Posts by Cassius

I am sorry that I am posting only sporadically due to travelling. As a "subtotal" of where we are at the moment, I am agreeing in full with Elayne's commentary as to the problems she sees, and the only ones of the list that I agree with in full are the ones I listed above.

It's going to take me time to list out each one and summarize my problems with them. That's one reason I posted the subheading to this forum to the effect that no one should presume that I agree with the Society of Epicurus position simply because Hiram and I have had a cordial relationship for many years.

Hiram and I have different perspectives about what is important in Epicurean philosophy and how to promote it. To a certain extent I am glad whenever anyone writes about Epicurus, but on the flip side there is a lot of dispute about what Epicurus meant in many aspects, so it's important to be clear.

[Much more to come......]

Welcome @Michael Zahn ! When you get a chance please tell us about yourself and interest in Epicurus.

As we talk about this I would be interested in more background about the purpose of the statement.

My key issue has always been knowing the framework of what is going on.

For example, this forum website has rules for posting that describe what is within limits (relating to the study of Epicurus) and off limits (current day divisive politics) but the website as a whole has no larger goal than promoting the study of Epicurus, and people can participate here so long as they stay within the rules, and they know (or should know) that there is nothing implied beyond that

In terms of the Sociery of Epicurus or any organization that appears to have a "membership" character, then there is implicit or explicit agreement that members agree to the terms of membership.

Are these 20 Tenets intended to serve that function? If so, then their formulation implies that they were prepared in a way that is endorsed by the group as a whole.

Some groups try to be democracies or representative republics in which officers are elected to set such terms. Or a group can have oligarchy or a dictatorship. I dont think Epicurus or his philosophy rules out any of those forms in proper situations, but as an individual we all have preferences about what we participate in.

If this is a statement prepared by Hiram as his own personal viewpoint he has no obligation to any of us to even consider modifying any part of it. In that case we all agree or disagree as individuals and wish each other well.

The trick in any organized activity involves being clear with others what they are getting into by that group activity. So its really presumptuous to say more than "I agree" or "I disagree" when there is no request or mechanism or idea that anything is open to change.

I am personally perfectly good with any decisions Hiram makes because the Society of Epicurus is his project. I have just always wanted to make clear where the lines are drawn so that no one misunderstands, and that's the reason I repeat that here.

So with that as additional background I will make more comments on individual issues without implying that the list itself should be changed, as I was not a part of formulating it or any kind of officer of the Society of Epicurus.

My posting will probably be sporadic for a couple of days but should be back to normal soon. I hope everyone here has a happy holiday season. I plan to spend as much time as I can planning for new Epicurean projects in the coming year, and I do want to repeat how appreciative I am to those who post here and join us in the study of Epicurus. Thanks again and a happy holiday to each and every one of you!

Of the list, here are the ones that I can pretty much endorse without reservation:

6. All bodies are made of particles and void.

8. Nothing comes from nothing.

10. All that exists, exists within nature. There is no super-natural or un-natural “realm”; it would not have a way of existing outside of nature. Nature is reality.

14. Death is nothing to us because when we are, death is not and when death is, we are not. Since there is no sentience in death, it is never experienced by us

19. Friendship is necessary for securing happiness. It is advantageous to promote Epicurean philosophy in order to widen our circle of Epicurean friends.

The others I have varying degrees of concern about and I will address them separately, trying also to incorporate comments made by others too.

Participants in this thread will now see that a new subforum has been set up dedicated to the Society of Epicurus. The main reason I opened this is that if people start commenting on particular items in the list of 20, it may be impossible to follow what is being discussed without opening a new thread on the particular tenet. Please feel free to do that if it will help. If this is not helpful, I can always move this single thread back into the "General Discussion" forum.

I added this as the subforum description:

"The Society of Epicurus is an initiative led by Hiram Crespo and headquartered at SocietyofEpicurus.com. There is no general or formal relationship between Epicureanfriends.com and the Society of Epicurus, or between participants in Epicureanfriends.com and members of the Society of Epicurus, except as individuals in either group choose to participate in the other. It should therefore not be presumed that participants in either group agree with or endorse any particular activity or statement of the other. However there is much obvious overlap in areas of interest, and this subforum is made available for use in discussion of particular aspects of the Society of Epicurus, such as its Twenty Tenets of December, 2019, or any other matters of particular relevance to the Society of Epicurus."

I am afraid I am pulled in too many directions to systematically go through each one in one post, but having read Elayne's comments I would also add my own as to One and Two. I see that "objective" and "subjective" are enclosed in scare quotes to indicate presumably that the meaning is more than superficial, but I think if the issue of whether there is an "objective" reality is going to be discussed, then it's imperative to define what is meant by that. This is an issue that got Ayn Rand bogged down and I was never satisified with either. If a boundless and eternal universe where there is no center or supernatural god to dictate a single "correct" perspective, what does the word "objective" really mean?

The word "subjective" is pretty clear, and seems to without real trouble indicate that our perceptions and observations are relative / subjective to us, which is probably accurate enough.

But what does "objective" mean in Epicurean terms? I am not sure that a statement on objective reality can really be helpful unless the meaning of the word is made clear.

Edit: The text of what was originally in this post has been moved to post one in this thread, but this post remains because it contains the attachment to a PDF copy of the list of 20.

I have not had a chance to look at these Tenets yet. I think this deserves a thread of its own so I will set one up and move these posts there.

Also - we are not quite there yet that we have everything in place, but Sunday mornings are turning into the perfect day and time for online Epicurean discussion, so that is a goal to work toward to make the choice of things to do even more stark. We have had most of the Dewitt book review discussions on Sunday mornings and we need to move to a firm commitment to have something *every* Sunday.

In my case the family that once caused those problems for me is now all dead, but I know exactly what you mean. I guess that is one benefit of getting older, you see less and less reason to waste time just for the sake of pleasing other people. But while they are still with you and important to you, it is definitely hard.

I actually was not suggesting that Nate should change anything, more inquiring as to the background and purpose of writing it the way he did. As I have been commenting in nearby posts I see these discussions as necessary "growing pains" as we work to produce something that's more lasting than just a facebook post that flies by and is quickly forgotten. It's very easy to fall into patterns that might be something that we change our minds about later.

Another example is that I am not at all sure that I agree that it helps anything to label Epicurus as "pleasure ethics" and lump him with others who discuss pleasure from different perspectives, just as I have never cared for the term "hedonism." I think pleasure is an issue that is quite a ways downstream from the more basic holdings about the nature of the universe, and other than Democritus and other atomists (with whom Epicurus may not have been particularly close in ethics) it would be necessary to dissect what their opinions are that led them to discuss pleasure before we could really be safe in knowing that they are consistent with the thrust of Epicurean philosophy.

All these are issues that everyone has to address for themselves and make up their own minds, and expressing individual opinions is only natural. But the process of coming up with "group" positions is very different and there are a lot of other factors involved. No doubt a lot of this will become clear too as you make public the core tenets you are mentioning.

Quote from Nate

Cassius, Hiram actually created me a login with the Society page to publish the piece after he read it, so I'm just posting this for peer review.

Yes, that makes a lot of difference. I've always been sensitive about when I or someone else is speaking for themselves vs when they are speaking for some kind of group entity. Everyone has their own opinions and deserves total latitude (as far as I am concerned) in holding them. The issues arise when we speak or write and imply that what we are saying amounts to speaking for someone else, or for a group, for obvious reasons. It's a difficult balancing act. The part in the last sentence about Epicurus being one of many is consistent with the manner in which Hiram often writes, and is a style that makes sense when trying to appeal to wider audiences, and it's not something that I am generally comfortable with myself -- but it all depends on the context and all the surrounding circumstances. As a personal opinion stated by you or anyone else it can come across as a totally benign remark, but if affixed to a "group" statement made by a group devoted to Epicurean philosophy then it could come across with a much different implication.

Issues like this are an inevitable part of trying to "grow" something so I don't see them as bad - it's just necessary to work through them.

Yes I very much agree with Elayne's post. If we start off in studying Epicurus with the idea that Epicurus reached absolute conclusions about how to live, based on decisionmaking about pleasure leading to the same conclusions for all, then we are off on the wrong track at the beginning, and the sooner we get off that track the better.

Long before anyone can decide "how" to live they have to make fundamental decisions about the nature of the universe and the nature of humans, including decisions about the existence of a supernatural, about a life after death, and about how to relate abstractions and ideas (the workings of the human mind) to the senses and the other operations of the body.

If Epicurus had concluded that supernatural gods existed, and that those gods offered to opportunity for an eternal life of "happiness" after death, then he would have been the first to embrace the implications of that conclusion and pursued some form of religion as the key to proper living. It is only because his commitment to "the truth" was so strong that he rejected the anesthesia-like pleasure of fantasizing about gods and afterlifes and a single way of life for everyone.

We live in a world where it takes the strength of will of an Epicurus to be willing to stand against the 'universal truths" that are forced on us by peer pressure, and increasingly by force of law. Many people who can read this over the internet are already under the force of law to believe or not believe certain viewpoints. And that means that there is a strong temptation for us to incorporate and hold as a part of Epicurean philosophy points of view that Epicurus himself would never have imagined, and would likely feel disgust a being associated with.

Some of us are not going to be able to stand up to that temptation, and are going to look for common ground between Epicurus and modern attitudes at the expense of fidelity to what Epicurus and the Epicureans actually taught and stood for. And some of us are going to stand more strongly for the classical Epicurean approach and decide not to incorporate those accommodations.

As I see it that means at least two things are going to happen:

(1) We are going to see "interest groups" or simple divisions formed, with people of particular persuasions forming their own Epicurean groups. Although Robert Hanrott's pages are not "groups," he is an example of someone who writes as much or more about "politics" than about Epicurean philosophy, and as a result people who agree with him can work in common with his approach, or other approaches that are similar. I would expect other "interest groups" to form in the future as well, with other political approaches.

(2) I personally am committed to seeing this forum remain dedicated to core Epicurean philosophy, and that will mean (as Elayne says) making clear that it is open to anyone of any political persuasion who wants to learn about the core philosophy, and that it will be not be limited only those whose politics are left, center, or right. We've maintained a very cooperative spirit here in the past and I hope we will continue to do so, but it will also be necessary to be frank about issues that divide us.

As far as I am concerned there is *no* political issue so important that someone holding it cannot at the same time be included within the study of Epicurean philosophy so long as those issues are kept separate and not allowed to be harmful to the goal of Epicurean philosophy. Epicurus did not provide a list of political positions which are "approved" and a list that is "not approved" - and I strongly believe the reason he did not is because the philosophy does not support such absolute political judgments. Everyone is going to have their own personal opinions about such issues, but if they attempt to make a particular position a requirement, or a particular position an absolute bar, then that shows me that they are placing some "ism" or abstract idea above a proper understanding of what Epicurus really taught.

No doubt other unexpected developments will occur, but the bottom line is that it will be for the best for us to sharpen our views on issues even when they reveal divisions and the need for separate "teams" or activities or whatever. It will be for the best if we all advocate our positions as clearly and as strongly as we can, and then we take steps to pursue those positions, together where possible, separately where necessary. And that's the point I made in the first paragraph - there is no single "political" destination called for in Epicurean philosophy, and that means no single "group" or "project" can ever be considered the last word in Epicurean philosophy.

Nate a lot of hard work went into that - thanks!

Has that been reviewed by Hiram or others as representative of a collective view of the Society of Epicurus? I note the opening reference to that and it seems to be written as such, but I wasn't clear. The last paragraph in general, and the final sentence in particular, sounds like it was intended as such, and wasn't part of your earlier comments on this subject if I recall correctly. And in that context I am interested in the thought process behind the last sentence, because I don't really agree with that formulation myself. I would probably not comment about except for the inference that this might be intended to be a statement of the Society of Epicurus (if that was intended) in which case I think the conclusion is something to discuss further.

I would particularly question "the distinguishing feature of Epicurus' wisdom is his insistence that pleasure is the supreme goal of life" and "

The wisdom of pleasure was NOT invented by any one prophet, nor divinely revealed to illuminate humanity; simply, Epicurus was one of many insightful friends who observed this reality, and shared in the wisdom of pleasure."

Godfrey, have a safe trip and we look forward to seeing you back soon.

Charles, that sounds like a useful transcription so I look forward to your posting it somewhere where it can be referenced in the future.

I will be looking forward to seeing that Hiram.

This may be a good place to begin to reflect on where we are as 2019 begins to come to a close. I think we've had a pretty active year and are probably ending strong in terms of our general level of activity. I would be interested in any and all assessments of where we are and where we ought to go in the next twelve months, not only in terms of EpicureanFriends.com but also our general activity as Epicurean activists.

Happy Twentieth to everyone here!. Lately I have been working on putting together some audio material on Lucretius, and this morning I was following a link to a blog entitled "The Wrong Monkey" which I know absolutely nothing about - except that I have now scanned three blog posts written about Lucretius and Greenblatt's book "The Swerve" about the transmission of the text. I think if you start with the link I will post below and follow back to check his previous two posts, you will find some valuable material about references to Lucretius during the period when it is commonly presumed today that his work had been "lost." The key work cited appears to be a book by David Butterfield: "The Early Textual History of Lucretius" which appears to be well worth checking out.

https://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/2019/12/david-…-tradition.html

Happy Twentieth of December, 2019, to everyone here! I've opened this subforum where we can post 20th threads each month from here on out. I hope everyone is well and getting ready for a happy holiday season!