Posts by Cassius

Quote from Oscar

I know this is asking a lot, post the specific attributes and sensations that Epicurus gives to his God(s)?

It would be interesting to try to address this specifically, although it is dangerous to tease too much out of isolated passages, single words, translations, etc.

1. Blessed

2. Immortal

We have then a preconception of such a nature that we believe the gods to be blessed and immortal. For nature, which bestowed upon us an idea of the gods themselves, also engraved on our minds the belief that they are eternal and blessed.

3. Human shape

4. Not corporeal, but resembling a bodily substance

5. Not containing blood, but the semblance of blood

“For the divine form we have the hints of nature supplemented by the teachings of reason. From nature all men of all races derive the notion of gods as having human shape and none other; for in what other shape do they ever appear to anyone, awake or asleep? But not to make primary concepts the sole test of all things, reason itself delivers the pronouncement. For it seems appropriate that a being who is the most exalted, whether by reason of his happiness or of his eternity, should also be the most beautiful; but what disposition of the limbs, what cast of features, what shape or outline can be more beautiful than the human form? You Stoics at least, Lucilius, (for my friend Cotta says one thing at one time and another at another) are wont to portray the skill of the divine creator by enlarging on beauty as well as the utility of design displayed in all parts of the human figure. But if the human figure surpasses the form of all other living beings, and god is a living being, god must possess the shape which is the most beautiful of all; and since it is agreed that the gods are supremely happy, and no one can be happy without virtue, and virtue cannot exist without reason, and reason is only found in the human shape, it follows that the gods possess the form of man. Yet their form is not corporeal, but only resembles bodily substance; it does not contain blood, but the semblance of blood.

Not part of description but of our perception of them

6. "....an endless train of precisely similar images arises from the innumerable atoms and streams towards the gods,"

7.In number, at least as many gods as there are humans:

From this principle it follows that if the whole number of mortals be so many, there must exist no less a number of immortals, and if the causes of destruction are beyond count, the causes of conservation also are bound to be infinite

8. How they spend their time:
... how they pass their days. The answer is, their life is the happiest conceivable, and the one most bountifully furnished with all good things. God is entirely inactive and free from all ties of occupation; he toils not neither does he labor, but he takes delight in his own wisdom and virtue, and knows with absolute certainty that he will always enjoy pleasures at once consummate and everlasting.

9. Somewhere it is stated that they speak Greek, or a language like Greek, but I am not sure of the cite for that.

Matt in answering that question the most specific discussion of which I am aware in Velleius in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods:

http://www.epicurus.net/en/deorum.html

Ok that helps! Thanks!

Quote from Matthaeus

My only issue, and it was the issue that caused me to no longer refer to myself as an Epicurean was the theology issue. It was a dealbreaker. I think that aspect aside, which we discuss quite regularly, we agree on more ideas than not.

Just to be sure I understand, so you reject Epicurus' view as being insufficient/illogical/whatever, but not because you are certain of your own competitive view, but because you just think his was insufficient - full stop? Or do you believe there was a particular alternative he should have embraced?

Mattheus not to try to pin you down for the sake of pinning you down, but it might help the flow of the conversation if we all understood what you personally think is the most compelling argument on the ultimate issues. Can you give that in condensed form?

At the risk of getting too basic, I think one of the many issues that Epicurus was concerned about was the evidence implications of "Life exists only on earth."

Much like "The earth is the center of the universe," if either or both of those are true, then there is clearly something special about the earth, and that something special would imply a supernatural explanation.

I therefore think that it was important to Epicurus to make the obvious point that there is never only one thing of a kind here on earth, and therefore (if the universe is boundless and eternal, as he had elsewhere given his argument) then life will exist throughout the universe, and not just here.

Once the existence of life throughout the universe is established through "never one of a kind" then you apply the "isonomia" that things also exist in a progression from "lower" to higher" in terms of complexity, and you arrive fairly easily at the conclusion that there are beings in the universe who do not die, and don't work all day to pay taxes.

I personally am satisfied that even if Epicurus' argument is ultimately no more complex than this, that it is compelling.

Quote from Elayne

I cannot think of any static pleasure which was not initiated by a kinetic one, kinetic including a thought or a perceptible bodily action. Can you?

On this issue I sense that there are some very specific philosophical arguments involved about which I am not aware. I came away from my reading of Gosling & Taylor, Elayne thinking that he was documenting that if we dive deep enough into the sources, we will find that the ancients meant what they said when they said "static" -- they meant something that involves NO MOTION, NO CHANGE IN STATE whatsoever.

Where I am going here is that one of the flaws of the entire "static" category is that of course NOTHING in an Epicurean universe is truly unmoving or unchanging. Movement and change are constant. I think that this is one of the most compelling reasons why "static pleasure" as a category in the Epicurean framework needs to be looked on with extreme suspicion .

Unfortunately I am very aware that this point needs documentation to some ancient text, and I cannot provide it at the moment, but I am pretty sure it is in Gosling and Taylor when they first bring up the arguments about the natures of pleasure.

In fact, Elayne, as I think about what you are writing, the Gosling & Taylor book would be of tremendous use to you.

"My experience is that intensity is not required for fullness of pleasure—only the absence of pain"

I think that is an important point. it is probably true, from a "fullness" perspective, that someone could sit in a cave and eat water and bread and if they worked hard enough mentally and physically t o do it, they could focus entirely on pleasures and reduce pains to an absolute minimum and say that they are full - FOR THAT PERIOD OF TIME.

That's why I think the fullness issue has to be considered in the widest time period -- the full lifespan of the individual. The reason the cave-dweller's method is not going to work is that it is not sustainable in real life. In real life all sorts of things outside the cave are of relevance and necessary for continuation.

So even if a "mind-discipline ascetic focus on the pleasure of looking at the candle approach" worked for a short period of time, Nature / Reality makes such an approach unsustainable and therefore not to be chosen.

Elayne on section one as to DeWitt's interpretation, I think DeWitt is making a good effort to make sense of it, but I am not entirely convinced his point is the complete one. Whenever i hear the static/kinetic distinction being raised, or see it said that this was important to Epicurus, I question the analysis. I am sorry that the best I can do is to point in the direction of researching this, but there are several sources on this that would be a good idea to check.

Perhaps the most clear is Boris Nikolosky's Epicurus on Pleasure (in files section here.) Nikolsky argues that kinetic/static was of no significance to Epicurus at all, and that the only reason it is discussed is that later writers (Cicero, Laertius) had by their day become accustomed to that distinction from other writers, and they attempted to fit Epicurus into that same pattern. If I recall correctly Nikolsky cites a "Division by Carneades" as the source of this categorization.

For his own insight, Nikolsky credits Gosling & Taylor's "The Greeks on Pleasure" which is a treatise that starts from the earliest Greek philosophers and traces their views on pleasure. By the time they come to Epicurus, gosling and taylor conclude that the "absence of pain" problem that we have today is erroneous, and they put forth an argument similar to what you see me repeating, that "pleasure" always means something that is normally understood by everyone, and that "ataraxia" or "absence of pain" is not a particular esoteric type of pleasure.

There is another article, by Wentham, that makes the same point.

All of these would probably need to be considered in evaluating DeWitt's conclusion. I would say at this point in my study that time and intensity have something to do with condensation, but probably NOT the kinetic/static issue.

Wow this is going to take time to read -- thanks!

1 - I recall reading the anti-Stoic part of Cicero's "On Ends" and thinking that this was much more thorough a take-down even than he applied to Epicurus. So that's a good source for anti-Stoic argument too.

Quote from Matthaeus

I have previously discussed at length in other posts that virtue requires external standards for universal application. For virtues to be universal there needs to be some standard to judge by. Otherwise without that external judge you are cast into a swirling abyss of subjective relativism. What’s good and honorable for one person may be an abomination to another across a cultural divide.

Yes that is definitely an implication of his issue. If there is no supernatural organizing force, then something else has to be found to take the place of it or "you are cast into a swirling abyss of subjective relativism." And so Epicurus turned to the natural faculty of pleasure and pain, which certainly does not mean the same thing to each person, but by and large presents something firm to which an individual can refer, and to which groups who have similar impressions of pain and pleasure can also refer.

Balancing the need to be rigorous, with also the need to have people actually attend and participate, is definitely tricky! I presume that likely it's mandatory to have a "lift-off" phase where people are given time to understand the ramifications for themselves before they are hit with the need for rigor.

Quote from Matthaeus

Though the subject is endlessly discussed with no reconciliation, It represents an important critical analysis of a very important aspect of the philosophy.

I fully agree with that. Everyone who studies Epicurus needs to study this aspect of his thought, just as much as his thought on the size of the sun, which shows his approach.

Quote from Matthaeus

The problem is that he asserts their reality without evidence of any kind.

I think this is the heart of the dispute - the meaning and implications of the word "evidence." Maybe because of my legal occupation, I am fully comfortable with the idea that circumstantial evidence is fully as admissible in considering difficult issues as is "direct" evidence. While it would certainly be preferable to have "eyeball" /photograph evidence of a "god" in its native environment, we don't have that level of science available to us, just as we can't eyeball atoms but have firm confidence that they exist.

So in my world the issue is not that Epicurus did not have any evidence, but that some people don't accept his evidence as sufficient, and that in itself leads off into very important issues of debate over the nature of "evidence." Here we are at a terrible loss of texts, although I do think that Philodemus' "On Methods of Inference" is helpful, and other clear implications can be drawn in other texts that Epicurus was well aware of the issues involved in "circumstantial evidence."

Very interesting post, Clive, thank you!

Quote from Clive

I have never met another self-identified Epicurean person in Britain, Surely there must be some somwhere?
ere?

Yes, that is what I am referring to... there are lots of mentions of Epicurus along the way, but as to self-identification, I usually see people there say they are
Stoics.

Quote from Clive

some of them were Methodists, who could be a bit puritanical.

Only as an adult did I realize how true it was that "Methodists" are so puritanical!

Of all the academics in the world who talk regularly about Epicurus, there are two that stand out in my mind: A.A. Long and David Sedley.

I think Long may be an American, but I know that Sedley is a Brit. I would like to say I had read most of his work but unfortunately I've read little - but the part I have read is very good. On the other hand I don't think he considers himself to be an Epicurean specifically - he is an academic first.

My views are probably clear in other places, Clive, but to summarize here I take the position that Epicurus was absolutely serious that in an infinite and eternal universe full of life there are going to be beings which are perfectly happy and don't die. That really is a highly likely and reasonable conclusion of the fundamental premises about life in the universe. But that also really has nothing necessarily to do omipotence, or omniscience, or with Zeus and Athena running around creating havoc, all of which specifically or implicitly Epicurus denounced.

One thing that is ABSOLUTELY clear is that Epicurus said that there are no "supernatural" gods In control of the universe.

And my personal position is that much of the conflict comes from the fact that Epicurus was willing to use the word "gods" to describe his blissful beings (apparently, it would be necessary to check the Greek) while most people INSIST that the word "god" must mean supernatural or omniscient or omnipotent or some combination of the three.

It's a never ending topic that for sure. All of these points are questions for debate;

Quote: "The issue is that Epicurus himself posits that the gods are in fact real."

I have definitely seen the points where Epicurus says that gods exist, but never have I seen a specific statement that Zeus or Apollo or any other SPECIFIC god existed in the way that the other greeks held them to exist .

Quote from Matthaeus

Yet without giving any evidence of their existence as specifically described.

Of course in addition to the observation that most of the works are lost, we do have in "On The Nature of the Gods" a brief description of some of the major aspects.

Quote from Matthaeus

that assured his followers that they do in fact exist only to avoid accusations of atheism. I

That is also not something I believe to be true. Most of his contemporaries apparently felt him to be a true-blue atheist despite his denials, so it intended as a ruse it was not very effective.

Quote from Matthaeus

a person needs to be able to look past or justify a complete theological fabrication (an outright lie) by Epicurus himself,

And of course I fully disagree with that

Thank you!

All excellent topics for this board. Thank you for joining us!

If I come back and revise this in the future, what would you suggest from Book 1 that should be added, deleted, or reworded?

It would be good to have a collection of great artwork which is dedicated to Venus in the Lucretian manner. I have started a link to such a gallery below where more can be added. For the time being these classics: Walter Crane's "Renaissance of Venus" (via Daniel Gurpide), Boticelli's "Birth of Venus", and David's "Mars Disarmed by Venus"

Gallery link here: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/gallery/in…lassic-artwork/