Posts by Cassius

OK here Gosling and Taylor begin to discuss how Platon and other Greeks recognized the deficiency of the replenishment model (and with this I think Epicurus would have agreed). I may paste some more clips if I find some particularly good ones, but I'll probably have to drop and come back to this later. The point for now is the there are inherent problems with the "replenishment model of pleasure" which we need to keep in mind as we discuss it. (Gosling and Taylor's paragraphs are alls sequentially numbered so 6.7.3 is all the page cite we really need)

Here, stating that the replenishment argument is used in support of how pleasure cannot be the good:

Yes Mike I think that removal of pain is one description of producing pleasure, but not the only way, as illustrated by the smelling of the rose example. There was no real pain present with the rose was smelled, or that was relieved by smelling the rose.

This issue (pleasure obtained by filling a need / healing a pain) is closely related to the "replenishment" theory of pleasure discussed at length in the Gosling and Taylor book as one of the theories of pleasure, but I recall that the book discusses how the Greeks abandoned this as a complete discussion of the process. I will see if I can point to some excerpts but it may take me as while...

OK a few clips:

1 - Illustrating Plato using replenishment as the basis of his theory of pleasure, which allows him to categorize it as inferior to philosophic pursuit:

Quote from Elayne

I will go even further and say that our innate pattern knowledge is connected to pleasure and pain.

I agree with that too. The nature of pleasure is a highly interesting issue. Sometimes people talk about Epicurus being connected with the term "smooth motion" (although I forget what cite they are pointing to) and that may be related too.

As to pattern recognition, which I think is an excellent term, I am thinking that a similar distinction between ideas and principles probably applies --- In other words we have a FACULTY of being able to recognize patterns, which some people do better than others or animals do differently than humans etc, rather than that we are born with a particular set of patterns already inscribed in our minds.

Just as the eyes are born with the faculty of being able to see, but as yet have seen nothing at birth.

Would you agree with that?

Quote from elli

For Epicurus, as he observed the phenomena and our nature there is not, for him, in a duration of time, an absolute, objective, and perfect pleasure or an absolute, objective and perfect pain. As, there is not for him an absolute, objective and perfect justice/beauty/honesty etc.

I agree with this too, and think it is a very important point. "Perfect pleasure" is probably a useful term to indicate "pure pleasure" (a condition of pleasurable experience when you are conscious of no simultaneous pains) but not to indicate that there is a ranking in types of pleasure indicating a single type of experience that is better than all others (that is it would be incorrect to pick out a single experience "the taste of apple pie" and hold it to be the "best" or "perfect pleasure.")

Quote from Mike Anyayahan

something that is produced by the absence of pa Users Online in and that will exist as pleasure togetber with that absence of pain that has produced it.

OK not to pick nits again but i think the "produced by" can be taken too far. Ultimately I don't think I would agree that pleasure is produced by absence of pain any more than it would be correct to say that atoms are produced by absence of void, would it? Yes the only way to remove a feeling of pain is to replace it with pleasure, because of the nature of the beast - if we feel anything, it is either pleasure or pain in the Epicurean scheme. But to say "produced by" adds another dimension with implications that cannot be sustained.

When you derived pleasure from smelling a rose, what pain did you remove to achieve that pleasure? So I think it is important not to carry "produced by" too far.

Lee:

Not sure I can "explain" anything but I can certainly try to give me current understanding from my reading:

Quote from JLR

It reminds me of the amazing experience of watching my newborn son search out his mother’s breast and begin to nurse only minutes after being born. I remember thinking how astonishing it was that nature had clearly endowed him with knowledge before he had even seen the world beyond the womb!

I would be very interested in comments from Elayne on this, as she is a pediatrician. Is it a matter of smell or touch or some other sensation?

Quote from JLR

I was always a bit uncomfortable with the apparent circularity in Aristotle’s arguments that what appears good is that which we desire and that we naturally desire what is good. Pleasure and pain seem to be the essential natural guides (or telos) that provide the way to really determine the ultimate good.

I completely agree - it is embarrassingly circular, and to that I would add that I think the "golden mean" analysis is embarrassingly devoid of substance!

Quote from JLR

I find myself understanding these anticipatory “concepts” or “ideas” as having some sort of real existence- even if only in the mind.

1. If what we are talking about is a faculty of anticipations with which we are born, I definitely think you are correct to use scare quotes around those words, as I think it is probably bright line unacceptable to believe that we are born with fully-formed concepts of ideas in the way those words are generally used. I believe the "blank slate" is wrong to assert that we are born essentially with nothing, but I don't think it is tenable to assert that we are born with anything requiring words or definitions, which is probably a requirement of the words concepts or ideas. That's why I like the word "preconceptions" almost better than "Anticipations," since this emphasizes that what we are talking about is something that precedes a concept, not something that IS a concept or is some kind of application of a concept.

2. As for "real existence" that's a hard one too, since that term implies materiality, and everything that goes on the in the mind is ultimately traceable, or ultimately based on, things that are material "atoms." I think what we are probably talking about here are "qualities" of combinations of atoms, rather than "properties" of the atoms themselves, or as some people say "emergent properties" or "emergent qualities." This would be similar to the observation that the atoms themselves do not have color, but when combined into bodies, bodies have color and many other qualities that did not exist in the atoms standing alone.

Quote from JLR

. I continue to wonder if they are immaterial.

I think this is the issue of "emergent qualities" that I just mentioned. Emergent qualities are not any less "real" because they arise from combinations of atoms rather than being a property of individual atoms at the atomic level.

Quote from JLR

Can you explain this existence any further?

How much of Lucretius have you read? There are some really interesting sections that bear on these issues, one of which that comes to mind is the reference to Helen of Troy around line 420. Here Lucretius/Epicurus is saying that "Bondage, Liberty, Riches, Poverty, War, Concord, or the like," are "events" of atoms (a word I think is much more accurate than "accidents") rather than "essential conjuncts" (properties) of atoms. The point that I think is important to realize is that "Bondage, Liberty, Riches, Poverty, War, Concord, or the like," are not any less real to us because they are not properties of the atoms themselves. It's at the "body/combination" level that we experience life, which is what us ultimately important to us, and it should not be a problem for us to understand how the two levels interrelate. The reason I think it IS a problem for most of us is our corruption through religion that we have become acclimated to believe that nothing is really important unless it has some kind of stamp of "divine eternal god-given existence" which is a totally false and nonsensical frame of analysis:

[420] All nature therefore, in itself considered, is one of these, is body or is space, in which all things are placed, and from which the various motions of all beings spring. That there is body common sense will show, this as a fundamental truth must be allowed, or there is nothing we can fix as certain in our pursuit of hidden things, by which to find the Truth, or prove it when 'tis found. Then if there were no place or space, we call it void, bodies would have no where to be, nor could they move at all, as we have fully proved to you before.

[431] Besides, there is nothing you can strictly say, “It is neither body nor void,” which you may call a third degree of things distinct from these. For every being must in quantity be more or less; and if it can be touched, though ne'er so small or light, it must be body, and so esteemed; but if it can't be touched, and has not in itself a power to stop the course of other bodies as they pass, this is the void we call an empty space.

[439] Again, whatever is must either act itself, or be by other agents acted on; or must be something in which other bodies must have a place and move; but nothing without body can act, or be acted on; and where can this be done, but in a vacuum or empty space? Therefore, beside what body is or space, no third degree in nature can be found, nothing that ever can affect our sense, or by the power of thought can be conceived. All other things you'll find essential conjuncts, or else the events or accidents of these. I call essential conjunct what's so joined to a thing that it cannot, without fatal violence, be forced or parted from it; is weight to stones, to fire heat, moisture to the Sea, touch to all bodies, and not to be touched essential is to void. But, on the contrary, Bondage, Liberty, Riches, Poverty, War, Concord, or the like, which not affect the nature of the thing, but when they come or go, the thing remains entire; these, as it is fit we should, we call Events.

[460] Time likewise of itself is nothing; our sense collects from things themselves what has been done long since, the thing that present is, and what's to come. For no one, we must own, ever thought of Time distinct from things in motion or at rest.

[465] For when the poets sing of Helen's rape, or of the Trojan State subdued by war, we must not say that these things do exist now in themselves, since Time, irrevocably past, has long since swept away that race of men that were the cause of those events; for every act is either properly the event of things, or of the places where those things are done.

[472] Further, if things were not of matter formed, were there no place or space where things might act, the fire that burned in Paris' heart, blown up by love of Helen's beauty, had never raised the famous contests of a cruel war; nor had the wooden horse set Troy on fire, discharging from his belly in the night the armed Greeks: from whence you plainly see that actions do not of themselves subsist, as bodies do, nor are in nature such as is a void, but rather are more justly called the events of body, and of space, where things are carried on.

I stumbled over this section for a long time as something that made little sense to me, and of course I am sure that my understanding of this now is still far from complete. But I think that the point of arguing that the rape of Helen / Trojan war "do not exist now in themselves" is essentially to point out that they are no longer "real" in the sense of existing in some eternal plane of existence like you (Lee) are talking about.

I used to wonder if this was related to our modern Idea that the Trojan War might have been "myth" and didn't really happen, but now I think the OPPOSITE. I think Lucretius was citing this founding story of Rome as something that was immensely important to the Romans, as something essential to their understanding of themselves, that was nevertheless not "real" in the sense of existing currently as atoms or bodies that could be touched. I think that Lucretius was pointing out to a Roman / to the Romans that the story of the Trojan War, which was of immense "real" importance to them, was important without being something that was "real" in another (Platonic? Religious Heavenly?) dimension. He was pointing out that despite its importance the Trojan war did not possess eternal bodily existence, a fact that we should not be disillusioned by, in the way we are trained by religion to feel disappointed, or to feel nihilisticly defeated, when we realize that this "eternal existence" is not really so.)

Quote from Godfrey

As I understand it, life is the greatest good. Pleasure is the guide to and goal of life.

That is DeWitt's formulation, of which the second sentence seems completely accurate as what Epicurus taught. As for the first sentence, I largely agree with it, but my current view/understanding of the issue leads me to focus on it being true only in the same way that DeWitt analyses the phrase "all sensations are true" -- as a statement where you have to be very careful with the definitions of the key words.

Here I think the main issue is that term "the greatest good." "Greatest" is probably clear enough, but "greatest good" has some major ambiguities, and i am not sure that Epicurus really endorsed a concept of a "greatest good" in the way that the term was used by the other Greeks. What is "good" other than pleasure? It is pretty clear that Epicurus held nothing to be intrinsically good - worthy of choice in and of itself - other than pleasure. And there are an innumerable number of ways to experience pleasure, none of which are intrinsically "better" than others in and of themselves.

I think in part DeWitt is focusing on his observation that "pleasure has meaning only to the living" and to the resulting observation that unless we have life, no pleasure is possible, which makes life that without which there is no possibility of experiencing pleasure. But life as a condition of pleasure is different from saying that something is a guide, or even a goal.

My current viewpoint is that a "greatest good" analysis (the framework with which Torquatus starts off) is probably not an approach that Epicurus himself thought well of, and probably arises from the Epicureans feeling obligated to respond to the Stoics and Platonists. Trying to define "greatest good" too precisely probably smacks more of a Stoic / Platonic tendency to want to come up with a precise definition in words of something that is inherently impossible to express completely in words. I think that is the feel we get from what Epicurus said that Plutarch summarizes as :

Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 7, p. 1091A: Not only is the basis that they assume for the pleasurable life untrustworthy and insecure, it is quite trivial and paltry as well, inasmuch as their “thing delighted” – their good – is an escape from ills, and they say that they can conceive of no other, and indeed that our nature has no place at all in which to put its good except the place left when its evil is expelled. … Epicurus too makes a similar statement to the effect that the good is a thing that arises out of your very escape from evil and from your memory and reflection and gratitude that this has happened to you. His words are these: “That which produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about {a jibe at the Peripatetics}, prating meaninglessly about the good.”

Welcome A_Gardener! I have heard Charles speak of you and I am glad that you decided to open an account here. None of us were born knowing about Epicurus so it is natural that we all go through a process of learning details that we were never taught when we were young, so it is only to be expected that people go through a process of weighing and judging. If we welcomed only people who were already fully "Epicurean" then we'd rarely if ever have any new people.

The rest below is the standard info that I post on every new user's welcome message, so I apologize for it being "boilerplate." However I think most of us here would agree that the sooner people read some of the material in the list, the sooner they will realize how deep their level of interest in Epicurus truly is.

Charles has probably already mentioned to you the DeWitt book, and I'll repeat that not out of slavish devotion to Dewitt, but because I really think that whether you end of agreeing with it or not, you'll find that DeWitt explains Epicurus in a way that is very different from standard modern presentations. DeWitt's qualifications were deep and he write's well, but the benefit of his approach is that he doesn't obsess on any detail (like absence of pain or atomism) but instead gives a very general overview of the wider scope of the philosophy and how it all fits together and compares with the other Greek alternatives. So if you have not read DeWitt's book you'll probably save yourself a lot of time in your formation of your opinions about Epicurus if you can read his book as soon as you have time.

Here's the boilerplate but again thanks for opening an account here!

Welcome A_Gardener! Thanks for joining us! When you get a chance, please tell us about yourself and your background in Epicurean philosophy.

It would be particularly helpful if you could tell us (1) how you found this forum, and (2) how much background reading you have done in Epicurus. As an aid in the latter, we have prepared the following list of core reading.

We look forward to talking with you!

----------------------- Epicurean Works I Have Read ---------------------------------

1 The Biography of Epicurus By Diogenes Laertius (Chapter 10). This includes all Epicurus' letters and the Authorized Doctrines. Supplement with the Vatican list of Sayings.

2 "Epicurus And His Philosophy" - Norman DeWitt

3 "On The Nature of Things"- Lucretius

4 Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

5 Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

6 The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

7 "A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

8 Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus (3) Others?

9 Plato's Philebus

10 Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

11 "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially on katastematic and kinetic pleasure.

These are excellent examples of citations to eudaimonia, Elli. It is interesting to think about how it is we might be able to rival Zeus in eudaimonia, which is based on pleasure, rather than saying that we might rival Zeus in pleasure itself.

What do you think about that - was Epicurus intending to make that distinction?

Quote from elli

What are the mental images that are connected with concepts of words that the newborn baby has accumulated already in mind for the feeling of contentment as "eudaemonia" ? In neonates of some weeks, there are no words yet, not mental images with sheep and cows. Just senses and emotions/feelings that were born with them and are in the procedure of development and enrichment through experiences as their first social contact is within their family.

Right -- these babies are "happy" even though they do not know a single word, or a single point of logic, which shows that neither words nor logic are necessary for happiness at the earliest stages of life, to which we look as examples of those who are uncorrupted.

Quote from JJElbert

I've been somewhat scarce myself,

Far too scarce. If we'd had more of your poetry Oscar might not be taking a break

And whereever possible, it seems to me that Epicureans and the leading Epicureans gave examples in the form of "pictures" - such as referencing sheep on the side of the hill blending into a white spot, floating dusk for atoms, the shades at the Colosseum giving color to the Senators beneath them, etc. The point being that Epicurus necessarily had to use words, but his words were tied as closely as possible to "pictures" of things in everyday experience. And I think that is what he was referring to in the letter to Herodotus referring to following the first picture that a word evokes in order to not get lost in word games.

Quote

For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded, and that there should be no need of explanation, if we are really to have a standard to which to refer a problem of investigation or reflection or a mental inference. (Letter to Herodotus)

So probably another example might be that we learn much more about happiness by observing (observing, actual or pictures) examples of smiling people, tail-wagging dogs, purring cats, playing children, etc. than we ever learn about happiness by listing out 50 different words in different languages that allegedly mean the same thing, or looking up synonyms in a thesaurus, or reading about the etymology of any word for "happiness" in a dictionary.

Clarity of expression in dealing with happiness or pleasure ultimately comes back to those personal experiences in examples, not stinging together a series of symbols that, but for our definitions, are absolutely meaningless in Nature.

I see I have uncovered a major new problem: Mike and I are time zone incompatible, and he gets going right when I am about to fall asleep! I will see what I can do to fix that, but in the meantime I am afraid I am out for the night. Keep up the posting and I will catch up tomorrow! (And stay away from the Volcano!)

Ha - I am going to make a somewhat embarrassing admission as to the Jackson Barwis material: Even though it is a computer voice, I had the Dialogue on Innate Principles rendered into "ivona voice" format, and linked it from that website to this location on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/JacksonBarwisCollectedWorks

At that location you can listen to a computerized British female voice read the Dialogue, and there is something about the presentation that I find mesmerizing to listen to - it is almost like Shakespeare or some kind of poetry, and to my personal taste it just sounds very compelling. It reminds me somewhat of the way
Frances Wright wrote about Epicurus in "A Few Days In Athens," which i also think was writ
ten in fine literary style even apart from the excellent content.

Ok I forgot I set this page up: https://newepicurean.com/resources/jack…ate-principles/

Probably I will never forget these two paragraphs, particularly the second one:

The innate principles of the soul, continued he, cannot, any more than those of the body, be propositions. They must be in us antecedently to all our reasonings about them, or they could never be in us at all: for we cannot, by reasoning, create any thing, the principles of which did not exist antecedently. We can, indeed, describe our innate sentiments and perceptions to each other; we can reason, and we can make propositions about them; but our reasonings neither are, nor can create in us, moral principles. They exist prior to, and independently of, all reasoning, and all propositions about them.

When we are told that benevolence is pleasing; that malevolence is painful; we are not convinced of these truths by reasoning, nor by forming them into propositions: but by an appeal to the innate internal affections of our souls: and if on such an appeal, we could not feel within the sentiment of benevolence, and the peculiar pleasure attending it; and that of malevolence and its concomitant pain, not all the reasoning in the world could ever make us sensible of them, or enable us to understand their nature.

That last paragraph resonates with me as exactly the way I feel after reading Epicurus explain the nature of things -- I "feel" that his appeal to feeling as the guide is correct, and I think to myself that not all the reasoning in the world could ever explain to me why I take pleasure in the things I take pleasure in, and the way I am repelled away emotionally by the things i find painful. And whatever this faculty or mechanism is, it is at least partly mental, and I don't think it is active only in the area of pleasure and pain.

Great question JLR, and of course I cannot answer it with certainty, but I can tell you the direction i think the answer will be found: anticipations, in the DEWITT model, not the Bailey / Laertius model.

I think DeWitt is clearly correct that anticipations cannot simply result AFTER experience, or else they would never have been called PRE-Conceptions (and for other reasons DeWitt mentions).

I think the physics rules out "universal concepts" as being possible, even from atomic origin. However as DeWitt argues (I think I recall in several places) it is valid to talk about "human nature" as the accumulation of something over large amounts of time, and I think the answer is in following that line of thought.

DeWitt's chapter on anticipations I think is one of his most important contributions.

I will also say personally that I think he occasionally goes too far in calling them innate "ideas." I do not think they constitute innate "ideas" but rather dispositions toward the formation of ideas, not ideas themselves.

I do not expect you to take the time to follow this suggestion, but in my own mind I associate this with a theory that I have seen asserted in a particular place in a particularly engaging way: Jackson Barwis' 1776 work: "Dialogues on Innate Principles" written in response to John Locke's theories (and the "blank slate" argument in general). It seems to me that Barwis is correct in distinguishing innate "principles" from innate "ideas" which is the thrust of that fairly short but very entertaining dialogue.

I am not sure how i came across that but I found it on Archive.org, and set up this website to make it easier to read: https://jacksonbarwis.com Each of his works is very well written, but "Dialogue on Innate Principles" makes an argument that I think Dewitt would have done well to follow. Strip away the obviously superficial references to a creator and religion in Barwis' work and I think the potential parallels to anticipations being an "innate" facility are obvious.

I also relate this in my mind to Thomas Jefferson's observation of a similar type as to there being an innate faculty that does not rest on "knowledge" or "Experience" but on something else, which is again not "divine' but a part of human nature:

Moral Philosophy. I think it lost time to attend lectures on this branch. He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his Nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality, and not the [beautiful], truth, &c., as fanciful writers have imagined. The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, & often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules. In this branch, therefore, read good books, because they will encourage, as well as direct your feelings. The writings of Sterne, particularly, form the best course of morality that ever was written. Besides these, read the books mentioned in the enclosed paper; and, above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, &c. Consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties & increase your worth.

Quote from JLR

This ability to categorize particular things as the “same thing” (horse, human, etc.) seems to point to universal concepts that are difficult to account for as strictly material (atomic) in origin.

So in sum I think your sentence there is very important, but that what you are observing does not point to "universal concepts" but to a human faculty - the faculty of anticipations, which disposes us in the direction you are looking - and gives us the disposition, which not all of us use, to exercise the ability to organize things into relationships, even though there is no divine order, no "essence," and no possibility of truly universal concepts.

Great post Mike.

"Besides, Epicurus is not big on definitions or essences of things."

I think there is a deep point here. Clearly he was not "big on definitions" in the sense of wordy and elaborate logical constructions, but it seems to me, especially in reading Lucretius, that Epicurus was focusing on definition by examples. It strikes me regularly that in Lucretius and I think Epicurus letters too that Epicurus uses the device of giving a lineup of examples each time he wants to identify something, such as when Lucretius first references atoms and immediately says he will call them by different names. Seems to me that this is a conscious form of "definition by example" which would be consistent with the premises of the philosophy being grounded in the senses.

Watch for that especially in Lucretius and I think it begins to jump out at you. They were teaching by pointing to real world examples rather than by setting up word-play definitions.

Thank you for the kind words JLR! Don't feel the need to accumulate the questions unless you prefer it that way. Ask them anytime, together or separately, here or in any specific subforum.

Glad to have you, and thank you for affirming my confidence that DeWitt's contribution to Epicurean studies really does stand out from the pack.

And also, thanks for the reference to the "others" - it's community and participation which make this work and there is no way we could be here without the active support of our moderators and regular users.

Ha! And that reminds me that a common language is no guarantee of understanding anything either, with the well known joke that America and England are two nations divided by a common language!

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Note: interesting history of that quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/03/common/

Quote from elli

for the purpose to give us with clarity what was the classic greek world that inspired the classic roman world.

Yes clarity is the issue! "Eudaemonia" spoken and used by Elli in explaining the benefits of the wisdom of Epicurus is a wonderful and clarifying thing. "Eudaemonia" or "ataraxia" or "aponia" spoken and written by a philosophy professor in a manner used to imply that the concept of the best life can only be understood by a Greek - or more precisely, only understood by a Doctor of Philosophy with a degree from a University -- is a very bad and misleading thing.

A professor who insists that only the original word form is acceptable the modern equivalent of Plato saying "Let no one ignorant of Geometry enter here!"

So I would contend that one need not know a word of Greek to understand Epicurus, or a word of German to understand Nietzsche, or a word of French to understand Gassendi, or a word of English to understand Jefferson. It certainly helps, though, to make sure that we aren't being misled by the translators and commentators!

But of course, I will definitely admit that if we never learn Greek we will never be able to speak with the gods, even if we could reach them in the intermundia!

The plan is to do the whole book cover to cover, even knowing what a huge project that will be.

I'd like to do more podcasts in addition to this one, but going through cover to cover gives a unifying thread from episode to episode. No doubt some episodes will be longer and shorter than others, and no doubt also as the discussion gets really technical we'll spend as much time talking about the methodology and the context as we will the details of the passage.

To me the methodology of the book is what is so important, so we can hit on that week after week after week and never run out of material as to how to apply that methodology.