Posts by Cassius

Quote from Elayne

5) P 24, discusses what she sees as the 3 key claims of Epicurus-- material nature of reality, no divine oversight, and finality of death. Although I do think these are important, I do not know that I would consider them more important than the way he put subjective feelings of pleasure and pain into the Canon or that this can be derived from those 3 items without the experience of feelings.

I completely agree. I was talking with someone privately yesterday who made a statement to the effect that ETHICS is the most importan, and that epistemology and physics are subsidiary.

I said that I think the deemphasis of physics and epistemology is the pattern of "the Cambridge approach" and as a result they end up staying in the "rationalist / platonic / stoic" camp and they force-fit Epicurus into their pre-existing models. But if you thoroughly fix in your mind first in the physics - that the universe has NO supernatural or eternal ideal goals, then it's easier to dismiss those and follow "pleasure and pain" to their logical conclusions. And also with the epistemology the same thing - the role of reason/logic vs the senses anticipations and feelings is pretty much the whole ball game too, because "reason / logic" is how all these supernatural and/or ideal virtue ethics are supported --

The real issue here is FEELING vs the abstractions of logic

Which can be reconciled if we recognize Feeling as the king, and reason/logic as the tools for maximizing our best feelings, but NOT reconciled if reason/logic is allowed to be the ultimate judge of "proper feeling."

OMG another of Elayne's quotes:

This is going to go down as one of the most ridiculous statements in the book. As part of our review we ought to come up with a collection of "incorrect" statements, and I have to think this one would be near the top!

Great notes thank you!

She's very right about that! I hope she tells us explicitly what part of her book is "rethinking" and which is what Epicurus said!

Could you explain your questions? Why would duration be irrelevant to "unnecessary" desires?

As you may know I consider the whole natural/necessary evaluation to be subject to the same issues and limitations as these calculation models. Is it not true that what is "necessary" for some people in some situations is much different than for other people/ situations? An automobile might be a "necessity" for living and working in rural Texas, but totally unnecessary in downtown New York. Even in the sense of basics such as food and air and water, we can for a short time defer even those (hold our breath or fast or go without water) for a time in the pursuit of some other / greater pleasure, or avoidance of worse pain.

I certainly don't mean to criticize Epicurus for referencing them in the letter to Menoeceus, and I do think the structure is helpful for analysis, just like these calculation models can be. But I tend to think that the commentators (especially those looking to be friendly to Stoics and other rules-based philosophies) have overemphasized their benefit, and minimized their limitations, for just the reasons that we are discussing here.

Among people very knowledgeable about Epicurus, it would be a given and need no reinforcement that there are no absolute rules, and so the question is always asked in terms of what is "necessary" or "natural" FOR US. But outside that clear context, the implication that "natural" or "necessary" might be quantifiable as a universal list would end up, I think, being the REVERSE of the Epicurean perspective. And that seems to be a strong temptation that people looking for accommodation to Stoics and others simply cannot resist.

Compare this to the hedonist calculus equation posted by Charles: The Hedonistic Calculus - explained through an equation

Charles --Very interesting! This is similar to a discussion we had in regard to coming up with a " pleasure maximization spreadsheet." A Draft Epicurean Pleasure Maximization Worksheet

One of the first problems that makes this hard is in regard to "intensity." What does "intensity" really mean, and how do we judge it in comparison with duration / time and the other factors as well?

Given this statement in the letter to Menoeceus it seems clear that Epicurus would not say that "time" can alone be a determining factor, and that blasts away what is at first glance an attractive method of ranking:

And even as men choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest.

To me the issues all point back in the direction of the "calculation" of what is "most pleasant" being totally subjective. Parsing out the elements and describing them in terms of a spreadsheet or a formula can in fact be very helpful to a thought process, but I think it probably has to be stressed at the beginning, middle, and end that the decisionmaking is personal and not quantifiable through "reasoning."

And on that conclusion I think you will get strong affirmative support from Elayne !

In fact, maybe the number one helpful benefit from going through this exercise is to come to an understanding of why it is impossible! Efforts to reduce an individual personal goal into an equation or an abstraction must fail, in the same way a map, no matter how detailed, is never a fully accurate equivalent of reality.

Yes that reminds me that in my last few visits where I felt compelled to attend a church service (mostly funerals). found the time sitting in the pew was a welcome experience where I could just sit and think without distraction, because I was "forced" to do so. Kind of like sitting in the dental chair, which I also find kind of relaxing even though not totally pleasant!

Kyle - Prior to ten years ago I spent a lot of time reading Objectivist literature. However I never spent much time in the company of actual objectivists, as I found the more someone was "into" Rand, the more uncomfortable I became. At the moment I would start with two points:

1. Her "emotions are not tools of cognition" leads to rationalism and is very much opposite to Epicurus' canon, which includes "feeling" in a primary role, but not "reason."

2. In her epistemology, she focuses on measurement omission as the means for forming concepts. It seems to me that this is very similar to "sensation omission" and as you know, Epicurus holds sensation as the only way to reach reliable knowledge.

Both of these are just rough thoughts but indicate the depth of the divide. The real problem is not so much that these two statements may not have some technical merit, but that many of her followers seem to take statements like these very superficially and as a result tend toward being emotionless rationalists rather than actually pursuing pleasurable living. And of course that same can be applied to her "money speech" in AS and many other things.

In other venues, and over time perhaps even here, you will see some fans of Epicurus say dismissively that Rand is not worth discussing. However it is my view that much of the problem with Rand (not all) is useful for dealing with Aristotle and even Plato too. So this is a subject I think we should be happy to discuss, and in the future I might even set up a subforum dedicated to the subject. I personally think that a lot of good people go down a very wrong path by following Rand, but not for the reasons that the "Academic Epicureans" would have you believe. Discussing this cooly without undue hostility would be helpful to a lot of people who I think misdiagnose the problem with Rand, and even some who misdiagnose Epicurus.

Plus, as you say, *some* of her material is good, and I would even largely endorse it today, such as her "Philosophy - Who Needs It?" speech.

As you address in your post, Rand preaches happiness as the proper goal, but her version of it is much different than was Epicurus - although if you dig deep enough in her older essays you can find some decent discussion of pleasure and pain.

Please flesh out details you would like to discuss. Also, it would be helpful to know how much Rand you have read.

interesting.... i will check out Sisson.

Ethan i try to get as close to keto as i can. Currently i am reading a lot of Jason Fung's fasting advice and I am finding good success with that. If you pushed me hard enough you could probably get me on a rant that the standard American diet is about as upside down as the standard American philosophy but I better not go there.

Good points. It is hard to get one's mind wrapped around what the implications of "eternal universe" really are, but then it's hard ( and I think Epicurus would say much harder, since we see things happening in a continual progression all around us, but we never see things pop into existence from nothing) to wrap one's mind around a universe that springs into existence from nothing!

Yes it does sound like Elli and Peter are together. I look forward to hearing what Joshua has to say too!

Cassius started a new event:

Event

Skype - Part 3 of DeWitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy" Chapter 14- The New Virtues

Starting with SUAVITY Discussion Plan For Chapter 14 "The New Virtues" (Norman DeWitt's "Epicurus And His Philosophy")

Sun, Nov 10th 2019, 10:00 am – 11:00 am

Cassius

November 3, 2019 at 12:00 PM

Quote

Starting with SUAVITY Discussion Plan For Chapter 14 "The New Virtues" (Norman DeWitt's "Epicurus And His Philosophy")

In the Skype discussion of this date, Elli pointed out problems with the translations which render the second of the three terms (prudently, honorably, and Justly) as "honorably" or "honestly."

Elli believes that the better translation is something that conveys a sense of "esthetics" such as "beautifully" and that in no way does this doctrine mean that the virtue being described is what we in English would consider to be "honesty."

I am setting up this thread as a placeholder so we will remember to come back and extend this discussion in greater detail.

The translations we see include:

Over at the FB thread, Nate commented:

"Right now, it looks like we have 19 responders in relationships, 17 who are single, 18 responders with children, and 19 without children. It's almost an even split. Yet again, it looks like the individualized hedonic calculus of Epicurean philosophy works for everybody, because nature is universal, and the only "right way" to live is to pursue pleasure."

Cassius responded:

Well Nate, you might be jumping the gun there! Before we could be sure of that, we probably need to be sure whether those people are happy with their child / childless state!

As for me, I will frankly admit that I now regret my decision earlier in life not to have children, and my personal advice to you and other young people would be to think very very carefully about all the ramifications of being childless. Of course there is no one size fits all answer (child or childless), but Nature generally places a strong desire to engage in acts that generally lead to procreation, and before an individual decides to veto any strong urge of Nature, they are generally well advised to be very careful!

"For when the buxom Spring leads on the year, and genial gales of western winds blow fresh, unlocked from Winter’s cold, the airy birds first feel Thee, Goddess, and express thy power. Thy active flame strikes through their very souls. And then the savage beasts, with wanton play, frisk over the cheerful fields, and swim the rapid streams. So pleased with thy sweetness, so transported by thy soft charms, all living Nature strives, with sharp desire, to follow Thee, her Guide, where Thou art pleased to lead. In short, Thy power, inspiring every breast with tender love, drives every creature on with eager heat, in seas, in mountains, in swiftest floods, in leafy forests, and in verdant plains, to propagate their kind from age to age."

Cassius also responded:

Nate your comment got me thinking further:"Yet again, it looks like the individualized hedonic calculus of Epicurean philosophy works for everybody, because nature is universal, and the only "right way" to live is to pursue pleasure." I know you were probably writing quickly and loosely, but I bet it would be interesting to discuss splitting that into a couple of components and seeing what people think:

(1) "It looks like the individualized hedonic calculus of Epicurean philosophy works for everybody..." Well yes, but (A) probably the first point to always make about it is that this is the standard given by Nature, in the sense of "What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, beside pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance?" So pleasure and pain are the reality of nature / human nature, regardless of whether it "works" for a particular person or not. (B) It can always be implemented, but maybe not in a way that we find attractive at first glance, because some situations have no "happy ending" and we have to make hard choices about whether we wish to go on fighting them or not (end-stage cancer is maybe an example).

(2) "because nature is universal...." (A) Yes, nature is the universe and the universe is nature, in the most basic sense. (B) But what you're really talking about here is "pleasure" probably more so than "nature," and while the human faculty of pleasure probably operates broadly similarly from most people, it doesn't operate the same way universally, and that's really the premise of your comment, that different people find pleasure/happiness in different choices.

(3) and the only "right way" to live is to pursue pleasure." (A) "Right" probably implies "ought" and lots of people like to argue philosophically that it is not possible to derive "ought" from "is." In my case I conclude that it is a good idea to follow Nature, and not to think I am able to out-think her.

Thanks to Nate for the suggestion of having a thread indicating our personal experience in this department. Don't give out too much personal information but this could lead to interesting discussion.

Good to hear from you Michael! Couple of comments:

Quote from Michael

After all, the gods in Epicureanism were formally mortal or at least descend from them.

I don't say this to disagree, necessarily, but I don't think this is necessarily supported by the texts either explicitly or inferentially. The texts seem clear about the origin of life on earth, but I am not sure that that necessarily translates into the origin of "the gods" in "the intermundia." I don't have a proposed explanation but I think the first step in being clear in tracking down Epicurus is to be sure not to bring our own conventional dispositions to the game. If the universe is indeed eternally old as Epicurus said, then I am thinking that it is going to be incorrect to think that there would be a "first" to a natural process, except within a limited scope of observation. "First on Earth" makes sense, but does "first in eternity?"

Quote from Michael

use in worshiping them

As you point out the definition of "worship" is going to be the key. I get the impression from most all of the texts that the Epicurean attitude is one of "admiration" as much as anything else, but more like we would admire someone who is a paragon of excellence in their field, rather than someone we would fall down before and "worship" as you and I probably think of it.

Quote from Michael

should be called "gods" and not blissful, immortal space aliens

Yep the terminology issue is always there with us. I am not fluent enough with the Greek to have much insight into the precise words that were chosen, or what they meant to the ancient Epicureans. The Greek concepts of "gods" is probably about as foreign to us today as is the Epicurean concept of gods, so maybe we need to look at it from that point of view, since we really aren't completely comfortable calling Athena or Zeus "gods" either from our modern point of view, but yet we're pretty much used to putting aside our terminology objections in relation to the Roman and Greek gods.

These are notes that Elli added in a discussion of Michele Pinto's article on Friendship:

I have only one observation to add that I think is important. The ES XXIII.(23) has not been translated correctly in english. Words as "need" and "help" do not exist in the ancient greek text which says : "Πᾶσα φιλία δι ἑαυτὴν αἱρετὴ ἀρχὴν δὲ εἴληφεν ἀπὸ τῆς ὠφελείας".

Every friendship is to be chosen for its own sake, but has taken its starting point from the benefit.

And why Epicurus says that ? Because in this phrase "is chosen for its own sake" some would say that this sounds idealistic, but Epicurus brings friendship, in reality, saying that its first principle and its basis is the common benefit. And that means that there are persons/friends that measure within the common experiences their choices and their avoidance on whatever is pleasant/benefit and whatever is painful/harmful for them.

Footnote 22 says:

Cassius started a new event:

Event

Epicurus' Birthday 2021

Epicurus' Birthday! See Calculation here: Epicurus' Birthday Calculations

Wed, Jan 20th 2021 – Thu, Jan 21st 2021

Cassius

November 1, 2019 at 2:09 PM

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Epicurus' Birthday! See Calculation here: Epicurus' Birthday Calculations