Posts by Cassius

I agree. I am not trying to be patronizing and I know that you are still reading DeWitt, but I think your observations are good and you have a knack for this Mike

I really don't think any of this is that difficult for anyone who doesn't get sidetracked on "minimalism at all costs" and "the goal of life is ataraxia."

"Minimalism" is the wrong goal for the obvious reason that the goal of life is pleasure, and the principle stated in VS 63. "Frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess.

"Ataraxia" is wrong goal as well, and in my view that's why so many people don't translate the word. That's often because the closer they come to having to explain "ataraxia" in understandable terms in their first language, the more they realize that they *can't* make it reconcile with "pleasure" as the goal, and then they realize that they ultimately can't reconcile it with the stoic paradigm they prefer. So they leave it untranslated and suggest that it means something like Stoic apathy.

Quote from Mike Anyayahan

Ascending seems too ascetic for my passionate character.

From Diogenes Laertius:

He will be more deeply moved by feelings, but this will not prove an obstacle to wisdom. A man cannot become wise with every kind of physical constitution, nor in every nation.

I thought of that because of your comment about a passionate character, which seems to me to be consistent with being "more deeply moved by feelings."

After finding it and seeing the next sentence, I wonder if the thoughts are not related, and in fact I wonder if it is possible for a person who does not feel deeply to become wise! The apathetic distant diffident spirit may be among the types of physical constitutions that are obstacles to the wise pursuit of proper living according to Nature (which we can identify with being in touch with and wisely following our feelings).

Good catch Mike. I don't want to put too much pressure on a single word and maybe there is a translation issue, but yes, climbing a mountain toward virtue being at the summit seems to be a standard Stoic theme.

I recall Lucian using it to describe the Stoic figure in Hermotimus:

Her. Alas, Lycinus, I am only just beginning to get an inkling of the right way. Very far off dwells Virtue, as Hesiod says, and long and steep and rough is the way thither, and travellers must bedew it with sweat.

Ly. And you have not yet sweated and travelled enough?

Her. Surely not; else should I have been on the summit, with nothing left between me and bliss; but I am only starting yet, Lycinus.

Ly. Ah, but Hesiod, your own authority, tells us, Well begun is half done; so we may safely call you half-way by this time.

Her. Not even there yet; that would indeed have been much.

Ly. Where shall we put you, then?

Her. Still on the lower slopes, just making an effort to get on; but it is slippery and rough, and needs a helping hand.

Ly. Well, your master can give you that; from his station on the summit, like Zeus in Homer with his golden cord, he can let you down his discourse, and therewith haul and heave you up to himself and to the Virtue which he has himself attained this long time.

When did the Epicurean goal become "Reason" rather than "pleasure?" Answer: "it didn't, regardless of what is said here."

What? Is this saying that there is a "Divine" law higher than nature? Is that not the inference or "ascend?"

If so, then that is a TOTALLY non-Epicurean viewpoint and can be expected to corrupt all the rest of the analysis.

Weren't we talking recently somewhere about someone recently interested in this letter to Marcella? I still to this day have not spent much time with it, but it seems to me very dangerous to consider this an Epicurean work as it seems to have lots of unEpicurean thought mixed into it.

It would take almost a line-by-line analysis to go through it but I see this as an example which appears to me directly UNEpicurean, because if the gods have decided to give up food and sex for themselves, then the implication is that we should consider doing so in emulation, which I cannot believe that Epicurus would suggest as a model for humans. But is not this letter suggesting that humans should?

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On the other this might seem to be an Epicurean quote at first glance, but is the "if it does not purge the PASSION OF THE SOUL" really well stated. That could be a translation issue, and if the meaning is "Disturbance" then all well and good, but if the meaning is "strong desire" then that sounds very Stoic to me.

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I don't have more time for this right now but I would not consider this letter to be safe Epicurean teaching without a lot more study and possible clarification.

As we prepare for episode four we need to remember the comments made by Elayne after listening to Episode three, starting with this post: Episode Three - The Lucretius Today Podcast Let's continue the discussion here, but leave those posts in place since they do refer to Episode Three:

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I admit to issues with my auditory attention span. I have major trouble not taking off with a thought from the discussion and then I miss bits of it. When I'm actually participating it's not an issue, but I've always had this problem with podcasts.

I say this because you may have discussed what I had planned to contribute re Iphianassa and maybe I zoned out. I didn't hear it, either way.

My point if I had been able to be on the call was to remind people to ask how they recognize what was done to Iphianassa was terrible. It's presented as an assumption that religion led to this dreadful thing, but there's no discussion in that part of the poem about how we recognize it as awful.

I think this is a critical place to bring the whole philosophy into interpretation. We don't say "oh, that's terrible" because of any set absolute definition of terrible.

We say it bc as humans with typical empathy, the story causes us pain even to imagine killing a daughter, and even more so because we know it was for naught.

The action fails the immediate, intuitive sense of right and wrong because it is painful to us. Then it fails the hedonic calculus because there's no beneficial effect from the imaginary gods.

It would be incomplete of me not to say there could have been social benefit, social pleasure, to Agamemnon for putting his people's lives before his daughter's. Same for Abraham. But that social pleasure depends on an illusion. Clearly, removing the false belief in supernatural gods would result in the greatest pleasure for Agamemnon, Abraham, and all in similar situations.

Even today, we have parents disowning and abandoning teens who fall away from religious teaching. There are homeless gay teens kicked out because of religion.

Without supernatural religion, there would be more total pleasure for those parents. They could have social pleasure from their community support and family pleasure with their kids. Nobody getting sacrificed. Definitely, the kids are getting more pleasure in that non religious scenario-- it's clear what Iphianassa would prefer! I've always wondered if Jacob ever went hiking with his dad again 😃, or turned his back. I sure wouldn't have.

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Cassius:

Yes - and that reminds me too that we should compare this with the story of Torquatus' ancestor, who had his son executed for disobeying orders in a war, and how that compares / differs from the Iphanessa story

Quote from Elayne

It would be incomplete of me not to say there could have been social benefit, social pleasure, to Agamemnon for putting his people's lives before his daughter's. Same for Abraham. But that social pleasure depends on an illusion. Clearly, removing the false belief in supernatural gods would result in the greatest pleasure for Agamemnon, Abraham, and all in similar situations.

Yes - and that reminds me too that we should compare this with the story of Torquatus' ancestor, who had his son executed for disobeying orders in a war, and how that compares / differs from the Iphanessa story

We had four on the call tonight and had a very good time; so good we never got around to discussing the passage from Herodotus. It was fascinating to hear background and interests from Lee and it would be a lot of fun to do this with other new people. We'll work on scheduling another one for sure.

I have updated the first post in this thread, but just to make the news easier to find, this is to point out that Episode Three is Now Live!

Excellent points, Elayne, and that is why I've already made preliminary plans to continue this topic, and integrate it into everything we've discussed so far, in the draft notes for Episode Four

As far as I can tell the point you are making is one of the major "big picture" items that people fail to recognize due to the cliche that it is sometimes hard to "see the forest for the trees."

The point that FEELING is the true guide of life, as opposed to "logic" or "reason" or "idealism" or "divine revelation" or any number of other suggestions is maybe the most profound insight of Epicurean philosophy. It's necessary to establish that this is so, and so we have to talk about lots of details and points that can seem isolated, but they all come together in supporting the conclusion that feeling - pleasure and pain - is ultimately the test by which we judge every "good" and "bad" thing.

We'll definitely go back over this point in the next episode before we go further in the poem.

As for it being an obvious parallel, it's almost as if a certain segment of the Jewish leadership read Lucretius and said:

"So you don't like child sacrifice? WE'LL show YOU what a REAL child sacrifice looks like!"

And we didn't mention it in this Episode 3 that is about to be released! THAT oversight will be corrected in the next episode!

(Of course there's a good reason that LUCRETIUS didn't mention it, but not for us to omit discussing the obvious parallel.)

Elayne and Julie would have never let that get past us but they couldn't make this episode.... sheesh....

That's why we like you here Joshua -- sometimes the obvious is just too complex for me to figure out quickly enough!

What a compelling illustration of the repulsiveness of child sacrifice!!!

LOL!!!!!! OF COURSE!!!

Yes indeed. I think we mentioned the "Northern Lights" but don't have any info as to whether the Greeks knew about that. Also I suppose there's just the "Milky Way" that might be relevant too.

This is not to say that you should rely on me for the time of day, much less anything else, but I can say this:

I started studying up on Epicurean philosophy intensely in 2009, and have made the study of Epicurus my number one "hobby" since then. I have some personal differences with a few of DeWitt's interpretations, but I have not over that time found any single work that comes anywhere close to "Epicurus and His Philosophy" in presenting an understandable, well documented, and perceptive presentation of the big picture of Epicurean philosophy.

I don't want to oversell it because a lot more work needs to be done to expand on what DeWitt has started, but there's really nothing like EAHP in terms of an overall understandable introduction to and presentation of every major branch of the philosophy.

I give "A Few Days In Athens" high marks as well in the "sympathetic to Epicurus" department, but that is a much more narrowly-targeted work. Other than EAHP I am not aware of any book that I can wholeheartedly recommend to the average reader who says "I want to know what Epicurus was all about."

For professional philosophers and people who have a lot of background, there are many other good books with many other details, but not of a general nature like EAHP. And I would not dare send someone new to a collection of Epicurean works, even "The Epiurus Reader" or Bailey's "Epicurus The Extant Remains," until they have the general introduction that DeWitt provides.

Even starting with the Principal Doctrines, or the Vatican Sayings, or any of Epicurus' letters, is in my experience going to lead to too much confusion to start off with reading those.

So Polyaenus had at least one child as well!

Thanks for the clarification. I have tremendous respect for DeWitt's scholarship and have found no reason to doubt him on fundamental issues even after many years of additional reading. On the issues where doubt is warranted DeWitt makes very clear that he is reconstructing or challenging the consensus so you can easily know when to hold an issue in your mind as something to pay special attention to. The reason he is cited so little today is mostly because he disagrees with the consensus on things like anticipations and "all senses are true" but you'll have no trouble sorting out those issues and deciding who has the most persuasive argument.

I think part of the reason DeWitt is so good is that he not only clearly has a lot of affection and respect for Epicurus, but he was also primarily a classical languages expert rather than primarily a philosopher. To me that helped him stay focused on the main issues of how Epicurus differed from Plato and the others without getting too bogged down in the philosophical minutiae and unanswerable questions that seem to bog down so many writers into paralysis.

Gee WIZ this is such an obvious point and I don't know that I have seen it made very often - thanks to Charles for making it:

So Metrodorus had at least one son and a daughter!

"And let Amynomachus and Timocrates take care of Epicurus, the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polyaenus, so long as they study and live with Hermarchus. Let them likewise provide for he maintenance of Metrodorus's daughters so long as she is well-ordered and obedient to Hermarchus; and, when she comes of age, give her in marriage to a husband selected by Hermarchus from among the members of the School; and out of the revenues accruing to me let Amynomachus and Timocrates in consultation with Hermarchus give to them as much as they think proper for their maintenance year by year.

Why would we not presume that Metrodorus was following Epicurus' opinion even on this, as he did so much else? And unless Metrodorus was just sleeping around, and there is no real reason to think that other than slanders against the Epicureans, he presumably had at least one marriage to go with the children.