We are now requiring that new registrants confirm their request for an account by email. Once you complete the "Sign Up" process to set up your user name and password, please send an email to the New Accounts Administator to obtain new account approval.
sometimes lying awake at night
i have been doing WAY too much of that lately 
I hear that trouble sleeping has been a big problem with all the stress people are under wondering if their world is about to totally fall apart.
Any experiences on that here?
Thanks for posting A Gardner! I know these last weeks have been tough for most of us - including me!
I know in my case it has been most helpful to my sanity to remain in touch with my friends here on the internet. It would have been much more helpful to have more such friends "in real life" but this has been for me the best substitute.
Specifically, I've continued to stay in touch with some of our core people here at least weekly as we have worked on the Lucretius Today podcast.
I wonder if we should not try to schedule something more in the way of "open discussion" via Skype or Zoom as well, so that is something we might talk about in this thread too.
Also, I suspect that Elayne would have specific commentary about how the regular pursuit of favorite pleasures, even if seemingly small, is helpful. I l know both Elayne and Charles have been doing some hiking during this period.
I hope we can get some discussion going here and I will highlight this on the front page.
More:
I agree that it is "small subset of people" that understand or are capable of understanding it.
As to the spectator comment, this might be coming from a person that wants to have an Epicurean involved in w/e their belief, stance, or calling is.
I can see their side, it is often where I tell friends not to get overwhelmed or too involved in others actions or motives, as the outcome you seek through a 2nd or 3rd party, will likely not be what prevails. Thus as someone who follows our philosophy, I do put my own pleasures first, so perhaps I am a spectator, paying attention to how I make my next move as is what's best for me and my cares.
Elayne:
M. by spectator, Kimball means passive-- not making moves for yourself. If you are making moves, you are not a spectator! 😃 And that's a good thing-- making active choices gives you a better chance of having a pleasurable life!
M.:
Like just watching life go by? I guess I read it differently. For example, speaking politically, people can almost get offended if one chooses not to vote. It's as if they can't fathom someone not participating in a process they are deeply instilled in, calling that "being a spectator" but ignorant that a person is active in their own manners.
Granted, if you say, "fine I'll vote, but I'll vote for the other person!" Then they might get upset too lol.
Elayne:
I think the overall tone is to imply that we are passive, just watching life go by as if we were at a ballgame but not playing ourselves.
But you are right-- people who want to criticize us for not participating in whatever their preferred activity is tend to accuse us of some kind of failure to participate-- because it is their priority and not ours. That's not true, if we are participating in something else instead-- but that doesn't register with them.
They fail to realize people have different preferences. Which is part of what Cassius is talking about. We won't have all the same preferences, the same pleasures-- and really, how could we, considering we have biological differences? We are one species, so there will often be overlap in broad areas-- but we are not clones.
To imagine we would all have the same pleasures is like thinking all liquids should boil at the same temperature. It's not even c/w physics, lol.
It makes people mad when we don't agree, so then they pull out nonsense like in that quote. 😂
More discussion:
Do you not believe that perhaps there is a genetic disposition for the majority of people to claw for castles made of clouds?
It would seem to me that since the dawn of humanity (I forget exactly how many millions of years), that an adaptation took place for many to yearn for the metaphysics.
Seems I've tried my best sometimes to break friends from it, yet they almost can't get it.
Cassius' Reply:
I think you are right that it is natural for people to be confused about our place in the universe, and it is natural for people to come up with theories that are often wrong. But like Epicurus said, until they are perverted by wrong thinking, they naturally understand that pleasure is desirable and pain is undesirable, and it would not be rocket science to follow those observations to their logical conclusion, like Epicurus did, but for the "perversion" that comes from religion and false philosophies. Supernatural Religions and Platonic theories do not invent themselves; those take people who quickly learn how those theories can be used to manipulate the weaker-minded for their own (the manipulators') benefit.
So when you talk of working with your friends, you're talking about the 21st century and 20 additional centuries of development of peer pressures toward perversion than Epicurus faced in his time. We have advantages (such as the internet and more advanced science) that he didn't have, but the forces of perversion also have access to those tools, and they have had 2000 years of additional regimentation and practice toward pressuring people toward their views.
So I don't think you should judge yourself harshly if you fail to convince any particular set of friends, but you do have to ask yourself "Do I fully understand what Epicurus taught, especially about the faculty of pleasure and pain, and how those translate into a philosophy of practical living?" If you're teaching any variation of "one size fits all" (such that everyone needs to live more simply, or everyone needs to live less simply, or everyone needs to be more of a socialist or less of a socialist, etc etc), then by teaching one size fits all - like a lot of people do - you and the people you're trying to teach are missing the deeper implications of the role of pleasure and the rest of the philosophy.
Well this pretty much checks every box for "demoralizing response" to the article.
- Only a small subset of people are "capable" of understanding how the feeling of pleasure operates and influences a philosophy based on nature?
- I would like to interpret the rest of the response in as charitable a way as possible, but is it not saying "Yes I am a 'spectator' and I'm glad to be one" which has connotations that are pretty easy to find alarming, given the shortness of life?
We charging through the "Valley of Death" indeed! 
Cassius response:
I would disagree with the word "capable" in "capable of understanding it," but given the premise of the article that we are surrounded on virtually every side with people who relentlessly upend Epicurus' definition of pleasure, at present it is probably true that only a relatively small number of people actually do see through the cannon fire. This issue is what DeWitt was referring to when he quoted Cicero as observing that people of "no great education" were those who embraced Epicurus "with gladness," since in Epicurus' and Cicero's day the cannon fire was no so strong that ordinary people were prevented from seeing the truth. Today, the "higher" the education, the greater the likelihood that people will accept the absurdity that Epicurus did not understand "pleasure" the same way we can and do ourselves, before we are "perverted."
DeWitt: "It was not usual to call the possession of health a pleasure and still less usual to call freedom from pain a pleasure. It was this objection that Cicero had in mind when he wrote: “You Epicureans round up people from all the crossroads, decent men, I allow, but certainly of no great education. Do such as they, then, comprehend what Epicurus means, while I, Cicero, do not?” The common people of the ancient world, however, for whom Platonism had nothing attractive, seem to have accepted Epicurean pragmatism with gladness. Cicero, being partial to the aristocratic philosophy and having no zeal to promote the happiness of the multitude, chose to sneer."
Torquatus: "We are inquiring, then, what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in pleasure; pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, pain the Chief Evil. This he sets out to prove as follows: Every animal, as soon as it is born, seeks for pleasure, and delights in it as the Chief Good, while it recoils from pain as the Chief Evil, and so far as possible avoids it. This it does as long as it remains unperverted, at the prompting of Nature's own unbiased and honest verdict."
Also, from the perspective of any individual, don't the results of that faculty become the basis for each person's truth?
Yes, I think you are right, with the caveat that we have to remember that just like the things we see can be distorted by distance, or fog, or many other things, presumably the things that any other faculty report to us can also be distorted. Presumably that would be why Epicurus reports in the letter to Menoeceus that the views of some people about the gods are not "true" anticipations (true in the sense of accurate).
That is why I like DeWitt's analogy about the faculties being tools of precision (like a measuring stick) rather than the thing being measured. The measuring stick can be applied to innumerable different particular things, without at birth ever containing any content unique to that thing being measured, just as the eyes at birth contain the mechanism of sight without ever having been exposed to anything that will be seen during life.
So as DeWitt says it is important to always keep in mind whether you are talking about tools of precision (straight edge, level) or the stones with which you build the wall. The wall and the stones are the results, but are not themselves the tools of precision (the standard).
And therefore as you say I think Epicurus would be very interested in studying the brain and its cognitive processes so that we can understand them and account for possibilities of error. I see proof of that in chapter four of Lucretius, where much time is devoted to "images" and how they can be distorted (illusions) without those distortions ultimately undermining our confidence in the senses (because we can account for those distortions and correct them by proper use of those same senses).
Pompadour I checked and it appears that the Tsouna article was not here, but I have fixed that now.
So the primary sources I would suggest you consider are :
1) Dewitt's Chapter 8 on the Canon ( I always recommend starting with DeWit).
2) Tsouna's "Epicurean Preconceptions" ( which includes her references to Sedley's views)
3) Sedley's own "Sextus Empiricus and the Atomist Criterion of Truth" (I have not recently read that one so I am not sure what it contains.
I know however you said you were trying to get a practical and not an academic understanding of the issue, so don't interpret these comments as "Go read those articles first."
I just like to start out conversations by listing the points of view and the sources so we will be on the same wavelength and people reading later will understand the general playing field.
One way I always wrap this up in my mind is to ask whether anticipations are "conceptions" or "something before conceptions." That is why I like the word "preconception" or "prolepsis" rather than anticipation, because it makes it much harder to confuse the issue as being nothing more than "concepts" if you always affix the PRE to the word.
Any version of preconceptions which equates them as concepts formed only after experience would in my mind make the issue a self-reinforcing feedback loop which I believe Epicurus would never have considered to be a part of the "canon of truth" any more than he would have included opinions formed as the result of operations of logic.
Pompadour first let me ask if you have read what DeWitt has to say about anticipations in his Chapter 8. If you have not, send me a message and I can point you to where you can find it.
As you know this is an area of controversy where we don't have nearly as much information as we would like, and we have to glean what we can from the sources and from our own knowledge and attempt to reconstruct.
You are aware of what we might call the standard approach, that anticipations are essentially "concepts" as against the DeWitt approach, where anticipations are more "intuitive"?
Also there is are relatively recent article from Voula Tsouna that discusses differences in her thoughts vs those of David Sedley, which you might want to read at some point. I think we posted it here but I will look for the link after I finish this post.
So you will first want to deal with deciding for yourself what part of anticipations pre-dates "experience" and what part (if any) only follows exposure to something, as which is the Diogenes Laertius with which DeWitt disagrees.
As for me I side with DeWitt, and believe that the greater part of what I prefer to refer to as the "faculty of anticipations" is a faculty, like sight or hearing, that processes information, and that pre-exists the receipt of any information from the senses, just as the eyes exist at birth before anything is seen. And thus I believe the answer is found in analogizing the faculty of anticipations to the faculty of sight, which works in pre-designed (by Nature) ways before ever being exposed to the first "thing" that is "seen."
And I believe viewing anticipations this way, as a natural faculty, is the only way they could ever have been considered be Epicurus to be a part of the "canon of truth." Otherwise, the RESULTS of the faculty anticipations, which might be things like the "rules" to which you refer, would better be viewed as end-results of the faculty, like opinions or concepts are the end-results of thinking, and if we were to consider THOSE to be "standards of truth" then we would have essentially a "feedback loop" where we would be creating our own standards, rather than following the lead of nature as we do with the sensations and with the feelings of pain and pleasure. If you see where I am going with that, I am following DeWitt in holding that the standards of truth are the measuring stick, and never the things that are measured.
That's a start to an answer. Please comment and we'll continue and others can chime in! And thanks for joining the forum!
Hello and welcome to the forum Pompadour!
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.
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!
Nate likes this.
In regard to the relationship between logic and reality I have another point: it ought to be clear that to discuss "pleasure is the goal of life" is a logical abstraction itself, and not really something that is "real" - just the same as if we were to say that "virtue" or "being a good person" is "the" goal of life.
The truth is that real people exist only in the present, and our goals are intimately connected with the reality of the present. Our "real" goal at Amy one moment is very mundane: it is to sleep, or to eat lunch, or to talk to a friend, or take a shower, or squash a bug, or whatever. Yes each of those fall within a framework of pleasure and pain, but that framework is an abstraction created by us for purposes of analysis. Pleasure and pain and bugs and food and showers are all very real, but the idea of abstracting these into a "goal of life" is an aid to our understanding of our place in the universe, an alternative to religion or academic abstractions proposing some other goal, and needs to be seen that way so that we understand the limitations of any discussion of "the goal of life."
It seems to me that it is highly useful to discuss things in these terms so that we can see the error of religion and virtue-based ethics, which are based on "ideals" not grounded in reality. But there is a hazard that we need to keep wary of because by engaging in debate about "the goal of life" we have entered a playing field set up originally by Platonists and other nonEpicureans where it is very easy to accept their premises and forget that we have abstracted out and left out essential aspects of reality.
I am saying this to emphasize that u think this separates Epicurus from the norm and the constant debating about ideals which we should reject in the first place.
Here is the part of the Hermotimus dialog which addresses the problem of everyone pointing to their own school as the way to the truth, and the traveler not knowing which one to believe as the best guide:
Lycinus. Now, so far as promises and professions go, there is no lack of guides; there are numbers of them waiting about, all representing themselves as from there. But instead of one single road there seem to be many different and inconsistent ones. North and South, East and West, they go; one leads through meadows and vegetation and shade, and is well watered and pleasant, with never a stumbling-block or inequality; another is rough and rocky, threatening heat and drought and toil. Yet all these are supposed to lead to the one city, though they take such different directions.
[26] That is where my difficulty lies; whichever of them I try, there is sure to be a most respectable person stationed just at the entrance, with a welcoming hand and an exhortation to go his way; each of them says he is the only one who knows the straight road; his rivals are all mistaken, have never been themselves, nor learnt the way from competent guides. I go to his neighbor, and he gives the same assurances about his way, abusing the other respectable persons; and so the next, and the next, and the next. This multiplicity and dissimilarity of the roads gives me searchings of heart, and still more the assertiveness and self- satisfaction of the guides; I really cannot tell which turning or whose directions are most likely to bring me to the city.
[27] Hermotimus. Oh, but I can solve that puzzle for you; you cannot go wrong, if you trust those who have been already.
Lycinus. Which do you mean? those who have been by which road, and under whose guidance? It is the old puzzle in a new form; you have only substituted men for measures.
Hermotimus. How do you mean?
Lycinus. Why, the man who has taken Plato’s road and traveled with him will recommend that road; so with Epicurus and the rest; and you will recommend your own. How else, Hermotimus? it must be so.
Hermotimus. Well, of course.
Lycinus. So you have not solved my puzzle; I know just as little as before which traveler to trust; I find that each of them, as well as his guide, has tried one only, which he now recommends and will have to be the only one leading to the city. Whether he tells the truth I have no means of knowing; that he has attained some end, and seen some city, I may perhaps allow; but whether he saw the right one, or whether, Corinth being the real goal, he got to Babylon and thought he had seen Corinth—that is still undecided; for surely every one who has seen a city has not seen Corinth, unless Corinth is the only city there is. But my greatest difficulty of all is the absolute certainty that the true road is one; for Corinth is one, and the other roads lead anywhere but to Corinth, though there may be people deluded enough to suppose that the North road and the South road lead equally to Corinth.
Hermotimus. But that is absurd, Lycinus; they go opposite ways, you see.
[28] Lycinus. Then, my dear good man, this choice of roads and guides is quite a serious matter; we can by no means just follow our noses; we shall be discovering that we are well on the way to Babylon or Bactria instead of to Corinth. Nor is it advisable to toss up, either, on the chance that we may hit upon the right way if we start upon any one at a venture. That is no impossibility; it may have come off once and again in a cycle; but I cannot think we ought to gamble recklessly with such high stakes, nor commit our hopes to a frail craft, like the wise men who went to sea in a bowl; we should have no fair complaint against Fortune, if her arrow or dart did not precisely hit the centre; the odds are ten thousand to one against her; just so the archer in Homer—Teucer, I suppose it was—when he meant to hit the dove, only cut the string, which held it; of course it is infinitely more likely that the point of the arrow will find its billet in one of the numberless other places, than just in that particular central one. And as to the perils of blundering into one of the wrong roads instead of the right one, misled by a belief in the discretion of Fortune, here is an illustration:—it is no easy matter to turn back and get safe into port when you have once cast loose your moorings and committed yourself to the breeze; you are at the mercy of the sea, frightened, sick and sorry with your tossing about, most likely. Your mistake was at the beginning: before leaving, you should have gone up to some high point, and observed whether the wind was in the right quarter, and of the right strength for a crossing to Corinth, not neglecting, by the way, to secure the very best pilot obtainable, and a seaworthy craft equal to so high a sea.
[29] Hermotimus. Much better so, Lycinus. However, I know that, if you go the whole round, you will find no better guides or more expert pilots than the Stoics; if you mean ever to get to Corinth, you will follow them, in the tracks of Chrysippus and Zeno. It is the only way to do it.
Lycinus. Ah, many can play at the game of assertion. Plato’s fellow traveler, Epicurus’s follower, and all the rest, will tell me just what you do, that I shall never get to Corinth except with whichever of them it is. So I must either believe them all, or disbelieve impartially. The latter is much the safest, until we have found out the truth.
melkor - Thank you again for your question. We started the thread back in January but only when you asked your question today did we really get off the ground, and this discussion we're having now is what I always hoped we would have from it.
Also to add in this point, there is a lot of parallel in what we are discussing now to the issues raised in Lucian's Hermotimus which I think is one of his best dialogs. He really dives well into the issue of how you can judge among competing philosophies before you are an expert in each one.
I am looking for another quote but here is an important one, becfause it not only talks about this difficulty of consistency, but it also very interestingly veers into opposition to "weird geometry" which I think is an artifact of the general Epicurean resistance to "expert opinion" not tied to evidence of the senses:
Perhaps an illustration will make my meaning clearer: when one of those audacious poets affirms that there was once a three-headed and six-handed man, if you accept that quietly without questioning its possibility, he will proceed to fill in the picture consistently—six eyes and ears, three voices talking at once, three mouths eating, and thirty fingers instead of our poor ten all told; if he has to fight, three of his hands will have a buckler, wicker targe, or shield apiece, while of the other three one swings an axe, another hurls a spear, and the third wields a sword. It is too late to carp at these details, when they come; they are consistent with the beginning; it was about that that the question ought to have been raised whether it was to be accepted and passed as true. Once grant that, and the rest comes flooding in, irresistible, hardly now susceptible of doubt, because it is consistent and accordant with your initial admissions. That is just your case; your love-yearning would not allow you to look into the facts at each entrance, and so you are dragged on by consistency; it never occurs to you that a thing may be self- consistent and yet false; if a man says twice five is seven, and you take his word for it without checking the sum, he will naturally deduce that four times five is fourteen, and so on ad libitum. This is the way that weird geometry proceeds: it sets before beginners certain strange assumptions, and insists on their granting the existence of inconceivable things, such as points having no parts, lines without breadth, and so on, builds on these rotten foundations a superstructure equally rotten, and pretends to go on to a demonstration which is true, though it starts from premisses which are false.
I think I really agree with most everything I am reading in Nate's post, and the angle in which I would elaborate on it is the issue of who it is that "we" would constitute in terms of the purpose of Epicureanfriends.com and what "we" are doing in our work here.
The issue of labels is pretty complex so I want to focus on how to apply Nate's points to "us." I consider "us" to be people who are really working to reconnect and extend the work of the original Epicurean school. For whatever reason, even if you want to consider something as mundane as "identifying" with a football or sports team (but I think it's much more profound than that) there is a group of people who really want to focus first on identifying and understanding what Epicurus taught, and then deciding whether they accept it, rather than approaching philosophy as a smorgasbord of offerings from which we can pick and choose at our own time and pace and apply to our own lives as we wish. This latter type of person is primarily eclectic and more interested in consuming and going his or her own way, and I really have no issue with that. To each his own and all that. For search a person the term "neoEpicurean" should not be seen as offensive because he's no more or less neoEpicurean than he is neoStoic or NeoAristelian or anything else.
Then there are those of us who are content to focus on one school so we can really learn it, and we get more pleasure out of swimming in a single school than constantly flitting in different directions. There are apparently both kinds of fish in the world, and I don't think either path is inherently inferior or superior. But for those of us who are convinced that swimming in a single school is our most efficient path toward what we perceive to be our desired goal, it is much more important to understand the core issues and have consistent positions that can be used to evaluate new and different issues, than it is to constantly interchange among and between schools searching to choose what we may thing is "the best from each" before we have really become persuaded that we know what "the best" really is.
So in reconnecting with the original Epicurean school there are benefits and pitfalls in spending significant time in talking about competing viewpoints. Some people enjoy that and insist on it, but I am convinced that many people find that to be distracting and distasteful - they want to focus on "one thing at a time" and understand it as completely as possible before they move on to something else.
So I guess what I am saying is that I don't see the issue of "neo-Epicurean" as necessarily a put-down, though clearly it can have that connotation IF you start from the position that consistency is a virtue. That's really the point - the "neo-Epicureans" are not generally as nearly concerned about consistency as some other people are, so their standard of what can be incorporated is a lot wider than is the standard of some other people.
For me, it is easy to look at anyone who wants to talk about issues in physics and say "so long as your issues are still within the strictly natural explanations of the universe, and you do not open the door to the supernatural, then your discussions are fine and I am sure Epicurus would have approved."
But that's kind of begging the question, because the harder issues (or so that is my disposition) are in ethics and epistemology, and that's where efforts to incorporate what might be called "psychology" are much more fraught with danger, because it's the "direction" of the other philosophies that cause the major incompatibilities.
I think I'll stop for the moment. The real litmus-test / "explosive" issues are getting pretty well fleshed out - they include:
1 - the strict rejection of all supernatural theories
2 - the strict rejection of life after death
3 - the insistence on the central role of feeling (pleasure and pain, widely understood) in constituting the goal of life (which people call "happiness")
4 - the recognition that because pleasure is the only standard given by nature of what to choose is pleasure, all other considerations (virtue, revelation, etc) are subservient to pleasure.
5 - the recognition that pleasure and pain are not limited to immediate bodily sensations but include EVERYTHING we find desirable in life for itself, whether "bodily" or mental/emotional/spiritual or whatever name you want to attach to it.
6 - the epistemological emphasis on the three categories of the canon as primary over logic/reason,
There are as Joshua said a lot more things to include, but these continue to be the hot button issues.
One more thing in relation to "logic" - I think there is a lot to be gained from exploring the intersection of logic and physics more closely. The reason I regularly push back on the "eternal" universe issue is that I think that this involves a choice that Epicurus saw as essential to human psychology and to defeating skepticism. We are always going to want more information than is available to us, and I don't think we yet appreciate that this was a key to Epicurus as it was. We're not EVER going to solve questions of "origin of the universe" because we cannot go back in time and "see" what happened ourselves, so there will always be doubt. And I think Epicurus held that this is an issue of "logic" or however you want to frame the mental question: "How do you live with questions that are important but to which you will never really know a 'final' answer?"
And I think when we drill into the texts on epistemology what emerges is a kind of attitude toward "confidence" that has to take precedence in the end over "let's go look for the person who is most 'expert' in physics and ask him what he thinks." We may be here talking about some of DeWitt's comments about Epicurean versions of "faith" or we may be talking about the details of Philodemus "On Methods of Inference," or we may be talking about something else, but ultimately there are implications of the conflict between "logic" and "the Epicurean canon" in which Epicurus seems to advise (and I think I agree) that the canon must be held to supercede and call a halt to unending skepticism and possibilities for questioning on issues like infinity and eternality.
I won't go further with that now but I think it relates to the issue of how wide a net we can cast in talking productively about other philosophies and incorporating their teachings. Maybe the point is that to Epicurus I don't think it was any more important to know everything there is to know about competing philosophies than it is to know everything about physics. For most people all we can do is grasp the basic outlines of the issues, form a conclusion about the general issue, and go with it. So the first task of the ancient Epicurean school seems to have been to educate its people on all of the fundamental issues, show them in general why their position was superior, educate them to the general attacks they would receive and how to respond to them, and then go out and live as "happily" as possible.
Starting first with Joshua's list, I agree that is a very good list of core issues. The one that I think needs to be nearer the top is a combination of the reference to the Canon of epistemology, and item 3 as to the role of pleasure, which when added together are a statement of the supremacy of the importance of "feeling" over "logic" and the subservient role of "logic" or "abstract reason" or whatever you want to call systems of reasoning which do not require immediate and close confirmation through the senses, including the feeling of pain and pleasure. I think Epicurus' rejection of "reason" in the Platonic and Aristotelian role it was playing are probably as much or more explosive an issue with many people than is the role of pleasure, but they are closely related.
But in general yes I think my list would be very similar to that of Joshua.
Now to tackle the many aspects of Nate's post
And I think he would tell you too to look for friends in real life who share your perspective on pleasure and how to pursue it, because having friends in real life is essential to living the best life that is possible to you.
And I also think he would tell you to be sure to put enough time also into studying and spreading the philosophical perspective that you think is correct. That's VS41. We must laugh and philosophize at the same time, and do our household duties, and employ our other faculties, and never cease proclaiming the sayings of the true philosophy.
I don't know what your thoughts are about how you can personally do that, whether in terms of forming a local meetup group or setting up your own blog or doing your own writing in some other format, but the best way to be sure you understand things yourself is to try to explain them to other people and deal with questions, so if you have any thoughts about how you might pursue that personally in addition to the time you spend here, let us know and we can see how we can help.
And of course continue to spend time here!
However, an Epicurean could still be a libertarian or a liberal or a conservative or a Marxist or anything else of that nature?
I think that an Epicurean would find it very hard to take any position that was ultimately religious-based, but the ones you have listed are more perspectives on how to organize an economy, and I would say that it *would* be possible to an Epicurean to think that the interest of himself and his friends might under some circumstances be best served by adopting any of those systems depending on circumstances, and changing those systems as circumstances changed. My quote that comes to mind on that point is Jefferson's to the effect that "the earth belongs to the living."
My highest ideal in life is still pleasure, and I want to pursue pleasure in life and believe it is the end of life. My political views reflect that, but I don't necessarily need to use Epicureanism for advocating it, I suppose
I want to repeat something that I think can be confusing but ought to be very clear. I think political goals CAN be and often ARE the things that generate some of the most intense pleasure and pain in life, and so in that sense I do think that Epicurean philosophy is a direct part of pursing political goals. I think that is exactly the way Cassius Longinus saw it. I do not think Epicurus would agree with the extreme to which it is frequently stated that Epicurus advised against *all* political involvement. I think that is clearly wrong and misunderstanding of the texts. "Political involvement" is regularly and probably frequently a requirement of maintaining our peace and safety and pleasure.
but we are allowed to be political in our own way but not usually discuss it or be very open about it.
So when you say that, that is not what I am saying exactly at all. It's more that there is a time and a place for those actions and discussions, and the organizing principle of the association is going to determine what is appropriate. We here at Epicureanfriends.com have more of an educational / teaching function, and so direct political action and identification with only a segment of our target audience would undermine that mission. It's going to be up to each individual to decide whether their political perspective and activity is consistent with what Epicurus taught.
And we shouldn't forget that Epicurus was pretty clear in advocating against a "career" in politics. The "Cincinnatus" model of getting involved to deal with a pressing problem and then pulling back when the problem is over is one thing. But there's a certain type of person who really enjoys "being a politician" and just wants to constantly be involved in running for office and telling other people what to do, and I personally think that that kind of career choice is the most direct danger that Epicurus was warning about.
Maybe I should repeat that the ultimate point about being "NeoEpicurean" would not mean that someone can never be involved in politics. It's more the other ethical issues discussed already, and in fact I would argue that the "never get involved in politics" rule is ITSELF "neo-Epicurean" and not what Epicurus taught.
So personally I could look at someone who was advocating libertarian economics for his local "group," and someone who was advocating socialist economics for his local "group," and I would not necessarily call them neo-Epicurean unless they were arguing that the entire world should live that way, in which case the error would be extending their own preference to the whole world, which would clearly conflict with the Epicurean view of the nature of the universe and views on pleasure, especially the last ten PDs.
I do not believe in the "higher and lower" pleasures idea, but I do welcome legislation that seems to favor more pleasure and reject those that advocate pain of sort to humans or animals.
Melkor another illustration that I like to use to focus on the difference between the Epicurean perspective and the Stoic/Platonic or even Aristotelian perspective is this quote from Cicero, which I think represents the OPPOSITE of the Epicurean viewpoint. This is from the Loeb Edition of Cicero's Republic, and the point I am focusing on is the paragraph that begins with "True law is right reason...."
Personally I used to think this was one of the greatest things I had ever read, but now in retrospect I see it as an ultimate expression of the anti-Epicurean point of view, because there is no "God" who is the master / ruler / author / and promulgator of such law, and so this kind of "true law" simply cannot exist in an Epicurean atomistic universe:
Compare that to the last ten Principal Doctrines, and what you know about Epicurean physics and the impossibility of there being a supernatural god, or a central point in the universe from which you can stand and say that only one perspective is correct, and the difference is just jarring.
I agree with Charles, and I think he is pointing to the probability in the future, as I did, that individual Epicurean "Gardens" (local groups) would probably consist of people whose interests are aligned due to their background or location or whatever, and given that consensus it would be natural for them to find no issue with promoting particular ideas or actions that would be "off limits" to a worldwide internet group such as this one.
I can easily see that a Polish Epicurean garden or Russian Epicurean Garden or a Brazilian Epicurean Garden would have very different interests and priorities, but I also do think that in order for them to justify the name Epicurean they would start with teaching the same basics about the nature of the universe, epistemology, and ethics. Then after that surely every Epicurean would be able to recognize how much they have in common as a small minority against the rest of the world, and they could individually decide when and how and where to cooperate among themselves.
But the first foundational issue is understanding the basics of the philosophy, and being able to systematize and explain it, and there is a huge amount of work for us to do on that while leaving day to day political issues to others.
Here's my answer: By no means did the classical Epicureans take the position that we should "never" be involved in politics. Look at the example of Cassius Longinus, and there are others as well.
The caution I always make is that people are individuals and have different programming for pleasure and pain, and by no means do everyone take pleasure and pain in the same things.
Given that difference, I do not think it is possible to take a *Philosophic* position that one view of pleasure or pain is *philosophically* approved by nature for everyone. That is also in my view the clear meaning of the last ten of so, principal doctrines as to justice, which are all about pointing out that there is no "absolute" justice.
I think Epicurean philosophy is hugely helpful in deciding how to evaluate politics and how to take political positions, but I also think that just like in the Roman Civil War it is possible for Epicureans to be on opposite sides of many important issues, so we should be careful not to overstep our bounds and say that Epicurus would endorse only one set of political positions. The clear (to me) import of the doctrines on Justice tells us to expect that people are going to take different positions about how they want to live, so applications of Epicurean philosophy to politics needs to take that into account.
So in my view too the prohibition here on discussing politics is no so much because there are not Epicurean implications, but because here, and at this stage of trying to organize people to discuss and promote the basics of Epicurean philosophy, we really don't want to be drawn into day-to-day disputes that would demoralize and divide and weaken us before we even get started.
No doubt in the future such divisions will occur, as you can already see them on other websites and commentators, some of which are overtly "leftist" and some of which are not (and quite the opposite in fact). But for now, and for here, we want to focus as a group on learning the basics before we go off as individuals pursuing our individual views of pleasure and pain, much as we would, if we were at a convention, divide up into groups to go to restaurants of various types.
