Posts by Cassius

1. On the Issue of "the gods" - Chapter 14 - Does this deviate from the letter to Menoeceus? (But see the second excerpt in the next post.)

“On leaving you, last night,” said Theon, “I encountered Cleanthes. He came from the perusal of your writings, and brought charges against them which I was unprepared to answer.”

“Let us hear them, my Son; perhaps, until you shall have perused them yourself, we may assist your difficulty.”

“First, that they deny the existence of the gods.”

“I see but one other assertion that could equal that in folly,” said Epicurus.

“I knew it,” exclaimed Theon, triumphantly; “I knew it was impossible. But where will not prejudice lead men, when even the upright Cleanthes is capable of slander!”

“He is utterly incapable of it,” said the Master ; “and the inaccuracy, in this case, I rather suspect to rest with you than with him. To deny the existence of the gods would indeed be presumption in a philosopher; a presumption equaled only by that of him who should assert their existence.”

“How!” exclaimed the youth, with a countenance in which astonishment seemed to suspend every other expression.

“As I never saw the gods, my son,” calmly continued the Sage, “I cannot assert their existence; and, that I never saw them, is no reason for my denying it.”

2. On the issue of "Free Will" - Chapter 1 - Is this a less "free will" version that Epicurus taught?

“Does the human mind possess the power to believe or disbelieve, at pleasure, any truths whatsoever?"

"I am not prepared to answer: but I think it does, since it possesses always the power of investigation."

"But, possibly, not the will to exercise the power. Take care lest I beat you with your own weapons. I thought this very investigation appeared to you a crime."

"Your logic is too subtle," said the youth, "for my inexperience."

"Say rather, my reasoning too close. Did I bear you down with sounding words and weighty authorities, and confound your understanding with hair-drawn distinctions, you would be right to retreat from the battery."

"I have nothing to object to the fairness of your deductions,” said Theon, "But would not the doctrine be dangerous that should establish our inability to help our belief; and might we not stretch the principle, until we asserted our inability to help our actions?"

"We might, and with reason. But we will not now traverse the ethical pons asinorum of necessity — the most simple and evident of moral truths, and the most darkened, tortured, and belabored by moral teachers. You inquire if the doctrine we have essayed to establish, be not dangerous. I reply — not, if it be true. Nothing is so dangerous as error, — nothing so safe as truth. A dangerous truth would be a contradiction in terms, and an anomaly in things.”

Just reposting this link too, from Hiram, with memes at the Society of Epicurus page: http://societyofepicurus.com/principal-doct…ciFedl1Fz9zkop4

Thanks Hiram! Are those the ones that Panos did some years ago? I was looking but could not find them.

Great comment from "J" I am reposting here:

When I first started studying Epicurus, I was very much afraid of death. Every time I found myself worrying about my future demise, I could calm myself by reading the third paragraph of the Letter to Menoeceus – which is the argument you presented. It clearly addressed the source of my fear, because I would always feel better after reading it. I memorized the paragraph, because I knew that I wouldn’t always have a copy of the letter readily available. Over the course of a few months, my fear of death disappeared. Off topic, but an important point I want to make – cultivation of these concepts is important. Although they may make sense the first time you read them, it doesn’t mean that you have absorbed it and that it will be available to you when you need to apply it. There are also concepts that I have not understood the first time I read about them. But if I read them over and over I started to understand them. I believe this is why Epicurus stressed memorization so much. I highly recommend that you memorize any PDs, Vatican Sayings, paragraphs from the letters etc. that address the issues that are most important to you, even if you don’t fully understand them yet. By doing so, you will come to understand them at the core of your being.

The above story addresses the argument that death is nothing to us, but the counter arguments that you mention are not addressed by this. The counter arguments touch on the concept of infinite time versus finite time and length of life in general. The corresponding teachings that relate to this are:

PD 19: If we measure the limits of pleasure by reason, infinite and finite time both provide the opportunity for complete pleasure.

PD 20: We assume that physical pleasure is unlimited and that unlimited time is required to procure it. But through understanding the natural goals and limits of the body and by dissolving the fear of eternity we produce a complete life that has no need of infinite time. The wise man neither flees enjoyment, nor when events cause him to exit from life does he look back as though he had missed any essential aspect of life.

Epicurus also mentions it in the Letter to Menoeceus (DeWitt translation): “But the multitude of men at one time shun death as the greatest of evils and at another time choose death as an escape from the evils of life. The wise man, however, neither asks quarter of life nor has he any fear of not living, for he has no fault to find with life nor does he think it any evil to be out of it. Just as in the case of food, he does not always choose the largest portion but rather the most enjoyable; so with time, he does not pick the longest span of it, but the most enjoyable.”

Now, reading these things does not have the same effect for me that reading the third paragraph of LTM had on my fear of death, but I had a neat experience recently that suggests to me that simply by studying Epicurus these things will start to make sense even if I don’t completely understand it at first.

I used to tell people that I was going to live to 104. Very recently – like just a couple of weeks ago – a situation came up where I would normally say “Well, I’m going to live to be 104,” but to my surprise it didn’t feel right to say anymore and I realized that I no longer felt the need to live that long. I am not saying that I don’t think I will live that long – I might. What I am saying is that my desire to live to 104 stemmed from this belief that a longer life is somehow better and that my feelings about this somehow shifted without my working on it. For some reason, I seem to understand at my core that the length of my life is not important. What is important is that I now know that complete pleasure is possible and that I am getting closer to it. The more I study Epicurus, the closer I feel I am getting to experiencing complete pleasure. Right now, the biggest thing I am doing to get closer to complete pleasure is exactly what Elli mentioned – I am dispelling desires that stem from vain imagination. Perhaps the idea that a longer life is better than a shorter life is itself a product of vain imagination, but I think it is one that is difficult if not impossible to dispel directly. As I shed other vain desires this one seems to weaken for me as well. So perhaps this paragraph from LTM would be a good one to memorize too (DeWitt translation):

“As to the desires, we must reflect that some are natural and some are imaginary; and of the natural desires some are necessary and some are natural only; and of the necessary desires some are necessary to happiness [he refers to friendship], and others to the comfort of the body [clothing and housing], and others to life itself [hunger and thirst].

“Because a correct appraisal of the desires enables us to refer every decision to choose or to avoid to the test of the health of the body and the tranquility of the soul, for this is the objective of the happy life. For to this end we do everything, that we may feel neither pain nor fear. When once this boon is in our possession, every tumult of the soul is stilled, the creature having nothing to work forward to as something lacking or something additional to seek whereby the good of the soul and the body shall arrive at fullness. For only then have we need of pleasure when from the absence of pleasure we feel pain; and conversely, when we no longer feel pain we no longer feel need of pleasure.”

My apologies for the novel and thanks to anyone who read it.

Epicurus Principle Doctrine One: "A blessed and imperishable being neither has trouble itself nor causes trouble to any other,therefore it is never constrained by anger or favor, for all such things exist only in the weak."

Whether or not you agree with the idea that Epicurean gods really exist in bodily form, the Epicureans talked about them as if they were real, and found it useful to consider their traits as immortal and perfectly happy as models to which we should aspire to our ability. That means that Epicurean gods could be visualized in action, so it is interesting to consider scenes which an ancient Epicurean might visualize a blessed and immortal being existing. Such scenes would likewise be of benefit to at least some of us, but remember: "blessed and immortal" does not mean omnipotent, omniscient, granting favor or being angry - or any of the other attributes that the Epicureans considered blasphemous to the true nature of a perfectly happy being.)

Epicurus from the letter to Menoeceus: "First believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind; and so believing, you shall not affirm of him anything that is foreign to his immortality or that is repugnant to his blessedness. Believe about him whatever may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality. For there are gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that men do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in men like themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind."

Can you compose a graphic that would better illustrate this Epicurean point? Please add your own version to this thread, and we will use these in the future to help spread the ideas of Epicurus on the internet.

The current gallery of graphics for PD1 is here: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/gallery/in…e-list/188-pd1/

Over the coming weeks we'll make a series of posts with graphics illustrating each of the Principal Doctrines of Epicurus. This post is just an announcement of the series and an explanation that it would be great if those who see these posts think about how they might create versions themselves. For anyone who does that we will add their version to a gallery at Epicureanfriends.com which will be available for us to use in the future to illustrate each of the doctrines.

We would also like to see these graphics shared outside the group as a way to introduce new people to Epicurean philosophy. That means that if you compose and submit graphics it would be best to use pictures for which there are unlikely to be copyright complaints. Pictures of old artwork long in the public domain would be best, but anything you create yourself would be even better.

The point is both to encourage discussion about the substance of the doctrine in each post, and also to think about visualizations of how the substance translates into things we can see for ourselves.

A gallery of all the Principle Doctrine memes will be at the link below, which will grow as we go through each one.

https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/gallery/in…ipal-doctrines/

More comments:

Cassius:

Yes it does have its uses when wielded by the right hands, and it is so well known today that it has to be dealt with regardless of what we might think about it. I wish we had an example of an actual ancient Epicurean using it in context and explaining it from his or her perspective. Many of the passages that seem so tricky I think are perfectly understandable given the right perspective, which they would have had and of which we have been robbed for 2000 years.

Elli Pensa Cassius my friend, I agree with you ...the "tetrapharmakos" is that kind of schooling as it is for the little children when they are starting the nursery school. We the greeks when we learned the alphabet we sung an old song that goes like this :

Αlpha, beta, gamma, delta...

bring all the books,

and a pencil and a paper,

to write all the things,

to write little letters

that are the God's little things. ( i.e. the little letters and the little things that we learn at school are derived from god and are ending to the god).

So, that old song we have learned at nursery school stopped to the four letters, as four medicines means in greek the tetrapharmakos. And I wonder now where are the other letters of the greek alphabet ? Where is our alpha and omega that is pleasure inside the tetrapharmakos? It does not exist inside and that old song we sung in nursery school, and in the tetrapharmakos. Sorry guys, but inside wrong hands and the tetrapharmakos is like that old greek song we said in nursery school. That's the whole issue, I suppose. Every little and condensed issue, when you see it reading or hearing and is about the EP, as a honest Epicurean, you have to make it huge, clear, mature, grow, strong and obvious connected it with the real GOAL !

Cassius:

The formulation does have its uses, just like these rhymes do. But I think its grossly overused, and mostly by people who have no affinity for a pleasure-based philosophy. In fact, this formulation does not even mention "pleasure" at all, which is probably the main reason it goes down so well with those who interpret Epicurus as consistent with the Stoics.

And one of the best ways I can think to caution people about it is to point out that we have ZERO-NONE-ZERO evidence of any Epicurean from 300 BC to about1800 AD (whenever the scroll was deciphered) ever citing this formulation in any intact text written by a recognized Epicurean. Even this text itself is (1) not intact, and (2) not without doubt written by Philodemus, and (3) even if written by Philodemus, we don't have his backup explanation for why it is good, rather than a child's rhyme. And even after 1800, we don't have the original text (just a drawing of a reconstruction) and we don't have any way to assess the accuracy or the mindset of the person who transcribed it. Nor do we know if the person who transcribed it would endorse the use being put to his transcription.

I would be very grateful if someone reading this who is an expert can cite exceptions to the list of cautions I've just cited, but in my reading (which is pretty wide by now) I have not seen a single instance of it being cited, much less endorsed, by an authoritative proponent of Epicurean philosophy.

Elli says:

Epicurus used the word "Xάρισι" and "χάρη", and this word is given in english with the word "favor". For "gratitude in greek is "ευγνωμοσύνη". Αnd for gratitude there is a need of a feeling. E.g. someone makes you a favor and you feel pleased and grateful to return it back someday. That being does not feel neither anger nor gratitude. Because it does not take and not give to inferior beings like us. And why we are inferior? Because we still make wars by our fears and greed, and as we do not do anything to change all these, we say : our goal is "the absence of pain".

Godfrey , as we compose them, to of the sources I personally am looking at are:

Bailey's Extant Remains

Epicurism.info wiki

I have also collected versions at our own wiki here, but mine is a collection rather than a primary source.

We've been working on a couple to illustrate PD1 and should be ready to start a series of posts soon. Here is the text I am thinking of using with each graphic. Suggestions for improvements?

"Please comment and share. Can you compose a graphic that would better illustrate this Epicurean point? Please add your own version to this thread, and we will use these in the future to help spread the ideas of Epicurus on the internet."

This is Bailey from his Extant Remains

Good question - I will make sure Elli sees that!

Interesting that Epicurism.info has: A blessed and imperishable being neither has trouble itself nor does it cause trouble for anyone else; therefore, it does not experience feelings of anger or indebtedness, for such feelings signify weakness.

http://wiki.epicurism.info/Principal_Doctrine_1/

If I were making a list in this category I would also advise having pets. Not to be morbid, but the lessons learned when they die really make a useful impact I think.

This is a really big issue and getting worse all the time. It has great benefits but great costs so we really need to be sure we have estimated the end result correctly.

I bet there are many apt cites to the same point to support this, but I remember first from Diogenes Laertius that Epicurus said that the wise man "will be fond of the country."

I think one way to generate more and better quality visitors would be to encourage sharing of the graphics we've created (or will create) that illustrate the Principal Doctrines and the Vatican Sayings. We probably ought to make a habit of posting one per day, or every couple of days, as a regular feature, for discussion. We can add some kind of legend to the bottom back to the forum, and encourage sharing on places like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc.

In order to do that I'm trying to organize the graphics that Elli has done in the past in the gallery. I think I can tag each graphic, and also create a thread in the forum section dedicated to each graphic.

The place to start is PD1 and I'll move forward as fast as I can. But in order to see if it will help to post this, does anyone have good graphics for PD1 that they can add to this thread? Then I'll make sure it gets in the right place for reuse.

As soon as we get the first couple of doctrines in line I'll start a regular series of regular posts.

This thread will be for graphics for PD4

This thread is for graphics for PD3

This thread will be for graphics for PD2

This thread will be for graphics to illustrate PD1

Some FB responses:

E:

If I lived as if I would die tomorrow, I would actually do some different things than I would anticipating that I may live another 20-30 years, and the difference is important. I don't want to endure 20 years of diabetes, but if today were my last day I'm sure I would not give any thought to the long term consequences of my food choices. I would likely not do any income producing work at all today if it were my last day-- but that would be a bad idea if I plan to have food and shelter on an ongoing basis for several more years. I would take no concern for protecting myself from a hangover, an STI or bankruptcy if I were dying tomorrow. The hedonic calculus would not be the same.

However, I do remind myself that I only get ONE life, however long it lasts, every day when I wake up, to make sure I remember not to postpone happiness!

-----

N: Is there a difference?

Is it more reasonable to pump your flooded basement by pushing all of the bad water out? Or by pumping all of the good air in? The goal is to get the water out, regardless of whether you focus on replacing the bad water with fresh air, or by having fresh air displace the bad water. Six one, half-dozen the other.

Similarly, if we're trying to –– let's say –– 'get over a cold', then pursuing pleasure might look like 'drinking orange juice', 'soaking in warm water', and 'resting your head'. Avoiding pain might look like 'NOT drinking rotten milk', and 'NOT soaking in cold water', and 'NOT putting more stress on your head'.

Tomato, tomato, right?

Cassius Amicus

I think it helps to look at it this way: Why do you see yourself pursuing music and art, Nate, just because you have free time you want to fill and you're tired of cleaning your fingernails?

No, you pursue art because you LOVE art, and because of the deep emotional feeling that it gives you to pursue it. In general, do you really HATE pain with the same intensity that you love pleasures such as art? Are these things of equal significance in life, especially given the analysis that pain is not to be overly feared because it is short if intense and manageable if long?

From that point of view you are not indifferent to the choice you make. Yes you COULD devote yourself to lining up the tomatoes in your refrigerator in FIFO order, and that would avoid the pain of not being able to fine the freshest tomato. But what do you LOVE in life? And what makes life worthwhile?

Isn't it important how someone prioritizes your thought processes? I'm thinking also that reducing priorities to mathematical equivalences isn't a good idea either, since the model (math) isn't the same as the reality (our feelings).

Cassius Amicus Maybe another way of asking the question. Would we really expect the young person who sets out in life thinking "My goal is to avoid pain!" to end up in similar places as the young person who sets the goal "My goal is to pursue pleasure"? It seems to me intuitively correct that they will NOT end up at the same place, but describing why is an interesting exercise. I'd love to see some people comment on this formulation of the question.

E:

I have a friend who rides motorcycles and who likes to say that if people look at potholes, they tend to drive into them. Don't know if original with him. But I agree, in that the way the human mind works, if we concentrate on avoiding something ("don't think of a white bear"), sometimes we wind up with it on our minds more. If we focus on avoiding pain, we will be reminding our brains "pain, pain" in order to stay away from it, and we can actually experience a little bit of pain just from thinking about it. We will be constantly watching for pain to make sure we avoid it, and in doing so, we will probably find more pain than we would have otherwise.

Whereas if we primarily focus on pleasure, even just thinking "pleasure" provides a little taste of what we are aiming at. We will be watching and thinking of what we can do right now and later that will be most pleasurable, so even the looking for what's next is a pleasant process, and we will be more likely to notice pleasurable possibilities if we are watching out for them.

Elli Pensa

Why someone wants to avoid something that is not present ? Because he does not want to enjoy the present ! But does he know that this present becomes quickly the past ? As for the future does not belong totally to us. So life is wasted, and when death comes, he lived a life to avoid not the pain actually, but the pleasures that life has....It is like that one who does not want to fall in love, because he wants to avoid to run some risks of getting to know the other, without leaving himself free to feel the heartbeats of love. That's the whole issue. Usually the stingy persons are acting like this. They do not want to give and to get. They are reluctant to share ANYTHING with another person. So, if their option is to stay alone just to avoid pain, I would like to tell them : Please do not forget to take your pills of anesthesia.

Bryan

Pain and pleasure are kind of relative to the person's perspective. One person's "pain" is another's pleasure. Take getting drunk as an example. But suppose for a moment that pain and pleasure were always objective things and everyone knew exactly that was painful and pleasurable from birth. Since pain and pleasure fall on a scale of degrees, in order to answer this question we'd have to find a choice between 2 equally evaluated choices.

It's really hard to answer this question without being glib about degrees of pain/pleasure. But if it were up to me I would pursue pleasure as that has an effect on me personally more than pain affects me. Maybe it's really to each his/her own.

Cassius Amicus

"But suppose for a moment that pain and pleasure were always objective things and everyone knew exactly that was painful and pleasurable from birth." With only mild modifications I think this is exactly what Epicurus said. We know pleasure and pain because we FEEL it, and the feeling is what it is. We don't always predict the long-term results of actions very well, and frequently we pick something and get a very different result. But the fact that different people have different feelings in eating a type of food, for example, or that pleasures and pain vary intensity, does not do anything to undermine the basic point that feelings of pain and pleasure are our ultimate faculty of feeling what to pursue and what to avoid.

Bryan

I got yah Cassius. Thanks.

T

I am guessing that you are since pain is mostly unavoidable in life that pleasure would be more of importance to pursue than avoiding pain.

Cassius Amicus

I am not sure that the unavoidability is really the issue as much as the issue is that the shortness of life, plus the pain that all of us experience, means that pleasure is in short supply during the brief duration of our lives, so it makes no sense to do anything other than to pursue net pleasure during the brief time that we have --- from a "Seize the day" type of perspective.

N:

I think that, a lot of times, 'pleasure-pursuit' utilizes 'pain-avoidance' as the most effective mechanism to pursue pleasure. 'Hedonic Calculus' often calls for 'anxiety-reducing mechanisms' as much as it does for 'peak experiences'.

It's like having a migraine, or breaking a bone, or some other injury or abuse. In those circumstances, pursuing your talents and fulfilling your passions isn't nearly as desirable as is receiving a morphine IV and taking a long nap.

N:

Needless to say, I see what you guys mean in terms of distinguishing 'pursuing something you want' from 'avoiding something you dislike'.

Cassius Amicus

N, I want to be sure to say that I do a agree with you that in those circumstances you are talking about, pain avoidance clearly DOES deserve to be the main focus. There are huge numbers of unfortunate / tragic situations in the world where people are in such pain that getting out of it is totally consuming. I absolutely get that, and do not mean to undercut that perspective.

BUT, and this is a big but, I do think Epicurean philosophy tends toward the more cheerful perspective that for MOST people and MOST of the time, pleasure is achievable, even if we have to lower our expectations to extremely simple living. The pleasure we get from extremely simple living when that is all that is available to us is definitely worth living for.

So that's the foundation of the simple living perspective, but in many cases, MORE is possible than "extremely simple" living, and where more pleasure can be obtained at a cost of pain that we judge to be worthwhile, then by all means we should act to gain that, and not accept simply the minimum available to us.

Cassius Amicus

Remember this from the Jefferson Head and Heart letter, which contains the phrase "the greater part of life is sunshine"

Heart. And what more sublime delight than to mingle tears with one whom the hand of heaven hath smitten! To watch over the bed of sickness, & to beguile its redious & its painful moments! To share our bread with one to whom misfortune has left none! This world abounds indeed with misery: to lighten its burthen we must divide it with one another. But let us now try the virtues of your mathematical balance, & as you have put into one scale the burthen of friendship, let me put its comforts into the other. When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the solace of our friends! How are we penetrated with their assiduities & attentions! How much are we supported by their encouragements & kind offices! When heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, & into which we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost a luxury! In a life where we are perpetually exposed to want & accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire from all aid, & to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency! For assuredly nobody will care for him who care for nobody. But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.

https://newepicurean.com/the-greater-part-of-life-is.../

(Note: it appears that "redious" is in the original, not a mistype)