Posts by Cassius

Yes Godek I agree that these French "epicureans" were not good examples. It is always a warning flag for people to use the term "Neo-Epicurean" rather than simply "Epicurean."

I am starting this thread to compile a list of every time the words Ataraxia, Eudaemonia, and Tranquiitas appear in a core Epicurean text. This will give us a good list by which to compare and study the way these words were actually used by the ancient Epicureans, as opposed to the way we today *believe* they were used. Please feel free to contribute instances, preferable in the form of:

Passage (quote in English from the passage using the term, and citing who the translator is), Reference Work (Letter to Menoeceus, etc) and cite (line or other reference number to aid in finding the original Greek or Latin.

When this thread develops enough entries, I will create a wiki page where this will be easiest to find in the future.

And I have recently put together this new one, which I added to the FAQ. The latest version will stay at the FAQ, but as of 12/15/18 as I write this, the version is below. But don't just copy this, use it for what it is worth, but nothing will sink in until you write your own.

1. The Universe Operates on Natural Principles And There Are No Supernatural Gods
   1. Gods Are Never Observed to Create Something From Nothing Or Destroy Anything to Nothing
   2. The Universe Operates Through Natural Processes Based On Combinations Of Matter And Void
   3. The Universe As A Whole Is Eternal And Was Never Created From Nothing
   4. The Universe Is Infinite In Size And There Are No "Gods" Outside Of it
   5. True Gods Would Be Self-Sufficient And Would Not Meddle In the Affairs Of Men
2. There Is No Life After Death
   1. All Things In The Universe Which Come Together Eventually Break Apart
   2. The Soul Is Born With The Body And Cannot Survive Without It
   3. Death Is The End of All Sensation, And There Is No Consciousness Without Sensation
   4. There Is After Death No Heaven or Hell For Reward or Punishment
   5. Life Is Short And Therefore Our Time Is Too Precious To Waste
3. The Standards of Truth Are the Senses, The Anticipations, and the Feelings, Assisted By Reason
   1. He Who Argues That Nothing Can Be Known Contradicts His Own Argument
   2. Reasoning Is Based On The Senses And Is Not Valid Without Them
   3. The Sensations Are Without Reason, Incapable of Memory, And Do Not Inject Error Through Opinion
   4. The Reality Of Separate Sensations Is the Guarantee of The Truth Of Our Senses
   5. Not Only Reason, But Life Itself, Fails Unless We Have the Courage To Trust The Senses
4. The Guide of Life is Pleasure
   1. Pleasure, Along With Pain, Is A Feeling, One Of The Three Standards Of Truth
   2. Pleasure and Pain Include All Types of Physical And Mental Experiences
   3. The Mental Pleasures And Pains Are Frequently More Intense Than The Physical
   4. Feelings Of Pleasure Are Desirable And Serve As The Guide of Life
   5. Pain Is To Be Avoided But Is Accepted For The Sake of Greater Pleasure Or Lesser Pain
5. The Goal of Life Is Happiness
   1. Happiness Is a Life In Which Pleasure Predominates Over Pain
   2. If We Have Happiness We Have All We Need; If We Lack Happiness We Do Everything To Gain It
   3. There Is No Absolute Virtue, Piety, Reason, Or Justice To Serve As the Goal of Life
   4. Virtue, Piety, Reason and Justice Are Valuable Only Insofar As They Bring Happiness
   5. All Actions Are To Be Judged According To Whether They Bring Happiness

Good to hear from you Matt, even when we don't agree!

I don't want to too liberally paste from the work of others on Facebook, especially where pasting might be out of context, so two threads where these discussions originated and some very helpful comments by others are here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…47949955253955/ (Cassius thread on validity of senses)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…48794961836121/ (Nate thread on gods)

More relevant texts:

Cicero mocked Cassius and the entire subject of images in this and other places, but his mentioning of them points up their significance and is evidence they deserve our attention:

"I expect you must be just a little ashamed of yourself now that this is the third letter that has caught you before you have sent me a single leaf or even a line. But I am not pressing you, for I shall look forward to, or rather insist upon, a longer letter. As for myself, if I always had somebody to trust with them, I should send you as many as three an hour. For it somehow happens, that whenever I write anything to you, you seem to be at my very elbow; and that, not by way of visions of images, as your new friends term them, who believe that even mental visions are conjured up by what Catius calls spectres (for let me remind you that Catius the Insubrian, an Epicurean, who died lately, gives the name of spectres to what the famous Gargettian [Epicurus], and long before that Democritus, called images).

But, even supposing that the eye can be struck by these spectres because they run up against it quite of their own accord, how the mind can be so struck is more than I can see. It will be your duty to explain to me, when you arrive here safe and sound, whether the spectre of you is at my command to come up as soon as the whim has taken me to think about you - and not only about you, who always occupy my inmost heart, but suppose I begin thinking about the Isle of Britain, will the image of that wing its way to my consciousness?"

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…aoAurlCC8eWvULH

I am no fan or proponent or reader of "ESP" material, but this issue came up in a Facebook discussion of the gods, anticipations, and images. I am posting this mainly as a conversation starter, as i have not researched this at all. But here are some thoughts as a starting point, beginning with text from "On the Nature of the Gods":

"“Anyone pondering on the baseless and irrational character of these doctrines ought to regard Epicurus with reverence, and to rank him as one of the very gods about whom we are inquiring. For he alone perceived, first, that the gods exist, because nature herself has imprinted a conception of them on the minds of all mankind. For what nation or what tribe of men is there but possesses untaught some ‘preconception’ of the gods? Such notions Epicurus designates by the word prolepsis, that is, a sort of preconceived mental picture of a thing, without which nothing can be understood or investigated or discussed. The force and value of this argument we learn in that work of genius, Epicurus's Rule or Standard of Judgment."

Clearly the leading context here is preconceptions (Anticipations), followed by actions of the mind (rather than the five senses):

"(For we are bound to employ novel terms to denote novel ideas, just as Epicurus himself employed the word prolepsis in a sense in which no one had ever used it before). 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. If this is so, the famous maxim of Epicurus truthfully enunciates that ‘that which is blessed and eternal can neither know trouble itself nor cause trouble to another, and accordingly cannot feel either anger or favor, since all such things belong only to the weak.’

“If we sought to attain nothing else beside piety in worshipping the gods and freedom from superstition, what has been said had sufficed; since the exalted nature of the gods, being both eternal and supremely blessed, would receive man's pious worship (for what is highest commands the reverence that is its due); and furthermore all fear of the divine Power or divine anger would have been banished (since it is understood that anger and favor alike are excluded from the nature of a being at once blessed and immortal, and that these being eliminated we are menaced by no fears in regard to the powers above). But the mind strives to strengthen this belief by trying to discover the form of god, the mode of his activity, and the operation of his intelligence.

And this following quote is probably why DeWitt discusses the mind as a "suprasensory" mechanism:

" Epicurus then, as he not merely discerns abstruse and recondite things with his mind's eye, but handles them as tangible realities, teaches that the substance and nature of the gods is such that, in the first place, it is perceived not by the senses but by the mind, "

This is Velleius and not Epicurus, but Cicero had access to all of the important Epicurean texts, he had studied in Athens himself, and he was writing at least in part to Epicurean friends (Atticus, and no doubt many others) to whom his credibility could not have survived had he not been at least relatively faithful to the well-known facts of the time

No doubt these next two paragraphs do not make a lot of sense to us (the second one however is pretty clear) but it isn't clear whether we have issues here of translation, or corruption, of intentional deception, or what. But there's also the possibility that this phrasing *would* make more sense, largely as is, if we understood and followed rigorously the original materialist foundation, and followed through those implications as the ancient Epicureans did. But the entire subject of "images" and how they might be received and processed in the mind without going through the five senses would take a lot of theoretical discussion we haven't even begun to consider:

"Epicurus then, as he not merely discerns abstruse and recondite things with his mind's eye, but handles them as tangible realities, teaches that the substance and nature of the gods is such that, in the first place, it is perceived not by the senses but by the mind, and not materially or individually, like the solid objects which Epicurus in virtue of their substantiality entitles steremnia; but by our perceiving images owing to their similarity and succession, because an endless train of precisely similar images arises from the innumerable atoms and streams towards the gods, our mind with the keenest feelings of pleasure fixes its gaze on these images, and so attains an understanding of the nature of a being both blessed and eternal.

“Moreover there is the supremely potent principle of infinity, which claims the closest and most careful study; we must understand that it has in the sum of things everything has its exact match and counterpart. This property is termed by Epicurus isonomia, or the principle of uniform distribution. 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."

I am no fan or proponent or reader of "esp" material, and I just grabbed this link as an example, but is everyone here prepared to dogmatically maintain that there is absolutely no validity to all assertions of extrasensory perception in terms of "sensing with the mind"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception "Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense or second sight, includes claimed reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, ***but sensed with the mind.***"

I don't see that there is a necessary connection between supernaturalism, which is ruled out by Epicurus, vs "sensing with the mind" which may possibly be referred to explicitly in these very texts we are discussing.

This is not a road I have entertained or plan to entertain, but it's an obvious question.

I can see it now: "Cassius is advocating that Epicurus taught ESP!!!!!" Well, not yet, but maybe so, lets wait and see. When I see clear evidence of something in the Epicurean texts I have learned to respect Epicurus enough that I want to take a very long and hard look at it before rejecting it entirely. There usually is very good reason for what's there, even if in modern terms the exact mechanism is described in a way we would disagree with. I am sure we all remember the swerve and how it appears to foreshadow what we consider to be commonplace science today.

In that text I quoted is "because an endless train of precisely similar images arises from the innumerable atoms and streams towards the gods." What does THAT mean? What about the word "towards"? Is this a bad translation, or what would explain "towards" rather than "from" if what we are discussing is the mind receiving them. There are hugely complicated issues in discussing all this, but to me, respect for Epicurus indicates that we should follow DeWitt's example and attempt to reconstruct a plausible scenario before we jump to a conclusion that he must necessarily be wrong because *we* don't understand this particular text.

Apparently Scientific American doesn't think the idea that the mind can be influenced by outside transmissions is outside the realm of scientific discussion -

"But scientists can do more with brainwaves than just listen in on the brain at work-they can selectively control brain function by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/.../mind-control-by-cell/

Thanks for looking godek. I think this was out there some time ago so maybe if Hiram has a copy he can post in on his page.

Hiram so this is an audio interview? What's the date of this? Is there a working link to the podcast?

Tyler I would start a classification system that rigidly separates:

(1) Books by declared Epicureans devoted to promoting Epicurean ideas, and

(2) Books by non-Epicureans which contain passing references to Epicurus.

And I would advise you, and think you will make the most productive use of your time, to stick with things that are in category one. And it sounds like the therapy book (and there are going to be a LOT of those) would be in group two. Which is not to say it isn't good to keep a list of them, but the ones to focus on are in group one.

A question from T.W. got me thinking about how to look at the validity of the senses, and for a cite from the texts to make that issue clear. We talk all the time about the issue of how to use the senses, and that an individual sensation can be "wrong to the facts" but still reported "honestly" and from that perspective be "true" ("true" not in the sense of being "accurate" but in the sense of "honest").

The basic point is that some sensations convey information that is distorted by intervening factors, and some sensations convey more detailed information. When we see the tower at a distance, the distance distorts the image, and we think it looks round when it is really square. Distance, fog, and other intervening issues can distort the images before they get to us. As in DeWitt's analogy to a witness in court, the eyes are testifying "truly" according to what they see, but what they see may not be in accord with the actual facts.

But there is a deeper issue: "How do we know that the senses are reliable in general"? Why should we have confidence that we are not living in a simulation? Is there some method of logical proof that will allow us to validate that the senses are reliable?

In a similar way, we can ask how Epicurus could be so sure that there are no supernatural gods. Is it because he has constructed a logical argument, based on "anticipations" or something else, that the "gods" have no supernatural powers? I would say "no" -- I would bet that if Epicurus were here, he would say that he used logical deduction to bolster his conclusion, but that the more fundamental starting point by which he reached the conclusion in the first place was **observation**. As is made clear in both the letter to Herodotus and in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, the starting point of the argument is the observation that nothing comes from nothing, followed closely by the second observation that nothing goes to nothing. it is by chain reasoning that starts at this single point that all of the system is based, and on which all of the system would fall if these points were proved to be incorrect.

So the question is then how do we know that our observations should be believed? Is there a clear reference in the Epicurean texts to establish why the senses, which sometimes produce sensations that are obviously distorted, should be given our confidence? I think here is such a text reference, from Diogenes Laertius, within the following passage:

"Nor is there anything which can refute sensations or convict them of error: one sensation cannot convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid; nor can one sensation refute another which is not kindred but heterogeneous, for the objects which the two senses judge are not the same; nor again can reason refute them, for reason is wholly dependent on sensation; nor can one sense refute another, since we pay equal heed to all. And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of our senses. But seeing and hearing are just as real as feeling pain."

This is the translation at Epicurus.net, and the key sentence is "The reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of the senses."

Hicks in the Loeb edition translates: "And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of our senses."

But there are less clear translations:

Epicurus Reader (Inwood / Gerson): "And the fact of our awareness of sense-perceptions confirms the truth of the sense-perceptions." This one seems circular and almost nonsensical. The fact that we are aware of them is what confirms their truth? I hardly think that makes sense or that Epicurus could have asserted this.

Yonge: "Reality and the evidence of sensation establish the certainty of the senses; ...." Again, circular at best.

Bailey: "Again, the fact of apperception confirms the truth of the sensations." it frequently appears to me that Bailey translates in a way geared to produce a meaning he prefers. Here he uses an obscure word ("apperception") that seems unlikely to have been the style used in the original Greek by a philosopher who was accused of being overly plain.

Comparing all these translations, especially Epicurus.net and Hicks, I suggest this passage means that the fact the reason for our confidence in the senses is that through repeated observations over time, under the same conditions, we receive the same result. It is that repetition over time which is the guarantee that the senses as a faculty are valid and to be trusted.

It is clear Epicurean theory that it is impossible by abstract reason or theoretical logic or by divine revelation or by any other alleged method to "go behind" the senses and ultimately prove them to be worthless. As Epicurus says, each sensation is relayed without opinion, so each sensation is entitled to equal respect as being unbiased. But over time, and through many observations under separate conditions, it is possible to compare them with each other and see that the information they are providing converges toward a single conclusion.

It is therefore our experience that the sugar we taste is sweet under most every condition in which we taste it; that water feels "wet" under most every condition we feel it; that fire feels warm under most ever condition we feel it, etc. which gives us confidence that the senses are to be trusted. Yes we understand that disease can alter our sense of taste or touch, or that temperature can change the consistency of water, and that all sorts of distortions in observation can occur, but it is the reality that over time separate perceptions converge toward a limit, and that a picture emerges that is consistent over time and conditions, on which our confidence must rest.

There's no way to "reason" ourselves to the conclusion that the senses are valid (or invalid) without reliance on the senses themselves as data to consider. Repeated observation is the ultimate basis for confidence in all areas of Epicurean reasoning.

Should we see with our own eyes a series of humans come back to life from the dead at the command of Jesus or his disciples, we would immediately become Christians.

Should we see with our own eyes that dead warriors are rewarded for eternity with some large number of sexually attractive playthings, we would immediately (or most likely) choose to become Islamic activists.

Should we learn in the future through our rockets and telescopes that indeed everything revolves around the earth, we would immediately reevaluate our perspective on religion and start looking for the prime movers or the personal saviors or the Yahwehs who made humanity the center around which all things revolve.

But none of those things have ever been observed by us, nor do we have reason to believe that they will be observed in the future, or that those in the past who made such assertions should be given more credibility our own experiences.

All of this leads to the ultimate point that we should not look for justification for our conclusions in abstract theoretical "logic" or "reason." Logic and reason are tools, and cannot function without our natural faculties of perception. The thing in which to ground our confidence that our conclusions are correct - the guarantee of the reliability of our senses - is the reality of separate perceptions. It is the reality that separate perceptions, which again and again over time, produce the same results under the same circumstances, that is the basis of our confidence that the process of thinking based on factual experience is valid.

So it seems to me that even though this brief passage may be a summary by Diogenes Laertius, and not a direct quote from Epicurus, it probably stands up there with "nothing comes from nothing" and "nothing goes to nothing" in significance for us to remember:

"The reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of the senses" or "The reality of separate perceptions is the guarantee of the truth of the senses."

Yes I think that is the source they are talking about. I'm not familiar with it (not since college anway) but yes I think that is the source.

For most of my life I have heard attributed to Thomas Jefferson the phrase "that government governs best which governs least." However after I learned that Thomas Jefferson was so much an admirer of Epicurus, I began to question whether Jefferson would really have made a statement that tends toward an "absolutist" position in stating that one form of government will always be the best.

Turns out the internet has several good pages that point out that there is no documentation that Jefferson ever said that. Here is the page from Monticello.org and here is another from the Foundation for Economic Education.

It looks like the true source of the quote is many years later from either Thoreau or the "United States Magazine and Democratic Review."

Given Jefferson's many Epicurean viewpoints, I don't think he would likely make a statement like this without qualifiers that would stem from the same principles that Epicurus quoted in PD 30 - 40. Whether a government governs a little, or a lot, is going to depend on the circumstances of its people at a particular time and place, and it's not always going to be "least" any more than it's always going to be "most."

There are many fascinating letters and other documents in which Jefferson illustrated that he was an acute student of Epicurus, and I have collected links to many of them here.

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

Yes I have used HTTrack too and it works well. Possibly the epicurism.info doesn't work because of a problem they introduced when they migrated it from epicurus.info. Maybe the archive.org version of epicurus.info would work better.

Thank you for all this work Tyler. I'll take a look and see if I have any suggestions as soon as I can.

I may be overlooking it but have you downloaded and included Epicurus.net and Epicurism.info? Both of those have lots of good materials.

Also Elayne I have put some significant work lately into updating the FAQ. It still has a long way to go but is much better than just a few weeks ago. I can see that a FAQ would have special interest to people who are totally new to the study, so if you see questions that ought to be added or see any way to make it more helpful to the Meetup initiative let me know.

Elayne all that sounds absolutely outstanding. Of course you have permission to use any materials that you desire from this website - that's what they are here for. Yes I also always planned that this site be an adjunct for any operational meetup or other local groups, so I'll certainly appreciate your forwarding them here. You can certainly also refer the ones who use Facebook to the Facebook group, but as you see we can sometimes have an uneven presentation there with people from "outside" making statements that can be very confusing. I have always thought that being able to point people to an online resource where the can participate and talk between local meetings would be a great synergy.

And your post is an example of how things here can encourage others. Your summary of what you plan to do, and any updates that you are able to give later, will remain here as resource material for others everywhere to copy. Your approach sounds outstanding.

Also specifically on the handouts, as you get practical experiences you may think of other handouts that you need, and we can certainly all try to collaborate to produce them and make them available to others. Elli has produced a lot of graphics over the years, and it's probable that some of them might lend themselves to handouts or similar uses.

Everything sounds excellent and it will be exciting to hear reports on how it works!

That comment raises in my mind that it would be good to write an article comparing the books that are available as a general introduction to Epicurus. I'll have to do some work even to pull a list together because I'm not sure that there are even many who try to do the kind of general summary for non-academic readers that DeWitt has done.

Godfrey I think you will eventually find that while anticipations are a fascinating subject, they are not quite so central to understanding the core issues as might appear at first. As I think DeWitt points out, Lucretius goes through his whole poem without much, if any, direct discussion of anticipations. it's possible it's there and we don't really recognize it, but it's pretty clear that he does not devote a great deal of emphasis to it, with the implication that (like "the gods") it was considered either an advanced subject, or something pretty obvious (maybe all animals have "instincts"?) so there was not much need to dwell on it in fundamental texts.

I think you said you were reading DeWitt, right? If you finish that, and then maybe tackle Lucretius before long, I think you will see that there's a pattern of analysis where you start with fundamentals and then make sure everything after that is consistent with the fundamentals.

So in terms of gods, whatever you end up conceiving them to be, they are clearly NOT supernatural or omniscient or all-powerful or anything like that, because nothing exists eternally except matter and void, and everything is made up of that, so if you apply that rigorously you never entertain supernatural concepts at all.

LIkewise with anticipations, whatever they are, they are natural faculties that operate similarly to the sense and the feelings of pleasure and pain, so there's clearly some aspect that we're born with, and some aspects that we train and develop over time.

The reason I keep focusing on DeWitt is that if you take the time to read that, you'll get a good view of the overall forest, and then you'll be able to dig deeper into individual trees without losing sight of the big picture.

In years past I kept trying to read various academic books on details which never gave the full picture, and I was never able to put everything into some sort of order until I found DeWitt's presentation.

And at this point even though I have lots of questions about the details of what they thought about gods and anticipations, I really don't worry about it as much as I used to, because I am confident that whatever they thought was a logical extension of the fundamentals that are fairly easy to grasp.