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A hedonistic pursuit of the good life does not strongly invite people who are interested in philosophy. And pleasure seekers may not be all that interested in philosophy.
I think that hits the nail on the head. The issue is not "sex drugs and rock and roll" - the issue is that pleasure is a feeling, and Epicurean philosophy is essentially a war to explain that "feeling" is ultimately what life is all about, rather than "logic" or "reason" or "virtue" or "piety to the gods."
Welcome Will1776 ! When you get a chance, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background in Epicurus!
Great! Glad to have you Mousikos!
Welcome Mousikos ! When you get a chance, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background in Epicurus!
If somebody in the future comes across these comments and takes the time to read the book in more detail, please post a reference to anything you come across that appears to be worthwhile Epicurean thought.
Here are the last two chapters of the book. Aside from the focus on Aurelius and the lack of reference to Epicurus, there's something repellant to me that seems to ooze out of every sentence from every section that I glance at. I'd like to find out I am wrong but I see little if anything Epicurean in these concluding thoughts:
"For the weariness came back tenfold; and he had finally to abstain from thoughts like these, as from what caused physical pain. And then, as before in the wretched, sleepless nights of those forced marches, he would try to fix his mind, as it were impassively, and like a child thinking over the toys it loves, one after another, that it [223] may fall asleep thus, and forget all about them the sooner, on all the persons he had loved in life—on his love for them, dead or living, grateful for his love or not, rather than on theirs for him—letting their images pass away again, or rest with him, as they would. In the bare sense of having loved he seemed to find, even amid this foundering of the ship, that on which his soul might "assuredly rest and depend." One after another, he suffered those faces and voices to come and go, as in some mechanical exercise, as he might have repeated all the verses he knew by heart, or like the telling of beads one by one, with many a sleepy nod between-whiles.
For there remained also, for the old earthy creature still within him,
that great blessedness of physical slumber. To sleep, to lose one's
self in sleep—that, as he had always recognised, was a good thing. And
it was after a space of deep sleep that he awoke amid the murmuring
voices of the people who had kept and tended him so carefully through
his sickness, now kneeling around his bed: and what he heard confirmed,
in the then perfect clearness of his soul, the inevitable suggestion of
his own bodily feelings. He had often dreamt he was condemned to die,
that the hour, with wild thoughts of escape, was arrived; and waking,
with the sun all around him, in complete liberty of life, had been full
of gratitude for his place there, alive still, in the [224] land of the
living. He read surely, now, in the manner, the doings, of these
people, some of whom were passing out through the doorway, where the
heavy sunlight in very deed lay, that his last morning was come, and
turned to think once more of the beloved. Often had he fancied of old
that not to die on a dark or rainy day might itself have a little
alleviating grace or favour about it. The people around his bed were
praying fervently—Abi! Abi! Anima Christiana!+ In the moments of his
extreme helplessness their mystic bread had been placed, had descended
like a snow-flake from the sky, between his lips. Gentle fingers had
applied to hands and feet, to all those old passage-ways of the senses,
through which the world had come and gone for him, now so dim and
obstructed, a medicinable oil. It was the same people who, in the
gray, austere evening of that day, took up his remains, and buried them
secretly, with their accustomed prayers; but with joy also, holding his
death, according to their generous view in this matter, to have been of
the nature of martyrdom; and martyrdom, as the church had always said,
a kind of sacrament with plenary grace."
1881-1884.
I see that I just searched volume one. I now searched Volume 2, and came up with ONE more reference to Epicurus, and FIFTY more references to Aurelius. Sigh.
An excellent book to which a full subforum here at this site is dedicated: A Few Days In Athens - By Frances Wright
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4057?fb…0VaOv6GVZTgDNQk
I believe I looked into this some years ago but came away very disappointed. Hopefully my memory is faulty. If you get a chance to post any kind of commentary on it that would be much appreciated.
However I just did a word search in the Gutenberg edition for "Epicurus" and came up with exactly ONE results. On the other hand, a search for AURELIUS comes up with FIFTY-SIX results. Maybe my memory is not so bad after all.
If it is just a rehash of Stoicism it would still be good to note that here so as to save people time from looking at it in the future.
I see! Do you gather that it adds a new "take" on the poem, or largely just another effort over the same ground? I gather that some people (especially those who like poetry) like the idea of tackling it to try to capture the poetic feel. Is that his approach, or is he targeting accuracy of meaning?
Interesting post even if you don't translate it! 
How do you mean "it is too much Italian?" Too long to translate, or too something else?
Google translate version:
By Michele Pinto | May 11, 2019 0 Comment
At the Turin Book Fair, Roberto Herlitzka, on his debut as a translator, presented his version of Tito Lucrezio Caro, La Natura (Books I-IV), published by La Nave di Teseo.
Alongside the famous actor, a brilliant Massimo Manca, who knows Lucrezio well because he has been teaching Latin language and literature at the University of Turin for a long time. His conversation with Herlitzka is easy and lacking in useless pleasantries, at the Salone del Libro the times are short, but everyone knows it, and they go straight to the point, in medias res . Everything revolves around a central question: how did the idea of translating Lucretius come about? And above all because to translate it into Dante triplets. Currently the translations we are used to are exegetical or even popular, while the poetic language chosen by Herlitzka is not easy, it is certainly not an Italian for everyone. But the world from which the author of this verse translation comes is theater, and theater is the place where poetry and verse can be spent in public, even today. In a sense, then, even Lucretius loved archaic Latin, and therefore why not use a fourteenth-century Italian, with some license to even more recent poetic language?
Herlitzka studied al d'Azeglio in Turin - he is keen to remember this detail, given that Turin is the city that hosts the Book Fair - and the classical high school was the place where his love for Dante was born, but also for the other classics, like Petrarca, Leopardi, Montale. The idea of translating some verses of Lucretius into hendecasyllables was at the beginning a pastime, the distraction of a student who experiences hendecasyllables as a pure exercise in style, or perhaps as a game. At first for love of Dante, then for love of him, of Lucretius, and some kinship between the two there, and was recognized by some well before this work of translation began. Then as we know the actor moved to Rome to study acting, and among his teachers was Orazio Costa, who opened his mind when he read Dante.
The love for Dante, however, could not make up for a knowledge of Latin that was not that of the professional philologist, and therefore Herlitzka confesses confidently to Professor Massimo Manca that he did not start from scratch, but that he used a very translation literal of De Rerum Natura , the school edition of the Avia Pervia series. Unfortunately, however, especially in the fourth book, certain passages that have to do with eros and sexuality have been omitted (Autocensura? Don't the students have to read certain things?), Therefore, especially in this book, the reference was the Italian translation by Armando Fellin. With a winking look, and here the actor's soul shines through, Herlitzka tells us that he now hopes to end the verse rendition and thus complete this translation that he conducted, little by little, over a lifetime.
Then the actor stands up, and begins to read the triplets of his translation, a sense of rhythm, a force, even Manca, who is used to the metric of Latin verses, and follows the original text he brought with him, looks up surprised. There are five passages chosen by Herlitzka for the public of the Salone del Libro:
the one in which it is said that the gods, blessed, do not care about human affairs;
the useless sacrifice of Iphigenia to allow the easy departure of Greek ships;
the sacrifice of the calf to the gods, sacrificed on the altars of the divine sanctuaries;
atmospheric dust, which moves in all directions illuminated by the light of the sun, to which atoms are compared, which flow incessantly into infinite space;
and finally, the fifth piece, which certainly many of you will remember having translated in the long hours of Latin spent in high school. The one in which the sick child is described, to which the doctor delivers a bitter medicine ( absinthia ). The rim of the glass is sweetened with honey. Lucrezio, with his verses, wants to tell the message of his master, Epicurus, in a sweet way, and even we adults, who for years have not faced the reading of those verses in Latin, we cannot however not remember that image: dulci counting melle .
Sandro Borzoni
Poster1: Looking at the growth of Modern Stoicism compared to Epicureanism. There is Stoic week, quite a lot of books, very active Facebook communities, podcasts etc and even a Stoic meet up group in Manchester UK where I live. Does anybody have any opinion why the same hasn't happened with Epicureanism? Do you think that will change in the near future? And how that could be achieved?
Many thanks x
Poster2 - It requires a physical effort and cost to remove oneself from society and to find friends willing to do the same. To most people, that is impractical at best and culty at worst.
Also - the true asceticism and discipline required is probably beyond most hedonic moderns.
Ep1 - Why are you associating removing yourself from society and being ascetic with Epicurean philosophy? Epicurus participated in public religious rites and attended plays with enjoyment. He held feasts in his Garden.
The discipline needed is only to avoid actions that bring more pain than pleasure, which is actually pretty easy once you understand it and enjoy it in action. Net pleasure is very motivating and an easy habit to acquire.
It is mainly false beliefs that stand in the way-- false ideas that there is something wrong with a life of pleasure.
I live according to Epicurean principles. I do not isolate myself. I started a meetup to promote Epicurean living. So far what I have found is that people resist the philosophy not because it is hard but because they cannot let go of indoctrination into illusory ideals, like thinking there is inherent value in asceticism. The atheists here tend to be secular Buddhists or humanists.
Poster A2: I think that stoicism is more popular because it is a passive posture, and a martyr posture, both thing have a very close relation with catholic religions, where the more you endure suffering the more close you are to god, and were you will be saved by someone else but not by yourself.
Poster MK:
Stoicism has benefitted from backing from the field of psychology.
CBT appeals to Stoic practises like premeditatio malorum, view from above perspective re-alignment, reaction control, etc.
It has made Stoic ideas more attractive and academically viable.
Many modern exponents refer recurrently to “evidence-based” results for the efficacy of these coping strategies.
The buzz built surrounding Stoicism in therapeutic praxis has been capitalised on to organise such events as Stoic week, Stoicon, so on.
Epicurean thought is a bit more niche. Rather ironically given that it was considered to be too populist in antiquity.
Christianity likely contributes as well.
Virtues (conceived of as improbable standards of conduct), ascetic and meditation practises, fatalism.
It's all rather a snug fit for post-Christian societies of formerly Roman Catholic/High Church varieties.
It's again, if differently, psychological after all.
It is easiest to make a transition away from something, if it's to what is similar still.
Most people don't like admitting what they've believed all their life and what their culture has grown up around is completely wrong and risible.
They instinctively want to keep as much as possible. Stoicism allows a lot of Christianity to come with it.
That's only the English-speaking side of the story though.
Epicureans in Greece do hold conferences, meet together, print publications, etc.
Epicurean teachings historically always succeeded organically at all events.
Epicurus himself set his face against the Academy and Lyceum. Of which our contemporary teaching institutions are pale, conscious, imitations.
I expect Epicurus wouldn't be best pleased at universities arranging events on his behalf.
Friends in a garden with cheese was his sort of conference or meet-up.
As for podcasts, communities and the rest. Who can say why really?
This group and several members are quite active.
But I suppose the prevalence in academia of Stoic/Stoic'ed up claims and ideas makes it inevitable.
Podcasts, blogs, meme/FB communities are precisely the sort of thing students/salaried academics do.
Poster DR:
The truth is that Stoicism has benefitted substantially from scientific backing in the form of research on CBT whereas Epicureanism has been hampered by the fact that it seems much more at odds with current psychological research on emotional wellbeing.
Poster E1: Having seen CBT work wonders for a family member with severe OCD and social anxiety-- learning that the discomfort of their fear will not injure them by practicing exposure in graded doses-- I see no conflict between CBT and EP. They learn the difference between false fears and reality. They are not taught to lose fear of truly dangerous things but to overcome false fear of harmless things.
Epicurus used a form of CBT, by having his students replace their unfounded fears with reality through memorization of his doctrines and meditation/study of reality.
His reminder that severe pain is short and other pain is bearable is meant to lessen fear of the future. CBT does this same thing by demonstrating this truth in action. The agoraphobic person gradually experiences that they don't die of fear from going outside their home-- that it becomes bearable and then eventually goes away!
Epicurus also notes that sometimes we will chose to experience pain for greater pleasure-- which is consistent with the difficulty in early CBT that leads to freedom from false fears and a constricted life. The goal of CBT is not to live enduring fear-- it is to reduce and then eliminate false fear.
Poster MH: We're still here! Most people have a hard time accepting oblivion upon death. Especially if they feel cheated by life and want a reboot! But if you accept your mortality and can become self-sufficient Epicureanism can provide a content life. Thomas Jefferson believed so.
Cassius: Let me restate Antonio and Martin but be more blunt.
Stoicism is a repackage of commonplace religion and humanist positions on the place of individuals in the universe and the goal of "being a good person" -- which is (as Martin says) "a snug fit" for people of conventional religious and moral beliefs.
Epicurean philosophy is a radical rejection of the implications of religion in all its forms, from the rejection of supernatural gods to the rejection of life after death.
Which all means that Stoicism allows for the easy continuation of fantastic and preposterous religious and moral idealism in all its many forms. Stoicism is particularly in harmony with prevailing ethics and morality in areas where English is the dominant language, as the original post indicates. There is something in the water, especially in the mother country, which has made cultivation of endurance of pain through the "stiff upper lip" approach somehow an element of pride, rather than of the shame it should be.
The only major quibble I have with Martin's summary is that while I agree that Epicurus would be displeased with the events that modern universities arrange in his name, it would not be because he preferred gardens and cheese.
The reason would be, as Martin says, because "Epicurus himself set his face against the Academy and Lyceum. Of which our contemporary teaching institutions are pale, conscious, imitations."
I would go much further. Epicurus set his face not only against the Academy and the Lyceum, but also against the conventional idealism and morality that they spawn, of which much of decadent English society (applicable to the USA too) is but a pale conscious imitation.
Cassius: Especially for England, a land where the determinism that Epicurus detested flowers, I would add to the list: "Are you confirmed in the viewpoint that individuals are largely personally responsible for the outcomes of their decisions on how to live their lives?"
Over on the Facebook Epicurean Philosophy page a new participant appeared for the first time and asked a question about "consumerism." Here is a followup question I asked of him in turn. I think this makes a good set of "starting point" questions for most anyone new to Epicurus:
I don't think you have posted many times before your recent question which went straight to the "consumerism" issue, so we don't know where you stand on any of the much more basic issues in Epicurean philosophy. So just out of curiosity I'd like to ask:
1 - Are you confirmed in the viewpoint that supernatural gods did not create the universe, and are not controlling your life?
2 - Are you confirmed in the viewpoint that there is no life (and therefore no punishment or reward) after death?
3 - Are you confirmed in the viewpoint that pleasure and pain are the ultimate motivators of life, rather than ideal forms or "virtue" or instructions from religion?
4 - Are you confirmed in the viewpoint that the way to decide what to choose and avoid is to weigh the full consequences of a decision in terms of how much pleasure or pain that it brings you?
5 - Do you agree that it is essential to study natural science in order to dispel false superstitions that prevent us from being fully happy?
6 - Do you agree that assertions of logic are to be tested by whether those assertions conform with the evidence of the senses, rather than testing the evidence of the senses to see if they conform with the assertions of logic?
All of those are much more fundamental than "consumerism," so I am curious as to whether you have taken positions in your mind on these earlier and more important issues. I bet it would be interesting to consider how your positions on the earlier issues relate to your views on the latter issue.
Welcome @Eric Harrison ! When you get a chance, please introduce yourself and let us know a little about your background and experience in Epicurus.
we have to be mindful not to dismiss all community and friendship and the values that sustain them as "slave morality".
Absolutely I agree with that. However, the particular values and ideas that give rise to "slave morality" are another form of virtue ethics, or worse. I don't think that those are compatible with Epicurean philosophy, nor (and more importantly) are people who firmly hold to those ideas likely ever to be friendly with people of Epicurean persuasion, any more are people who firmly hold to conventional Platonic or Stoic ideas.
Elli do you have a reference for the book that has those drawings? Is there a whole series of them, or are those the only two. The snake-made-up-of-sheep analogy is excellent.
Ok i see - so he is not talking about a particular ancient book -- I thought perhaps he was referring to the text where the "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem"?" was asked (I forget the "father" who wrote it), but that really wouldn't make any sense either for Nietzsche to be citing that approvingly.
Thanks!
Daniel:
My study into the details of Nietzsche is limited, so if you know --- to what "writing" is this a reference?
The symbol of this fight—between the two means of valuations—written in a writing which has remained worthy of perusal throughout the course of history up to the present time....
As to me personally, I fully agree with the thrust of what N. is saying here. "Slave morality" rings bells in my mind as another variation of "class warfare" as well, as just another means of asserting some "other" goal, other than the "pleasure" of the individuals involved, as the meaning of life. The list of abstractions that can be set up to take the place of "the feeling of pleasure given to us by Nature" seems endless.
The short answer to the question is "No." That passage is not a description of "katastematic pleasure," whatever that is, because that term is not used by Epicurus. It is a combination of two things (1) the core position that because pleasure is the goal, we should not choose pleasures which bring more pain than they are worth, and (2) the core position that since all human experience is either pleasure or pain, the most desirable human experience is that which is "crammed full of pleasures" and from which all pains have thereby been crowded out and are absent.
The long answer is that given the monolithic acceptance of the Stoic-lite viewpoint in the literature of the last several hundred years, you aren't likely to accept the short answer unless you dig into the details presented in the articles I mention. Those articles cite the background in which the letter to Menoeceus was written, and the subsequent philosophic wars in which the K/K distinction was pushed.
The key aspect of the background of the letter was the philosophic war with Platonists as to whether Pleasure has a limit of quantity, found in Philebus, and Epicurus' response that the limit of pleasure is when experience is filled with nothing but pleasures. That is the meaning of PD3 as well, where the context of quantity is stated explicitly.
The key aspect of the subsequent philosophic war where the K/K distinction was considered important is traced by Nikolsky in his article where he cites the Division of Carneades for pushing this viewpoint. And you will see that the same "ordinary pleasures" conclusion is reached when you read the much more detailed treatment by Gosling and Taylor in The Greeks on Pleasure.
In addition, there is no evidence that Epicurus himself used the K/K distinction. The only time it is referenced in the bio of Diogenes Laertius (written hundreds of years after Epicurus) DL states that Epicurus endorsed *both* types. And many references in the other surviving texts show that Epicurean theory turns on the embrace of the experience of pleasure as ordinary people interpret it, not in setting up a new term ("katastematic" or "absence of pain") as some kind of mysterious new definition of pleasure as the goal of life. The bottom line is that Epicurus taught pleasure as we ordinarily understand it, including all forms of bodily and mental pleasures. If it is pleasure, it feels like pleasure, and anything which feels like pleasure is a part of the ordinary analysis of all experience being either pleasurable or painful.
I have collected the references in support of this analysis here: https://newepicurean.com/foundations-2/…pleasure-model/
I grant you that the position I am arguing is not the mainstream viewpoint. But it is also not something that I dreamed up myself, and it is supported by the authorities that I collect at the link above. As cited at my link, to research this issue, start with Boris Nikolsky's "Epicurus on Pleasure," which argues that the katastematic issue was not introduced by Epicurus and reflects a later Stoic-influenced viewpoint. Next, read the chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks on Pleasure," from which Nikolsky got the inspiration for his article. Add to that the Wentham article "Cicero's Interpretation of Katastematic Pleasure," which highlights how emphasis on katastematic pleasure contradicts other core aspects of Epicurean philosophy.
I'll close this post with two clearly-documented references that I believe to be totally irreconcilable with any idea that Epicurus pushed "absence of pain" as anything other than a statement of quantity. The statement of quantity is itself critically important as a refutation of the "no limit" argument, but it is not a description of the pleasures being experienced in the best life:
It is observed too that in his treatise On the Ethical End he [Epicurus] writes in these terms:
“I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, of sex, of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.”
– Diogenes Laertius, Book X
“He {Publius Clodius} praised those most who are said to be above all others the teachers and eulogists of pleasure {the Epicureans}. … He added that these same men were quite right in saying that the wise do everything for their own interests; that no sane man should engage in public affairs; that nothing was preferable to a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures.
- Cicero, In Defense of Publius Sestius 10.23
