"Why we evolved awe would be an interesting evolutionary biology question-- does it serve some sort of fitness function? "
And related to that would be why or how we evolved pleasure and pain (?)
We'd need to incorporate that part of Lucretius that discusses how eyes were not born so we could see, etc. That passage has always been mysterious to me, along with the observation that the gods could not have created the universe because they would have had no pattern.
Yes I can't recall that she dealt with anticipations at all, which is something that probably relates to her long lecture on the priority of observation over theory. She clearly had some interesting views on all that which I don't profess to have sorted out.
I don't want to turn this into a Nietzsche tangent, but this sentence sounds like a workable implementation of his "will to power" which superceded the will to "self-preservation." Maybe that can or should be generalized to "Will to pleasure." Regardless of Nietzsche, it will be a frequent question as to how the Epicurean view relates to "self--preservation." It is necessary to have an explanation of why "self-preservation" is not the Epicurean goal, which would include as a primary example the text that we sometimes give our lives for a friend. DeWitt is onto something I think in saying that Epicurus was holding "life" to be the ultimate value, but that's not clear enough. He's almost definitely right though that Epicurus was saying that pleasure and pain and virtue and everything else have no meaning, except to the living.
For myself, I might propose a modification to his definition, that a noble person is one who has chosen to form themselves into a self they take pleasure in.
Don't let me derail the current direction of the discussion, but I finally took the time to find this quote, which appears relevant. Of course Nietzsche is full of all sorts of trouble and ambiguities, but his interest in Epicurus, and his strong denunciation of stoicism and standards of absolute virtue, means to me that Nietzsche's line of thinking as to REVERENCE probably has relevance to our discussion:
http://nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/friedri…_f5535481a.html
I am curious as to your reaction to this, Susan (and of course Elayne's or anyone else's too)
Setting anything other than the feeling of pleasure as the measure of greatness means you have got virtue ethics mixed up in there.
That's another way of saying the same thing that seems to important to stress. The "definition" of pleasure that is current today is far too narrow, and because we play the game with the public definition of "pleasure" being so narrow, it is hard even to communicate the full extent of Epicurean theory until that is made clear.
This last issue of relative estimations of pleasure deserves a lot more articulation. Elayne, when you get a chance, I want to be sure to hear your view...
Because in my view this is one of the key issues. I am ready to say that each of us is totally proper in considering OUR version of pleasure (meaning, each person's pleasure, for that person) to be exactly what each person is called by nature to pursue, under all the Epicurean rules.
At the same time, that does not lead me to the total relativism / nihilism of saying that "nothing matters" and that any choice is equally valid, because that does not follow at all.
I am thinking the logical conclusion is that we just have to get acclimated to understanding that (for example) how we spend our own lives are and should be of ultimate value to US, while at the same time acknowledging that others' lives hold that same status to them, and that we just have to come to terms that there is no Natural "single right answer" that allows us to say which of the choices is "best." Other than, of course, that the only guide that NATURE has given to us is in fact the feeling of pleasure and pain, very broadly and widely considered.
I think "pigs" were an intentional "in your face" argument to take things to the logical extreme, which is, in fact, following our "word game" that "pleasure" is the ultimate good, and that there is no universal sanction for contending that one person's pleasure is "better" than another's. We all have our private views about that, and we think our own feeling of pleasure is superior, but ultimately there is no "universal" justification for that view.
Awe is something we find agreeable, anything we find agreeable is a pleasure, so awe still fits within the context of "pleasure as the ultimate good."
I can imagine that someone might object and saying we're playing a word game with "pleasure" here, and that we are being inconsistent because we aren't supposed to like or approve of word games.
I think Epicurus's response would be to say that ultimately this particular observation is not an endless serious of word reductionism, but in this case "pleasure" reduces to a "feeling" which is primary and which cannot be second-guessed and must be accepted as a foundational premise for which no proof is needed.
To the extent there is any accuracy in the accusation that this is a word game, part of the response would be that "they started it" when the opposition first suggested that "logos" or words in themselves were the foundation of how we should live. Epicurus in pointing to "pleasure" as the ultimate good was just showing people the way to unwind that false contention of the Platonists and so many others, and to get back to the ultimate reality of everything that matters to us, which is not "words" but "feeling."
Although I find awe to be one of the pleasures
YES I think that is a very key point! Awe is something we find agreeable, anything we find agreeable is a pleasure, so awe still fits within the context of "pleasure as the ultimate good."
At least that's the way I think we're all using the word "awe."
Along the lines of noting that "supremely good" may be circular and unhelpful, let me observe this:
there must be something bigger or more profound than the human mind in the universe
For the same reason "supremely good" doesn't advance the ball much, the words "bigger" and "more profound" also need further definition / articulation.
I know this is the form we are used to seeing in paganism and Abrahamic religions, but for me, “divine“ in no way equals supernatural, and does not need to.
I agree with you, but this is one of apparently many situations where Epicurean definitions may depart from common usage. In this case, if "divine" does not equal supernatural, we probably need to be aggressive in articulating what it does mean. But does this definition really help anything or is it just circular?
That's a new word for me! 
Ok yes that was what I was thinking was probably the case. I guess this is sponsored by a university or some institution that is concerned about publication rights, so that's understandable. In addition to that kind of program, I hope over time we can develop programs that are truly "free" to everyone.
for learning and for feeling affiliated with a group
Yes I have always thought that "feeling affiliated with a group" is an important enjoyable experience that we're lacking in, and need to work to cultivate.
because they can’t shake the feeling that there must be something bigger or more profound than the human mind in the universe.
Ok that's the profound issue with lots of ramifications. It can easily lead to a "supernatural creator" argument that would be irreconcilable with Epicurean physics on the nature of the universe, and yet it is clear the Epicureans saw a feeling of "reverence" to be a very legitimate part of their philosophy. There's of course all the discussion in Lucretius about the gods, in the opening of Book 1 and in the rest of the book two, and there's that saying to the effect of "Thanks be to blessed Nature that she has made what is necessary easy to obtain, and ... what is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary."
Combined in that last saying you've got an attitude that is either reverence or close to reverence, combined with a word "blessed" that describes something similar, even if all of it is completely natural and absolutely not part of a divine creator of the universe.
We have not tended to talk about this much - I kind of associate it in my mind with the category of "images," which we also don't talk about much but which I think has great potential for being explored. With images, however, the issue is more plainly non-supernatural, in that everyone understands implicitly that the senses of sight and hearing and other things imply a movement of "atoms" across space (presumably from object to our eyes) that supernatural gods aren't necessarily involved in.
With the topic of divinity though (and eternality and infinity, which have some of the same issues) it's more important to keep the lines of distinction clear. I know not everyone thinks the same way about these issues or considers them to be important, but I personally consider the category something that I hope anyone interested in it will explore and post about. I think it's related to the "sense of being affiliated" feeling that is important to a lot of people to have, and important to cultivate if we expect to develop anything more than just a small group of isolated period in a small corner of the internet.
And all this is also related to the creationism arguments about "design" and how those should be evaluated logically. The issue of how organization can arise from non-organization is closely related to whether life can emerge from non-life. Even as I type this I have several tracks of mind about it. Living beings are surely made from non-living components. But that not the same issue as whether that process of life from non-life is ongoing and continuous (I think it probably is, but I'm not 100% sure how to express that). There's also the "infinity / eternality" issue, which presumably means that there's no way to go behind the issue that the universe (as a whole) is eternal and so living things have always existed somewhere just as has the non-living. Similarly, under Epicurean theory, were the individual gods at one point "born," or has there eternally been a "race of gods" that has always existed somewhere, just like there has been a spectrum of living beings existing somewhere eternally?
I personally don't think these issues are answered or made irrelevant by "big bang" or other physics theories indicating that "the universe" had a beginning point in time. That's because personally I think Epicurus took the "logical position" that the universe cannot possibly have an end point, so whatever "big bang" we are observing is "local" rather than "universal." The interplay between "logical position" and "local experiments and their interpretations" is very hard to sort out.
Going back to the recently quoted excerpt from the letter to Velleius, it seems clear that Epicurus did in fact seem more willing to accept a logical position in an area we today might find to be overreaching:
“Moreover there is the supremely potent principle of infinity, which claims the closest and most careful study; we must understand that it has in the sum of things everything has its exact match and counterpart. This property is termed by Epicurus isonomia, or the principle of uniform distribution. From this principle it follows that if the whole number of mortals be so many, there must exist no less a number of immortals, and if the causes of destruction are beyond count, the causes of conservation also are bound to be infinite.
All these are issues that i do not know the answer to, but I think that those who are interested in should pursue, and I would tell anyone interested in them to let's set up a subforum to post our thoughts and explorations over time.
Ok - thanks Michele. Just curious - is there a reason for that? I don't really travel in academic circles -- is there some reason that a professional who gives a public lecture, or an entity that sponsors a public lecture, would not want that available publicly afterwards? Some kind of concern for intellectual property or something?
Michele I am very interested in several of those presentations but I am worried that my schedule is not going to allow me to view this live. I am going to try to make at least part of it, but I would appreciate it if you could help me be alert to see if they are going to post anywhere links so people can view the presentations afterward. Thanks very much for alerting us about this! I know that I definitely am interested in most anything Voula Tsouna has to say about Epicurus, and I am looking forward to finding out more about these other lecturers.
Looks like THESE are the presentations:
Thank you Michele!
Yes there was some good teamwork there. That was back when we had Elli actively with us. Hopefully she will be back with us soon - she is a dynamo, and of course you know Elayne is too. Elli was reluctant to be on podcasts because of course her first language is Greek, but she's an incredible resource and a "hoot" to deal with
I will re-read it. I remember it ending on sort of a cliffhanging note, but I don't remember the rest.
