Posts by Cassius

Quote from JJElbert

. I'm a long-haul trucker with a BA in the humanities (a double major in History and English Literature, more specifically).

I do ALL my best thinking when I am driving!!

Quote from JJElbert

When a Harvard Professor I quite admired (from Will in the World) wrote a book on Epicureanism, I was intrigued. I read it. I read it again. I ordered a copy of Lucretius and read that; and when I soon after read the seminal work of Norman Wentworth DeWitt, I was converted. It was strange; I had been to Herculaneum. To Athens. How had I missed all this?

Wow - I want to know more! Who was the Harvard professor to whom you refer?

As to audiobooks, a large part of my "conversion" came from listening to Lucretius via Chartleton Griffin's version at Audible.com. Today I find it a little to "over the top" for my taste, but LISTENING to it read, without my having to pace and reconstruct the sentence structure in my mind, was the first time I really made progress with Epicurean philosophy.

There is a very useful discussion going on about this at the Facebook page, and there are posts there which really need to be preserved for future reference, against the day that Facebook decides to delete that group. I dislike linking to the facebook page, and I also dislike cutting and pasting from other places to here, but sometimes it's necessary. When that discussion cools down I will find a way to preserve the core parts so that the discussion can continue here. In the meantime:

HumanismPost.pdf

JJEbert I am not an expert on poetry so my reaction is not worth much, but it immediately strikes me that what you are saying is *understandable.* I I think you are off to a good start!

Welcome Joshua ! I see that you have already posted, but when you get a chance please introduce yourself and tell us about your background in Epicurus.

Also - and I know this is one of your favorite sayings, Hiram, that we should not use "empty words." In naming a philosophy or an outlook, the word is intended to summarize the core idea. Probably if one were looking for a single word for Epicurus, the word would be more like "Naturist" or something that identifies the entire sweep of the philosophy - even more so than "pleasure." Putting the word "Human" in that role puts more pressure on it than it can bear, because there is so much more to the universe than humanity. Yes, all that really matters to us is "us," and from a certain perspective "man is the measure of all things" but I don't think Epicurus would have looked at it that way.

If Epicurus had thought that gods created the universe he would have been a theist. If Epicurus thought that there were a realm of ideas he would have been a Platonist. If Epicurus had thought that playing word-games was of supreme importance he would have been a Stoic. But I think he was focused on the big picture of physics, epistemology, and ethics, and selecting out "human" from the picture ends up misrepresenting what it is all about. In fact it begs the question of categories as well, because how do we know what a "human" is, or how a human should live, without answering all those other questions?

I know you are right that most people consider Epicurean philosophy to be both Humanist and Hedonist, but I think it's our job as Epicureans to point the way to a more clear understanding of the big picture. We are not subsets of them - they are a false and narrowed perspective that stand in the way of a more complete understanding.

Let's anticipate an argument: "You can't cite Nietzsche for an Epicurean position! Nietzsche thought that suffering (pain!) was good, and Epicurus thought that ABSENCE of pain was the greatest good."

To unwind that you would have to step through many issues, but here are two important ones:

(1) Epicurus said that we specifically at times choose pain, when the choice leads to greater pleasure or less pain in the end. Epicurus did not advocate the elimination of the ability to feel pain - that would be anaesthesia or death.

(2) Despite what the choir of academics say, "absence of pain" is not the definition of the Epicurean goal for living. The Epicurean goal of living is "pleasure," and "pleasure" and "absence of pain" are not strict equivalents. Epicurus is very clear throughout his writing that pleasure is a *feeling* that all of us understand through our senses. "Absence of pain" is (in my view) best understood as a *concept* which has an important use in showing that pleasure has a limit and can thus be defined as the goal of life.

Concepts are abstractions useful for producing pleasure; concepts are not pleasures in themselves. Words on a page are not pleasures unless we experience them. The reason it is useful to establish a "limit of pleasure" conceptually is to deal with irritants like Plato and Seneca who chatter that nothing can be considered a highest conceptual goal if it can be made better by adding something else to it (i.e., if it has no "limit"). Epicurus points out that all experience is either pleasurable or painful, so when pains are eliminated from experience, then experience is by definition full of pleasures. At that point, experience has conceptually reached its limit of pleasure - its fullest potential - and the Platonists and Aristotelians and humanists are left to walk around endlessly arguing about the meaning of "good."

Reference: (Not that I agree with it) Wikipedia: Criticism of Humanism:

Polemics about humanism have sometimes assumed paradoxical twists and turns. Early-20th-century critics such as Ezra Pound, T. E. Hulme, and T. S. Eliot considered humanism to be sentimental "slop" (Hulme)^{[citation needed]} or "an old bitch gone in the teeth" (Pound).Postmodern critics who are self-described anti-humanists, such as Jean-François Lyotard and Michel Foucault, have asserted that humanism posits an overarching and excessively abstract notion of humanity or universal human nature, which can then be used as a pretext for imperialism and domination of those deemed somehow less than human. "Humanism fabricates the human as much as it fabricates the nonhuman animal", suggests Timothy Laurie, turning the human into what he calls "a placeholder for a range of attributes that have been considered most virtuous among humans (e.g. rationality, altruism), rather than most commonplace (e.g. hunger, anger)". Nevertheless, philosopher Kate Soper notes that by faulting humanism for falling short of its own benevolent ideals, anti-humanism thus frequently "secretes a humanist rhetoric".

In his book, Humanism (1997), Tony Davies calls these critics "humanist anti-humanists". Critics of antihumanism, most notably Jürgen Habermas, counter that while antihumanists may highlight humanism's failure to fulfil its emancipatory ideal, they do not offer an alternative emancipatory project of their own. Others, like the German philosopher Heidegger. considered themselves humanists on the model of the ancient Greeks but thought humanism applied only to the German "race" and specifically to the Nazis and thus, in Davies' words, were anti-humanist humanists. Such a reading of Heidegger's thought is itself deeply controversial; Heidegger includes his own views and critique of Humanism in Letter On Humanism. Davies acknowledges that, after the horrific experiences of the wars of the 20th century, "it should no longer be possible to formulate phrases like 'the destiny of man' or the 'triumph of human reason' without an instant consciousness of the folly and brutality they drag behind them". For "it is almost impossible to think of a crime that has not been committed in the name of human reason". Yet, he continues, "it would be unwise to simply abandon the ground occupied by the historical humanisms. For one thing humanism remains on many occasions the only available alternative to bigotry and persecution. The freedom to speak and write, to organise and campaign in defence of individual or collective interests, to protest and disobey: all these can only be articulated in humanist terms."

Modern humanists, such as Corliss Lamont or Carl Sagan, hold that humanity must seek for truth through reason and the best observable evidence and endorse scientific skepticism and the scientific method. However, they stipulate that decisions about right and wrong must be based on the individual and common good, with no consideration given to metaphysical or supernatural beings. The idea is to engage with what is human. The ultimate goal is human flourishing; making life better for all humans, and as the most conscious species, also promoting concern for the welfare of other sentient beings and the planet as a whole. The focus is on doing good and living well in the here and now, and leaving the world a better place for those who come after. In 1925, the English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead cautioned: "The prophecy of Francis Bacon has now been fulfilled; and man, who at times dreamt of himself as a little lower than the angels, has submitted to become the servant and the minister of nature. It still remains to be seen whether the same actor can play both parts".

Sentientist philosophers criticise humanism for focusing too strongly, sometimes even exclusively, on the human species. They propose sentientism as an extension of humanism that grants degrees of moral consideration to all sentient beings—those capable of experiencing. Sentient beings include humans and most non-human animals and could potentially include artificial or alien intelligences."

"Nietzsche's Overcoming of Humanism" REHA KULDAŞLI

Above I said that with the death of God, the function of a central agency that orders beings is assumed by human being. To be more precise, this function is granted to an evaluation of human being understood to a great extent in rationalistic terms. The transmigration of this function from God to human being raises the value of human being to a degree in which it is conceived as above other beings due to this ordering power. That is, an evaluation of human being begins to occupy the seat vacated by God without a fundamental change in the structure. In Nietzsche’s terminology, God is replaced by its shadow, i.e., the rationalistic, more precisely, the subjectivistic (see 2.5, below) conception of human being. With this, human being’s search for security in the world from the perspective of self-preservation undergoes a modification. The previous ideal of spiritual salvation turns into a scientific-rationalistic conception of salvation, although the underlying tendencies and their unconscious desire for the overcoming of suffering remain operative. With respect to these tendencies, Nietzsche says:

What they would like to strive for with all their powers is the universal, green, pasture-happiness of the herd, with security, absence of danger, comfort, an easing of life for everyone. The two songs and doctrines they sing most frequently are called ‘Equality of Rights’ and ‘pity for all things that suffer’ – and they assume that suffering itself is something we must do away with."

I have never considered Epicurean philosophy to be a form of "Humanist" philosophy any more than it is a form of Stoicism or Platonism. I haven't written extensively on this, in part because many Humanists are allies on certain important points, such as rejection of Supernatural Religion.

But I was reminded of this point today and I think it is time to start a thread on it. My position is that "Humanism" is just another "-ism" that has a goal at its center which is very different from Epicurean philosophy. It will take much citation and explanation to explain this, but let's start in this post with the frequent Humanist slogan:

"GOOD WITHOUT GOD"

That should be an immediate tipoff that feeling - pleasure and pain - are not at the center of Humanism. What's at the center is "being good." And advocacy of being a good person is always a tipoff that the person advocating that position has his or her own definition of "What a Good Person Is." And therein is the slippery slope of all Idealist philosophies and religions: In the atomistic universe recognized by Epicurus, in which there is no center point of observation, no supernatural creating god, and nothing eternal except elements and void - there IS no single definition of "good."

I will come back to this as time allows, because I know my criticism of "Humanism" is not unique, nor is it rooted only in Epicurus or even in Nietzsche. I don't consider this issue to be a word game, and I consider it important not to unnecessarily offend the many good people who embrace the term "humanism" for reasons that are compatible with Epicurus.

But Epicurean philosophy is about being precise with words, and keeping Nature - not idealism - at its center, so this is an issue which needs to be developed and understood.

I fully agree with this reference to Nietszche as recorded at Wikipedia: "For Friedrich Nietzsche, humanism was nothing more than an empty figure of speech – a secular version of theism."

Here is a useful Wilipedia article as a starting point for reference.

Here is an article at Academia.com: Nietsche's Overcoming of Humanism ["In this section, I will discuss the transition from Platonic-Christian values to the values of secular humanism and attempt to show how these values, from a Nietzschean perspective, constitute another instantiation of the nihilistic paradigm"]

Very nice - I do not think I have ever heard that!

Ben: I agree with what you say, Cassius Amicus, and interpreting Philodemus in the light of Epicurean criticism of Plato makes sense. But I also can't escape the notion that Philodemus was not aware of everything we have discovered about music therapy in recent times, and if he had known this, he might have changed his tune (pun intended).

Cassius Amicus: Ben what do you think Philodemus would have changed (or what would be different in the way this article represents Philodemus as saying)?

Ben:I would hope he would see instrumental music as something meaningful (though without the Platonic notion) in itself, that affects the mood, and can be useful in therapy, and contributing to the good life (eudemonia).

Cassius:

Ben wrote: "I would hope he would see instrumental music as something meaningful (though without the Platonic notion) in itself, that affects the mood, and can be useful in therapy, and contributing to the good life (eudemonia)." Absent absolutely clear proof to the contrary (which is why I am suspicious of aggressive reconstruction of fragmentary texts) I have to believe that what you have just stated Ben WAS generally the Epicurean position. Lucretius would not have written his poem, and Epicurus would not have enjoyed the public festivals and talked about smooth motion, had they not derived pleasure from poetry and music.

It seems very likely to me that the contention that the Epicureans were against ALL music and ALL poetry is malicious misrepresentation of their true position, calculated to marginalize them and dissuade people from learning more about their philosophy. When evidence is conflicting I think it should be interpreted in a way consistent with what we are sure of as to the basics of the philosophy. We know that Epicurus embraced all kinds of pleasures; we know that certain kinds of music and poetry in certain contexts are pleasurable; therefore we can be sure that Epicurus appreciated music and poetry, and that the issue he had was something deeper than is superficially portrayed by his enemies.

And anyone who suggests that pleasure of any kind is anti-Epicurean is himself displaying that he does not understand Epicurus. "PD8. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves. VS 37. When confronted by evil nature is weak, but not when faced with good; for pleasures make it secure but pains ruin it."

Quote from Godfrey

I got completely derailed by the untranslated Greek in the piece.

That is maddening, isn't it? These academics could SO easily translate the word, but instead they keep it in the original as if to keep the meaning to themselves! I feel exactly the same way.

No doubt my explanation could be tweaked and improved, but it's probably going in the right direction. Godfrey I can't recall at the moment if you said you had finished reading DeWitt, but to me that is why he is so good. He looks for logical explanations consistent with the core theory, rather that acting as if there's no possible reasonable explanation and making himself look superior to Epicurus.

Your example is right on point too. Epicurus, who reveled in the public festivals, and can't imagine the good without the pleasures of smooth motion and similar, dislikes music and poetry???? How ridiculous, but that is exactly what the commentators lead you to believe.

I think you can trace this line of thinking in many directions through Epicurus. He's against the construction of Platonic idealism - of things that don't have a real existence - but he is 100% in favor of those things that DO have a real existence as revealed to us through our senses. Many of these seeming contradictions can be explained that way, but you won't find most modern commentators suggesting that, because they too "buy in" to the Platonic abstraction method and can't imagine that someone could sincerely challenge it.

After reading that article, here are my thoughts:

My reading of this is that the Epicureans were critical of the view that music theory could lead to the embodiment of "ideas" in particular musical forms. They weren't opposed to music itself, and indeed found it pleasurable, but they opposed the theory of trying to use music to imitate ideal forms and thereby embody "good" or "bad" in the music itself.

If that is correct, that would be parallel to the general Epicurean view against Platonic ideal forms in general. It seems clear that Epicurus campaigned against the Platonic view that ideal forms exist to be embodied in word formulas (concepts) and mathematical formulas (geometry and math), so it only makes sense that they would campaign against the attempt to embody ideal forms into musical formulas.

Surely the Epicureans did not campaign against music in general, and surely they did not argue that music cannot evoke pleasure or pain. So it seems most likely to me that they were not campaigning against music itself, but against the idea that music can embody something (ideal forms) that don't exist. Probably this kind of view also describes what Epicurus was saying about poetry. ("Only the wise man will be able to converse correctly about music and poetry, without however actually writing poems himself.") We can converse about how poetry and music make us feel without giving ourselves over to abstract theories that they embody something in themselves. Just like geometry and math can have highly productive practical uses without being considered to be mystical in themselves.

I'm interested to hear any and all opinions about this. No doubt this formulation of my initial reaction could be improved.

Related to this topic is this article which I am adding to Filebase and am linking here.

Philodemus on Ethos in Music

Author(s): L. P. Wilkinson

Source: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 3/4 (Jul. - Oct., 1938), pp. 174-181

Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Can I pose a question to any of our readers who might have access to knowledge about the current state of the Herculaneum texts:

Nearby, Hiram posts a link to an article he wrote about Philodemus On Music. Some of the material for his article comes (I understand) from "Les Epicurens" edited by Daniel Delattre. I have a copy of that myself, but I don't read French, so I can't read the details as to what part of the reconstruction of the text is speculative and part is firm. I see that the section on Music contains over sixty pages of small print, of which I will attach pictures of the first page below. I am also attaching a summary of a Cambridge publication which indicates that the surviving text was in poor condition.

This is a general question that has occurred to me ever since I heard of the DeLattre book, and isn't limited to this current discussion of Philodemus on Music. Can someone who is familiar with the state of academic research and DeLattre's publications enlighten me on this question:

I find it difficult to understand how (1) so much material appears to survive from Herculaneum to be translated into French, but (2) so little of that same material appears to available in English. Perhaps this is just the result of my own lack of research, but I find the situation difficult to understand.

I gather that the DeLattre book was published in 2010, and it appears to have a great deal material from Philodemus and even Epicurus himself (some forty pages from "On Nature") that I have never seen in English. Is it possible that the French just care about Epicurus more than do English-speakers? Or is there some other explanation why DeLattre has so much more text than do English publications on Epicurus?

Thanks very much!

Welcome @Lou47 ! When you get a chance please introduce yourself and let us know about your background and interests in Epicurus.

Also: I am not familiar with the details of Crossfit as an organization, but from what I read I share their dietary views. More importantly, I consider Epicurean philosophy to be as much or more anti-establishment in philosophy as is Crossfit in the diet arena. And I share their concern on this topic:

1. Facebook collects and aggregates user information and shares it with state and federal authorities, as well as security organizations from other countries.

2. Facebook collaborates with government security agencies on massive citizen surveillance programs such as PRISM.

3. Facebook censors and removes user accounts based on unknown criteria and at the request of third parties including government and foreign government agencies.

4. Facebook collects, aggregates, and sells user information as a matter of business. Its business model allows governments and businesses alike to use its algorithmically conjured advertising categories as sophisticated data-mining and surveillance tools.

5. Facebook’s news feeds are censored and crafted to reflect the political leanings of Facebook’s utopian socialists while remaining vulnerable to misinformation campaigns designed to stir up violence and prejudice.

6. Facebook, as a matter of business and principle, has weak intellectual property protections and is slow to close down IP theft accounts.

7. Facebook has poor security protocols and has been subject to the largest security breaches of user data in history.

And finally,

8. Facebook is acting in the service of food and beverage industry interests by deleting the accounts of communities that have identified the corrupted nutritional science responsible for unchecked global chronic disease. In this, it follows the practices of Wikipedia and other private platforms that host public content but retain the ability to remove or silence—without the opportunity for real debate or appeal—information and perspectives outside a narrow scope of belief or thought. In this case, the approved perspective has resulted in the deaths of millions through preventable diseases. Facebook is thus complicit in the global chronic disease crisis.

https://www.crossfit.com/battles/crossf…ebook-instagram

This one in particular bears generalization:

36. In general virtue is the same for all, for it is something found beneficial in men's actions, but in its application to particular places or other circumstances the same thing is not necessarily virtuous for everyone.

Welcome Apollonius ! When you get a chance please introduce yourself and tell us about your background in Epicurus.

Sample rewrite:

33. There never was such a thing as absolute virtue, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm.

34. Violation of a code of virtue is not an evil in itself, but only in consequence of the fear which is associated with the apprehension of being discovered by those appointed to punish such actions.

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

32. Those animals which are incapable of making binding agreements with one another not to inflict nor suffer harm are without either virtue or anti-virtue; and likewise for those peoples who either could not or would not form binding agreements not to inflict nor suffer harm.

35. It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for until his death he is never sure that he will not be detected.

36. In general virtue is the same for all, for it is something found mutually beneficial in men's dealings, but in its application to particular places or other circumstances the same thing is not necessarily virtuous for everyone.

37. Among the things held to be virtuous by code, whatever is proved to be of advantage in men's dealings has the stamp of virtue, whether or not it be the same for all; but if a man makes a code of virtue and it does not prove to be mutually advantageous, then this is no longer virtuous. And if what is mutually advantageous varies and only for a time corresponds to our concept of virtue, nevertheless for that time it is virtuous for those who do not trouble themselves about empty words, but look simply at the facts.

38. Where without any change in circumstances the things held to be virtuous by code are seen not to correspond with the concept of virtue in actual practice, such codes of virtue are not really virtuous; but wherever the codes of virtue have ceased to be advantageous because of a change in circumstances, in that case the codes of virtue were for that time virtuous when they were advantageous for the mutual dealings of the citizens, and subsequently ceased to be virtuous when they were no longer advantageous.