Posts by Cassius

Poster: I don't think my personal spirit lives past death. But we all live as if we have spirits. What else is willpower and taste?

Cassius Amicus Nobody in Epicurean texts said that you did not have a spirit - they simply denied that the spirit is immortal or "divine."

Cassius Amicus

On this point, Frances Wright reconsructs the Epicurean position in her chapter 15:

Metrodorus: “Mind or thought I consider a quality of that matter constituting the existence we call a man, which quality we find in a varying degree in other existences; many, perhaps all animals, possessing it. Life is another quality, or combination of qualities, of matter, inherent in — we know not how many existences. We find it in vegetables; we might perceive it even in stones, could we watch their formation, growth, and decay. We may call that active principle, pervading the elements of all things, which approaches and separates the component particles of the ever-changing, and yet ever-enduring world — life. Until you discover some substance, which undergoes no change, you cannot speak of inert matter: it can only be so, at least, relatively, — that is, as compared with other substances.”

Theon: “The classing of thought and life among the qualities of matter is new to me.”

Metrodorus: “What is in a substance cannot be separate from it. And is not all matter a compound of qualities? Hardness, extension, form, color, motion, rest — take away all these, and where is matter? To conceive of mind independent of matter, is as if we should conceive of color independent of a substance colored: What is form, if not a body of a particular shape? What is thought, if not something which thinks? Destroy the substance, and you destroy its properties; and so equally — destroy the properties, and you destroy the substance. To suppose the possibility of retaining the one, without the other, is an evident absurdity.”

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Cassius Amicus Further as to spirit being material, Thomas Jefferson to John Adams: Jefferson to John Adams, August 15, 1820:

. But enough of criticism: let me turn to your puzzling letter of May 12. on matter, spirit, motion etc. It’s crowd of scepticisms kept me from sleep. I read it, and laid it down: read it, and laid it down, again and again: and to give rest to my mind, I was obliged to recur ultimately to my habitual anodyne, ‘I feel: therefore I exist.’ I feel bodies which are not myself: there are other existencies then. I call them matter. I feel them changing place. This gives me motion. Where there is an absence of matter, I call it void, or nothing, or immaterial space. On the basis of sensation, of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all the certainties we can have or need. I can conceive thought to be an action of a particular organisation of matter, formed for that purpose by it’s creator, as well as that attraction in an action of matter, or magnetism of loadstone. When he who denies to the Creator the power of endowing matter with the mode of action called thinking shall shew how he could endow the Sun with the mode of action called attraction, which reins the planets in the tract of their orbits, or how an absence of matter can have a will, and, by that will, put matter into motion, then the materialist may be lawfully required to explain the process by which matter exercises the faculty of thinking. When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart.

At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is. Jesus taught nothing of it. He told us indeed that `God is a spirit,’ but he has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that it is not matter. And the ancient fathers generally, if not universally, held it to be matter: light and thin indeed, an etherial gas; but still matter. Origen says `Deus reapse corporalis est; sed graviorum tantum corporum ratione, incorporeus.’ Tertullian `quid enim deus nisi corpus?’ and again `quis negabit deumesse corpus? Etsi deus spiritus, spiritus etiam corpus est, sui generis, in sua effigie.’ St. Justin Martyr `{to Theion phamen einai asomaton oyk oti asomaton—epeide de to me krateisthai ypo tinos, toy krateisthai timioteron esti, dia toyto kaloymen ayton asomaton.}’ And St. Macarius, speaking of angels says `quamvis enim subtilia sint, tamen in substantia, forma et figura, secundum tenuitatem naturae eorum, corpora sunt tenuia.’ And St. Austin, St. Basil, Lactantius, Tatian, Athenagoras and others, with whose writings I pretend not a familiarity, are said by those who are, to deliver the same doctrine. Turn to your Ocellus d’Argens 97. 105. and to his Timaeus 17. for these quotations. In England these Immaterialists might have been burnt until the 29. Car. 2. when the writ de haeretico comburendo was abolished: and here until the revolution, that statute not having extended to us. All heresies being now done away with us, these schismatists are merely atheists, differing from the material Atheist only in their belief that `nothing made something,’ and from the material deist who believes that matter alone can operate on matter.

Rejecting all organs of information therefore but my senses, I rid myself of the Pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations hyperphysical and antiphysical so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind. A single sense may indeed be sometimes deceived, but rarely: and never all our senses together, with their faculty of reasoning. They evidence realities; and there are enough of these for all the purposes of life, without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence. I am sure that I really know many, many, things, and none more surely than that I love you with all my heart, and pray for the continuance of your life until you shall be tired of it yourself.

I am not sure whether I immediately can say that it was "unfortunate" other than out of an extremely general preference to let people live as they like. To me this ambiguity is very much like the Roman civil war - it looks like we can make some general observations about the issues motivating both sides, but I have a very strong impression that our information is so incomplete that our description might be totally different from what people at the time thought was going on. Lots of people take Caesar's side today, but at the time very many (including Cassius and Brutus, who I gather were very honorable people too) were on the side of the Senate. I'm no longer confident which side I would argue to be "right" or even which side I would most identify myself.

I see that I had forgotten in my earlier comment this explicit use of the term "Quantity" by Martin Ferguson Smith in his translation of the Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda. That needs to be referenced in this discussion:

Fr. 34 lower margin (Epic. Sent. 3)

[The quantitative limit of pleasure is the] removal of all pain. [Whoever experiences pleasure, so long as it continues, cannot ever be troubled] by pain of body or of mind or [of both together].

This event is being held this weekend and we are seeing some pictures. Looks like another great turnout and event for the group in Athens Greece! No live streaming this year, but hopefully there will be some youtube videos posted and/or reports on the event, and if we can find any let's link them here.

Exploring this would probably also touch on the background of Philodemus of Gadara

https://www.britannica.com/place/Gadara

Yes the Carthage - Phoenician connection is fascinating - I wish I knew more about the whole issue of who the Carthaginians were, relationship to Egypt, etc.

Excellent question. I haven't read anything on this, but I would have to expect that some Epicureans were in Britain.

This is a clear statement of the "mixture" argument, applied by Seneca to virtue, but the same argument requires the conclusion, from Epicurus' point of view, that nothing can be added to pleasure to make it better:

16. For if things which are extrinsic to virtue can either diminish or increase virtue, then that which is honourable ceases to be the only good. If you grant this, honour has wholly perished. 

To me this sounds like a word game - a logic game - no wonder the Epicurean separated themselves from "logic" and dialectic. It's almost as if - if PD3 was required as a response to a word game like this, then the enemies of human happiness have to be ranked as:

(1) Priests - Overcoming fear of domination by gods in this life

(2) Death - Overcoming fear of being dead and what might happen in a next life

(3) False philosophy - Overcoming logicians and their twisting of words about how we should spend our time.

The full text of this letter is here.

Among the key passages:

Now, though Claranus and I have spent very few days together, we have nevertheless had many conversations, which I will at once pour forth and pass on to you.

5.The first day we investigated this problem: how can goods be equal if they are of three kinds? For certain of them, according to our philosophical tenets, are primary, such as joy, peace, and the welfare of one's country. Others are of the second order, moulded in an unhappy material, such as the endurance of suffering, and self-control during severe illness. We shall pray outright for the goods of the first class; for the second class we shall pray only if the need shall arise. There is still a third variety, as, for example, a modest gait, a calm and honest countenance, and a bearing that suits the man of wisdom.

6. Now how can these things be equal when we compare them, if you grant that we ought to pray for the one and avoid the other? If we would make distinctions among them, we had better return to the First Good, and consider what its nature is: the soul that gazes upon truth, that is skilled in what should be sought and what should be avoided, establishing standards of value not according to opinion, but according to nature, – the soul that penetrates the whole world and directs its contemplating gaze upon all its Phenomena, paying strict attention to thoughts and actions, equally great and forceful, superior alike to hardships and blandishments, yielding itself to neither extreme of fortune, rising above all blessings and tribulations, absolutely beautiful, perfectly equipped with grace as well as with strength, healthy and sinewy, unruffled, undismayed, one which no violence can shatter, one which acts of chance can neither exalt nor depress, – a soul like this is virtue itself.

7. There you have its outward appearance, if it should ever come under a single view and show itself once in all its completeness. But there are many aspects of it. They unfold themselves according as life varies and as actions differ; but virtue itself does not become less or greater. For the Supreme Good cannot diminish, nor may virtue retrograde; rather is it transformed, now into one quality and now into another, shaping itself according to the part which it is to play.

8. Whatever it has touched it brings into likeness with itself, and dyes with its own colour. It adorns our actions, our friendships, and sometimes entire households which it has entered and set in order. Whatever it has handled it forthwith makes lovable, notable, admirable. Therefore the power and the greatness of virtue cannot rise to greater heights, because increase is denied to that which is superlatively great. You will find nothing straighter than the straight, nothing truer than the truth, and nothing more temperate than that which is temperate. 9. Every virtue is limitless; for limits depend upon definite measurements. Constancy cannot advance further, any more than fidelity, or truthfulness, or loyalty. What can be added to that which is perfect? Nothing otherwise that was not perfect to which something has been added. Nor can anything be added to virtue, either, for if anything can be added thereto, it must have contained a defect. Honour, also, permits of no addition; for it is honourable because of the very qualities which I have mentioned. What then? Do you think that propriety, justice, lawfulness, do not also belong to the same type, and that they are kept within fixed limits? The ability to increase is proof that a thing is still imperfect.

Welcome @clarkwatson1 ! When you get a chance please let us know a little about your background and interest in Epicurus.

But on the gods, also see this:

He must take for granted the evidence of his senses; in other words, he must believe in the existence of things, as they exist to his senses. I know of no other existence, and can therefore believe in no other: although, reasoning from analogy, I may imagine other existences to be. This, for instance, I do as respects the gods. I see around me, in the world I inhabit, an infinite variety in the arrangement of matter; — a multitude of sentient beings, possessing different kinds, and varying grades of power and intelligence, — from the worm that crawls in the dust, to the eagle that soars to the sun, and man who marks to the sun its course. It is possible, it is moreover probable, that, in the worlds which I see not, — in the boundless infinitude and eternal duration of matter, beings may exist, of every countless variety, and varying grades of intelligence inferior and superior to our own, until we descend to a minimum, and rise to a maximum, to which the range of our observation affords no parallel, and of which our senses are inadequate to the conception. Thus far, my young friend, I believe in the gods, or in what you will of existences removed from the sphere of my knowledge. That you should believe, with positiveness, in one unseen existence or another, appears to me no crime, although it may appear to me unreasonable: and so, my doubt of the same should appear to you no moral offense, although you might account it erroneous. I fear to fatigue your attention, and will, therefore, dismiss, for the present, these abstruse subjects.”

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.