Posts by Cassius

I brought up this analogy in another recent thread and I think it would be fruitful to talk about this. However I haven't watched this full movie since I was a child, and all I really remember is the song "Bare Necessities," which fully captures the attitude praising "minimalism" which is so widespread. As explained elsewhere I don't think this accurately expresses Epicurus' advice, which appears to me to be that wealth and poverty are contextual and relative, and that the goal instead should not be a particular amount of wealth, but the maximixation of pleasure and minimization of pain. The best summary of that point seems to me to be VS 63: "Frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess."

However i think we can gain a lot more from "the Jungle Book" than just making this bare observation. If the synopsis below is correct, even within the movie the point is made that simply looking in the short term for "bare necessities" is not going to be the right decision for Mowgli. In looking into the details, it looks like we can draw all sorts of other observations that put the words of the catchy main tune into perspective. It will always be possible to make the same correct observations that "natural and necessary" needs should have priority (safety, sexual attraction, friendship) but by pointing out the details of the circumstances I think we can see why a "bare necessities" philosophy of life is ultimately destructive and not what Epicurus recommended.

I know some of you guys are a lot more familiar with movies and artwork than am I. What are your thoughts about "The Jungle Book" movie in general, and the song "Bare Necessities" in particular. Note: Some of you probably have read the Kipling original, and I see that the wikipedia article indicates that the original is much more dark than the movie. Probably we should focus on the movie, but if anyone sees useful deductions from contrasting the movie to the original then that is fine too.

Full lyrics are here.   Here is the plot synposis from Wikipedia.

Mowgli, a young orphan boy, is found in a basket in the deep jungles of India by Bagheera, a black panther who promptly takes him to Raksha, a mother wolf who has just had cubs. She and her mate, Rama, raise him along with their own cubs and after ten years, Mowgli becomes well acquainted with jungle life and plays with his wolf siblings. Bagheera is pleased with how happy Mowgli is now, but also worries that Mowgli must eventually return to his own kind.

One night, the wolf pack parents meet at Council Rock, having learned that Shere Khan, a man-eating Bengal tiger, has returned to the pack's part of the jungle. Pack leader Akela decides that Mowgli must leave the jungle for his own safety. Bagheera volunteers to escort him to a "Man-Village." They leave that very night, but Mowgli is determined to stay in the jungle. He and Bagheera rest in a tree for the night, where Kaa, a hungry Indian python, tries to devour Mowgli, but Bagheera intervenes. The next morning, Mowgli tries to join the elephant patrol, led by Colonel Hathi and his wife Winifred. Bagheera finds Mowgli, but after a fight, decides to leave Mowgli on his own. Mowgli soon meets up with the laid-back, fun-loving sloth bear Baloo, who promises to raise Mowgli himself and never take him to the Man-Village.

Shortly afterward, a group of monkeys kidnap Mowgli and take him to their leader, King Louie the orangutan. King Louie offers to help Mowgli stay in the jungle if he will tell Louie how to make fire, like other humans. However, since he was not raised by humans, Mowgli does not know how to make fire. Bagheera and Baloo arrive to rescue Mowgli and in the ensuing chaos, King Louie's palace is demolished to rubble. Bagheera speaks to Baloo that night and convinces him that the jungle will never be safe for Mowgli with Shere Khan around. In the morning, Baloo reluctantly explains to Mowgli that the Man-Village is best for him, but Mowgli accuses him of breaking his promise and runs away. As Baloo sets off in search of Mowgli, Bagheera rallies the help of Hathi and his patrol. However, Shere Khan himself, who was eavesdropping on Bagheera and Hathi's conversation, is now determined to hunt and kill Mowgli himself.

Meanwhile, Mowgli encounters Kaa once again, who again attempts to eat him, but he escapes thanks to the unwitting intervention of the suspicious Shere Khan. As a storm gathers, a depressed Mowgli encounters a group of friendly vultures who accept Mowgli as a fellow outcast. Shere Khan appears shortly after, scaring off the vultures and confronting Mowgli. Baloo rushes to the rescue and tries to keep Shere Khan away from Mowgli, but is nearly killed. When lightning strikes a nearby tree and sets it ablaze, the vultures swoop in to distract Shere Khan, while Mowgli grabs a large flaming branch and ties it to the tiger's tail. Shere Khan, who is terrified of fire, panics and runs away.

Bagheera and Baloo take Mowgli to the edge of the Man-Village, but Mowgli is still hesitant to go there. However, his mind abruptly changes when he is smitten by a beautiful young girl from the village who is coming down by the riverside to fetch water. After noticing Mowgli, she "accidentally" drops her water pot. Mowgli retrieves it for her and follows her into the Man-Village. After Mowgli shrugs to Baloo and Bagheera, to show that he has made up his mind and chosen to go to the Man-Village, Baloo and Bagheera decide to head home, content that Mowgli is safe and happy with his own kind.

In the last couple of weeks we have been receiving a series of signups using names that seem clearly intended to be nonsensical. First we had a series of names based on antivirus products, then today someone uses "skinhairproblem." I think these are probably bots / or some other kind of spam, and any that fit that pattern are going to be deleted. In general, it's time to tighten up the signup and posting rules, so we'll be looking at that in the coming days and weeks. If you are a real person and really want to subscribe to the forum, please make that clear by posting in this Welcome New Members section shortly after you arrive. As everyone knows from the banner at the top of the home page, "All are welcome to read and ask questions, but only firm friends of Epicurean Philosophy in accord with our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean statement and our Posting Policy statement are granted full posting privileges, so here you will find a truly supportive community of Epicurean Friends."

We've now been existence long enough that it's time to start applying that rule more carefully.

Yes I think that's exactly it Mike. It makes no more sense to shoot for being a cave-dweller than it does to shoot for being a billionaire. Both can be "happy" and both can be miserable. And it's probably much more statistically sound from an Epicurean point of view to draw dividing lines on issues such as "What does the person think about "gods"? or "What does a person think about life after death?" rather than "How much money does the person have in their bank account?"

Quote from Mike Anyayahan

As far as I understood, Epicurus seems to be telling us that the equivalent value of pleasure that we can find in a significant amount of material resources can also be found in poverty.

If that is the case, it is vain and unnecessary to desire a significant amount of material resources more than what poverty can equally offer.

I would say that the "can" in the first sentence would need to be "may under certain circumstances" and that the "if that is the case" is the controlling aspect of the second sentence. And also that wealth and poverty are figurative terms, which means that they are relative and not absolute (literal).

Otherwise it is very easy to end up sounding like Epicurus is advising pursuit of only the "bare necessities" of life, which we know from many texts, not the least of which is the list of property which Epicurus left in his, is not the choice that Epicurus made for himself. In fact as far as I know there is not a single recorded instance of an ancient Epicurean being devoted to poverty and living as an ascetic.

Quote from Hiram

Your body needs warmth, safety, something to eat, something to drink, clothing, etc

Well, if warmth, safety, something to eat, something to drink, and clothing are all that is needed to be "wealthy" then the inmates at San Quentin are wealthy indeed!

Quote from Hiram

If you have all the natural needs met, you are wealthy.

The problem with these formulations is that they imply (rather clearly state, actually) that there is something wrong with wanting more than the bare necessities of life. Cue the disney song here, as others regularly do in this context.

But it is foreign to Epicurus to say that any set of facts is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, without linking them to the pleasure of the person involved.

Quote from Hiram

So This is the focus. If you have all the natural needs met, you are wealthy. But if you're trying to "keep up with the Joneses" and constantly working to impress strangers, you need to adjust your opinions to nature.

Nowhere in any of this Hiram are you linking any of this to the specific pleasure under the context being discussed? Why not? Are you looking for a formula that you can apply to everyone and say that Nature says that that person has enough? Why not look to the actual pleasure being experienced by the individual no matter what amount of money he has in the bank. You can be rich in pleasure with little money, or a billionaire full of pain and sorrow.

is THAT not the message here?

Are you suggesting that Epicurus is Phil Harris / Baloo singing to Mowgli to go only for the bare necessities of life? If not, how is what you are saying diffferent from Baloo?

This is a cute song, but it's a DEROGATORY CARICATURE, not what Epicurus really taught.

Quote from elli

Νο, Cassius the word "moderation" does not exist in the epicurean texts.

Given how often this "moderation" issue comes up, at some point it would be interesting to do a search for any appearances of forms of that word in anything in Diogenes Laertius, Diogenes of Oinoanda, Lucretius, or the key Epicurean sections of Cicero, just to be able to hammer this point home as persuasively as possible. And of course we can and should do the same with the Herculaneum fragments, though that will be much harder to evaluate.

But already Elli's comment is good confirmation that the concept of "moderation" is not consistent with how Epicurus thought or presented his philosophy. Given that he was so firm on rejecting "virtue for the sake of virtue" it would only make sense that he would reject "moderation" as a goal in itself. But we can count on this question coming up over and over in future discussions, since so many people think that "moderation in all things" makes sense. And in fact it makes sense that "moderation" like other bright line rules should run through so many of the Greek philosophers, given their theist / idealist / rationalist orientation - but not Epicurus.

Thank you Michele! Excellent work - I will publicize to the extent that I can.

NewEpicurean.com (also goes out over twitter)

Elli are you aware of the word "moderation" or variations of it appearing in any of the core Epicurean texts?

For reference, 45:

Quote from Mike Anyayahan

Key words such as Yin/Yang, balance, stillness, neutrality describe Taoism as a philosophy of moderation.

That is interesting - I was not aware of that. That would explain why people who are attracted to the "ataraxia" model would similarly be interested in Taoism - I think Peter St Andre would be an example of that - https://stpeter.im/writings/ismbook/taoism.html

I had not previously seen this page on St Andre's site. This view of Epicurus would explain why he wrote some about Epicurus and then moved on to something else, because IMHO this viewpoint is both incorrect and unsustainable over time for anyone who takes his or her life seriously enough and really understands the philosophy. So you have one life to live, you cease to exist for all eternity afterward, and you're going to spend the time you have in pursuing "moderation" and "absence of pain and mental disturbance," when you interpret those words in a "less activist" version of Aristotle or in an Eastern sense???? Absolutely No Way. But thus kind of box explains perfectly why a certain type of neo-stoic personality is drawn to the modern view of Epicurus.

From the letter to Menoecus, I think these are examples of the focus on PRUDENCE rather than "moderation": (I should have remembered these immediately! duh)

Yet by a scale of comparison and by the consideration of advantages and disadvantages we must form our judgment on all these matters. For the good on certain occasions we treat as bad, and conversely the bad as good.

For it is not continuous drinkings and revelings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit.

Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is prudence.

Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy: for from prudence are sprung all the other virtues, and it teaches us that it is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently and honourably and justly, (nor, again, to live a life of prudence, honour, and justice) without living pleasantly.

That is my conclusion Mike. "Prudence" is specifically mentioned in Torquatus and I think other places, while as far as I know the word "moderation" rarely if ever appears in the core Epicurean texts. There may be exceptions, but I think the letter to Menoeceus is a good example. If "moderation" were a key Epicurean concept then it would likely appear there, but I do not think you will find it there. People like to INFER that term from the regular advice given that certain appetites should be reigned in, but I do not believe you find it in the core texts stated in terms of "moderation" as an end in itself. I am no authority on Aristotle, but my understanding is that "moderation" was sort of trademarked by him and perhaps other Greeks (as "moderation in all things") I and expect that would be the kind of "absolute rule" that would be typical for Epicurus to reject, as he would reject all "absolute rules" such as justice, etc.

Mike in my view "moderation" is a false Aristotelian category that tells us nothing. What we want is the RIGHT AMOUNT THAT MAXIMIZES PLEASURE / MINIMIZES PAIN and I would expect that to vary by situation, and rarely if ever being right "in the middle" for the sake of being in the middle. There are all sorts of jokes about how standing in the middle of the road will get you run over from both sides, worse than being only in one lane, and I think the principle behind that joke is sound. Postulating "extremes" and "middle" would seem to be valid only if there were absolute rules from which those positions could be judged, which would not make sense in an Epicurean universe. Certainly generalities can often be made, and it is often possible to tell when we eat too much ice cream and too little, but those measurements are going to vary by individual circumstances so that there is no reason that "the middle" ( which is meant by moderation) would be the right answer.

Quote from Mike Anyayahan

Did Metrodorus contradict Epucurus if wealth is preferable to poverty?

I would say that there is no contradiction because I do not believe that Epicurus did say, or would say, that wealth is always preferable to poverty, nor is poverty always preferable to wealth. And I would expect that if we had more of the writings of Metrodorus and Philodemus we would see that they held the same view, because it is so obviously related to the individual circumstances of the person involved. We see that kind of thing over and over, for example in the advice to the young man whose sexual appetites were apparently too strong, while at the same time Epicurus said that he would not know the good except for experiences such as the pleasure of sex.

That's the clear meaning of VS63. "Frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess." which appears to be well documented, and is consistent with the underlying physics and so much of the rest of the philosophy. VS 23 can easily be read to be consistent with this by focusing on the contextual and non-absolute nature of the issue.

There are obviously times when more wealth is more conducive to happiness than poverty, and also some circumstances when less wealth is more conducive. Would anyone dispute that and suggest that there is a bright line that ALWAYS is the case? That's really the issue involved in much of the back and forth here. My position is that it is obvious that wealth and poverty are sliding scales that must be evaluated in context. That's the thrust as to every decision in life which is clearly established by the fundamentals of the philosophy.

So I would say that anyone who would contend that Metrodorus or Philodemus or any other reputable Epicurean ever deviated from that analysis would face a very high burden of showing from reliable and well-documented texts, in reasonable context, that showed such deviation. And if such texts exist, I have never seen them, despite my continuing efforts to keep aware as to new excerpts from Herculaneum.

Commentators to the contrary are generally observed, in my experience, to be using fragmentary texts, heavily reconstructed, and clearly are engaged in speculation, much as some people try to say the Lucretius' physics depart strongly from Epicurus, which arguments I have not found to be persuasive in any degree.

Quote from Hiram

The only favor I ask of you moving forward is never again to accuse me of making up doctrines or putting words in the mouth of Epicurus or Metrodorus without first consulting the sources in good faith. That is a huge accusation, and I would never accuse other of that in that manner, particularly without checking the sources first.

Hiram -- Courtesy goes in many ways, and I can't fail to note that your title of this thread, "The Neglect of Metrodorus' Economics" was from the very beginning an accusation that those of us here were "neglecting" something that you find to be important. In fact as I reread your first sentence here, is the essence of your accusation that I or others are complaining that you put words in the mouth of Epicurean leaders without checking the sources first? Or that you are putting incorrect doctrines in their mouths?

As far as the critical comments in this thread go, the essential point is that you are suggesting that "natural measure" constitutes an absolute test based on something other than pleasure, and that's a substantive disagreement that is separate from the issue of whether you are putting those words in their mouths. As far as "without checking the sources first" I am sure you have checked them to some extent, but as I see it you regularly fail to stress how speculative and reconstructed many of these quotes really are.

Both are issues of substantive disagreement, not intended to be personal insults. But they are serious issues of substantive disagreement, and at some point if you don't see it necessary to closely document your sources, and if you are also committed to looking for absolute-based standards of conduct not based on pleasure and pain, then I think we'll all conclude that it would be better to be more careful in what you post here rather than risk disagreement on substance appearing to be personal.

It's not personal - these are just very important issues.

Here is another example: "moderation / mean" is by no means the same as "managing wealth with anxiety nor fearing its loss! These are the words of a commentator trying to reach a preferred conclusion, not someone trying to be fair with the text and judge it from an unbiased eye.

Is it "poverty" that is a matter of indifference, or "wealth" -- we don't know as the word is in brackets!

Again totally out of context and unclear as to who "I" is, but this is what I would expect Epicurus to say:

This is also out of context, but still probably reinforces the disposition that one would expect Epicurus to say different things about poverty depending on the context. We shouldn't expect Epicurus to say that poverty is always evil any more than he would say that it is always good:

Ok so that essay is someone looking to draw parallels between Philodemus and Jesus, who also notes that Philodemus' Greek is "difficult." Many reasons for caution.