism of Plato's other-worldly idealism, is him agreeing with both Aristotle and Rand giving in to Plato's idealism by just reshaping it into logical abstractions. This is very different from the Epicurean solution of grounding "truth" in the primacy of the senses (along with anticipations and "feelings") and the identification of the faculty of pleasure as the key to human happiness. You'll hear Aaron repeat Aristotle's of "flourishing" and "eudaemonia / happiness," but I would argue that when you listen closely it is easy to see that these words just kick the can down the road further and provide nothing firm as a standard of guidance.

There is a lot more in this podcast than I have the time to comment on, but one point that stands out for its ramifications is where Aaron says at 23:50 that Rand said that she did not blame Aristotle for developing her own formulation of ethics because "she herself could not have done it before the industrial revolution!" So the ability of humanity to formulate a proper ethical system changed with the industrial revolution?? Wow!

I am leaving out so much here that I would like to comment on - hopefully I will have time to come back to it and organize this further, or others will listen and the discussion will bring out other points. "Real human standards for success and for flourishing" appears at about the 25:00 mark. That's the kind of formulation from both Rand and the Aristotelians that I think simply falls on its face for being ambiguous and circular.

By no means is Aaron Smith on the Epicurean side in this discussion, and I don't think Epicurus is even mentioned. But when you hear Aaron talk I think it becomes easy to identify the next step that Ayn Rand failed to take. And in my view that key step is that Epicurus properly highlighted pleasure, rather than "reason," as the ultimate guide of life.

That's where I see Aristotle and Plato as ultimately on the same team, and Epicurus being correct in forcibly ejecting "logic" from the primary role that Plato and Aristotle had given to it. Of course we can then debate that the Epicurean perspective on reason is "true reason" and so "reason" really does deserve a special place, but the issue here seems to be that of working with abstractions without tying them tightly to the evidence of the senses and pain and pleasure, which Epicurus does, but which the formulations of Aristotle and Ayn Rand simply don't do. A Randian might want to argue that point, and say that Rand does ultimately point to pleasure, and indeed I think that point may appear in some of her early non-fiction articles. But ultimately the Randians make very clear that "rationality" and "reason" are their indicia of what "flourishing" means as the goal of life, and that is very different from the Epicurean perspective of a life of happiness understood as a life of pleasure.

Sounds like you are a perfect fit for our forum! Glad to have you!

The kind of scary thing to me about the Catherine Wilson book is that while I agree with everything you wrote, I think she still manages to portray Epicurus in a way that comes across better than many other current books. As you say, I think she employs Epicurus for own goals, and i find those goals in my view much too shortsighted, buy I grudgingly give her credit that she sees in a small way how much of a revolution Epicurus represented, a spirit that I don't find in the writers who see Epicurus as basically a Stoic. On that issue - Epicurus' distance from Stoicism - she does a better job than many.

Hello and welcome to the forum @Jovany !

This is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.

Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.

In that regard we have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

1. The Biography of Epicurus By Diogenes Laertius (Chapter 10). This includes all Epicurus' letters and the Authorized Doctrines. Supplement with the Vatican list of Sayings.
2. "Epicurus And His Philosophy" - Norman DeWitt
3. "On The Nature of Things"- Lucretius
4. Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
5. Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
6. The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
7. A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
8. Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
9. Plato's Philebus
10. Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
11. "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially on katastematic and kinetic pleasure.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

Welcome to the forum!

Very interesting thank you Charles!

Jon I really appreciate your contributions to the forum so far. I think I read that you found the forum through NewEpicurean.com but could you let me know how you found that website? Googling Epicurus? In the past many of us have come together through Facebook but i am convinced that is declining and was never an optimum source so I always want to be alert to how to find quality posters like yourself.

i just finished reading Martin's comments and I too thank him for all the time he put in. As Martin indicates some of the comments are more significant than others but they all point out passages where at the very least clarification might be in order, so I think they will be valuable to Haris.

I agree with Martins comments on the issues as to the natural and necessary categories and i also agree that regardless of any issues in these details the overall presentation of the philosophy that Harris gives is much more faithful to the big picture than most other "modern" works.

Also I should post this link to Haris' website: https://epicurusphilosophy.com/

Haris has put a tremendous amount of effort into his site and the book, and I really hope we can encourage him to do more with both. He has a very good background that lends credibility to his work, he is a Greek who writes in English, and he is friendly to the "DeWitt perspective." I think he has an account here but he has not posted much, which is fine because he's obviously involved in producing new comment. If we can encourage him by giving him good feedback I think that would be a great addition to "the cause."

That's great Don. I posted that link because Martin tells me he has read it and is ready to post his comments. I think it is also possible that Haris is working on a second edition, so if you get to read it and comment then I am sure that would be helpful to Haris, as I will be sure he knows about the comments. But don't let it sidetrack you too long from DeWitt

Please use this thread to discuss Hars Dimitriadis' "Epicurus And The Pleasant Life"

Having had the opportunity to speak with Elli several times I have definitely heard the ePICurus pronunciation. I am so used to the Anglicized version that I can't bring myself to use it, but it sounds like that is the original pronunciation.

I will tag Elli here to help us but I happen to know that she is going through some very difficult family health issues right now so it may be a while before we hear from her.

Very very interesting. He was clearly very familiar with Epicurus and had thought about him carefully. I had no idea about all this but I will definitely add Maugham to my list of people to follow more closely.