Posts by Cassius

I completely agree with the suggestion and also Joshua's comments. We don't spend as much time on the nothingness of death as we should. We are surrounded by either fundamentalist Christianity or new-age spiritualism to the point where it seems most everyone lives their life as if this were only the opening act of an eternal life.

I know in my own case that the knowledge of my own mortality is a key motivator for me to get things done rather than procrastinate, and I bet many people are like that.

So yes it's a great idea to use this thread to create links to relevant material, and at the end of the process come up with a position statement.

Position statements in general I think are very good idea, even if we don't designate them for any particular purpose. The process of forming them helps us articulate them in our own minds, and having them available makes it much easier to introduce to new people what "we" are all about.

Excellent! Josh do you mean "fail to grief" or "fail to grieve" in line 7?

Quote from Hiram

Book 10

Discusses a bit about the nature of Time, how to measure it (mentions days and nights), the use of conventional language for it and the fact that time is real.

A good example where it would be great to eventually compare the wording with precision. Time is "real"? And also time is an "incident of incidents / accidents of accidents" as in the letter to Herodotus? ( I think there is also a relevant quote in Lucretius):

There is another thing which we must consider carefully. We must not investigate time as we do the other accidents which we investigate in a subject, namely, by referring them to the preconceptions envisaged in our minds; but we must take into account the plain fact itself, in virtue of which we speak of time as long or short, linking to it in intimate connection this attribute of duration. We need not adopt any fresh terms as preferable, but should employ the usual expressions about it. Nor need we predicate anything else of time, as if this something else contained the same essence as is contained in the proper meaning of the word “time” (for this also is done by some). We must chiefly reflect upon that to which we attach this peculiar character of time, and by which we measure it. No further proof is required: we have only to reflect that we attach the attribute of time to days and nights and their parts, and likewise to feelings of pleasure and pain and to neutral states, to states of movement and states of rest, conceiving a peculiar accident of these to be this very characteristic which we express by the word “time.”

https://web.archive.org/web/2018032402…/herodotus.html

Comments:

1 - I wonder about the term "neutral states" here.

2 - I think it must be Lucretius where i recall the "accident of accidents" term. In either case I think it's interesting to observe that Epicurus can consider time an "accident" or "accident of accidents" and still also consider it to be real. This helps tune in the precise definition of "real." -- Things do not have to have an eternal unchanging existence to be "real."

Thank you Godfrey! Great pictures!

Hiram that reminds me of the concept of "life coaches" which is also borderline questionable but also might be a part of what needs to be talked about. Not sure if that is still a "thing" or no longer trendy.

Check out this link for a very detailed list of people relevant to Epicurean commentary in the ancient world.

https://www.bu.edu/ict/anrw/pub/II/36/ferguson.html

I don't yet have a copy of this book so if anyone know anything about it or a source for it (especially in PDF) please let me know!

There are MANY aspects of this example to consider. I am not really thinking in terms of compliance with legal requirements for marriage, though that is certainly one angle. Like Hiram suggested, there would also be funerals and other social events that having someone to officiate would be great.

The real issue to me is coming to terms with (1) scope and goal of such an organization, and (2) how widely or narrowly to define a statement of principles. This actually might be one area in which the Epicurean theory of gods has great practical significance - Epicureans have argued for 2000 years that they are not atheists, so in a very real sense there is more real "religion" aspect to it than some of these purely secular organizations have.

I personally have a strongly negative reaction to the "Universal Life Church," but I have looked over the page at the monastery . org and I am very impressed at their organization. I agree that setting up some kind of structure ought to be in our plans, and there is a lot of food for thought on that website.

I find their statement of principles (below) to be laughably worthless ("do only that which is right") but I agree that there is a lot to learn from observing how they have put together their organization.

Quote

The Universal Life Church was founded on the basic belief that we are all children of the same universe and, derived from that basic belief, has established two core tenets by which it expects its ministers to conduct themselves:

1. Do only that which is right.
2. Every individual is free to practice their religion in the manner of their choosing, as mandated by the First Amendment, so long as that expression does not impinge upon the rights or freedoms of others and is in accordance with the government’s laws.

We have made it our mission to actualize these tenets in the world by empowering millions of ministers, whether they come to us from a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Shinto, Agnostic, Atheist, Pagan, Wiccan, or Druid tradition, to speak their own truth to power.

I think Elayne in particular also will have some comments about this, and I think this is a good thread to revisit the issue of organization so I will encourage people to talk about that here.

This article contains interesting commentary on the development of Epicurus' canon of truth.

File

David Sedley - Sextus Empiricus And The Atomist Criterion of Truth

David Sedley - Sextus Empiricus And The Atomist Criterion of Truth

Cassius

July 1, 2019 at 5:17 PM

Also at this link: http://lexicon.cnr.it/index.php/DDL/article/view/123/62

Yes I completely agree that what is currently labeled today as "consumerism" fits under the category of unnatural desires that can't be satisfied. My main issue is not that this is invalid, but that it's pretty far removed from the heart of Epicurean philosophy and shouldn't be focused on as the exclusive target. Other issues such as the nature of the universe, the nature of true divinity, pleasure as the goal, the nothingnesss of death, etc are all much more significant, and I rarely if ever see those issues discussed by de Botton.

As to monasteries originally being gardens I agree that is not nearly as far fetched. If we were looking for possible Epicurean communities that would be a place to consider. On the other hand there is direct teaching about Epicurus not advising "communism" to his students, so aside from setting up "schools" (which certainly don't have to be based on common property) I'm just not aware of any evidence that would point to communal living. In fact of course the Garden itself was not common property at the time (Epicurus disposed of it in his will). As to teaching as a profession I think there are passages which you quote (Hiram) about accepting money for teaching, so again its seems to me that doesn't really point to "communal living" as much as it points to what we would see as a private school or college.

Here are two translations of the same section of the letter to Menoeceus. The left is the Epicurus wiki at Epicurism.info and the right is Cyril Bailey's "Epicurus the Extant Remains." I am not able to offer an opinion in the Greek original, but I can offer an opinion on the English wording:

The English wording presented here equates "pleasure" with "absence of pain" as if the two concepts were interchangeable in every respect. My contention is (1) that it is clear to any "normal human" that the two concepts are clearly NOT interchangeable in every respect, (2) that Epicurus was in every relevant respect a "normal human," and (3) that therefore there is (a) some corruption of the text, (b) some corruption or inadequacy of the translation, (c) some missing context that explains the apparent discrepancy, or some combination of (a), (b), and (c).

Note also that this text, even in its current form which appears to equate the two terms, does not state that "absence of pain" is "the highest pleasure" as seems to be regularly assumed in writing on Epicurus. In neither translation is it stated that "the goal" or "the end" is "absence of pain" unless one adds a third equivalency ("pleasure" = "absence of pain" = "the goal / the end") which is also counter-intuitive.

I believe the relationship lies not in "equivalency" but in "quantity" as is referenced in PD3, but there is no doubt that the current English translations are written as if the meaning were clearly "pleasure is equivalent to absence of pain."

If you have the knowledge of Greek sentence structure to comment on how the wording does or does not suggest equivalency, please post your comment. And if you have another theory on how to reconcile this please post that as well.

Quote from JJElbert

The third Oration of Himerius against Epicurus

I will google but do you have a good link for that? Thanks!

Yes the combination of "staying out of politics" and "cultivating one's own garden" would seem almost unmistakeable. I read that book too many years ago to remember the details, and now that I have seen the movies I have a hard time distinguishing between the two.

BTW the movie ST3 - Marauder has some pretty major anti-religious messaging.

A grass root movement of individuals yes, bit as far as i have seen no evidence of organized communities. The Villa in Herculaneum *might* possibly qualify but even that may be a stretch. I think the issue is whether there were *organized* communities outside in the garden in Athens, and I have never seen any reliable evidence of any at all.

Had there been organization it might have been possible for Epicurean philosophy to survive longer than it did.

The following comes from a recent discussion in which the work of Alain de Botton. It started in the context of whether there were ever Epicurean communities in the ancient world outside the garden in Athens, but the main reason I am posting this is that I want to preserve Elayne's commentary (below, EC) with which I totally agree and think to be very important:

SG: I remember, Alain de Botton stated the same thing about Epicurean communities. He even added some of what we know as old monasteries, belonged to Epicureans before Christianity came to power and declared them as heretic and illegal cults. Well, he may not be a legit source. But do we have any?

Cassius: I don't consider Alain to be a legitimate source for this because I have never seen him (or anyone else) produce documentation / source material for these suggestions. No personal offense intended to him, but in general my observation is that Alain is a good example of someone who is basically an eclectic / humanist who has set out to adopt some, but by no means all, of Epicurus' views in support of his own political agenda.

The part of Alain's material that I have seen focuses so heavily on "anticommercialism" that I find his material to be detrimental some who might otherwise dig in and pursue he deeper points Epicurus was making. My experience is that Alain is one of many who immediately jump to "pleasure is the absence of pain" so they can write normal feelings of pleasure out of the playbook and then forget about it as they pursue a minimalist / ascetic lifestyle. That minimalist lifestyle, which he has selected for reasons of his own, appears to me to be the true goal of his work.

SG: Cassius, I agree with your criticism. I also think his project, if developed, can lead to a secular community which has a lifestyle of his own, as he briefly refers to, in his Atheism V. 2.0 lecture.

EC: SG, I liked Alain's book on "Religion for Atheists", which was focused not on a communal living arrangement but on groups which would meet regularly, as churches do, to develop and reinforce their understanding of what is important to them in life... and to enjoy the non religious benefits church members enjoy, such as singing together, friendship, etc.

Really, this is what a modern Epicurean Garden would do, in my opinion. Follow Epicurus' advice about studying nature together, with friends!

I was actually a member for a couple of years of a small secular group based on that atheism book. We met every Sunday night and took turns presenting a topic, then ate dinner together.

I did not know about Epicurean Philosophy at the time, but the one I was working out for myself was almost exactly the same, just not fully elaborated.

So I would talk about, for instance, the fact that our desires CAN be satisfied-- that we reach a point where we are happy with the amount of food or sleep we have had-- so desire is not insatiable. Or that just because a pleasure is transitory does not make it invalid. Or that one can directly seek happiness, pleasure, successfully-- that failures are not due to impossibility of seeking happiness but of ineffective methods. Or that there is no such thing as universal consciousness. Or that there is nothing wrong with having an ego, a self-- that part of our brain is what allows us to make decisions for our happiness! To get rid of it is an error, and it is biological, not an illusion.

And nobody in that group ever understood those ideas. ? I had no clue why I was always out of sync with them, on almost every point, until I learned about Epicurus.

That is when I realized how far off modern secular groups were from my philosophy and how much they had been affected by Stoics and Buddhists.

So anyway, I think that idea of the groups can work, but not unless it is explicitly Epicurean and the members are solidly supporting EP -- otherwise the current type of atheists will drag it in a direction we wouldn't want to go.

Thanks Martin, I will fix that now. Facebook is so tricky!

Now should be fixed.

Excellent find Joshua. I don't know nearly as much about this period as I should, but this argument by Adams definitely summarizes the issue. "Rights" exist only where enforced by some kind of organization. Where the organization chooses or simply does not enforce them, the "rights" do not exist, and as Adams says, the issues will either be taken into the hands of the living people involved, or not -- but calling on "rights" is useless.

Over the years I have found this to be one of the best articles available on the impact of "the swerve" in human affairs, and how Epicurus likely reconciled his idea of the swerve (which if carried to an extreme would mean that nothing is predictable) with the regularity we see in the world around us.

Find "Chance and Natural Law In Epicureanism" here on the forum at this link.

Yes I think that is the kind of place where he discussed how society addressed, by experience to address problems that arose.

Excellent find Hiram. I completely agree with George Carlin, but he never gives a positive clear definition of what "rights" are supposed to mean.

I think he is correct when he says that what we are really talking about are "privileges" but he should be even more clear and say that they are privileges that we have because we have formed governments to protect those privileges. Without a mechanism such as a government to protect / enforce them, they are exactly what Carlin says - a figment of our imagination.

I think if he would follow his thoughts to their logical conclusion by being clear about the definition of "rights" he would conclude that "rights" in the sense of protected privileges do not exist in nature.

What we are generally referring to when we talk about rights is more like "I think it is right that such a such a thing happen." In that sense the meaning is "I prefer such and such a result" which means "Such and such a result pleases me" and that is how you drill down to the source of this concept in human nature.

Locke and Mills can talk back and forth all day about "what they think is right based on human nature" but when it comes down to "rights" which are protected by some mechanism, such a things has never existed and never will exist outside of living people setting up mechanisms to enforce their preferences.

And that applies to Japanese internment camps no more or less than to camps like Auschwitz. There are no "rights' floating in the air, and if the people involved and living at the time don't like something, it is up to them to enforce their opinion by taking direct action - and not just referring to "natural rights" or "god-given rights" or idealism like that.