Posts by Cassius

It's beginning to be clear that the Socratic position mentioned by Diogenes of Oinoanda as being opposed to the study of natural science constitute a major bright line division between them and Epicurus. Apparently that same distinction did not exist between Epicurus and the Stoics. Pending confirmation here's an AI summary:

Quote

In contrast to Socrates, the Stoics regarded the study of natural science (physikē) as not only desirable but philosophically necessary.

For the Stoics—beginning with Zeno of Citium and systematized by thinkers such as Chrysippus—philosophy was divided into three interdependent parts: logic, ethics, and physics. Physics, which included cosmology, theology, and the study of nature as a rational, ordered whole, was essential because it grounded ethics. One could not fully understand how to live well without understanding how the universe itself is structured and governed.

The Stoics held that the universe is an ordered, rational system permeated by logos (reason). Studying nature therefore reveals the rational principles by which the cosmos operates, including divine providence and necessity. Ethical ideals such as “living in accordance with nature” depend directly on correct physical understanding; without physics, moral prescriptions would lack foundation. In this sense, natural science had clear ethical value, not merely speculative interest.

This position marks a clear disagreement with Socrates. Whereas Socrates treated cosmological inquiry as largely irrelevant or distracting from moral self-examination, the Stoics saw it as indispensable to moral progress. While they agreed with Socrates that ethics is the ultimate aim of philosophy, they rejected his dismissal of natural science and instead integrated it tightly into their ethical system.

In summary, the Stoics explicitly did not agree with Socrates on this point: they affirmed the study of natural science as a crucial and valuable component of philosophy, necessary for understanding both the cosmos and the proper conduct of human life.

Those two Joshua along with the material on Archimedes we need to come back to next week on the podcast

Here are a number of references we're incorporating into the current discussion of Socrates:

Reference to Lucian’s statements in “Alexander the Oracle Monger”

Thread

Lucian: Alexander, The Oracle-Monger

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Alexander the Oracle-Monger

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By Lucian of Samosata, translated by H. W. and F. G. Fowler (1905)

(other links to this text: Sacred-texts.com, Lucianofsamosata.info, Epicurism.info

Characters: Lucian, writing a letter to a friend.

Context: Lucian relates the story of a famous fraud.

You, my dear Celsus, possibly suppose yourself to be laying upon me quite a trifling task: Write me down in a book and send me the life and adventures, the tricks and frauds, of the impostor Alexander of…

Cassius

February 14, 2019 at 8:54 AM

• Picture to yourself a little chamber into which no very brilliant light was admitted, with a crowd of people from all quarters, excited, carefully worked up, all aflutter with expectation. As they came in, they might naturally find a miracle in the development of that little crawling thing of a few days ago into this great, tame, human-looking serpent. Then they had to get on at once towards the exit, being pressed forward by the new arrivals before they could have a good look. An exit had been specially made just opposite the entrance, for all the world like the Macedonian device at Babylon when Alexander was ill. He was in extremis, you remember, and the crowd round the palace were eager to take their last look and give their last greeting. Our scoundrel’s exhibition, though, is said to have been given not once, but many times, especially for the benefit of any wealthy new-comers.
• And at this point, my dear Celsus, we may, if we will be candid, make some allowance for these Paphlagonians and Pontics. The poor uneducated ‘fat-heads’ might well be taken in when they handled the serpent—a privilege conceded to all who choose—and saw in that dim light its head with the mouth that opened and shut. It was an occasion for a Democritus, nay, for an Epicurus or a Metrodorus, perhaps, a man whose intelligence was steeled against such assaults by scepticism and insight, one who, if he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been perfectly certain that, though this escaped him, the whole thing was a lie and an impossibility.

Reference to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Episode 7 “Backbone of the Night”

• Start about the 20 minute mark
• 25:00 - Anaximander and evolution (positive)
• 26:27 - Empedocles discovers air; discussion of “water thief” (positive)
• 28:36 - Democritus and atoms (positive)
• 33:30 - Anaxagorus advances in astronomy but was persecuted (positive)
• 34:13 - Pythagorus “The mystics were beginning to win” - continuity between him and Christianity. Mathematical harmony underlies all of nature - “music of the spheres” - “cosmos means ‘ordered.’ Pythagorus said laws of nature deduced by PURE THOUGHT - they were mathematicians and thoroughgoing mystics- the dodecahedron - ordinary people to be kept ignorant of the dodecahedron - they suppressed knowledge of the square root of two as “irrational” Pythagoreans ignored “experiment” (highly negative)
• 39:07 Plato — Followed in steps of Pyathagorus and extended them - ideas are more real than the natural world - advised ignoring astronomy in favor of thinking - taught contempt for the real world - he and his followers extinguished the light of science and experiment. Unease with the world of the senses and dominated and stifled western philosophy.
• 40:44 - Pythagorus and Plato “provided an intellectually respectable justification for a corrupt social order.""
• 41:13 - “Plato and Aristotle were comfortable in a slave society. Thy offered justifications for oppression. They served tyrants. They taught the alienation of the body from the mind - a natural enough idea I suppose in a slave society. They separated thought from matter. They divorced the earth from the heavens. Divisions which were to dominate western thinking for more than 20 centuries. The Pythagoreans had won. … The books of theionian scientsts are entirely lost. Their views were suppressed, ridiculed and forgotten by the Platonists and by the Christians who adopted much of the science of Plato.
• Background as to Socrates, in addition to general criticism of Socrates’ honesty as contained in “the Epicurean Criticism of Socrates. Just putting this out there so we know the major issues. This is Grok:

What was Socrates’ position on whether it is important to study natural science and the nature of the universe?

Socrates did not consider the study of natural science (what the ancient Greeks called physis or inquiries into the nature of the cosmos, astronomy, meteorology, the elements, and the physical causes of phenomena) to be important or worthwhile for human life — at least not as a primary pursuit.He famously shifted the focus of philosophy away from these cosmological and physical speculations — which had dominated earlier thinkers like Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and Anaxagoras (the so-called pre-Socratics) — toward ethics, the examination of human affairs, virtue, justice, piety, and how one ought to live.Key Evidence from Primary Sources

• In Plato’s Apology (Socrates’ defense speech at his trial), he explicitly denies the popular accusation that he was a natural philosopher who investigated “things in the sky and below the earth.” He says he has no interest in or expertise in such matters and that the charge stems from a caricature (like Aristophanes’ comedy The Clouds, which mocks him as someone dangling in a basket measuring fleas and speculating about celestial phenomena). Socrates insists his real activity is questioning people about moral and ethical concepts in the marketplace.
• In Plato’s Phaedo (set on the day of Socrates’ death), he gives a more autobiographical account: As a young man, he was enthusiastic about natural philosophy and eagerly studied the works of pre-Socratic thinkers, hoping to discover the true causes of things (e.g., why things grow, why the earth is shaped as it is, or what makes the universe orderly). He became disillusioned when these materialistic explanations (e.g., Anaxagoras’ “Mind” as a cosmic force) failed to provide satisfying answers, especially about why things are ordered for the best or good. He abandoned this path as futile or misguided for human concerns and turned instead to examining human life, ethics, and the soul through dialectical questioning. He calls this his “second sailing” — a turn to logos (reasoned discourse) rather than direct empirical or physical investigation.
• In Xenophon’s Memorabilia (another student’s account of Socrates), Xenophon defends Socrates against similar charges by stating that he did not discuss “the nature of the universe” or speculate about the cosmos “as the others did.” Socrates reportedly argued that such inquiries were foolish: humans should focus on what is within their grasp (human affairs, ethics, practical wisdom), while leaving divine or cosmic matters to the gods (via divination if needed). He saw preoccupation with unreachable questions as neglect of more urgent human ones.

Why This Shift?Socrates believed true wisdom and the good life lie in self-knowledge (“know thyself”) and understanding moral concepts like virtue (which he often treated as a kind of knowledge). Speculating about the physical universe or its material causes did little to improve one’s character or make one a better person — it could even distract from ethical living or lead to impiety if it undermined traditional reverence for the divine order. He viewed the cosmos as intelligently ordered (with hints of divine design in Xenophon), but probing its mechanics mechanistically was not the path to virtue or happiness.In short, Socrates regarded the study of natural science and cosmology as largely unimportant — even potentially misguided — for the serious pursuit of wisdom and a good life. He prioritized the human realm (ethics, the soul, and moral improvement) over the natural one. This “Socratic turn” profoundly influenced later philosophy, marking a pivot from pre-Socratic naturalism to ethical and metaphysical inquiry in Plato and beyond.

Confirmed as the common view by Chatgpt:

What was Socrates’ position on whether it is important to study natural science and the nature of the universe?

In the ancient sources, Socrates is consistently portrayed as downplaying the importance of studying natural science and the physical structure of the universe, especially when compared with ethical inquiry.

According to Plato’s Apology, Socrates explicitly denies engaging in investigations “in the sky or below the earth,” distancing himself from the natural philosophers (physikoi) who speculated about cosmology, astronomy, and the ultimate constituents of matter. He presents this denial not merely as a defense against specific charges, but as a principled statement of his philosophical priorities. For Socrates, inquiry into nature was both uncertain and largely irrelevant to the central human task.

Socrates held that the most important questions concern how one ought to live: the nature of virtue, justice, piety, and the proper care of the soul. He believed that studying the cosmos does not reliably improve moral character and may even distract from self-knowledge. This stance is reinforced by later testimonies (such as those in Xenophon), which depict Socrates as skeptical that cosmological speculation yields practical or ethical benefit.

In short, Socrates did not regard the study of natural science or the nature of the universe as intrinsically valuable. He deliberately redirected philosophy away from cosmology and toward ethics, holding that understanding how to live well is far more important than understanding how the universe is structured.

More detail and specific reference to Epicurus from Claude:

Socrates famously argued against the importance of studying natural science and cosmology, representing a major shift in Greek philosophy from the natural philosophers (like Thales, Anaximander, and Democritus) who preceded him.

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates explicitly distances himself from natural philosophy when defending against charges. He denies investigating “things in the sky and below the earth,” stating he has no knowledge or expertise in such matters (Apology 19b-c).

In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates describes his youthful interest in natural philosophy and his ultimate disappointment with it. He found that explanations based on material causes (like Anaxagoras’s system) failed to answer the questions that truly mattered to him - questions about purpose, goodness, and why things are as they should be (Phaedo 96a-99d).

Xenophon’s Memorabilia (IV.7) records Socrates actively discouraging students from studying astronomy, geometry, and other natural sciences beyond what’s practically necessary. He argued that such studies were:

• Endless and possibly futile
• A distraction from more important matters
• Less valuable than self-knowledge and ethical inquiry

Cicero famously credited Socrates with bringing “philosophy down from the heavens” and making it concerned with human life, ethics, and how one should live (Tusculan Disputations V.10).

Instead, Socrates insisted on the priority of self-knowledge (“Know thyself”) and ethical questions about virtue, justice, and the good life - what he considered truly important for human flourishing.

This represents a stark contrast with later philosophers like Epicurus, who considered natural science essential for removing fear and superstition.

Reference to Lucian’s statements in “Alexander the Oracle Monger” Lucian: Alexander, The Oracle-Monger
Picture to yourself a little chamber into which no very brilliant light was admitted, with a crowd of people from all quarters, excited, carefully worked up, all aflutter with expectation. As they came in, they might naturally find a miracle in the development of that little crawling thing of a few days ago into this great, tame, human-looking serpent. Then they had to get on at once towards the exit, being pressed forward by the new arrivals before they could have a good look. An exit had been specially made just opposite the entrance, for all the world like the Macedonian device at Babylon when Alexander was ill. He was in extremis, you remember, and the crowd round the palace were eager to take their last look and give their last greeting. Our scoundrel’s exhibition, though, is said to have been given not once, but many times, especially for the benefit of any wealthy new-comers.
And at this point, my dear Celsus, we may, if we will be candid, make some allowance for these Paphlagonians and Pontics. The poor uneducated ‘fat-heads’ might well be taken in when they handled the serpent—a privilege conceded to all who choose—and saw in that dim light its head with the mouth that opened and shut. It was an occasion for a Democritus, nay, for an Epicurus or a Metrodorus, perhaps, a man whose intelligence was steeled against such assaults by scepticism and insight, one who, if he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been perfectly certain that, though this escaped him, the whole thing was a lie and an impossibility.

Refer to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Episode 7 “Backbone of the Night”

Start about the 20 minute mark
25:00 - Anaximander and evolution (positive)
26:27 - Empedocles discovers air; discussion of “water thief” (positive)
28:36 - Democritus and atoms (positive)
33:30 - Anaxagorus advances in astronomy but was persecuted (positive)
34:13 - Pythagorus “The mystics were beginning to win” - continuity between him and Christianity. Mathematical harmony underlies all of nature - “music of the spheres” - “cosmos means ‘ordered.’ Pythagorus said laws of nature deduced by PURE THOUGHT - they were mathematicians and thoroughgoing mystics- the dodecahedron - ordinary people to be kept ignorant of the dodecahedron - they suppressed knowledge of the square root of two as “irrational” Pythagoreans ignored “experiment” (highly negative)
39:07 Plato — Followed in steps of Pyathagorus and extended them - ideas are more real than the natural world - advised ignoring astronomy in favor of thinking - taught contempt for the real world - he and his followers extinguished the light of science and experiment. Unease with the world of the senses and dominated and stifled western philosophy.
40:44 - Pythagorus and Plato “provided an intellectually respectable justification for a corrupt social order.""
41:13 - “Plato and Aristotle were comfortable in a slave society. Thy offered justifications for oppression. They served tyrants. They taught the alienation of the body from the mind - a natural enough idea I suppose in a slave society. They separated thought from matter. They divorced the earth from the heavens. Divisions which were to dominate western thinking for more than 20 centuries. The Pythagoreans had won. … The books of theionian scientsts are entirely lost. Their views were suppressed, ridiculed and forgotten by the Platonists and by the Christians who adopted much of the science of Plato.
Background as to Socrates, in addition to general criticism of Socrates’ honesty as contained in “the Epicurean Criticism of Socrates. Just putting this out there so we know the major issues. This is Grok:

What was Socrates’ position on whether it is important to study natural science and the nature of the universe?

Socrates did not consider the study of natural science (what the ancient Greeks called physis or inquiries into the nature of the cosmos, astronomy, meteorology, the elements, and the physical causes of phenomena) to be important or worthwhile for human life — at least not as a primary pursuit.He famously shifted the focus of philosophy away from these cosmological and physical speculations — which had dominated earlier thinkers like Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and Anaxagoras (the so-called pre-Socratics) — toward ethics, the examination of human affairs, virtue, justice, piety, and how one ought to live.Key Evidence from Primary Sources

In Plato’s Apology (Socrates’ defense speech at his trial), he explicitly denies the popular accusation that he was a natural philosopher who investigated “things in the sky and below the earth.” He says he has no interest in or expertise in such matters and that the charge stems from a caricature (like Aristophanes’ comedy The Clouds, which mocks him as someone dangling in a basket measuring fleas and speculating about celestial phenomena). Socrates insists his real activity is questioning people about moral and ethical concepts in the marketplace.
In Plato’s Phaedo (set on the day of Socrates’ death), he gives a more autobiographical account: As a young man, he was enthusiastic about natural philosophy and eagerly studied the works of pre-Socratic thinkers, hoping to discover the true causes of things (e.g., why things grow, why the earth is shaped as it is, or what makes the universe orderly). He became disillusioned when these materialistic explanations (e.g., Anaxagoras’ “Mind” as a cosmic force) failed to provide satisfying answers, especially about why things are ordered for the best or good. He abandoned this path as futile or misguided for human concerns and turned instead to examining human life, ethics, and the soul through dialectical questioning. He calls this his “second sailing” — a turn to logos (reasoned discourse) rather than direct empirical or physical investigation.
In Xenophon’s Memorabilia (another student’s account of Socrates), Xenophon defends Socrates against similar charges by stating that he did not discuss “the nature of the universe” or speculate about the cosmos “as the others did.” Socrates reportedly argued that such inquiries were foolish: humans should focus on what is within their grasp (human affairs, ethics, practical wisdom), while leaving divine or cosmic matters to the gods (via divination if needed). He saw preoccupation with unreachable questions as neglect of more urgent human ones.
Why This Shift?Socrates believed true wisdom and the good life lie in self-knowledge (“know thyself”) and understanding moral concepts like virtue (which he often treated as a kind of knowledge). Speculating about the physical universe or its material causes did little to improve one’s character or make one a better person — it could even distract from ethical living or lead to impiety if it undermined traditional reverence for the divine order. He viewed the cosmos as intelligently ordered (with hints of divine design in Xenophon), but probing its mechanics mechanistically was not the path to virtue or happiness.In short, Socrates regarded the study of natural science and cosmology as largely unimportant — even potentially misguided — for the serious pursuit of wisdom and a good life. He prioritized the human realm (ethics, the soul, and moral improvement) over the natural one. This “Socratic turn” profoundly influenced later philosophy, marking a pivot from pre-Socratic naturalism to ethical and metaphysical inquiry in Plato and beyond.

Confirmed as the common view by Chatgpt:

What was Socrates’ position on whether it is important to study natural science and the nature of the universe?

In the ancient sources, Socrates is consistently portrayed as downplaying the importance of studying natural science and the physical structure of the universe, especially when compared with ethical inquiry.

According to Plato’s Apology, Socrates explicitly denies engaging in investigations “in the sky or below the earth,” distancing himself from the natural philosophers (physikoi) who speculated about cosmology, astronomy, and the ultimate constituents of matter. He presents this denial not merely as a defense against specific charges, but as a principled statement of his philosophical priorities. For Socrates, inquiry into nature was both uncertain and largely irrelevant to the central human task.

Socrates held that the most important questions concern how one ought to live: the nature of virtue, justice, piety, and the proper care of the soul. He believed that studying the cosmos does not reliably improve moral character and may even distract from self-knowledge. This stance is reinforced by later testimonies (such as those in Xenophon), which depict Socrates as skeptical that cosmological speculation yields practical or ethical benefit.

In short, Socrates did not regard the study of natural science or the nature of the universe as intrinsically valuable. He deliberately redirected philosophy away from cosmology and toward ethics, holding that understanding how to live well is far more important than understanding how the universe is structured.

More detail and specific reference to Epicurus from Claude:

Socrates famously argued against the importance of studying natural science and cosmology, representing a major shift in Greek philosophy from the natural philosophers (like Thales, Anaximander, and Democritus) who preceded him.

Key Evidence:
In Plato’s Apology, Socrates explicitly distances himself from natural philosophy when defending against charges. He denies investigating “things in the sky and below the earth,” stating he has no knowledge or expertise in such matters (Apology 19b-c).

In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates describes his youthful interest in natural philosophy and his ultimate disappointment with it. He found that explanations based on material causes (like Anaxagoras’s system) failed to answer the questions that truly mattered to him - questions about purpose, goodness, and why things are as they should be (Phaedo 96a-99d).

Xenophon’s Memorabilia (IV.7) records Socrates actively discouraging students from studying astronomy, geometry, and other natural sciences beyond what’s practically necessary. He argued that such studies were:

Endless and possibly futile
A distraction from more important matters
Less valuable than self-knowledge and ethical inquiry
Cicero famously credited Socrates with bringing “philosophy down from the heavens” and making it concerned with human life, ethics, and how one should live (Tusculan Disputations V.10).

Socrates’ Alternative Focus:
Instead, Socrates insisted on the priority of self-knowledge (“Know thyself”) and ethical questions about virtue, justice, and the good life - what he considered truly important for human flourishing.

This represents a stark contrast with later philosophers like Epicurus, who considered natural science essential for removing fear and superstition.

Diogenes of Oinoanda:

Fr. 4

… [as is supposed by] some of the philosophers and especially the Socratics. They say that pursuing natural science and busying oneself with investigation of [celestial phenomena] is superfluous and unprofitable, and they do [not even] deign [to concern themselves with such matters.]
Fr. 5
[Others do not] explicitly [stigmatise] natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge [this], but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?

Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing [is] at no time apprehensible by sense-perception. And indeed [in no way would the upholders of] the view under discussion have been able to say (and this is just what they do [maintain] that [at one time] this is [white] and this black, while [at another time] neither this is [white nor] that black, [if] they had not had [previous] knowledge of the nature of both white and black.

And from Epicurus:

Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 37
Wherefore since the method I have described is valuable to all those who are accustomed to the investigation of nature, I who urge upon others the constant occupation in the investigation of nature, and find my own peace chiefly in a life so occupied, have composed for you another epitome on these lines, summing up the first principles of the whole doctrine. (Bailey)

Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 11
Were we not upset by the worries that celestial phenomena and death might matter to us, and also by failure to appreciate the limits of pains and desires, we would have no need for natural philosophy. (L&S-THP)

Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 12
There is no way to dispel the fear about matters of supreme importance, for someone who does not know what the nature of the universe is but retains some of the fears based on mythology. Hence without natural philosophy there is no way of securing the purity of our pleasures. (L&S-THP)

Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 13
There is no benefit in creating security with respect to men while retaining worries about things up above, things beneath the earth, and generally things in the infinite. (L&S-THP)

Epicurus, Vatican Saying 29
I would rather speak with the frankness of a natural philosopher, and reveal the things which are expedient to all mankind, even if no one is going to understand me, than assent to the received opinions and reap the adulation lavishly bestowed by the multitude. (L&S-THP)

Epicurus, Vatican Saying 45
Natural philosophy does not make people boastful and loud-mouthed, nor flaunters of culture, the thing so hotly competed for among the multitude, but modest and self-sufficient, and proud at their own goods, not at those of their circumstances. (L&S-THP)

Lucretius 1.62-79
(1) When human life lay foul to see and groveling upon the ground, crushed by the weight of Religion, who displayed her head from the regions of heaven, lowering over mortals with horrible aspect, (2) a man of Greece dared first to raise his mortal eyes against her, first to make a stand against her; for neither fables of the gods could quell him, nor thunderbolts, nor heaven with menacing roar, but all the more they goaded the eager courage of his soul to long to be the first to burst through the close-set bolts of nature’s gates. (3) Therefore his vigorous mind won through, and he passed on far beyond the fiery walls of the world, and in mind and spirit traversed the boundless universe; (4) whence returning victorious he reports to us what can arise, what cannot, and by what principle each thing has its powers limited and its deep-set boundary stone. (5) Therefore Religion is now in turn cast down and trampled underfoot, while we by the victory are exalted high as heaven. (L&S-THP)

Riley - The Epicurean Criticism of Socrates

This week we pick up at line 159 - the beginning of the argument in support of "nothing comes from nothing"

EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side Lucretius

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

epicurustoday.com

Episode 320 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is The Good of A Sheep The Same As The Good of A Man?"

Happy Birthday to mlinssen! Learn more about mlinssen and say happy birthday on mlinssen's timeline: mlinssen

In this episode one of the issues discussed was Cicero ridiculing Epicurus for taking a position that Cicero characterizes as saying that the good of a sheep and the good of a man are the same. That line of argument appears in a number of places that we did not list in the episode. Here are more occasions:

1 - Cicero, De Fin. 2.109

Quare aliud aliquod,Torquate, hominis summum bonum reperiendum est, voluptatem bestiis
concedamus.

Therefore,Torquatus, some other supreme good must be found for a human being. Let
us leave pleasure to the nonhuman animals.

2 - Cicero, De Fin. 2.111

Nec tamen ullo modo summum pecudis bonum et hominis idem mihi videri potest.

I cannot in any way think that humans and livestock have the same supreme good.

3 - Aristotle, EN I .5 I 095bI9-20 (Cf. Heraclitus frr. 4 and 29, and Plato, flej?_. 586a-b)

oi piv oov 110XX01 TIONTEXCOc Co.lOpomoOthbEtc tpocivorrat 1300"Kilp&TWV rov
irpooupoOpEvot...

Most entirely slavish people clearly choose the life of cattle...

4 - Cicero, De Fin. 2.33

Bestiarum vero nullum iudidum puto. Quamvis enim depravatae non sint, pravae tamen esse
possunt Ut bacillum aliud est inflexum et incurvatum de industria, dud ito natum, sic ferarum
natura non est No quidem depravata mak disciplina, sed natura sua.

In truth, I think nothing of the judgment of nonhuman animals. For although they may not
have been corrupted, still they can be corrupt. Just as one stick is bent and distorted
intentionally and another has grown that way, so the nature of wild animals is not that
way because it is corrupted by bad training, but by its own nature.

5 - Cicero, De fin. 2.33-34

Nec vero ui voluptatem expetat natura movet infantem, sed tantum ut se ipse diligat, ut
integrum se salvumque velit Omne enim animal, simul et orwm est, et se ipsum et omnes
portes suas diligit duasque quae maximae suns in primis amplectltur, animum et corpus, deinde
utriusque parses. Nam sunt et in anima praedpua quaedam et in corpore, quae cum leviter
agnovit, turn discernere indpit, ut ea quae prima data sint natura oppetas ospemeturque
contraria. In his primis naturolibus voluptas insit necne, magna quaestio est; nihil vero putare
esse praeter voluptatem, non membra, non sensus, non ingeni motum, non integritotem corporis,
non valetudinem [corporis],summae mihi videtur inscitioe.

In truth, nature moves the newborn not to seek pleasure but simply to love itself and to
wish to keep itself safe and sound. For every animal, as soon as it is born, loves both itself
and all its parts, and it embraces above all its two greatest things, mind and body, and then the parts of each. For both in mind and in body there are certain preferred things
which the animal has slightly recognized, and then begins to distinguish, with the result
that it seeks these things that are first given by nature and it spurns their contraries.
Whether pleasure is among the first natural things or not is not a difficult question. But
it seems to me the height of folly to think that it consists of nothing in truth except
pleasure, no limbs, no senses, no mental activity, no bodily soundness, no health.

6 - Cicero, Fin. 2.109-1 I0
(Quare aliud aliquod,Torquate,hominis summum bonum reperiendum est] voluptatem bestiis
concedamus, quibus vos de summo bono testibus uti soletis. Quid si etiam bestiae multa faciunt
duce sua quaeque natura, partim indulgenter vel cum labore, ut in gignendo, in educando
perfacile appareat aliud quidam Hs propositum, non voluptatem? Partim cursu et peragratione
laetantur; congregatione aline coetum quodam modo civitatis imitantur; videmus in quodam
volucrium genere nonnula indicia pietatis, cognitionem, memoriam, in multis etiam desideria
videmus. Ergo in bestiis erunt secreta a voluptate humanarum quaedam simulacra virtutum, in
ipsis hominibus virtus nisi voluptatis causa nulla erit?

Let us leave pleasure to the animals, whose testimony about the supreme good you all
customarily use. But what if even nonhuman animals do many things with their nature as
their guide, which make it clearly apparent that they have aim other than pleasure? Some
do things with kindness, even with difficulty, in giving birth to and rearing their young.
Some love to run free and roam about. Some, because they are gregarious, imitate the
gathering of a civil society in a way. In a certain class of birds we see signs of loyalty, and
we see recognition and memory; in many we even see grief. Will there therefore be
semblances of human virtues in nonhuman animals independently of pleasure, while in
humans themselves there will be no virtue that is not for the sake of pleasure?

7 - Cicero, Fin. 2.40

Hi non viderunt, ut ad cursum equum, ad arandum bovem, ad indagandum canem, sic hominem ad duos res, ut ait Aristoteles, ad intellegendum et <ad> agendum esse natum quasi mortalem
deum, controque ut tardam aliquam et languidam pecudem ad pastum et ad procreandi
voluptatem hoc divinum animal ortum esse voluerunt, quo nihil mihi videtur absurdius.

They [viz.,Aristippus and the Cyrenaics] did not see that just as a horse is born for running, an ox for ploughing, and a dog for hunting, so a human is born for two things, as Aristotle says, for thinking and for acting, as if a mortal god.They, by contrast, wanted this divine animal to be born for grazing and the pleasure of procreating, like a slow and lazy sheep. Nothing seems to me more absurd than this.

8 - Cicero, Fin. 2.45-47

Homines enim, etsi aliis muhis, tam en hoc uno plurimum a bestiis differunt quod rationem
habent a natura datam mentemque acrem et vigentem celerrimeque multa simul agitantem...

Even if humans differ from nonhuman animals in many other ways, they differ most in
this one way, that they are endowed by nature with reason and with a sharp and
vigorous intellect that does many things simultaneously and very swiftly...

Here's the English version

16th_Panhellenic_Symposium_of_Epicurean_Philosophy_ProgramEnglish.pdf

ADMIN NOTE: I will updat this first post with a link to where the final video appears on Youtube. Also, I would like to see us work toward adding timestamps to the major presentations iisted in the agenda so we can click directly to any speech in which anyone is interested. If you've already begun watching the video please let us know in the thread below any timestamps you have picked up.

Session One - First Day

Session Two - Second Day

English translations are available by selecting the translation options located in the CC control icon on the bottom right.

Major Presentations (Will add links as we get them):

• Scientific Humanism and Psychosomatic Health – Christos Giapitzakis
• On Eudaimonia – Giorgos Gkonis
• In the Enemy’s Camp: Philosophy as Therapy of the Soul – Christos Koutsotassios
• The Garden as a Therapeutic Community: Epicurean Philosophy and the 12 Steps of Recovery – Kyriakos Veresies
• Irrationalism and Pseudoscience in Troubled Times: When the Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. An Epicurean Perspective on Our Contradictory Age – Stefanos Trachanas
• Epicurean Philosophy as an Antidote to the Absurdity of Our Time – Stratis Katakos
• Relational Dynamics within Groups through the Lens of Epicurean Philosophy – Evangelia Maritsa
• Epicurus in the Modern Era – Theodoros Georgiou
• From the Musicality of Character to the Ethics of Music – Dimitris Christakis
• Gilgamesh: The Epicurean Human at the Dawn of History – Eleni Michopoulou
• The Enlightenment of the 18th Century and Epicurus – Leonidas Alexandridis
• Democracy through the Eyes of Epicurus – Takis Kalyvas
• Epicurus through the Eyes of a New Friend – Thanasis Lalas
• Criterion of Truth and Perceptual Capacity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence – Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos
• Epicurean Approaches to Language – Evangelia Pitsikali
• The Concept of Human Nature in Light of Evolutionary and Epicurean Theory – Vasilis Roukas
• The Physics of Epicurean Philosophy: Connections with Modern Physics – Anastasios Liolios
• The Epicurean Stance on the Interpretation Problem of Quantum Mechanics – Spyros Tserkis
• Chaos Theory in Human History and the Philosophy of Epicurus – Giorgos Froutzos
• Epicurus’ Contribution to Prigogine’s Thought and the Understanding of Physical Complexity – Ioannis Antoniou

---

Original Post:

I don't have any good links in English yet but this year's symposium in Athens Greece is coming up this weekend. Here's a PDF in Greek of the agenda - if someone knows a good way to get this in English please link it in this thread

https://epicuros.gr/Symposio/kombos16/16oS_Pr.pdf

Below is a clear English translation of the entire PDF you provided, preserving structure, titles, names, and sequencing. The translation is based directly on the uploaded document

AthensSeminar

.

16th Panhellenic Symposium on Epicurean Philosophy

14–15 February 2026
Municipal College of Athens Theatre (Bodosakeio)
Paleopanagias Avenue, Kantza 15351, Attica
Information: epicuros.gr

Co-organizers:
Municipality of Pallini
Friends of Epicurean Philosophy: “Garden of Athens,” “Garden of Thessaloniki”

Saturday, 14 February 2026

17:00–17:30 Opening of the Symposium

Christos Aidonis, Mayor of Pallini

Greetings:
Leonidas Alexandridis, Representative of the Garden of Athens
Antonis Bilisis, Representative of the Garden of Thessaloniki
Dimitris Christakis, Representative of the Garden of Heraklion
Kyriakos Veresies, Representative of the Garden of Lysis (Cyprus)
International Friends of Epicurean Philosophy
Villy Pavlou, Director of the Municipal College of Athens

Encomium to Epicurus
(Lucretius, On the Nature of Things II.1–19 and IV.9–42)
Theodora Siarkou, Actress, Special Advisor on Gender Equality, Municipality of Pallini

The Timeless Message of Epicurus

17:30–18:45 Session A: Psychosomatic Health and Eudaimonia

Chairs: Christos Giapitzakis, Dimitris Liarmakopoulos

• Scientific Humanism and Psychosomatic Health – Christos Giapitzakis
• On Eudaimonia – Giorgos Gkonis
• In the Enemy’s Camp: Philosophy as Therapy of the Soul – Christos Koutsotassios
• The Garden as a Therapeutic Community: Epicurean Philosophy and the 12 Steps of Recovery – Kyriakos Veresies

18:45–19:00 Break – Poster Presentations

19:00–19:15 Artistic Interlude

Selections from Panhellenic Symposia of Epicurean Philosophy
Music: Athanasios Simoglou, Marios Strofalis, Manos Hadjidakis

19:15–20:30 Session B: Epicurean Approaches to the Contemporary World

Chairs: Takis Panagiotopoulos, Antonis Bilisis

• Irrationalism and Pseudoscience in Troubled Times: When the Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. An Epicurean Perspective on Our Contradictory Age – Stefanos Trachanas
• Epicurean Philosophy as an Antidote to the Absurdity of Our Time – Stratis Katakos
• Relational Dynamics within Groups through the Lens of Epicurean Philosophy – Evangelia Maritsa
• Epicurus in the Modern Era – Theodoros Georgiou

20:30–21:00 Discussion

Sunday, 15 February 2026

Epicurean Philosophy from Antiquity to the Present

10:00–11:30 Session C: The Epicurean Human Being Across Different Periods

Chairs: Leonidas Alexandridis, Kyriakos Veresies

• From the Musicality of Character to the Ethics of Music – Dimitris Christakis
• Gilgamesh: The Epicurean Human at the Dawn of History – Eleni Michopoulou
• The Enlightenment of the 18th Century and Epicurus – Leonidas Alexandridis
• Democracy through the Eyes of Epicurus – Takis Kalyvas
• Epicurus through the Eyes of a New Friend – Thanasis Lalas

11:30–11:45 Break – Poster Presentations

11:45–12:00 Artistic Interlude

Christianna Dimitriadou (song) – Giorgos Tagklis (guitar)

12:00–13:00 Session D: Epicurean Epistemology

Chairs: Evangelia Pitsikali, Dimitris Liarmakopoulos

• Criterion of Truth and Perceptual Capacity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence – Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos
• Epicurean Approaches to Language – Evangelia Pitsikali
• The Concept of Human Nature in Light of Evolutionary and Epicurean Theory – Vasilis Roukas

13:00–14:00 Session E: Epicurean Approaches to Physics

Chairs: Giorgos Gkonis, Anastasios Liolios

• The Physics of Epicurean Philosophy: Connections with Modern Physics – Anastasios Liolios
• The Epicurean Stance on the Interpretation Problem of Quantum Mechanics – Spyros Tserkis
• Chaos Theory in Human History and the Philosophy of Epicurus – Giorgos Froutzos
• Epicurus’ Contribution to Prigogine’s Thought and the Understanding of Physical Complexity – Ioannis Antoniou

14:00–14:30 Discussion with the Audience – Symposium Conclusions

Poster Presentations (Selected)

• Poems – Giorgia Siokou
• Epicurean Philosophy and Friendship – Efthymios Koliokotsis
• Free Will of Investors and Eudaimonia – Nikolaos Loukeris
• The Epicurean Philosophers of Dion – Theano Kalimeri

Speakers

(Full list translated faithfully from the original, including academic titles and affiliations)

[Speaker list continues exactly as in the original document.]

Happy birthday kochiekoch  and Alexa!

Happy Birthday to kochiekoch! Learn more about kochiekoch and say happy birthday on kochiekoch's timeline: kochiekoch

I will be working to improve the text of the text-to-speech version of Bailey being used to generate the one based on Joshua's voice.

I am going to try to learn GIT so I can keep better track of changes and more easily accept suggestions. Given the current engine we are working with it's sometimes necessary to cut super-long sentences into multiple shorter ones, or slightly modify wording in way that the engine can handle without spazzing out. If you'd like to see that text and/or participate with improving the audio, the raw file is at this CODEBERG location:

Cookie monster!

If you know GIT feel free to suggest updates. If you don't know git, you can (1) click the "view source" button " < >" and it will show you the line numbers that need editing and then (2) submit changes either here in this thread or to me by private conversation.

I'll add other links as I find them but we need a media (audio) version of the Life of Epicurus, so this will start that process.

First, I have two versions of Book 10. The first and latest is Cyril Bailey translation. This is a first draft and I am going to work on improving it and will update this link.

(Status as of 2/9/26 15:45 The voice is better but there are still glitches in output.)

And here is an older version in a female voice which is less advanced but still very listenable. i need to check but i think this is the Hicks version:

In addition to the reference in Academic Questions, we have these additional citations to consider in contrasting Cicero's praise of Socrates to the Epicurean criticism of Socrates. The Epicurean criticism divides into at least two categories (1) Socrates' abandonment of the study of natural science, with all the many implications of that decision, and - related to that - (2) Socrates' assertion that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing

• Quote

  Nor was Pythagoras the inventor only of the name, but he enlarged also the thing itself, and, when he came into Italy after this conversation at Phlius, he adorned that Greece, which is called Great Greece, both privately and publicly, with the most excellent institutions and arts; but of his school and system, I shall, perhaps, find another opportunity to speak. But numbers and motions, and the beginning and end of all things, were the subjects of the ancient philosophy down to Socrates, who was a pupil of Archelaus, who had been the disciple of Anaxagoras. These made diligent inquiry into the magnitude of the stars, their distances, courses, and all that relates to the heavens. But Socrates was the first who brought down philosophy from the heavens, placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and obliged it to examine into life and morals, and good and evil. And his different methods of discussing questions, together with the variety of his topics, and the greatness of his abilities, being immortalized by the memory and writings of Plato, gave rise to many sects of philosophers of different sentiments: of all which I have principally adhered to that one which, in my opinion, Socrates himself followed; and argue so as to conceal my own opinion, while I deliver others from their errors, and so discover what has the greatest appearance of probability in every question. And the custom Carneades adopted with great copiousness and acuteness, and I myself have often given in to it on many occasions elsewhere, and in this manner, too, I disputed lately, in my Tusculan villa; indeed I have sent you a book of the four former days' discussions; but the fifth day, when we had seated ourselves as before, what we were to dispute on was proposed thus:—

  --Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, Book 5, paragraph 4

  
  
  Thats what I would contrast with the statements of Epicurus emphasizing natural philosophy as essential, and then Diogenes of Oinoanda
  
  Fr. 4
  
  ... [as is supposed by] some of the philosophers and especially the Socratics. They say that pursuing natural science and busying oneself with investigation of [celestial phenomena] is superfluous and unprofitable, and they do [not even] deign [to concern themselves with such matters.]

  Fr. 5
  Others do not] explicitly [stigmatise] natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge [this], but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?
  Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing [is] at no time apprehensible by sense-perception. And indeed [in no way would the upholders of] the view under discussion have been able to say (and this is just what they do [maintain] that [at one time] this is [white] and this black, while [at another time] neither this is [white nor] that black, [if] they had not had [previous] knowledge of the nature of both white and black.

  And the so-called [ephectic philosophers], of whom Lacydes [of Cyrene]...

  
  

Welcome to Episode 321 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 will continue in Section 2 and our focus will include a statement by Varro in praise of Socrates, and possible Epicurean responses to it.

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 Matteng

to pursue philia and pleasure

In the end Epicurus is defining pleasure so broadly that in the end it's not really logically consistent to say "friendship and pleasure" given that. Friendship or anything else is either pleasurable (or leading to more pleasure than pain, even if some pain is required to obtain it) or there is no reason to pursue it.

The point I think needs to be made is that you can't just say that your whole goal is to avoid pain. If so, then you can just kill yourself. Your goal is to live pleasurably, which requires that you live, being alive being a good/pleasurable thing unless you are in a situation where you are guaranteed more pain than pleasure). Treasuring life in such a way is a positive activity.

I would say that yes there are ways of looking at life as "avoiding pain," especially if you want to emphasize that there are limitless ways to live pleasurably, and you want to emphasize the limitless aspect of it. But at some point you have to acknowledge the way words are used in your society, and if you just say "My highest goal is to avoid pain" in 2026 English, then the majority of people are rightly going to say that the only way to guarantee success in that is to kill yourself. Of course that's not what we mean, but if you're going to communicate clearly you have to make yourself understood.

Quote from DaveT

I tend to think the "eternal" Virtues of the

In my view, I would expect Epicurus to have been suspicious of anything claiming to be "eternal" by nature, since it's core physics that only the atoms have that attribute, and it appears that the gods only have it "by virtue" of their being able to replace their atoms over time without a time limit. So calling something "imperishable" would fit for the gods and be an allusion to god-like status, but would be allegorical in every other case, especially in terms of "values" or attitudes generated by humans.

And in those definitions Kalosyni cited my understanding of the latin is that "virtus" has a strong implication of "strength" as its core meaning, thus being associated with "men," and so "strength" can refer to any number of things that are effective toward a goal and wouldn't carry any unchanging moral meaning.

Given his view of the nature of the universe I would expect Epicurus' to have rejected the whole idea of morality being unchanging or eternal (meaning virtue with a definition that doesn't change over time, place, or person). The only thing given us by nature is the faculty of pleasure and pain and that seems to me to be almost completely dependent on context. Yes the human body reacts in certain ways to fire, for instance, so at some point fire applied directly to the skin is always going to be painful, but human interactions don't have that same kind of physical inevitability. Humans have "free will" and don't always react the same way.

This Sunday we will continue at line 146 of Book One of Lucretius and continue into 159 to the extent we have time.

EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side Lucretius

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

handbook.epicureanfriends.com

This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature; whose first rule shall take its start for us from this, that nothing is ever begotten of nothing by divine will.

Fear forsooth so constrains all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the cause of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search, both whence each thing can be created, and in what way all things come to be without the aid of gods.

1-159

For if things came to being from nothing, every kind might be born from all things, nought would need a seed. First men might arise from the sea, and from the land the race of scaly creatures, and birds burst forth from the sky; cattle and other herds, and all the tribe of wild beasts, with no fixed law of birth, would haunt tilth and desert. Nor would the same fruits stay constant to the trees, but all would change: all trees might avail to bear all fruits. Why, were there not bodies to bring each thing to birth, how could things have a fixed unchanging mother? But as it is, since all things are produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and comes forth into the coasts of light, out of that which has in it the substance and first-bodies of each; and ’tis for this cause that all things cannot be begotten of all, because in fixed things there dwells a power set apart.

Quote from DaveT

I googled ancient Greek Virtues and came away with those four.

Quote from DaveT

Each of us undoubtedly can add virtues we can aspire to. For instance, I would add Kindness, and Empathy.

I think those two observations are key. There's nothing magic about "virtue" or its classifications. But Epicurus was developing his philosophy in a cultural context in which certain words were used to refer to certain things, so he chose to work within the paradigm so as to be understandable. But the whole concept of virtue is meaningless except in reference to a goal, and the goal is not virtue itself unless you presume some god or other authority made it so. In our case the guidance of nature is to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, so whatever choices in reality and in total effect achieve that goal should be considered virtuous.

Quote from Kalosyni

Ultimately they can be summed up as "do no harm" both to others and to oneself. Non-harming brings about a good life free from troubles.

What? Define the goal purely negatively? If that were the case Epicurus could have stopped at "freedom from pain" without ever referring to pleasure (?)