Posts by Cassius

As I get this episode finalized I realize that as usual I didn't think fast enough to make a couple of points that need to go along with this topic.

First, as Joshua noted we didn't address Cicero's criticism of associating evil with pain, so we'll address that next week. (Maybe we can spend another week on section 20!)

Second, Joshua mentioned the great difficulty of judging the sincerity and motivation of people who claim to have the same goal but are advocating for very different courses of action. Had I been thinking quickly I would have gone further into that topic, because very frequently both sides of an issue do in fact have what we would consider to be high-minded motivations. There's often no real basis for considering "good faith" to be the test that will allow us to choose between two very different courses of action. As the old saying goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

What we need to expand on is that in addition to looking at "intention" and "good faith," what Epicurus teaches us to do is to be insightful in calculating the actual results of two courses of action. And that's a question of wisdom and prudence that goes far beyond whether someone has "good intentions" in advocating for a point of view.

So we'll come back to that point next week too!

Episode 301 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Epicurus And The Question Of Ends Justifying Means"

Thank you Patrikios and others!

Happy Birthday to Cassius! Learn more about Cassius and say happy birthday on Cassius's timeline: Cassius

Thanks Martin. Mine have come back too even though I am not aware of having fixed anything. Weird.

Happy Birthday to Adrastus! Learn more about Adrastus and say happy birthday on Adrastus's timeline: Adrastus

Martin are we speaking about the same thing? Mine is showing this as an example from the "Latest" page (this used to be a set of icons, now it's the text of the names)

It has been reported that the "users online" right sidebar box (displayed at very bottom if you have a small screen device) has begun displaying user names in text rather than showing their avatars as normal. This applies to both users on in the last 24 hours and to the "users currently online" boxes.

This occurred last week right before our "glitch" which required the forum to be reset. I would hope that' another problem is not about to reoccur, but at present I don't see any error messages and I am not able to diagnose why the change happened. This time there was no software update to explain the discrepancy.

If anyone else sees any odd forum behavior please let us know in this thread. The display of the users as text rather than icons really isn't a problem, but as soon as we diagnose it we'll change that behavior back to normal.

thanks.

I can't endorse or oppose this book, but this might be worth checking out from a post by Peter Forster at Facebook in the Epicurean group:

I'd like to recommend this book which debunks quantum mysticism. Although it's not related to Epicurean Philosophy I think the principle is the same atoms or quantum particles are not individual units of consciousness.

In the text for this episode, Cicero uses the story of the Gracchi and their reforms to illustrate how dramatically words and goals can differ. It will be worth knowing a little about that background, so here's a pretty good video setting the stage.

Cicero specifically mentions the Sempronian law:

Lex Sempronia - Wikipedia

Also:

Gracchan opposition

Since Piso was in Sicily during his entire consulship, ancient sources do not tell his attitude towards Tiberius Gracchus, who as plebeian tribune moved an ambitious set of reforms to redistribute Roman public lands. It is generally assumed that Piso was among his opponents, because he was later an outspoken enemy of Gaius Gracchus (Tiberius' younger brother), but several politicians initially supported Tiberius and later opposed his reforms or his attempt to be reelected as tribune, starting with Scaevola, Piso's consular colleague.^[31] D C Earl suggests that Piso initially regarded Tiberius' program with a "benevolent neutrality" as he had connections with the Fulvii Flacci and the patrician Claudii, who were Gracchan allies.^[32]

The main anecdote for Piso's opposition is an anecdote placed in his mouth by Cicero. According to Cicero, after Gaius Gracchus passed a law establishing a subsidised grain supply over Piso's opposition, Piso appeared in the queue and when Gaius enquired as to his hypocrisy, he responded "I'm not keen, Gracchus... on you getting the idea of sharing out my property man by man, but if that's what you're going to do, I'll take my cut".^[33][34][35]

Welcome to Episode 301 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we be moving forward in Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations," as we of course cover it from an Epicurean perspective, and we will complete Section XX where we finally get to the Gracchus brothers and see how Cicero uses them to illustrate how people can speak much the same words but mean very different things.

Episode 300 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today we mark our 300th episode, and in reflecting we end up with an episode entitled: "An Epicurean Twist On The Lesson Of King Canute"

References in this episode:

King Canute and the Tide:

King Canute and the tide - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Nietzsche on Dictating To Nature:

Quote

Beyond Good And Evil

(Gutenberg edition, translated by Helen Zimmern ) Chapter 1, section 9

You desire to LIVE “according to Nature”? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, “living according to Nature,” means actually the same as “living according to life”—how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature “according to the Stoa,” and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?… But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to “creation of the world,” the will to the causa prima.

Happy Birthday to Pimagus! Learn more about Pimagus and say happy birthday on Pimagus's timeline: Pimagus

This is the level at which these issues of what "science" says really concern us. This, from that article, is what I would say Epicurus was concerned about too.

Quote

Bacon despised Aristotle’s ideas on deductive reasoning, not only because it was a direct contradiction to his methods of inductive reasoning, but also because he felt that it was more suited to disputation than for the discovery of practical facts. Additionally, Bacon saw syllogistic reasoning, which is a form of deductive reasoning that was widely used at that time, as “utterly useless for discovering the laws of nature and for applying them to the solution of practical problems”, which, as discussed before, was Bacon’s prime purpose for science. (Broad, 1958, p.51). This is because the general premises of which reasoned the conclusion were derived too rashly and were drawn from flawed observation, or worse, no observation and experimentation at all; he called this phenomenon the ‘anticipation of nature’. Furthermore, Bacon saw Aristotle’s procedures of syllogism as being circular: the premise of the syllogism was also a conclusion that had to be supported by premises; a process that would go round and round forever, never achieving any form of practical application (Dear, 2009, p.4; Bacon, 2020, sec.31). His solution was his method of inductive reasoning which started with the collection of data, followed by methodical, inductive investigation which produces applicable, practical knowledge (Klein & Giglioni, 2018, sec.5). Therefore, Bacon heavily criticised Aristotle’s method of deductive reasoning, as it did not serve the purpose of science and was highly inaccurate to deriving truthful facts and this criticism, he hoped, would convince the people of his time to use his method of inductive reasoning.

Quote from Rolf

it seems as if “absence of pain” as a concept denoting the limit of pleasure is primarily intended as proof that a life of consistent pleasure is possible and attainable. If pleasure had no limit, then we’d constantly be trying to fill our bottomless cup.

Since that is the analogy that is explicitly stated at the opening of Lucretius Book 6, I think you are on firm ground:

Quote from Lucretius Book 6 - Bailey

he then did understand that it was the vessel itself which wrought the disease, and that by its disease all things were corrupted within, whatsoever came into it gathered from without, yea even blessings; in part because he saw that it was leaking and full of holes, so that by no means could it ever be filled; in part because he perceived that it tainted as with a foul savor all things within it, which it had taken in.

also:

Quote from Rolf

As I’m writing this it doesn’t seem as clear to me as it did in my head… This seemingly simple topic makes me head spin!

What you wrote is very clear and makes complete sense. When you see that the vessel has a limit then you see that it can be filled. The problem comes in trying to stretch the analogy too far. Analogizing an Epicurean-inspired life to a well-formed jar solves the false allegation that a life of pleasure can never be complete, but it does not answer the question of what kind of pleasure you should use to fill your jar.

If any pleasure would do, what about the pleasure of thinking that god directs your life so that everything works together for good if you love the lord, or the pleasure of thinking that you will be lifted to heaven when you die? It is undeniable that those thoughts can be pleasurable too -- are you going to fill your jar with those kinds of pleasures?

The answer is "no," and while the vessel analogy can still be used to an extent (maybe you can say that those pleasures evaporate so the jar doesn't stay full) the vessel analogy can't fulfill every need for explanation of the issues.

This wouldn't be a problem except for those who want to suggest that "absence of pain" is a specific pleasure in itself. It is impossible to name such a pleasure, because all pleasures and pains are discrete experiences, and "absence of anything" doesn't describe a specific experience. Absence of a heap of sand doesn't tell you anything about what IS at the location you are discussing. Absence of pain tells you that pleasure is there, but ONLY because you have previously identified that whenever pain is absent, what is in that location is some form of pleasure. But you aren't stating what kind of pleasure is present without going into further detail, and if anyone wants to suggest that all pleasures are exactly the same then they are speaking nonsense. That's ust like Epicurus describes (in the letter to Menoeceus) the man who says that it is better to never be born, or rush to death. Such a man is talking lies or nonsense, because he could easily end is life if that is what he really thought.

I apologize to everyone who may have been affected, but unfortunately we have had to reset the forum to 3:20 AM Eastern time on September 21, 2025.

I have been monitoring posting and I do not think much new posting has been lost, and I am addressing the one post I know about with that user.

However I am not able to determine what may have transpired today in private conversations, so if you posted anything over the last 24 hours please check to be sure it is still available if it is of importance.

I very much apologize for this, which resulted from an update to a forum feature that has now been properly updated. It should not be necessary to deal with problems like this very often, but they do occur, so as a reminder if you do invest lots of time in composing material that is irreplaceable, it's always prudent to keep a local copy.

If anyone sees that they posted something in the last 24 hours that appears to have been deleted, please let me know and I will see if recovery is possible.

Thanks as always for your participation at EpicureanFriends.com!

Welcome to Episode 300 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we will commemorate our 300th episode and relate where we have been over the years to where we are now as we dive further into the details of Cicero's and Plutarch's criticism against Epicurus. We'll spend more time on the second of Cicero's criticisms as to absence of pain in Section XX, and develop a useful analogy between the teachings of Epicurus and the lesson of King Canute.

Quote from Don

Some may object to my saying mortals can never be free from all pain and say something like What's the use of Epicurus' philosophy then.

At least as to me I don't object to it, and I think most everyone here (where we generally have a realistic view of things) will agree. Total absence of pain is pretty obviously a theoretical goal more rather than established fact for any human being at any time. And it's confusion about that which is causing most of the debate and division on what Epicurus was talking about. (And that's most likely why you're concerned that "some may object to [your] saying that" because we can all observe that most of the world is talking as if Epicurus were in fact describing some real condition of total separation from pain.)

Last night in our zoom, Tau Phi offered the analogy that it is understandable that we are always feeling something because we are made up of atoms moving through the void, and the atoms never stop moving, and our sensations as emergent properties of these motions is going to naturally be always responding to internal and external motions so long as we are together and alive.

Similarly, I would expect there is another "physics" analogy on why we should not look to "ecstasy" as the best definition of the highest pleasure.

We talked last night about the "impossibility" of constant ecstasy, and I think we can also analogize that to physics terms. At least theoretically, the "gods" might be able to remain in constant ecstacy, if they so choose, because it's a characteristic of the intermundia (from Lucretius) that it supplies their every need and it is a totally friendly and supportive environment.

Our world, however, is not so constantly supportive. We're constantly buffeted by external and internal motions that would tear us apart literally and figuratively if we did not act to respond to them. A constant state of ecstasy in response to outside influences would not provide a mechanism for us to repair and sustain ourselves in the face of this buffeting. We can't constantly eat fish and drink wine and have sex because given the nature of our world that will lead to dissolution from any number of factors. We *must* take time away from being stimulated so as to exert our own actions to keep us as nearly as possible in constant pleasure, keeping in mind that there are many kinds of pleasures and that some are more productive of repair and regrowth than are others.

While we all recognize the benefits of ecstasy, we also have to keep in mind that we need to pursue other pleasures, and even at times pains, so as to keep our own atoms of body and mind in healthy condition and peak performance.

I think we'll be hearing more from Chump soon. In the meantime, here's what he's now sent me:

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Hello, sorry for the late response I was trying to respond to the post in the welcome thread but I think my activation didn’t work. I have clicked the activation email.

For about me, my personal background is that I am a graduate student studying economics. Past reading that I have done is some of the vatican sayings but I am relatively new to deeper study of Epicurus. I have started reading Dewitt’s book as well as per the suggestion of this forum. Discovery of this forum happened while googling about epicurean groups.

Best

Welcome aboard Chump!