Posts by Cassius

Eugenios I would "head off" a possible direction that some (not necessarily you) would take this:

Quote from Eugenios

They are self-sufficient, they are not buffeted by the waves of Chance, they remain unperturbed and choose to not concern themselves with the worries of the world.

A Stoic might of course say that this is pure stoicism - by force of mental willpower choose to detach oneself from "the worries of the world."

Of course I would say that is not the case whatsoever, any more than it is of essential importance to us as humans to , by force of mental willpower, choose to be concerned with the worries of ants.

As to Epicureans gods living in the intermundia, an environment suited to them, or by them, to allow them to maintain constant pleasure which is constantly renewable to them without facing the inevitability of death or pain, I would say the essential characteristics we would seek to emulate are not significantly related to our "choosing not to be concerned with the troubles that ants may be having" but would again be describable as the best existence possible in the words attributed to Torquatus:

"The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain; he will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement."

Eugenious I am not sure I understand your comment. As far as getting hung up, the original point, was it not, was whether an Epicurean god is "immortal" or not by nature? And your secondary point was that you were concerned that "immortal" might mean that this attribute was irrelevant to humans, since humans are not immortal? And perhaps an even more subtle point was whether DeWitt was correct in not using "immortal" in his translation?

I think ultimately Dewitt is indicating his value by pointing us in the direction that you are looking, which is not what "immortal" conveys. DeWitt's view is at least in part that like humans, gods too must act to sustain their lives and happiness; they are not mystically immortal.

Quote from Eugenios

We know we are mortal. Epicurus and Lucretius proclaim that. So interpreting how we mortals can be imperishable beings isn't readily apparent at first. But this doctrine - all the Principal Doctrines - have to be applicable to our lives, otherwise of what use are they to us? Epicurus was adamant that philosophy had to be practical and to improve one's life. Re-examining the connotations of ἄφθαρτος allows us to see that that idea doesn't have to be a mystical iimperishability but one rooted in the here and now.

OMG - the Epicurus wiki does EXACTLY the same thing with the letter to Menoeceus:

I suppose they get a "C" for "Consistency"!

So the Epicurus WIKI actually admits that the word is indestructible, but chooses to transmute it into imperishable!

Here is Inwood & Gerson's "Epicurus Reader, who weigh in for "indestructible" which is actually pretty close to DeWitt:

OK Elli so does that mean that you agree with DeWitt's translation of the letter to Menoeceus, also using the word INCORRUPTIBLE?

This below is the clip from DeWitt's personal translation of the Letter to Menoeceus, in the apppendix to his "St Paul and Epicurus. Same word as PD1, same "incorruptible"?

Godfrey I just read that article and as far as I am concerned it is OUTSTANDING and one of the best I have read. I could kick the writer, however, for saying on page 191 that there are "many contradictions" in Lucretius, but other than that comment my own views of the Epicureans' sincerity are very close to this. Thank you!

Also, that looks to be an "old" article, which probably helps explain why I like it. Do you have the source citation?

EDIT -- Well gee whiz I guess I had it already, cause I have the cite:

And yes it's over 100 years old -- which appears to suit the age when I was more in harmony with the commentators on Epicurus. It even significantly pre-dates DeWitt!

Argh I hate of when people quote Latin or Greek and don't provide a translation

Eugenios - you bet. I will also say this: I try to be very alert to never taking anything on "authority" and so I do not like to reference DeWitt as much as I do. HOWEVER while I am perfectly sure that he may have made mistakes in certain areas (although I cannot currently cite anything major) I firmly believe that his approach merits great attention, so if you don't have a copy of that please let me know so I can point you to places you can find it if you don't have it already. But sounds like you are well equipped already!

You'll see elsewhere on the site here that on the issue that I think is most profound - the "ataraxia" / tranquility argument, I think DeWitt is also correct, but to go further his conclusion is bolstered by the applicable chapter in Gosling & Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure" and by the Nikolsky article "Epicurus on Pleasure."

Given how central I see that argument to be, it's almost amusing to me that DeWitt treats it almost as a sideline rather than one of his pet issues. He was much more interested apparently in anticipations, and the "all sensations are true" issue, and numerous other points -- but his interpretation of Epicurus as not focusing exclusively on katastematic pleasure foreshadows the conclusions in the other books and articles I just mentioned.

There are numerous technical details (anticipations is a great example, along with nature of the gods) that I don't think are of "life and death" centrality to making Epicurus important to us today, but to me, I simply could not accept for a moment that my life is so short, that there is no life after death, that pleasure is the guide of life, that there is no absolute morality or virtue or divine revelation --- and THEN be told that the best thing for me to do with my time is live on bread and water in what amounts to a cave with a couple of friends????

There is NO WAY I believe Epicurus taught that, and no way that I believe that the ancients, who had access to all his texts and loyal followers, interpreted him in that way. I am convinced that the message I draw from all these presumptions is the same that the ancient Epicureans drew: that we should indeed "seize the day" and make the most of whatever opportunities of pleasure are available to us for as long as we live, each in our own circumstances.

That lesson or realization, if you will, is tremendously difficult for many people to accept, indoctrinated as they are from all sides that there is either a god or ideal virtue to which we all must conform. Sometimes I find it interesting to consider how Epicurus himself confronted the issue of choosing between "truth" as we understand it, versus "pleasure" which he concluded was the guide and goal of life, because it is easy to argue that happy fool is a better life than an unhappy "wise man." But I am convinced that he concluded to embrace both, and I don't think he accepted any contradictions after his basic understanding of nature was established. Better that the life be short, while confidently embracing whatever pleasure is available, than long and ultimately miserable from embracing foolishness, which so rarely ends up being pleasant or happy.

I am going to have to look further into this but it appears that he translates the phrase as incorruptible, and ultimately his reasoning is pretty much what I remembered, that it is an elementary principle of physics that only the elements are eternal, and any combination of elements will eventually come apart.

As far as making reasonable sense out of KD1, I don't see an issue there. If you are saying that you should set as your human goal never to suffer any pain whatsoever, that is obviously impossible for a human, and Epicurus would have realized that impossibility himself, which is why the focus is on pleasure obtained even at the cost of pain. As far as the model of what the best human life can be, there is a more clear and detailed statement of that in "On Ends"

Quote

XII. The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain; he will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement.

As far as the gods being "thought constructs" I certainly realize that modern scholars favor that, but that is not what Epicurus appears to have held, or that Velleius describes in "On the Nature of the Gods." The Epicureans took their view of gods seriously, and whether we agree with it or not would not change what they thought or how we should understand their position before we decide what to adopt as our own. Focusing on thought constructs is one of the tangents of modern commentators that in my personal view (not in everyone's) undermines the possibility of understanding Epicurus thoroughly and on his own terms.

I think the main aspect of DeWitt's analysis of the immortality issue starts on page 267. I am not wedded to taking DeWitt's side in every position he takes, by any means, but I agree with his approach that in order to duplicate Epicurus' approach we much always start with the basics and then never let a basic rule (like nothing exists except atoms and void, in motion, etc) ever be violated in any subsequent speculation - so that if a passage or commentary appears to contradict an earlier foundation, then that interpretation of the passage is incorrect:

This is an excellent detailed discussion Eugenios so thank you for it. People will not always agree on every detail but it helps everyone to dig into the primary material and then display their reasoning about how to interpret it. Otherwise every discussion is just arbitrary assertion.

Probably there are all sorts of other considerations in your mind in starting the thread so there are lots of directions this can go.

This is a post by Elli in the corresponding thread at FB which I also want to be preserved in the context of this discussion:

Diachronically the only we see/realize is that there is always an invention with new cunning tricks on how the people would live a life in the situation of Anesthesia/Apathy/Nirvana just for the purpose to abandon all the pleasures of life, searching ideal worlds and in the end to die totally empty-handed. The manipulation of masses keeps well till our days and the fact is that all these idealistic obsessions are based on empty imagined ideas for producing more and more andrapoda (slaves).

Epicurus philosophy produces MEGA FRONOUNTES which means : serious, self-sufficient - free persons that have high self-esteem and being proud of whatever they achieve. Epicureans do not need mystic gurus. They do not need drugs, alcohol and all these substitutes to enjoy the pleasures of life. Eudaemonia/Pleasure, for epicureans, springs from their inner self and are able to share it with their outside like-minded friends.

Dewitt makes the comment in EAHP that while other Epicureans did, he did not believe that Epicurus himself called the gods immortal, only having the capacity to continue to live if they so choose.

Page 249

I think this issue of deathlessness of an individual god would also be related to the question of whether an individual god has also existed for eternity, or became "godlike" through some process which had a beginning. While the universe itself would need to be eternal under the atomistic theory, no individual thing within the universe would be subject to that same eternality requirement, and the reverse is probably true - all things that are composed of atoms at some point came together from the atoms. I don't myself have an opinion on when or how, but I presume this is a function of the eternal universe that Epicurus said to consider.

As to this:

Quote from Eugenios

Epicurus was adamant that philosophy had to be practical and to improve one's life. Re-examining the connotations of ἄφθαρτος allows us to see that that idea doesn't have to be a mystical iimperishability but one rooted in the here and now

Now here I would be reluctant to go so far. I think that especially in an issue like the nature of divinity, Epicurus might consider that an attribute of divinity such as deathlessness (for the gods) might have application to us as reassurance of the overall doctrine that the gods do not interfere with us, even if we as humans are never able to achieve deathlessness ourselves.

Bizarre! Facebook will not let me message a link to that calendar site!

I will email Takis and ask him about this.

So this calendar calculated the 7th of Gamelion in 2020 as being on January 31 while Takis / Elli calculated January 2nd and 3rd?

Sounds like someone has a problem.....

I agree that the 20th of each month in our modern calendar makes the most sense today.

Wow that's great. Eugenios did you arrive at the same result as the info in the first post for this year?

Yes, Eugenios, I see your points. I come at Watts as someone totally unfamiliar with him, and when I watched the video I definitely saw aspects that I applauded. I made a couple of screen clips which I don't have access to now which I was going to post in appreciation. No doubt about it.

But in the end the turns that he made toward deprecation of pleasure, and the other issues you mention, indicate deeper flaws in his methodology and thinking which are definitely worthy of discussion in that the reveal problems that "new" people will tend to make and repeat. So it's worth analysing where he goes wrong and why. By the end of the video I was so turned off that I definitely would not recommend him or anything he wrote to a person new to Epicurus, but on the other hand, we who are better read on the issues are in a position to deal with his problems and produce helpful material that will prevent others from wasting time on his path, before they themselves are able to understand the reasons why it is false.

I see that as one of the major ways we need to emulate the patterns set by the early Epicureans. When we come across people and positions like this which are superficially attractive but ultimately badly damaging, I think it is would only be natural that we would/should derive great pleasure from producing our own material in response and reply which will benefit both ourselves and our friends in showing the errors in Watts' approach and his conclusions.

There are tremendous numbers of people and positions out there in this category, and I think it's natural and helpful that we devote ourselves to producing the material that's needed in response to this. Many very good people waste tremendous amounts of time, and thereby as Lucretius might say deprive us of the benefits of their friendship, that can be avoided if we put in the work to produce the material that's needed.

I have not seen a line-by-line review by an authority organized in exactly that way. Most of the time (for example, Dewitt) they approach by topic, and then cite the doctrines underneath each topic, and/or include the doctrines in the topical index at the end of the book.

When you say you have read everything by Epicurus, in what form, with what commentary? Something like the Epicurus Reader, or Bailey's Collected Works, or what.

Also, it sounds like you've not read Lucretius, so that would be good to add to a reading list at some point.

Another outside poster, responding to the original post:

Thank you, Elayne. I, too, read Watts in my youth and your opinion of him corresponds with mine. I went through a very long period of being enthralled with Eastern philosophy and Buddhism before I finally wised up and gave up such idealistic philosophies. I'm glad that Epicurus taught us to base our lives on pleasure and not ideals! I never could manage to live up to the ideals of letting go of my ego or reaching a state of desirelessness that Buddhism and other philosophies teach are the purpose of life.

ELAYNE's Post Responding To The Original Outside Post:

Watts died of alcoholism... my take on him (having read him in my 20's) is that he was a somewhat pretentious person with a superficial understanding of Buddhism who enjoyed playing the guru role and maybe damaged his brain with various drugs. He was in that wave of westerners who got dazzled by the eastern philosophies and made more of them than was there. It was exotic and exciting-- I can understand how people got sucked in.

Ask yourself if it is really true that your desires for pleasure can't be satisfied. Is it? That's not true for me. I desired and got several intense pleasures today, as I described in another thread, including good food, a hike to a gorgeous creek, and time with my family. I couldn't have been happier, and I don't get bored. It is simply not true that enjoying life leads one to want pain or to want to watch girls being eaten by lions. Perhaps at 56, I am too young to say that... but I have many older friends, some in their 80's, who enjoy life very much and have not yet started clamoring that they are tired of pleasures and want to be miserable!

Watts is using suggestion in a vile way, getting people to agree that they don't know what they want and can't enjoy pleasure-- that they couldn't possibly prefer to make their own choices. Is that true for you? Sometimes what I thought I wanted hasn't been as I expected, but by paying attention, now that I am older I am pretty reliable at choosing what I enjoy. There's some trial and error, but he's promoting a sort of learned helplessness where you just give up and follow fate like a Stoic dog!

That is not anything like what Epicurus advised.

The way to decide if what Watts says is true is to use your senses and feelings-- observe what happens in your own life. What works, what doesn't? Please don't let people like Watts bamboozle you out of your choices.