Posts by Cassius

I intend to raise this issue in later threads, but the calendar crept up and here we are at another Twentieth, so I'd like to raise the issue: What would a modern local Epicurean "club" look like? We have frequently talked about Meetup groups, and some people (Sydney Australia) have even had some success with that method.

But as a general discussion that might help us in the future, if you could wish into being your idealized "Local Epicurean Group" in your home-town, in which you could participate, what kinds of things would you expect or like to see it doing?

How often would it meet? What kind of activities would it pursue? Would you think it would be logical for an Epicurean group to form the kind of "church-like" organization that we see some people, like the "Unitarians" attempt to do? Would you see an Epicurean group as more of a social gathering club that does mainly lunches and dinners along the "Meetup" style of things? Would you see a local Epicurean group giving lectures at local library meeting rooms?

Those of us reading these posts are nowhere near being able to accomplish any of these goals, but we'll never get there if we don't at least talk about what we'd like to see.

So what would you like to see in a local "Epicurean Group?"

Oh no, no problem with that post at all. I am seeing more and more attacks on standard Christianity from both left and right. The increasing polarization of the country, no matter what side one takes on it, is just exposing the impotence of traditional religion to deal with those divisive issues.

Dealing with religion is such a fundamental part of Epicurean history and Epicurean philosophy that I think it stands in very different status from the standard "political" issues that are the real flashpoints and that get us distracted from the core ideas. "Religion" and the problems that arise from it are about as core Epicurean issue as anything can be.

Probably good for us to reread Torquatus too:

XVI. It remains to speak of Justice, to complete the list of the virtues; but this admits of practically the same treatment as the others. Wisdom, Temperance, and Courage I have shown to be so closely linked with Pleasure that they cannot possibly be severed or sundered from it. The same must be deemed to be the case with Justice. Not only does Justice never cause anyone harm, but on the contrary it always adds some benefit, partly owing to its essentially tranquilizing influence upon the mind, partly because of the hope that it warrants of a never-failing supply of the things that uncorrupted nature really needs. And just as Rashness, License, and Cowardice ever torment the mind, ever awakening trouble and discord, so Unrighteousness, when firmly rooted in the heart, causes restlessness by the mere fact of its presence; and if once it has found expression in some deed of wickedness, however secret the act, yet it can never feel assured that it will always remain undetected.

The usual consequences of crime are, first suspicion, next gossip and rumor, then comes the accuser, then the judge; many wrongdoers have even turned evidence against themselves, as happened in your consulship. And even if any think themselves well fenced and fortified against detection by their fellow men, they still dread the eye of heaven, and fancy that the pangs of anxiety night and day gnawing at their hearts are sent by Providence to punish them. But what can wickedness contribute towards lessening the annoyances of life, commensurate with its effect in increasing them, owing to the burden of a guilty conscience, the penalties of the law and the hatred of one's fellows?

Yet nevertheless some men indulge without limit their avarice, ambition and love of power, lust, gluttony and those other desires, which ill-gotten gains can never diminish but rather must inflame the more; inasmuch that they appear proper subjects for restraint rather than for reformation. Men of sound natures, therefore, are summoned by the voice of true reason to justice, equity, and honesty. For one without eloquence or resources dishonesty is not good policy, since it is difficult for such a man to succeed in his designs, or to make good his success when once achieved.

On the other hand, for the rich and clever generous conduct seems more in keeping, and liberality wins them affection and good will, the surest means to a life of peace; especially as there really is no motive for transgressing since the desires that spring from nature are easily gratified without doing any man wrong, while those that are imaginary ought to be resisted, for they set their affections upon nothing that is really wanted; while there is more loss inherent in Injustice itself than there is profit in the gains it brings.

Hence Justice also cannot correctly be said to be desirable in and for itself; it is so because it is so highly productive of gratification. For esteem and affection are gratifying, because they render life safer and fuller of pleasure. Hence we hold that Unrighteousness is to be avoided not simply on account of the disadvantages that result from being unrighteous, but even far more because when it dwells in a man's heart it never suffers him to breathe freely or know a moment's rest.

If then even the glory of the Virtues, on which all the other philosophers love to expatiate so eloquently, has in the last resort no meaning unless it be based on pleasure, whereas pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically attractive and alluring, it cannot be doubted that pleasure is the one supreme and final Good and that a life of happiness is nothing else than a life of pleasure.

One more thought for the night:

If justice is a virtue just like any other virtue, let's compare it to prudence or courage.

Is there really such a thing as "absolute courage" or "absolute prudence" apart from particular contextual situations that change moment by moment? And is not some action that might appear courageous or prudent at one moment considered to be foolhardy the next if the circumstances change? And are not all these evaluated contextually at every moment as to what results in terms of pain or pleasure?

Is justice any different?

Todd you don't know me as well as Elayne does. Elayne knows I often think out loud and say things in mid-thought without necessarily being committed to the result. I like to think that I am clear when I am doing that but I know I am not always. In this discussion, as in most discussions of anticipations, I always try to restate that all this is pretty speculative.

So you are right in your last point - I am not sure that anything we are discussing is fully formed. I think what we are doing is trying to unwind the train of thought without committing to any conclusion of it.

And I think what I am really doing is trying to view all this from the lens of justice being a "virtue" and given how flexible Epicurus seems to be about the nature of ANY virtue, considering that he is probably very flexible here too -- and tying the result as you are doing to pain and pleasure (when means feeling) with the logic of "rule-based" part of it strictly instrumental.

As to Elayne's comments which add up to:

"If justice were rational it would not be in the prolepses which are part of the Canon. None of the Canon is reason-based. It's how we know reality, not what we decide to do."

.... I think I am viewing that slightly differently. I am viewing "justice" as "virtue" and I view any "virtue" as a "concept," with concepts being rational constructions which may, or may not have the feelings as a component.

So if an anticipation is essentially some kind of "perception" in the sense that the eyes perceive light, then we probably do need to consider that an "anticipation of justice" might be an input to a "conception of justice" or a "definition of justice in a particular situation."

I think I need to go to sleep for the night.

Yes, absolutely, but everything we do to accomplish that when we work with other people by agreement doesn't necessarily fall under "justice" does it? Actually that is pretty much the original question I posted.

And this relates to much of the rest discussed above -- I try to read Epicurus strictly according to his words, and so when he refers to justice as involving agreements not to harm or be harm, I take him as meaning exactly that, no more, no less.

Quote from Todd

Wait...didn't Epicurus say exactly that in PD 31-33??? I'm not sure how to even respond to this statement.

I guess this is Bailey: 31. The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage, to restrain men from harming one another, and save them from being harmed.

Epicurus.net: 31. Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another.

So I am reading that all together that it is not just any pledge of mutual advantage, but a specific pledge, to avoid harm, so that Justice has two components that are not independent, but inseparable in order to constitute justice.

Now that may be too strict a reading; that's why discussion is good!

Otherwise every breach of every agreement is "unjust:" even though Epicurus explicitly states that when conditions change, so does whether a thing is just or unjust.

And in going back to Elayne's most recent post:

Quote from Elayne

A lot of the confusion is arising in the world re justice is from trying to treat the sense of injustice like a rational function.

I am not sure whether "Rational" is the right word, or "absolute" ! Epicurus was being "rational" in telling us (seemingly) that" justice" has no absolute meaning and exists only in the context of agreements not to be harmed. So in other words he is telling us the true basis of "justice" to the extent we even want to use the word at all is that it cannot be analyzed apart from the feelings of pain of and pleasure of the people actually involved.

I think Todd may be attempting to do what all of us moderns would first attempt to do - to rescue some vestigte of absolute justice by tying it to "agreement" as if agreement alone is all that is necessary to establish "justice." Maybe it is enough to establish "civil justice" or "justice under the law of the United States" but I think we all agree that is not what we are talking about.

So the question that prompted the thread's title is still something like "How radical was Epicurus being?" "Was he essentially telling us that our "justice" is just as nonsensical as our "gods"?

Lots of good stuff to discuss there:

Quote from Todd

The Epicurean by-the-book, but not overly helpful, answer is: we define justice in such a way as to maximze our pleasure.

Todd I am not sure that this is obviously the case. Epicurus referred to justice as an agreement to avoid harm, but does that necessarily mean it is the inverse -- to maximize pleasure? As you observe later in the post justice is a small part of a circle encompassing "pain." Does reducing pain in that area necessarily lead to maximized pleasure? I will have to think further about that.

Quote from Todd

I tend to prefer rules-based definitions,

And rules based derfinitions may be exactlly what Epicurus is saying is NOT possible in referring to true justice. Rules are patterns that are "set in stone" regardless of circumstances - and is not Epicurus saying that circumstances are everything in regard to justice?

Quote from Todd

This is why I think rules-based definitions of justice are useful - because they're easier to agree on

Yes they may be easier to talk about, but as above, if the circumstances change so that the agreement is no longer of advantage to both in avoiding arm, then the "justice" automagically dissolves.

Quote from Todd

but I would like to point out that using pain alone as a gauge of injustice might involve practical difficulties.

Here is the practical difficulty that I was really thinking about in distinguishing pain from harm. The surgeon who cuts off our leg causes great pain in the short term, but saves our life in the long term. We frequently choose pain when it avoids worse pain and leads to greater pleasure. So I am not sure it is easy to say that "pain" alone is the appropriate trigger, and this may be why Epicurus used (if he did) "harm" rather than "pain."

Quote from Todd

his is much easier if the third party has basically similar ideas of what is just and unjust.

I marked this one for comment but it is basically the same issue. Are our "ideas" of just and unjust (which as you say or imply is what we reduce to "rules") the key, or is it the "feeling" which is key, and which is transient?

I think your reasoning is very helpful in walking through this, as it is what we all need to do. I am just not sure that we can square rules-based reasoning with what Epicurus is saying, as what is is doing may amount to the explicit rejection of rules-based analysis (to be replaced with "feeling-based" recognition that "justice" has no absolute meaning whatsoever.

Just thinking out loud here!

So Elayne just to be sure there is no possibility of confusion, you are focusing on the pain in the OBSERVER who is perceiving and evaluating the external situation as "unjust." You are not saying that the people involved directly in the relationship are necessarily experiencing pain at the time of the activity which is being observed, correct? I am thinking that it is important to focus on the observer being the one we are discussing so that we never imply that there is justice or injustice floating in the air that we are simply receiving in our minds in final form (which I think may be the common understanding of a non-Epicurean in discussing justice).

Based on what I know of you I think you will like it very much!

This is a deep discussion. My interjection for the moment is that it may be interesting to consider:

1. The implications of the terminology difference between "harm" vs "pain."

2. In terms of pain, are we talking painful to the participant, to the observer, or both?

3. And in terms of symmetry, is all assymetry painful?

Sounds like the same glitch as before just much shorter-lived. Definitely not user error on our part. Hopefully the host is getting on top of this as i hate the thought of changing providers.

if you two start encouraging each other poetically we are really going to have to show some discipline that the poetry be enlisted in the support of Epicurean philosophy! 😁

The ending of the Torquatus narrative in On Ends has always rung bell after bell with me since the first time I read it:

XXI. If then the doctrine I have set forth is clearer and more luminous than daylight itself; if it is derived entirely from Nature's source; if my whole discourse relies throughout for confirmation on the unbiased and unimpeachable evidence of the senses; if lisping infants, nay even dumb animals, prompted by Nature's teaching, almost find voice to proclaim that there is no welfare but pleasure, no hardship but pain—and their judgment in these matters is neither sophisticated nor biased—ought we not to feel the greatest gratitude to him who caught this utterance of Nature's voice, and grasped its import so firmly and so fully that he has guided all sane-minded men into the paths of peace and happiness, calmness and repose?

You are pleased to think him uneducated. The reason is that he refused to consider any education worth the name that did not help to school us in happiness. Was he to spend his time, as you encourage Triarius and me to do, in perusing poets, who give us nothing solid and useful, but merely childish amusement? Was he to occupy himself like Plato with music and geometry, arithmetic and astronomy, which starting from false premises cannot be true, and which moreover if they were true would contribute nothing to make our lives pleasanter and therefore better? Was he, I say, to study arts like these, and neglect the master art, so difficult and correspondingly so fruitful, the art of living?

No! Epicurus was not uneducated: the real philistines are those who ask us to go on studying till old age the subjects that we ought to be ashamed not to have learnt in boyhood.

More: This is definitely a thread of reasoning that does not need to go in the wrong direction, but it is still HUGE: the divergence between "reason" and "feeling/sensations" is at the heart of the opposition between Epicurus and the other Greeks. And it fits well within the scope of the recent discussion we have been having about "the gods" --- the recurring question is how we deal with issues about which we don't have all the direct evidence we would like to have.

We can invest our trust in "logic" and "words" and "concepts" or we can draw the line at their limit -- which is that they can't take us further than ultimately can be tied back to our sensations and feelings. But that is exactly what the lure of "reason" calls us toward -- to think that we can go further than nature and totally create our own reality, rather than working to reshape the reality around us to the extent we are able -- not forcing nature, but persuading her, in the words of the text.

Academia can be great, or it can turn into "priests of reason" which is just as oppressive as priest of the purely religious kind.

Elayne is reporting that the site may have been down this afternoon (Friday the 18th). If anyone is seeing glitches, please let me know -- I was away and did not observe any personally this afternoon.

You named your car Dido after one of the most tragic love affairs of all time???

Or do I recall my Aeneid incorrectly!?

Yes I agree that the texts are so fragmentary that we're constantly in a position of trying to make the best possible sense of them, and that means that what they appear to mean in one context may not at all be the case.

And add to that that they seem to have had a very good sense of humor, so it's hard to say what could be joking and what could be deadly serious.

For 2000 years these guys have been in control of "Academia." And did THEY lead us toward Epicurus, or did we find him largely ourselves, and with the assistance of one professor in a god-forsaken very COLD country?

Who looks as if he is more at home on a farm than in an ivory tower?

Ah I know I am pushing buttons and can be perceived to be on the wrong side -- even "anti-intellectual" !!

But I perceive that there has been an unholy alliance among Academia and Religion for far too long, and it is time to smash those chains that hold the tight-barred gate that separate us from Nature!

And if that means that we have to challenge EVERYTHING that we were ever taught, then we need to be prepared to do it -- and right now other than those things which we learn by Nature - which seems to be the direction that Epicurus was pointing - I don't think we can trust *anything* that we can't verify for ourselves, and then deduce to be true through our reasoning -- starting with reasoning like "nothing comes from nothing" or "goes to nothing"