Posts by Cassius

Welcome and be sure to let us know how we can be of help. There are definitely some references that can make things easier than others so if you have areas of particular interest let us know.

Welcome Egghead! 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.

Oscar I have heard the terms analytic v continental but I freely admit as to myself you are way over my head. I would certainly be wary myself of anyone who is "anti-natalist." Do you believe Onfray is anti-natalist?

I see that a google of analytic vs continental brings up a huge amount of material. If at some point (probably not New Years' Eve!) you are aware of an article that summarizes the issues in a way that you find helpful that would be a good addition to the thread.

Elli when you get a chance - how would you render the full set of lines in that picture in English?

Quote from Hiram

Sam Harris has ALWAYS ignored or been ignorant about Epicurus and is 100 % sold on secular Buddhism.

WHY? Sam Harris is obviously a very smart guy, and he has no doubt been exposed to a reasonable degree of fundamental material on Epicurus.

I would put Ayn Rand in the same category. Smart person, no doubt exposed to core Epicurean ideas (at the very least through Nietzsche and no doubt much further, and superficially in tune with "happiness" being the goal of life.

And yet SILENCE where there should be ringing endorsement. WHY? I cannot but tend to put people like this into the category of those who are not "mistaken" but fully and consciously help obscure the history because they disagree with Epicurus on a fundamental level.

This plays into several threads we are talking about -- we are not going to convert people like Sam Harris, or Ayn Rand (even if she were alive) but especially those who embrace some form of nihilism / nothingness like runs rampart through the "eastern" viewpoints. So I don't see the need or desirability of "engaging" them other than publishing our own analysis and trying to get it into the hands of people who need it. But I don't expect those affiliated with the Sam Harris type of establishment to help me do it, nor would I devote any more attention to their opposing views than what is necessary to dissect, lay out the error, and point out the correct to anyone who might have gone their way but still be open to reflection.

Quote from Hiram

if the people who adhere to a perspective of "friends of Epicurus, enemies of Plato" do not become proficient at employing the arts of historiography in the same manner as Platonists have become proficient (history is written by the winners, and they HAVE BEEN the winners so far), then we don't have a right to complain that our views are invisible and attacked and mis-represented.

OK there are at least two things going on here:

(1) I am in favor of engagement wherever possible and wherever it makes sense to do so. The primary problem I have is as you alluded to in a recent post -- the call of ordinary life limits our resources tremendously and we have to decided what is the best use of time. And that leads to (2) --

(2) I do not think the statement above logically follows. Your premise seems to be that in order to be effective we must constantly engage with people who are at best ambivalent toward us or worst are absolutely committed to some opposing position. That's the point raised by Frances Wright in A Few Days in Athens: Argument does NOT generally result in conversion of one side to the other. It often WIDENS the distance between the sides, because in fact many positions are not reconcilable.

The reason that you Hiram and I (and others) are able to make some progress in these discussions is that we are already starting with positions that are relatively close in many cases (though it may not seem like it sometimes.) It's my view that you do not recoil at the humanism and the "absence of pain" position of the Cambridge Epicureanism (I am brushing broadly, I know) because you do not personally have it in you to accept the nihilism and the suppression of emotion that is at the root of their version of Epicurus. I am paying you a compliment by saying that you shrug off the implications because you cannot accept that most people would accept the implications of the position that they are arguing, but I think you are wrong about that.

Our differences here are among people who are arguing about strategy toward pursuing pleasure / happiness. Outside this corner of the world, the suppression and historical sidelining of Epicurus has come at the hands of people who are absolutely outside that tent and know exactly what they are doing, and that's why I and others draw such a bright line and refuse to make common cause with them.

IT seems as if in the ancient world Cicero and even Julian the Apostate remarked that it was primarily the Epicureans themselves who read Epicurean literature, and I think that relates to our strategy disagreements. I don't think that trying to storm the walls of Cambridge or the Humanist Alliance (a name I made up for the occasion) is likely to be the best way to reach more people with epicurean philosophy (if we want to define our goal that way.) I think that "normal" people outside of academia and outside of the hothouses of issue advocacy, many of whom are (or should be) totally turned off by the alternatives are the ones we we will find the most honest and open reception.

On the example of Michael Onfrey, you have convinced me that there is doubtless some material in his work that would be helpful. But it is not easily accessible in English, Onfrey did not thoroughly embrace Epicurus as far as I can tell, which limits his usefulness, and unless someone has a special interest in pursuing Onfrey I personally can't rank that high on the list of things I would urge everyone to read.

So that's an example of my analysis -- more power to you if you are able to find good things in Onfrey and bring them to the table, but we all have to do our best to make our best use of our own time. And that's why I do not at all consider anything I am doing as "censorship." I see it the opposite -- there are reams of material devoted to commentators on obscure topics which enhance their resumes in the academic world, but which don't do a think to bring Epicurus into sharper focus for the "everyday person" who most needs the help.

I did not know that about Hicks, Oscar, thank you. I do think I had noticed that Hicks seemed to have a Stoic disposition, and that personal detail may indicate something of relevance.

I think your point is relevant to all the texts but in particular to those from Herculaneum. As I understand it everyone is working from penciled notes made in most cases by some of the original researches years ago, in which each character is transcribed to something new, such as the facsimile on this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos

...meaning that this caption of this photo is certainly NOT accurate:

but rather what the photo shows is the sketched reconstruction of the researchers -- the original is charred black.

Now for all I know the reconstructionist had the best eyesight and the best knowledge of ancient greek and the best understanding of Epicurus humanly possible -- but I suspect that on all those counts skepticism is warranted. But even if so, this facsimile does not tell us the degree to which these characters were clear, or surmised, and of course there is no context whatsoever before or after this passage. We simply don't know who was writing this, or why, and so to take from this facsimile as it it was handed down from heaven:

.....seems to me to be something very careful about, especially since it is the natural human tendency to scrutinize each word for subtleties of meaning which we simply cannot be sure where intended by the original Epicureans.

So in this case we have to check these transcriptions and translations about other parts of Epicurean philosophy about which we have confidence, and yes the suggested translation is reasonably possible. But it is at best a truncated version of the first four doctrines, and what do we know about how and for what purpose this truncation was derived? Was someone suggesting that this is all that was important to know? Was that person suggesting that this was *most* important? For whom was this summary intended?

All these questions have to be considered in all of the translations, and Elayne's suggestions are pretty much exactly the way I approach things too.

Welcome Darius, and post as frequently as your time allows.

Yes in science it is a different context, as the "law of gravity" doesn't necessary imply god to most people nowadays. But as always it depends on who is reading.

Quote from Elayne

Hiram, ok, if you are asserting that the science on pious practices is solid, please give me a study.

Yes, agreed.

So far the example I see being cited is "chanting."

For me personally, if I hear someone chanting I am going to head for the nearest exit as quickly as possible. All the while I admit that the chanter may be a wonderful person and given leisure time to investigate I might find them to be my closest friend. But pleasure and pain are subjective, and I personally classify chanting as painful for me to hear, just as it would be painful for me to hear the "muslim call to prayer" that some people seem to think is the most beautiful thing they have ever heard.

The point here is not that chanting or the muslim or call to prayer cannot be extremely pleaurable to some people. I know that it can be and is. But it is not so for everyone, and what we are talking about here is incorporating general observations of philosophy into a "Society of Epicurus." Rename it "Society of Eastern Rite Epicureans" and that would be another discussion entirely.

I want to say this before I forget and then I come back to more:

When Hiram says

Quote from Hiram

chanting happens in both Catholic rosaries and Buddhist and Hindu mantras, so

I will go ahead and go on record that I find in general things that I identify as distinguishing traits of catholic or buddhist or hindu practices personally repelling and something to separate myself from, not endorse or accept as something that I would incorporate in my life unnecessarily. Of course at the same time I fully admit that that's "just me," and some others no doubt find them warm and cuddly. To each his own!

I see Martin Ferguson Smith on the Oinoanda.cat website has:

Fr. 112

The sum of happiness consists in our disposition, of which we are master. Military service is dangerous and one is subordinate to others. Public speaking is full of agitation and nervousness as to whether one can convince. Why then do we pursue an occupation like this, which is under control of others?

So that means:

(1) This is a fragment which he wasn't able to place clearly in context.

(2) We'd have to know how confident MFS word of this wording.

(3) "The sum of happiness consists in our disposition" is an extremely broad statement that seems to go further than anything we have read in Epicurus' letters, in Diogenes Laertius, or Lucretius, or anything that Cicero quoted. Before taking it as widely as you are taking it I think we'd need to reflect on the implication of there being nothing else which goes that far, and much else that can be read to be much more narrow and contextual, especially since as written this could easily be interpreted as something akin to stoicism, which we know Epicurus was not.

(4) As for the rest of the statement, to which we do not have further answer or explanation, I would argue that there are legitimate Epicurean reasons why someone would choose to pursue military action or public speaking, and that Epicurean philosophy does not stand for a blanket denunciation of these in all circumstances, such as when they are needed for the survival or happiness of ourselves and our friends. Cassius Longinus and other Epicureans he cited to Cicero, as well as Cicero's own example of Torquatus, did not reach the conclusion that Epicurean philosophy was incompatible with these things, at least when needed.

So where I see these issues going is more toward something like:

We should strive to be master of our dispositions just like we strive to master all our circumstances toward the goal of living pleasurably.

As is this one is going to be read by most people as something akin to Stoicism.

We may not be too far apart here, but the word "law" is something that in the minds of most people in my experience means that there must also be a "lawgiver." Which can also be ok so long as we are clear that we are not talking about an intelligent actor giving those laws.

We are definitely talking finer points of strategy and terminology here. I am not comfortable that I have enough knowledge to say whether Epicurus spoke in terms of "laws" of nature, and if he did not employ that easy analogy then there might have been a good reason for him not to.

Did Lucretius employ words that we would clearly translate as "laws of nature?" Again I am not sure - it seems that I have read that maybe he did, but this would be something to explore. I don't gather that he or Epicurus included a word meaning "law" in the title of works (?) Not sure either whether "De Rerum Natura" is a true title for the poem or something added by others, but it would have been easy to write "On the Laws of Nature" if "law" were an easy analogy.

My main concern at this point is to advise caution in using a word that has strong connotations of there being an intelligent purposeful lawgiver.

Quote from Hiram

But do you agree that EP offers the tools to help a lawmaker consider the advantages and disadvantages in a particular moment and circumstance to make his choices and avoidances (to pass a law)? And that it gives us the tools to determine whether an existing law is JUST for now, or for a given time?

Yes, BUT! It doesn't just give those tools to a "lawmaker" it gives the same tools to everyone including the people living under the laws. And while you can definitely provide innumerable examples of agreements ('laws") that people might choose to live by, the issue is that not everyone will agree that those laws/agreements are advantageous to them, and their analysis can be every bit as based on Epicurean principles as can the lawgiver's.

The problem we are having is not the issue of saying that Epicurean philosophy does not have immediate practical application. The problem we are having is that we are talking (at least in hypothetical terms) about a "Society of Epicurus" rather than a "Society of Republican Epicureans" or a "Society of Democrat Epicureans" or a "Society of Tory Epicureans" or a "Society of Labor Epicureans."

If you were suggesting that you were forming a "Society of Vegetarian Epicureans" then I think it would be exactly proper to cite as a ground rule that the members of the society find the killing of animals so abhorrent / painful that as a premise of membership they agree never to kill any animal (except maybe in self defense). That would make perfect sense and I would think have no conflict with any Epicurean principle.

But there could just as easily be a "Society of Epicurean Carnivores" that makes a condition of membership being to advance the cause of eating meat / living keto style, due to the pleasures and health benefits they perceive to result.

Both of the opposite extremes could be perfectly organizable in Epicurean terms.

So our issue of disagreement is that as a philosophy, the philosophy does not justify or condemn any personal preference of pleasure as intrinsically superior or inferior than another, and to suggest that it does undermines the philosophy at its core.

Catherine Wilson does that to a relative extreme, and I certainly see that you have distanced yourself from that, but I don't see you embracing the full implication to the point of being willing to make your society distinct from the "absolutist" ideas that are inherent in humanism, stoicism, etc. By failing to make that distinction you're inviting the water-ing down of the philosophy, and I tend to think that watering down by later Epicureans was perhaps as much to blame for the fall in popularity as was the affirmative suppression by Abrahamic religion.

Until Norman DeWitt hardly anyone recognized Epicurus as such as strong anti-Platonist, and significant numbers of people today seem to have no problem combining Epicurus with supernatural religion, stoicism, and all sorts of other ideas that are fundamentally contradictory.

Quote from Hiram

If the people in the community AGREE to protect a species, then this is their agreement and it's THEIR posited justice, not because they owe a duty to the rabbits but because they owe an agreement to each other. (

OK then we may not be so far apart on this, but I think the issue here is that the Epicurean terminology of justice is so different from non-Epicurean usage, just like it is with "gods," that discussing "justice" without making the Epicurean context very clear ends up being more confusing that helpful.

Let's take the example you give, that a certain set of people agree among themselves to protect animals, and then presumably one person violates the agreement and kills a rabbit. In what sense does it help anything to describe the result as "unjust"? And I am not sure that Epicurus would describe that result as "unjust" either.

I think we have had this discussion before and I have the same issue. Is every breach of every agreement "unjust?" I don't think that is likely that Epicurus was suggesting that, at least not in any sense of the word "unjust" that is in common usage today. Would you suggest another definition of "unjust" that you think Epicurus would apply to that situation (of killing the rabbit despite the agreement not to)?

Welcome DariusN ! 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.

Yes as to paragraph one.

As to paragraph two, I think you are correct two, Joshua. How could there be any confidence in the meaning of a word that was constructed of an alphabet for which there is no established list of symbols.

Now I guess what I am concerned about is the question of whether an alphabet could start off being a defined set but somehow expand without end, but since the expansion (it would seem) could not be agreed upon ahead of time then the result would surely be at least uncertain, if not totally meaningless.

I think the analogy is probably a very good one but I am looking to test it before reusing it. Since the root of it can be found in Lucretius it is an excellent suggestion.

Quote from JJElbert

Lucretius makes explicit the analogy that compounds of atoms are a kind of coded information, just as latin letters come together to form words. But in order for this to work out, there must be a finite library or alphabet of atomic 'letters'. If they could be infinitely divided, no such set would be possible. In this instance, infinity really does lead to zero.

Hmmmm. There is either a flaw in this reasoning, or it is an EXCELLENT observation and not one that I have personally seen before. Do those reading this agree that an alphabet must be finite in order to convey meaning? Is that what you are saying Joshua? If this argument holds up it is one that we definitely want to use over and over.

Does this go too far?

Quote from JJElbert

But in order for this to work out, there must be a finite library or alphabet of atomic 'letters'. If

Oscar if I understand you correctly I completely agree with where you are going, and I do believe it relates to our current discussions.

I agree that erecting a viewpoint that a constant chaotic clash of ideas is a good thing is flawed, and it is probably the opposite of what Epicurus advised -- weighing and testing and then deciding what this process has confirmed and what it has invalidated.

It is one thing to always have an open mind toward new evidence, and being willing to immediately revise prior opinion to incorporate that new evidence. It is very difference to say that it is never proper to consider any opinion to be confirmed, which is what I sense is the issue you are picking up.

From the point of view of the Christians there was good reason for them to banish discussion of Lucretius -- because Epicurean philosophy IS incompatible with Christianity (and all Abrahamic religion) and they cannot coexist in the same mind without huge cognitive dissonance and confusion.

That's why ultimately we have to stiffen our spines and make decisions and follow them as best we can, and I can't think of any reason more urgent to do that than the knowledge that we get only one shot at life and when our time is up it's over.

One more comment, on the word "mistake":

Quote from Oscar

I'm for open and free exchanges of thought when used to understand issues and solve problems , but to say open the doors, we're coming in and you need to accept our view is a mistake.

No doubt that for some people this view is indeed a "mistake." I do agree that there is a pleasure that many find (I know I find it myself) in trying to be considerate to everyone you come into contact with, and telling them that they have an "equal voice" and essentially attempting to implement some kind of "pure democracy" where everyone has an equal part in making every decision." That view has a basic attraction because people of good will value their friends, and they want to make their friends feel good, and so it has an immediate appeal.

But I think it is pretty clear that in many contexts allowing all decisions to be made by anyone and everyone would be a chaotic disaster, and I think that result is so clear, even in the context of ideas and academia and the like, that I don't think we should conclude that everyone who pushes ideas like this is "mistaken."

As you were alluding in the other thread, Oscar, I think in many cases people are "responsible" for the things they do and positions they take, and they know full well what the natural and normal consequence of their actions is going to be.

So I think that we should be of good will and forgiving for anyone who mistakenly, presumably out of the best of intentions, advocates an organizational scheme that would lead to chaos. But I think there are definitely those also who realize that the maintenance of chaos is an opportunity for exploitation of those who do not know better, and I think we have to firmly and confidently stand up against that advocacy.

So another example would be that even as we debate in other threads the accurate meaning of Epicurean doctrines, the only reason we can allow that liberty to do so is that we firmly keep an eye out and exclude disruptive discussion that is not in good faith and clearly outside the scope of the overall goal of the group.

Quote from Hiram

I shared the hermarchus example elsewhere and am curious to know what you think about it because the scholarchs, it seems, would have wanted us to apply these Doctrines in real life situations and under diverse conditions rather than be armchair philosophers.

I think we all agree that it is desirable to apply the Epicurean doctrines to real life situations and not be armchair philosophers. That is a huge point and I cannot imagine anyone disagreeing with that. The real issue comes down to our attitude toward the fact that different people will come to different conclusions about what will make them happy in a particular situation. When that occurs, we can offer the Epicurean framework of the nature of the universe and point out that no god or no Platonic ideals justify any particular decision, and that if they do something to get themselves killed that will be the end of their life, and we can point out all sorts of related observations about the limits of logic, the nature of living things as having some free will but also doing some things by necessity, etc etc....

But the minute we stray into saying that "if you are an Epicurean you will reach XXX conclusion ....." then we've gone further than the philosophy allows and we have undercut all of our premises from which we started. At the very least before discussing any policy decision we would need an exhaustive review of as many relevant circumstances as we could gather, and in the process of discussing those it would quickly be clear that there are no firm rules that apply outside the particular context.

Which is not to say that the analysis can't be done. Not only can it be done, it MUST be done by the people involved. It's urgent that it be done! It's essential that it be done! If you back away from doing it you're not a man, you're a worm! (Let me not go too far in emphasizing my Nietzschean variation on the Epicurean tune that you have but one life to live and that nihilism for losers and so you must live as vigorously as you can! )

But in regard argain to the vegetarianism discussion, I don't see it as well documented enough to consider it outside the standard framework, and I wouldn't even get to the point of comparing it to the standard framework until I were firmly convinced that the text is reliable, which I am not.