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  1. EpicureanFriends - Classical Epicurean Philosophy
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Posts by Cassius

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 4:15 PM

    I agree with that analysis and I think that's probably why there's the separate reference to desires necessary for life and necessary for happiness.

    Further, I agree with you that the natural and necessary analysis is not as clear in our texts as it should be, and it's not something I focus on. I think Torquatus gives a reasonable explanation as to why it exists, as a tool of analysis, but it strikes me as rather obvious and so not something I find that important. The getting to 100% and then the rest being variation is important for logical reasons, but to me this natural / necessary division is not as much philosophical as it is practical advice. It's good practical advice too - if you need need help to see that the harder pleasures to obtain come at higher cost.

    I don't think you're missing something obvious however. This analysis is a prime tool used by the Stoics to argue that Epicurus was a minimalist, so it's a major thing to fight over. Yes it can be read to mean "you should be satisfied when you have just enough to keep you alive." But was it interpreted by Epicurus himself that way? No, so it's either not meant in that way, or Epicurus was a hypocrite. I don't think he was a hypocrite, so I think it was meant in the practical way of meaning "Watch out if you go for the more difficult pleasures in life, because that may cause more pain that it's worth. There's a lot of pleasure available in things that are easier to get, but jt's up to you to decide what's best for you. And he of all people - driven as he was - would have known that if you forgo something that you really want to do then that regret can be among the most painful.

    So part of the problem also is that we don't have much elaboration on this point in the texts, but in my view we have more than enough to know how *not* to interpret this passage.

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 3:35 PM

    I think you're well on your way to seeing that the decision to classify all of experience into either pleasure or pain is at the heart of Epicureanism - it is "philosophy." And that is why there's probably no more significant analysis in Dewitt better than:

    Quote from “Epicurus And His Philosophy” page 240 - Norman DeWitt (emphasis added)

    Quote

    “The extension of the name of pleasure to this normal state of being was the major innovation of the new hedonism. It was in the negative form, freedom from pain of body and distress of mind, that it drew the most persistent and vigorous condemnation from adversaries. The contention was that the application of the name of pleasure to this state was unjustified on the ground that two different things were thereby being denominated by one name. Cicero made a great to-do over this argument, but it is really superficial and captious. The fact that the name of pleasure was not customarily applied to the normal or static state did not alter the fact that the name ought to be applied to it; nor that reason justified the application; nor that human beings would be the happier for so reasoning and believing.


    Epicurean philosophy isn't magic. Epicurus extended the definition of pleasure to include all that is not painful as a way of refuting the arguments of the other schools that it makes no sense to set "Pleasure" as the ultimate goal because "pleasure" is insatiable and can never be satisfied. If he had not done so, he would never have been able to say that Pleasure can be satisfied, and that it is indeed possible to reach the best life.

    It's a choice to see and understand things in a way that rejects the supernatural and makes sense of the evidence and the faculties that we have as a basis for how to live one's best life. The best life comes down to a life of pleasure because there are no supernatural gods or ideal forms that command us to live other than as nature has provided through pleasure and pain.

    And the best way to reduce that best life into a single goal (which all philosophers want to do, and everyone else wants to do so they have an understandable goal) is to identify that single goal as "Pleasure." At that point it's up to you to go out an apply it and live your life.

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 3:28 PM

    These are good questions so keep them coming.

    Quote from Rolf

    Does this not fall into the fallacy of there being a “hierarchy” of pleasures? I understood it as all pleasure being equally, well, pleasurable - no “fancy pleasures”, as Elayne put it.

    That's a very reasonable question and this is my answer. All pleasure is pleasure because we find it desirable, so in that sense all pleasure is a pleasurable feeling. (Check DeWitt's section on "The Unity of Pleasure" for this.) When there are only two options, there is no basis for saying that there is a "Fancy pleasure" which is better than "pleasure."

    But all pleasurable feelings are not identical, as the vary in intensity, duration, and parts of the body affected (this list is from PD09).

    So while there is no hierarchy in which a particular pleasure is "best" and at the top of the pyramid, there are differences among pleasures, and we have to decide which will be most pleasurable to us under differing circumstances. Not all people find ice cream equally pleasing, nor do we ourselves find the same ice cream equally pleasing all the time.

    I think the key issue here is that pleasure is a feeling given to us by nature and we don't get to 100% control what we find pleasurable. Certainly we have some influence over that, but in the end pleasure is a feeling and a feeling is not an opinion - it just is what it is, like what our eyes or other senses give to us. What's the alternative? Well, gods could tell us what is pleasing, or there could be ideal forms of pleasure. Epicurean physics rejects those, so we are left with moment-by-moment processing of senses and feelings as prolepses as our ultimate contact with reality.


    Quote from Rolf

    What I’m confused about is this classification. Am I understanding correctly that the “necessary” in “necessary and natural desires” refers to being necessary for human well-being and happiness, and “unnecessary” to being unnecessary (but still pleasurable)? If that’s the case, why is it not enough for us to simply pursue and fulfil the necessary desires in order to reach this ideal (and largely hypothetical) state of 100% pleasure 0% pain? I understand in a practical sense that a minimal and ascetic life like this would be rather dull (and thus painful), but then I don’t understand the “necessary” and “unnecessary” terminology.

    There is the different category of necessary for survival vs necessary for happiness, but I don't think that is what you are asking.

    As for why it is not enough to do what you are suggesting, I think Epicurus would tell you that you have to decide that for yourself. Maybe it is enough, and it does get you to 100% pleasure. But that 100% pleasure does not tell you what mix of pleasures that you are engaged in, and I think this is where you are mixing the concepts of "the greatest pleasure" with "What should I be doing right now?"

    It is conceptually clear that 100% pleasure is the best way to express the general goal. It is not conceptually clear - in fact the opposite - that everyone will be doing exactly the same thing when they are at 100% pleasure. As you said as to yourself, you would regret not pursuing what pleasures are possible to you. In the same way the combination of pleasures that a minimalist might say is 100% pleasure and totally satisfactory for him might be 80% pain and totally unsatisfactory for me. What is necessary for one person to reach 100% pleasure is likely to be totally inadequate for someone else.

    100% pleasure represents the conceptual goal that we put together through analysis, but Nature never tells us "Well done my good and faithful servant - now you can stop because you are at 100% pleasure."

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 1:30 PM

    Another answer:

    Quote

    If the limit of pleasure is the absence of pain (ie. 100% pleasure 0% pain), aren’t unnecessary desires merely variation?


    Yes the limit of pleasure is the absence of pain, and yes unnecessary desires (just like any other) are variation past the point of 100%.

    But it's a key issue to remember that variation is pleasure too, and Epicurus is not saying "and variation is not desirable."

    My view is that you have to keep in mind that Epicurus is making a very specific point in defining "the limit of quantity of pleasure." It is not a good idea to presume that this statement carries over to mean that "when you've reached the limit you're finished once and for all" or that "the limit of pleasure" is a description of a particular pleasure. That would be as wrong as taking "all sensations are true" to mean that every thought you have at any particular moment based on a single fleeting sight or sound is totally correct. The senses are never "true" in the sense of being "true opinions." The senses are true in being "reported honestly without their own opinions."

    We have a lot of past discussion here that relates the limit issue to a challenge by Plato and others that pleasure has no limit, and that's in my view the main context in which this statement has the clearest meaning.

    "Variation" an also mean that you just live another day to experience new pleasures, and life is desirable as Epicurus says.

    Your question arises in everyone who thinks about these issues and only if a person gets past this to understanding how it makes sense does the person stay with Epicurean philosophy.

    For those who are convinced that these apparent contradictions have no plausible explanation I would advise them to stop studying Epicurus and go read other philosophers for a while, rather than conclude that they should in fact adopt a goal of minimalism as a generic lifestyle. I'd say that's a tragic misunderstanding of what Epicurus is saying, but we unfortunately we see it happen all the time, especially among general audience writers who think they are brilliantly explaining Epicurus in their "one-off" philosophy article.

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 1:19 PM
    Quote from Joshua

    The limit of the quantity of pixels on a given screen is x, and even a black and white film will employ every pixel - but will the quality of the experience be better in full color? I think it probably will be.

    And an unstated premise of Joshua's analogy is that no general photographer in is right mind would even think to choose black and white over color unless the photographer were specifically wanting the black and white effect. The additional richness or even just information conveyed by the color is much greater.

    So someone can be completely justified in picking black and white if they have a particular reason to do so, just as we often have reason to cut back and live more minimally when circumstances require, but in general it makes no sense to pass over any desire that is attainable for a reasonable next of pleasure over pain.

    All of this sounds very generic or even juvenile in referring to "pleasure" and "pain," but of course the point is that everything in life that you find desirable falls under pleasure, so no matter whether your preference is art or literature or poetry or civil society or any other plain or exotic experience, that's what we're talking about.

    And most importantly, mental pleasures are frequently much more significant to us than physical pains, and that's an important point to keep in mind to refute the nay-sayers.

  • Why pursue unnecessary desires?

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 1:09 PM

    Great question.

    My first response would be that all desires are pleasurable, and that only those desires that bring more pain than pleasure in net total are clearly out of reasonable bounds.

    Yes you can live your life in a cave on bread and water and sustain yourself, and since life in the absence of pain is pleasure, and if you succeed in living without pain, then you have reached "pure pleasure" in an abstract general sense. There is no absolute arbiter that says "you are not living pleasurably enough" and you should make another choice and pursue other sorts of pleasures.

    But given the way the universe operates, it is possible for most people to obtain much more pleasure than that. Most people will realize what they are passing up, and they will regret not obtaining what they could have obtained with reasonable cost in pain, and so they will of their own accord feel regret and therefore pain and not be content with their minimalist choice. In most circumstances they will also find that they are not immune to the impact of outside pressures which virtually always occur, whether it be disease or criminals or invasion or whatever. And living strictly minimally is generally not going to prepare you for those hazards.

    That's not to say that some will not be content with total minimalism, but there's no absolute rule other than that pleasure is desirable and pain is undesirable, and no one has the natural right to say "this is all anyone needs" and enforce that view on anyone else. They can do that under civil law, but that's not the same as saying that they have a natural philosophical moral right to do so.

    So I think everyone has to ask themselves that question: "I can get by on a lot less than I have now, and I can feed and drink and live minimally. Should that be good enough for me?"

    I don't think Epicurus would say that everyone should live like that, nor did he live like that himself. Look at the property that he accumulated and disbursed in his will. I would argue that there is no evidence that Epicurus or any other Epicurean ever lived such a "minimaliist" lifestyle. Statements that all one needs is water and bread and cheese have in my view all the markings of "philosophical extreme" statements, meant to prove the point, but by which no one actually lived -- because it's not necessary to live that way, and choosing to do so is generally an abdication of the experience of many other pleasures that are possible in life.

    No other animal or infant of any species lives that way - pushing away any pleasure above what it needs to actually "survive" - and neither should we.

    -----

    That's one way of making the argument.

    In addition to that, I think Torquatus gives us additional valuable information about what is going on with the natural and necessary distinction. As Torquatus explains, "the principle of classification being that the necessary desires are gratified with little trouble or expense; the natural desires also require but little, since nature's own riches, which suffice to content her, are both easily procured and limited in amount; but for the imaginary desires no bound or limit can be discovered."

    I interpret that to mean that what Epicurus was doing was pointing out a way of analyzing desires so that we can predict their consequences and THEN factor those consequences into our choices. Obviously we need a method of predicting how much pain any given set of choices might bring, and this classification makes perfect sense -- the more extravagant the goal, the more likely it is going to cost a lot in pain to pursue it. That's not saying "don't ever pursue it" - it's saying that this is the way to analyze what to expect. Epicurus does a lot of that, as about sex and marriage for instance. He points out the ways to analyze the advantages and disadvantages, but he doesn't say that there's a flat rule of nature against something.

    In the end everyone has to make these decisions for themselves realizing that there's no absolue right or wrong answer or supernatural god to reward or punish you for your choice.

    But in the end, for my own analysis, it comes down to: In an eternity of time i am only alive for a very short period, and restricting the amount of pleasure I pursue to only what is necessary to keep me alive is about as foolish a thing as one could possibly do.

  • Thoughts On The Alleged "Fourth Leg of the Canon"

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 10:56 AM

    I think you're going in the direction that this would be a good illustration for us to discuss on Monday night.

    Quote

    I did this search query on Google: "before the space age did determining that the earth revolves around the sun require logic or reasoning beyond observations":

    What is "the earth revolves around the sun"? What is an "observation?" Are you referring to an opinion that you hold to be true? Do all opinions involve reasoning? What part does "the canon" play in deciding that an opinion is true? And while we have a lot more evidence today than they did then, was not the evidence sufficient already for them to realize that the sun revolving around the earth and the earth revolving around the sun were both theories that would explain what we see, and therefore that both theories should be entertained as possibly true? Even today in the space age does not the issue still require evidence to decide just as it did then?

  • The Importance Of The Perfect Not Being Allowed To Be The Enemy of The Good

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 10:47 AM

    Why do you use "some" instead of "largely"?

  • Must All Things That Have A Beginning Have An End?

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 10:46 AM

    VERY helpful Bryan!

    As for that second paragraph I agree that's helpful too. I don't think I recall seeing that lately if ever.

    Is this by Colotes a commentary on canonics? In other words on first glance I would read this discussion of "being" to be a canonical statement that as saying that we should consider to be "real" all that our senses reveal to us, and not worry about whether those things are eternal or not. Which is a huge point on its own, right? That we through out the argument that we can know nothing because everything is changing, based on the response that what is changing is just as real as what is not changing?

  • The Importance Of The Perfect Not Being Allowed To Be The Enemy of The Good

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 6:39 AM

    Tullius comes to the aid of the "perfect is not the enemy of the good" camp in our upcoming Lucretius Today episode 279. In discussing life span, he says at Tusculan Disputations 1:39

    Quote

    Men judge better in other things, and allow a part to be preferable to none; why do they not admit the same estimate in life?


    At id quidem in ceteris rebus melius putatur, aliquam partem quam nullam attingere: cur in vita secus ?


    OK more like ""But indeed in other matters, it is considered better to achieve some part than none at all: why is it different in life?"

    It looks like the placement of the comma is questionable and ought to be deleted or moved:

    At id quidem in ceteris rebus, melius putatur aliquam partem quam nullam attingere: cur in vita secus ?

    So the key Latin phrase is: melius putatur aliquam partem quam nullam attingere

    better it is thought a large part, than none, to be achieved.

    It also looks like both Yonge and Hicks are ignoring the aliquam and just saying "a part" - when the aliquam seems to indicate "a large part."

    Here's nodictionaries.com:

    aliquam partem quam nullam attingere, cur in vita secus ?
    aliquamlargely, to a large extent, a lot of
    nullus, nulla, nullum (gen -ius)no; none, not any
    attingo, attingere, attigi, attactustouch, touch/border on; reach, arrive at, achieve; mention briefly; belong to
    curwhy, wherefore; for what reason/purpose?; on account of which?; because
    vita, vitae Flife, career, livelihood; mode of life
    secus otherwise; differently, in another way; contrary to what is right/expected
  • Did Epicurus Commit Suicide Due To His Disease? (Merger of Two Threads On When Voluntary Death Makes Sense)

    • Cassius
    • May 2, 2025 at 6:02 AM

    Very interesting!

    Quote

    So then, what of Pliny’s reference to Roman Falernian wine lighting with a flame (Natural History 14.8)? Or Plutarch’s description of Alexander the Great’s wine drinking contest where more than 40 men died from excessive consumption (Life of Alexander 70.1)?

    The facts of that article are very interesting, but its argument in conclusion that it is false to suppose that ancient wine was stronger than modern wine seems very poorly argued to me. I suppose it's saying "as a general rule" and maybe that's fair, but the conclusion itself seems overbroad to me.

  • Episode 279 - TD10 - On "Dying Before One's Time"

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 9:21 PM

    If we are able to finish part one this week, then our title will be something like "Is Death The Greatest Gift The Gods Can Offer?" If we don't get to the end, then something like that will be the title as we wrap up Part 1.

  • Episode 279 - TD10 - On "Dying Before One's Time"

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 9:06 PM

    Welcome to Episode 279 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 continue our series covering Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" from an Epicurean viewpoint. This series addresses five of the greatest questions in philosophy, with Cicero speaking for the majority and Epicurus the main opponent:

    1. Is Death An Evil? (Cicero says no and Epicurus says no, but for very different reasons)
    2. Is Pain An Evil? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
    3. Does the Wise Man Experience Grief and Fear? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
    4. Does the Wise Man Experience Joy and Desire? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
    5. Is Virtue Sufficient For A Happy Life? (Cicero says yes, Epicurus says no)

    As we found in Cicero's "On Ends" and "On The Nature of the Gods," Cicero treated Epicurean Philosophy as a major contender in the battle between the philosophies. In discussing this conflict and explaining Epicurus' answers to these questions, we will deepen our understanding of Epicurus and how he compares to the other major schools.

    Today we continue debating the nature of death in Section XXXIX.

    --------------------------

    Our general discussion guide for Tusculun Disputations is here: https://epicureanfriends.github.io/tusculundisput…lish/section:12

    And a side-by-side version with comments is here:

    EpicureanFriends SideBySide Commentary on TD


  • Episode 278 - TD08 - Two Opposite Views On When We Might Be Better Off Dead

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 8:57 PM

    I didn't get a chance to do my usual "two pass" editing of this episode, so if someone hears something that really needs to be re-edited, please let me know.

  • Episode 278 - TD08 - Two Opposite Views On When We Might Be Better Off Dead

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 8:53 PM

    Episode 278 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today's episode is entitled: "Two Opposite Views On 'Being Better Off Dead'"

  • Considering Whether Epicurus Taught Both Exoteric and Esoteric Truths

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 5:33 PM

    Last night in our discussion an interesting topic came up that deserves to be memorialized here. Bryan mentiond that in the Diskin Clay article "Epicurus' Last Will and Testament" that Clay argued that dispute Epicurus being devoted to clarify, there amounts to what is an exoteric truth in Epicurean philosophy that is not readily seen on the surface.

    The core of the point is that even (or especially) when talking with his students, Epicurus is presuming that the reader or listener will understand the fundamental premises of the philosophy and be able to apply them to understand what Epicurus means, for example, by "pleasure is the absence of pain," or that "death is nothing to us."

    In other words, if the reader or listener does not familiarize himself with the fundamentals of the philosophy, it is very easy to totally misunderstand the thrust of Epicurus' position.

    I'm posting this a conversation starter to come back to, because I don't remember Clay's specific argument, but i think this is a point that would be very valuable to expand on because it is so important to explain to new readers of Epicurus.

  • Must All Things That Have A Beginning Have An End?

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 11:43 AM

    Ok so now I remember why I connect this back to DeWitt's discussion of the gods having to act to maintain their own deathlessness.

    it is logically deducible from experience that given the way the universe generally operates, components which have come together will at some point be broken apart. Our earth does not have an unlimited life-span.

    However it is not logically deducible as an overriding rule *when* that breaking apart will occur, except by looking at local circumstances. There's no necessity that could not theoretically be defeated through technology to enforce any limit to how long humanity or a single person can live. Even the destruction of the earth or our solar system or galaxy could be outlived by going somewhere else if technology is available to do so. The universe itself is immortal for reasons stated in 5-351 (there's no place outside it), so there's no necessity to perish with any part of the universe *if* you have the capacity to move from destroyed place to stable place.

    As for practical application of this, while it *might* be appropriate to say that all men up to today's technology must die, there's no necessary limit as to "when" that must take place, other than the local circumstances of the people involved. People who have the ability to move so as to remain in safe environments, and who have better technology to control aging, will live longer, with no theoretical limit if their ability to move and improve their technology keeps pace with the dangers.

    It would seem likely that something like this is where the "intermundia" theory came from.

  • Must All Things That Have A Beginning Have An End?

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 11:15 AM

    This is more closely on point:

    5-235

    First of all, since the body of earth and moisture, and the light breath of the winds and burning heat, of which this sum of things is seen to be made up, are all created of a body that has birth and death, of such, too, must we think that the whole nature of the world is fashioned. For verily things whose parts and limbs we see to be of a body that has birth and of mortal shapes, themselves too we perceive always to have death and birth likewise. Wherefore, when we see the mighty members and parts of the world consumed away and brought to birth again, we may know that sky too likewise and earth had some time of first-beginning, and will suffer destruction.

    ...

    5-306

    Again, do you not behold stones too vanquished by time, high towers falling in ruins, and rocks crumbling away, shrines and images of the gods growing weary and worn, while the sacred presence cannot prolong the boundaries of fate nor struggle against the laws of nature? Again, do we not see the monuments of men fallen to bits, and inquiring moreover whether you believe that they grow old? And stones torn up from high mountains rushing headlong, unable to brook or bear the stern strength of a limited time? For indeed they would not be suddenly torn up and fall headlong, if from time everlasting they had held out against all the siege of age without breaking.

    5-318

    Now once again gaze on this sky, which above and all around holds the whole earth in its embrace: if it begets all things out of itself, as some tell, and receives them again when they perish, it is made altogether of a body that has birth and death. For whatsoever increases and nourishes other things out of itself, must needs be lessened, and replenished when it receives things back.

    ...

    5-351

    Moreover, if ever things abide for everlasting, it must needs be either that, because they are of solid body, they beat back assaults, nor suffer anything to come within them, which might unloose the close-locked parts within, such as are the bodies of matter, whose nature we have declared before; or that they are able to continue through all time, because they are exempt from blows, as is the void, which abides untouched nor suffers a whit from assault; or else because there is no supply of room all around, into which things might part asunder and be broken up—even as the sum of sums is eternal—nor is there any room without into which they may leap apart, nor are there bodies which might fall upon them and break them up with stout blow. But neither, as I have shown, is the nature of the world endowed with solid body, since there is void mingled in things; nor yet is it as the void, nor indeed are bodies lacking, which might by chance gather together out of infinite space and overwhelm this sum of things with headstrong hurricane, or bear down on it some other form of dangerous destruction; nor again is there nature of room or space in the deep wanting, into which the walls of the world might be scattered forth; or else they may be pounded and perish by any other force you will. The gate of death then is not shut on sky or sun or earth or the deep waters of the sea, but it stands open facing them with huge vast gaping maw. Wherefore, again, you must needs confess that these same things have a birth; for indeed, things that are of mortal body could not from limitless time up till now have been able to set at defiance the stern strength of immeasurable age.

  • Must All Things That Have A Beginning Have An End?

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 11:09 AM

    Here's a quote from Lucretius which says that the ordinances of nature control "being brought to birth under the same law, will exist and grow and be strong and lusty....." where I might have expected him to complete the cycle by adding "and die" if the "and die" were part of the "ordinances of nature" :

    Quote

    2-294 - Nor was the store of matter ever more closely packed nor again set at larger distances apart. For neither does anything come to increase it nor pass away from it. Wherefore the bodies of the first-beginnings in the ages past moved with the same motion as now, and hereafter will be borne on for ever in the same way; such things as have been wont to come to being will be brought to birth under the same law, will exist and grow and be strong and lusty, inasmuch as is granted to each by the ordinances of nature. Nor can any force change the sum of things; for neither is there anything outside, into which any kind of matter may escape from the universe, nor whence new forces can arise and burst into the universe and change the whole nature of things and alter its motions.

    That was Bailey - this is Munro:


    Quote

    Nor was the store of matter ever more closely massed nor held apart by larger spaces between; for nothing is either added to its bulk or lost to it. Wherefore the bodies of the first-beginnings in time gone by moved in the same way in which now they move, and will ever hereafter be borne along in like manner, and the things which have been wont to be begotten will be begotten after the same law and will be and will grow and will wax in strength so far as is given to each by the decrees of nature And no force can change the sum of things; for there is nothing outside, either into which any kind of matter can escape out of the universe or out of which a new supply can arise and burst into the universe and change all the nature of things and alter their motions.

  • Must All Things That Have A Beginning Have An End?

    • Cassius
    • May 1, 2025 at 10:58 AM

    Thanks for those responses. I can see from a logical point of view that change implies that what was there before is no longer the same, but I am not sure that the quotes we have are saying that there "must" be an end to a compound thing that has come into being.

    For example what Don has quoted which says "out of which composite bodies arise and into which they are dissolved" --- as to the part about things arising from the atoms, we deduce that the things we see "must" have arisen from the atoms because of the arguments that Lucretius goes through about the existence of atoms being required to explain the starting point of each thing (from the eternal atoms).

    But I am not sure that we have the same degree of argument that the thing which has arisen "must" eventually be broken up - or do we?

    I seem to remember that there is a section in Lucretius about disruption being caused from blows from outside, but I don't recall a statement that says that at some point the blows from outside - which are sufficiently overcome while the being is growing or in good heath - cannot be warded off indefinitely.

    In this current episode of the podcast we are seeing Cicero say in regard to the stoics that their position on the soul surviving death is lacking because the Stoics admit that the soul does survive death for at least a period of time, and as Cicero said, the main hurdle is getting to the point where the soul can survive for any length of time outside the body, and the question of "how long" it can survive is secondary.

    Here, the "how long" question is front and center, and we know that some bodies survive for much longer periods of time than others do. So the real question is whether there is a "force of necessity' that requires that a thing that has come into being "must" be destroyed over some length of time in the future.

    I see a difference in saying "all things must arise from atoms" (which I think is sufficiently proven by the logical argument) and "all things must be destroyed back into their constituent atoms" (which I don't think is clearly stated or necessitated by the atomic theory as best I can tell).

    And let me be clear that I'm not accusing Epicurus or Lucretius of inconsistency - I am looking into whether we are reading into Epicurus a Platonic-like rule of necessity that Cicero thinks makes sense, but which is not inherently part of the atomic theory.

    As anecdotal input, I don't recall that either DeWitt or Diskin Clay considered "all things that come together must break apart" as one of the core ideas in physics when they assembled their speculative list of twelve most important physics ideas. (I''ll check back on Clay's version).

    Edit: As to Clay's version, these are his ten primary compiled from comparing Herodotus to Lucretius:

    1. Nothing comes into being out of nothing. 38.8—39.1 I 145-150, 159-160 ~
    2. Nothing is reduced to nothing. _ 39.1-2 I 215-218, 237
    3. The universe always was as it is and always will be. 39.2—5 II 294-307; V 359--363
    4. The universe is made up of bodies and void. 39.6-40.2 I 418-428
    5. Bodies are atoms and their compounds.40.7—9 I 488-486
    6. The universe is infinite. 41.6——10 I 958-964, 1001
    '7. Atoms are infinite in number and space extends without limit. 41.11—-42.4 I 1008-1020
    8. Atoms of similar shape are infinite in number, but the variety of their shapes is indefinite, not infinite. 42.l0—43.4 II 522-527
    9. Atomic motion is constant and of two kinds. 43.5-44.1 II 95-102 (I 952)
    10. Atoms share only three of the characteristics of sensible things: shape, weight, mass. 54.3—6 II 748-752

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