Posts by Cassius

One thing I'd add is that if we go by the list in the principal doctrines, only the concept of there being no supernatural gods comes before the doctrine that "you only live once." (And even the absence of supernatural gods is directly related to living only once and for a short period.)

In my first answer I focused on everyone having different personal tastes and preferences in life. We have a limited amount of time to pursue what we find to be most pleasurable, and I don't see how it makes sense to do anything other than pursue our greatest pleasures in as intelligent a manner as we can.

All that is to say that some people doubtless have zero interest in flying into space. If they have no desire to do that and find no pleasure in it, then of course they won't choose to do so. Far be it for me to tell them that they are wrong about their feelings - everyone has to make those decisions for themselves.

But for me, and I see this compelled by life is short and then it's over, I am drawn to the conclusion that I need to use my time as productively as possible to do things that bring me the greatest pleasure. For me, "tranquility" in the sense of detachment from all emotion -- which is what some people seem to think that "absence of pain" means - is not my goal.

To me, writers who focus on talking about "absence of pain" do not see that Epicurus was using that term as the exact equivalent of the word "pleasure." They are ignoring the very logical reasons why he did so, and the very detailed explanation of those reasons found in Cicero and Diogenes Laertius.

So philosophically I think Epicurus would say people who think going into space would bring them pleasure than pain under their own circumstances should do it. Those who think it would bring more pain to them than pleasure should not do it.

But in my own case I apply that rule this way: I know that knowledge and new experiences are not necessarily pleasurable in themselves. It makes no sense to pursue knowledge or experiences which do not lead to greater pleasure. But if I could do so safely -- and at some point that will be possible - I can think of few if any experiences that would bring more pleasure than space travel.

These week we will continue around section 1:329 of Lucretius and explore the implications of the Void.

EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side Lucretius

Multi-column side-by-side Lucretius text comparison tool featuring Munro, Bailey, Dunster, and Condensed editions.

handbook.epicureanfriends.com

Welcome to Episode 329 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
   
This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus. This week will focus on the ending of Section 9.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackam translation here:

• Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Quote from Academic Questions - Yonge

IX.

This was the first philosophy handed down to them by Plato. And if you like I will explain to you those discussions which have originated in it.

Indeed, said I, we shall be glad if you will; and I can answer for Atticus as well as for myself.

You are quite right, said he; for the doctrine both of the Peripatetics and of the old Academy is most admirably explained.

Aristotle, then, was the first to undermine the doctrine of species (forms), which I have just now mentioned, and which Plato had embraced in a wonderful manner; so that he even affirmed that there was something divine in it. But Theophrastus, a man of very delightful eloquence, and of such purity of morals that his probity and integrity were notorious to all men, broke down more vigorously still the authority of the old school; for he stripped virtue of its beauty, and made it powerless, by denying that to live happily depended solely on it. For Strato, his pupil, although a man of brilliant abilities, must still be excluded entirely from that school; for, having deserted that most indispensable part of philosophy which is placed in virtue and morals, and having devoted himself wholly to the investigation of nature, he by that very conduct departs as widely as possible from his companions.

But Speusippus and Xenocrates, who were the earliest supporters of the system and authority of Plato,— and, after them, Polemo and Crates, and at the same time Crantor,— being all collected together in the Academy, diligently maintained those doctrines which they had received from their predecessors. Zeno and Arcesilas had been diligent attenders on Polemo; but Zeno, who preceded Arcesilas in point of time, and argued with more subtilty, and was a man of the greatest acuteness, attempted to correct the system of that school. And, if you like, I will explain to you the way in which he set about that correction, as Antiochus used to explain it. Indeed, said I, I shall be very glad to hear you do so; and you see that Pomponius intimates the same wish.

OK other than Eikadistes no one is rushing to answer, so I'll start a preliminary response that will be far too short.

Quote from ReiWolfWoman

What do you think Epicurus would have thought of going to the moon? Would it be extraneous to friendship and community and pleasure, and therefore a search for an unnecessary (and natural or unnatural) goal? Or would he see it as a search for connection, expanding community, and a necessary pleasure of some kind for either an individual or their community?

As with all options in life, I think Epicurus would advise evaluating the specifics as it applied to him personally and not take things too abstractly.

"Going to the moon" could mean the 1969 version where the technology is in its infancy and you're very strongly taking your life in your hands with major possibility of death and not coming home. Or it could mean a 2050 version where the trip may well be routine and doable in great safety and of no more concern than a short vacation to the mountains.

Then there's the "who." Are we talking about an Epicurus at 30 years old who was in the course of building philosophical school who he thought was of extreme importance not only to himself but to others? Or are we talking about a 70 year old Epicurus with most of his life's work behind him and much less time to lose if he didn't make it back?

Those are two specific circumstances I think he would advise considering -- but I suspect that's not the answer many people with conventional views of Epicurus will expect.

They'll expect "Epicurus valued bodily pleasure and safety and tranqulity above all, and it's certainly not NECESSARY to go to the moon, nor is it likely to be a totally tranquil experience, so he'd never do it. You're totally ignoring what everyone says about Epicurean philosophy to say that he'd ever consider it under any circumstances!"

That's not the answer I'd give ReiWolfWoman, and I hazard to guess that most others here would not say that either.

And thus you've early in your time at EpicureanFriends.com discovered that this forum was not set up to support conventional views of Epicurus that place in him boxes like "tranquility above all."

And not only was it not set up to support such views, it's pretty fair to say that it was set up to campaign against them as vigorously as possible.

And the more you look around here at the forum and see the discussions, the more I think you'll see what that is!

Thanks Patrikios that is a very new document that I am still in the process of researching and revising, but it's already very helpful. I will add that as you suggest.

EDIT: HMMM how did you get that link - it's not correct - I will get the correct one and update your post....

Quote from Kalosyni

I think that the Epicurean needs to spend time contemplating the truth of the cessation of the senses and the mind. And, also needs to focus intently on living life to the fullest by making good and joyful choices - and in a way "make heaven on earth".

And the best way to do that is through regular teamwork with people who already agree or are close to agreeing with you, and not continuing to imagine that maybe the rest of the world will one day wake up and everything will be different.

If someone studying Epicurus is stuck doing so by themselves, and making no further changes with the people they associate with, then they might as well just put the book back on the shelf for all the good it will do them.

And sitting around waiting for an Epicurean "commune" to open up across town is equally unrealistic and unproductive.

Thank you for highlighting that quote wbernsys - I missed it when I first read the post.

Since those two terms seem to be of interest i would appreciate m.dangoexplaining briefly what those terms mean and why they come up here so as to make the thread most useful for other readers.

This is a fine place for this question and thank you for posting it. i may designate it so it appears in an Ehics section as well.

I expect some highly perceptive answers, and I think the issue is important enough that I don't want anyone to hold back what they really think regardless of what anyone else who posts in this thread says.

And it might help too if those who post consider the question in terms of both (1) What would Epicurus himself have thought? and (2) What do I (the poster) think?

Further, I hope the responses won't limit themselves to "the moon" and thereby short-circuit the heart of the question. I doubt ReiWolfWoman is trying to parse the difference between going to the Moon vs going to Mars vs the entire topic of space exploration.

Should be an interesting discussion.

Thanks Bryan - it's a shame that we do focus on the term "atom" as if he were concerned about a particular object, when what he really was concerned about the logical imperative that there must be a limit to a division of both bodies and space!

It's so much easier for people to dismiss him by putting him in a box labeled "atoms" than to realize that what he's really campaigning against is the use of logic divorced from sensation to overthrow the senses.

Episode 328 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Sensation - While Neither Right Or Wrong - As The Touchstone Of Reality"

There are several major omissions in the existing list and I will eventually revise it. In the meantime and while I think about the existing structure and consider any incoming comments, here are four more that I am going to add:

26. A life that does not last forever is not worth living.

Epicurus cures this by showing that the length of a life and the quality of a life are two entirely different things. As he states directly in the Principal Doctrines, "Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures by reason the limits of pleasure." The pleasure of a good meal is complete when hunger is satisfied; the pleasure of a deep friendship is complete in the living of it; neither of these is improved by being repeated forever. The demand for immortality as a condition of a meaningful life is therefore a confusion — it mistakes duration for value and treats the good life as something that can only be justified if it never ends, which is precisely the kind of thinking that prevents people from fully inhabiting and appreciating the life they actually have.

27. No matter how much pleasure I have, I always need more to stay satisfied.

Epicurus cures this by drawing a precise and liberating distinction between the removal of pain — which is the actual goal — and the endless addition of more stimulation on top of it. He states in the Principal Doctrines that "the limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful," and further that once the pain of want is removed, pleasure is not increased by adding more — it is only varied. Once hunger is fully satisfied, you are not in a state that requires ever-larger meals to maintain your happiness; you are already at the natural limit of that pleasure. This matters enormously because the belief that pleasure is always deficient and always demands more to sustain it is the very engine of insatiable desire — the endless pursuit of wealth, novelty, and stimulation that Epicurus identified as one of the chief sources of human misery.

28. The pains of life will always make it impossible to be happy.

Epicurus cures this by showing first that happiness is not a moment-by-moment condition but a property of a whole life, and second that a whole life well-lived is fully capable of including pain without being destroyed by it. The question is never whether any particular day is free from suffering, but whether your life as a whole — looked at honestly from beginning to end — contains more pleasure than pain, and whether you are able to appreciate and enjoy that life as the complete thing it is. Just as a good day is not ruined by a difficult hour, a good life is not cancelled by periods of pain, and the mind has a remarkable capacity to draw on the entire span of one's experience — on the memory of past pleasures, on the pleasures of friendship and reflection available right now, and on the confidence that what lies ahead holds no terrors — in a way that can outweigh even serious physical suffering. In the Principal Doctrines Epicurus states that extreme pain tends to be brief, and that pain which does persist over time does not typically hold its most intense levels for long. More importantly, Epicurus himself demonstrated the whole argument at his own death: writing in his final hours while in severe physical pain, he reported that the joy he felt in remembering his philosophical conversations with friends set itself against all of it. He was not claiming to feel no pain. He was showing that a life rich enough in genuine pleasure — built over years through friendship, thought, and the practice of living well — carries resources that physical suffering alone cannot take away.

29. Justice is absolute — the same rules should apply to everyone, everywhere, at all times.

Epicurus cures this by showing that justice is not a set of eternal rules handed down by a god from above but something that real people create for themselves through agreements made under specific circumstances. In the Principal Doctrines he states plainly that Justice as a single thing in itself does not exist in nature. What exists are agreements among people in particular places and times about how to avoid harming one another for their mutual benefit. This means that what counts as just can and does change as circumstances change: an agreement that served mutual protection under one set of conditions may need to be revised or replaced when those conditions shift, and clinging to old arrangements simply because they once worked is not justice but rigidity. The demand for a single, timeless, universal standard of justice — whether grounded in divine law, abstract reason, or natural right — is itself a source of harm, because it blinds people to the actual human purpose that justice serves and makes it harder to adapt agreements to the real conditions of real communities.

For reference as to the term mind virus

Viruses of the Mind - Wikipedia

This thread will be used for discussion of the new beginner-friendly article: Mind Viruses Cured By Epicurean Philosophy. Please add comments, suggestions, etc. here.

Article

25 Mind Viruses Cured By Epicurean Philosophy

View on substack here.

Throughout history, philosophers, priests, and political authorities have promoted ideas about life, reality, and human nature that sound profound but are in fact deeply mistaken — and whose effect, whether intended or not, is to make ordinary people feel guilty, fearful, and dependent on outside authorities for guidance. These ideas spread from generation to generation the way a virus spreads through a population: not because they are true, but because they are…

Cassius

April 10, 2026 at 11:39 AM

Very useful Eikadistes! n They are arranged in chronological order?

I don't know that we used it in this episode, but there's another phrase that we should probably be referring to more often in this discusion: "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" - which has to be explained as a natural phenomena rather than implying anything supernatural.

At around the 20 minute mark in this episode Joshua refers to an important David Sedley observation, but we did not have the quote at hand. Here is the full section, from his "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism," with the main part Joshua was referencing underlined:

Quote from David Sedley - Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism

In confirmation of this, we can return to the close and apparently conscious parallelism between Epicurus' treatments of determinism and scepticism. The sceptics refuted in Lucretius IV must be, or prominently include, those fourth-century Democcriteans like Metrodorus of Chios, Anaxarchus, and even Epicurus' own reviled teacher Nausiphanes, who had played up the sceptical side of Democritus' thought, and against whom Epicurus was eager to marshall the positive empiricist arguments which Democritus had also bequeathed. This scepticism was the result of what I shall call reductionist atomism. Because phenomenal objects and properties seemed to reduce to mere configurations of atoms and void, Democritus was inclined to suppose that the atoms and void were real while the phenomenal objects and properties were no more than arbitrary constructions placed upon them by human cognitive organs. In his more extreme moods Democritus was even inclined to doubt the power of human judgment, since judgment was itself no more than a realignment of atoms in the mind.

Epicurus' response to this is perhaps the least appreciated aspect of his thought. It was to reject reductionist atomism. Almost uniquely among Greek philosophers he arrived at what is nowadays the unreflective assumption of almost anyone with a smattering of science, that there are truths at the microscopic level of elementary particles, and further very different truths at the phenomenal level; that the former must be capable of explaining the latter; but that neither level of description has a monopoly of truth. (The truth that sugar is sweet is not straightforwardly reducible to the truth that it has such and such a molecular structure, even though the latter truth may be required in order to explain the former). By establishing that cognitive scepticism, the direct outcome of reductionist atomism, is self-refuting and untenable in practice, Epicurus justifies his non-reductionist alternative, according to which sensations are true and there are therefore bona fide truths at the phenomenal level accessible through them. The same will apply to the pathe (feelings), which Epicurus also held to be veridical. Pleasure, for example, is a direct datum of experience. It is commonly assumed that Epicurus must have equated pleasure with such and such a kind of movement of soul atoms; but although he will have taken it to have some explanation at the atomic level, I know of no evidence that he, any more than most moral philosophers or psychologists, would have held that an adequate analysis of it could be found at that level.

Quote from Eikadistes

I think in a survey of the history of philosophy, Berkeley is one of the best examples of an Idealist. Whereas, for Plátōn, the world of matter that traps souls in cages in not made of mind.

It's a constant stuggle to decide how much diving into the details is sufficient. However it seems pretty clear to me that the ultimate goal is being sure that we have a grasp of the "big picture" regardless of the twists and turns of how some of these philosophers seek to distinguish themselves individually. Everyone seems to want to make a name for themselves with new jargon, but I see very little in the end that makes any real difference.

At the moment i am hard-pressed to come up with a better high-level way of expressing it beyond what Nietzsche was apparently doing with his "true world" figure of speech (such as in Twilight of the Idols). No matter how you slice it between mind or matter or any other single word, it seems like the issue always comes back to whether we are going to choose to live and die by the senses in this world, or by something we think we can identify only in our minds in another world.

Eikadistes if you come up with equal or superior ways of summarizing these issues please be sure to highlight them. I know a lot of people get frustated and simply pass over discussion of the details, and that's probably OK - just so they have an outline/higher-level understanding of the real dividing lines.

In the case of most if not all of these philosophers who are variants of Platonism or any form of idealism, I'm not sure that it's necessary to know much more than their orientation toward the relative value and roles of the senses vs the mind - at least that's the way I see it at the moment.

I just ran a search of this forum and after more than ten years of activity I don't see a single mention of the phrase "castles in the air." It is highly irritating to me that the first use of this very appropriate characterization of anti-Epicurean philosophies has to come from ClaudeAI. However - I'll take it. Now that I think about it I haven't heard the phrase used much at all in many years . Here's the resurrected application, followed by Don McLean (who might be responsible for my remembering it at all). I feel sure that there are at least a couple of others who will remember the same reference.

The Common Thread in All Cases of Epicurus vs Idealism

What is striking is how consistently the same Epicurean moves apply:

Every form of modern idealism, in different ways, interposes something between the knower and the world — divine mind, cognitive apparatus, Absolute Spirit, irreducible qualia. In every case Epicurus would say: the Canon does not attest to this interposition, and each of these additions generates more problems than it solves while delivering less than Epicurean materialism already provides cleanly.

The deeper issue is that modern idealism, like its ancient predecessors, typically begins with a puzzle (how do we have certain knowledge? what is consciousness? how can contingent things exist?) and then constructs a metaphysical architecture to solve it. Epicurus's method runs in the opposite direction: start with what the Canon delivers and build only as far as the evidence warrants. Any architecture built higher than that foundation is, regardless of its internal elegance, a castle in the air.

George Berkeley is relevant to this discussion, so here's a summary of the issue there:

Berkeley's Subjective Idealism ("esse est percipi")

Berkeley attacks the very foundation Epicurus stands on — the reliability of sensation as a guide to external reality. Berkeley argues that material substance is an incoherent concept: all we ever actually have is perception, and "matter existing independently of mind" is something no one has ever experienced or could experience. Therefore minds and ideas are all that exist.

Epicurus's response would be aggressive and direct. Berkeley's argument is self-refuting by the Canon's standards: it uses the evidence of perception to deny the external world that makes perception intelligible. For Epicurus, sensation is not a veil between us and reality — it is a contact with reality. The eidōla (films of atoms) that strike our sense organs are literally from the objects perceived, carrying structural information about them. The causal chain from object to perception is physical and real.

More pointedly, Epicurus would note that Berkeley's "ideas in the mind of God" sustaining reality is simply the Platonic move in different dress — replacing the physical world with a mental/divine substrate that the Canon cannot reach. The argument is that Berkeley has traded one metaphysical claim (matter) for another far more extravagant one (universal divine mind).

We don't crawl in a hold and die and give way to AI because AI isn't alive, doesn't care, and will never fight for what it values as a human being. But if AI can help provide weapons of immediate value faster than we could find answers ourselves, I'm ready to pick up that weapon.

This answer is based on what living people have produced, but do I know any living person who can answer Aristotle better than this? If I do know such a person, please point out where the following might be wrong! Because it sure sounds consistent with all my past reading on Epicurus.

---------------------------

The case of Aristotelian case is actually a harder problem for Epicurus than Plato's Ideal Forms, because Aristotle had already made the key concession Epicurus would demand of Plato.

Why It's a Different Problem

Against Plato, Epicurus's objection is relatively straightforward: Forms existing in a separate realm are simply unreachable by the Canon and do violence to the evident facts of reality consisting of bodies and void. Plato puts ideal forms or "essences" above the physical world.

Aristotle pre-empts that objection. He agrees there is no separate realm of Forms. Essences are immanent — they exist in particular things, not above them. The essence of color is not floating in a Platonic heaven; it is in colored things, and the intellect abstracts it from sensory experience. This is much closer to Epicurean territory, and Epicurus cannot simply dismiss it as empty transcendentalism.

The Epicurean Counter: Prolēpsis vs. Essence

The key Epicurean move is to deploy the doctrine of prolēpsis (preconception) as an alternative account of exactly what Aristotle thinks essences explain.

When we encounter red things repeatedly, we form a general mental concept — a prolēpsis — of color. This concept is real, it is useful, and it is derived from sensation. But for Epicurus it is a cognitive construction built from accumulated sensory encounters, not a perception of an immanent universal structure residing in things. The distinction matters enormously: Aristotle thinks the intellect is discovering something that is really there in the world; Epicurus thinks the intellect is constructing a useful generalization from what sensation provides.

So the Canon gives us particular colored things. Full stop. Aristotle's "essence of color" is what happens when a mind operates on that sensory data and mistakes its own generalization for a feature of external reality.

The Atomic Account Does Additional Work

On something like color specifically, Epicurus has a second line of attack: color is not a primary property of atoms at all. Atoms have shape, size, and weight — that is all. Color (and taste, sound, smell) are emergent properties arising from atomic arrangements in relation to a perceiver. They are real as experienced — Epicurus is not a skeptic about color experience — but they have no essence to be abstracted because they are relational and contextual, not intrinsic structural features of things.

This directly undercuts Aristotle's example. You cannot abstract the essence of color because color doesn't inhere in things as a stable immanent form waiting to be intellectually grasped. It is produced at the intersection of atomic structure and percipient organism.

The Teleology Connection

There is a deeper reason Epicurus must reject Aristotelian essence, and it goes beyond epistemology. Aristotle's essences are not merely descriptive — they are bound up with his teleology. The essence of a thing includes its telos, what it is for, what counts as its flourishing or completion. To ti ēn einai — "the what it was to be" for a thing — carries this purposive dimension throughout Aristotle's natural philosophy.

Epicurus rejects natural teleology root and branch. There is no "what things are for" in a world of atoms and void moving by weight, impact, and swerve. If there is no telos in nature, then Aristotelian essence — which is form-as-telos immanent in matter — simply has nothing to latch onto. The entire framework requires a purposive nature Epicurus denies.