Posts by Cassius

Time to schedule the next event - tentatively Saturday August 4 at 6 pm. If this is a particularly bad time for someone let me know!

From a Facebook thread:

Jubert Cabrezos wrote: "I really like Epicurean philosophy as a whole, but I'm having a hard time accepting their refusal to participate in politics."

Jubert, do you think that human nature allows men to live happily without working to engage successfully with others? Or have you listened to so many Stoic and other philosophers that you have forgotten that you are a man? Despite what you are led to believe, Epicurus knew what human nature requires of men, and that being a man requires living in reality rather than holding endless arguments about fanciful ideals. Here is what Cosma Raimondi said about Epicurean vs Stoic views of life in 1429:

"I find it surprising that these clever Stoics did not remember when investigating the subject that they themselves were men. Their conclusions came not from what human nature demanded but from what they could contrive in argument. Some of them, in my view, placed so much reliance on their ingenuity and facility in debate that they did not concern themselves with what was actually relevant to the enquiry. They were carried away instead by their enthusiasm for intellectual display, and tended to write what was merely novel and surprising — things we might aspire to but not ones we should spend any effort in attaining. Then there were some rather cantankerous individuals who thought that we should only aim for what they themselves could imitate or lay claim to. Nature had produced some boorish and inhuman philosophers whose senses had been dulled or cut off altogether, ones who took no pleasure in anything; and these people laid down that the rest of mankind should avoid what their own natural severity and austerity shrank from. Others subsequently entered the debate, men of great and various intellectual abilities, who all delivered a view on what constituted the supreme good according to their own individual disposition. But in the middle of all this error and confusion, Epicurus finally appeared to correct and amend the mistakes of the older philosophers and put forward his own true and certain teaching on happiness."

...

"If we were indeed composed solely of a mind, I should be inclined to call Regulus `happy’ and entertain the Stoic view that we should find happiness in virtue alone. But since we are composed of a mind and a body, why do they leave out of this account of human happiness something that is part of mankind and properly pertains to it? Why do they consider only the mind and neglect the body, when the body houses the mind and is the other half of what man is? If you are seeking the totality something made up of various parts, and yet some part is missing, I cannot think it perfect and complete. We use the term ‘human’, I take it, to refer to a being with both a mind and a body. And in the same way that the body is not to be thought healthy when some part of it is sick, so man himself cannot be thought happy if he is suffering in some part of himself. As for their assigning happiness to the mind alone on the grounds that it is in some sense the master and ruler of man’s body, it is quite absurd to disregard the body when the mind itself often depends on the state and condition the body and indeed can do nothing without it. Should we not deride someone we saw sitting on a throne and calling himself a king when he had no courtiers or servants? Should we think someone a fine prince whose servants were slovenly and misshapen? Yet those who would separate the mind from the body in defining human happiness and think that someone whose body is being savaged and tortured may still be happy are just as ludicrous."

Also on this topic: I bet some people think that the fact that we discourage discussion of modern political issues in this group is a reflection of the idea that we think Epicurus discouraged participation in all "politics." At least for me, and I think probably many of the other regular participants in the group too, that's not true at all. I think our primary reason for steering clear of divisive issues is that we have a core goal of promoting the "eternal" ideas of Epicurean philosophy, and we won't succeed in doing that if we are constantly tearing ourselves apart over day-to-day "localized" issues that come and go with the times.

But here's my own view of an important second reason: Epicurean philosophy observes that all living things are programmed by nature to pursue pleasure, avoid pain, and thereby seek to live "happily." But because there is no divine order, no realm of ideas and forms to which all men are led to the same specific conclusions about what is pleasurable and painful to them, and what it therefore means to live "happily," people are going to reach dramatically different conclusions about what "happiness" means to them personally, and that is going to translate into the "political" positions that they decide to hold. An Italian is going to reach different specific conclusions about how to run his/her life than a German, or an Englishman, or a Canadian, or a Mexican, and it seems clear to me that those decisions will lead to different forms of government, and different "politics."

One example of this that applies directly is that it seems clear that there were committed, well-educated Epicureans on both sides of the Roman Civil War. We know for sure that Cassius Longinus was a committed Epicurean among the Senatorial forces, and he vouched for another Senatorial general as an Epicurean (Panza). Although I don't know the details the commentators seem convinced that Caesar's forces had a significant number of Epicureans, and we know that Caesar's father-in-law was an Epicurean, and that Caesar himself was alleged by Cicero not to believe in an afterlife. The point here is if committed Epicureans with access to much more authentic Epicurean material than we have could come to blows on opposite sides of a civil war, then that ought to tell us that Epicurean reasoning can be used to justify many different sides of political issues, according to the interests of the specific people involved.

Does this mean that Epicurean philosophy is of no use in politics, or tells us to refrain from all politics? I think absolutely not. But it tells us that Epicurean philosophy applies to *everybody*, and that we shouldn't be surprised to find Epicureans of many different political stripes. We can probably exclude religion-based politics from the scope of what an Epicurean would follow, and if we think hard about it we should also probably exclude "idealism-based" politics (those which would argue that there is a single ideal way or life or form of government for all people at all times and all places to follow). But even if you exclude those two major types of thinking, it seems to me there is still a huge variety of options from which to choose. People in Seattle or San Francisco may think that it is a good idea to ban drinking straws, while people in Dallas or Atlanta may find that idea ludicrous. But depending on the people and circumstances involved, I can see Epicurus telling people in any of those cities to pursue their happiness as best they see fit to do, even if they come to totally opposite conclusions about how.

[These are just my personal views, but I think it's an important subtext to the "What did Epicurus say about politics?" issue. And I don't want it inferred that because we don't discuss political issues here that none of us are willing to defend Epicurus against the charge that he preached seclusion from society. Epicurean philosophy is *not* limited to good food and good music and sunsets on the beach.]

A recurring controversy in Epicurean philosophy is the extent to which it makes sense to be involved in "public affairs." In this thread let's simply set up a reference point to list names, involvement, and references, and later we can compile this into a chart.

For example, the basic information we need is:

Name: C. Velleius. Public Position: Roman Senator. Reference: Cicero's "On the Nature of the Gods, paragraph V / five, Yonge translation: "I found him sigging in his study, and in a discourse with C. Velleius, the senator, who was then reputed by the Epicureans the ablest of our countrymen."

No need to paste pictures of the references in this thread, but it would be very good to quote the relevant part.

Other possibilities to add are:

Cassius Longinus (Senator?)

Julius Caesar's father-in-law (Senator?)

Juilius Caesar himself (not clearly an Epicurean, although he was accused of Epicurean tendencies in Cicero's orations re Cataline Conspiracy)

Plotina, wife of Emperor Trajan

Yes I agree Hiram. Sort of like we are doing here by setting up discussions here, and articles on our websites, that maybe only a few are reading now, but we can hope will reach others in the future.

Think for a minute about all the specific types of beauty that there is all around us in the word, from sunsets to all sorts of natural and man-made beauty. Then think for a moment about all the specific examples of nastiness, ugliness, death and destruction. What is it *within ourselves* that tells us on which of these two sets of pictures we should focus, which of these two is of importance and on which we should spend our time? And while you're thinking about that question, think about this from the opening of Lucretius Book 6:

"Now unless you drive from your mind with loathing all these things, and banish far from you all belief in things degrading to the gods and inconsistent with their peace, then often will the holy deities of the gods, having their majesty lessened by you, do you hurt; not that the supreme power of the gods can be so outraged that in their wrath they shall resolve to exact sharp vengeance, but because you will fancy to yourself that they, though they enjoy quiet and calm peace, do roll great billows of wrath; nor will you approach the sanctuaries of the gods with a calm breast, nor will you be able with tranquil peace of mind to take in those idols which are carried from their holy body into the minds of men as heralds of their divine form. And what kind of life follows after this, may be conceived."

Is there not a relationship between (1) how we orient our minds to judge the things around us and (2) what we think are the ultimate highest forms of life to which living beings can attain? And is it not important for us to affirm that we have clear and specific knowledge of the heights to which we can and should aspire?

Time for a reminder of one of the most precise formulations in the Epicurean texts. The issue is NOT "How do we achieve happiness?" And the reason that's NOT the question is that "happiness" is an ambiguous term that means very different things to different people. Rather, the issue IS: "What is happiness?" and "What is the ultimate goal of our nature?" The Epicurean answer to those questions is contained in one word: "Pleasure" - which is not "chocolate cake" but instead one of any number of pleasurable feelings we perceive through the faculties given us by nature. The choice here is not cake vs pie vs art vs music, the choice is "revelation" vs "virtue" vs "the natural faculty of pleasure." Which means the choice is God/Allah/Yahweh vs humanism/virtue ethics/conventional morality vs Epicurean philosophy. No need to trust me on this, look to Diogenes of Oinoanda speaking for Epicurus from stones 2000 years old, translated by Martin Ferguson Smith:

"If, gentlemen, the point at issue between these people and us involved inquiry into «what is the means of happiness?» and they wanted to say «the virtues» (which would actually be true), it would be unnecessary to take any other step than to agree with them about this, without more ado. But since, as I say, the issue is not «what is the means of happiness?» but «what is happiness and what is the ultimate goal of our nature?», I say both now and always, shouting out loudly to all Greeks and non-Greeks, that pleasure is the end of the best mode of life, while the virtues, which are inopportunely messed about by these people (being transferred from the place of the means to that of the end), are in no way an end, but the means to the end."

Or if you prefer Cicero/Torquatus speaking for Epicurus in On Ends: "If then even the glory of the Virtues, on which all the other philosophers love to expatiate so eloquently, has in the last resort no meaning unless it be based on pleasure, whereas pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically attractive and alluring, it cannot be doubted that pleasure is the one supreme and final Good and that a life of happiness is nothing else than a life of pleasure."

http://www.english.enoanda.cat/the_inscription.html

"Atheism for Epicurus would be at bottom an attack on the reliability of sense perception."

That's an aggressive way of stating it, but I don't really disagree. Certainly Epicurus wrote (Bailey):

More comments:

NB: I think it's crucial to deconstruct "belief" as we typically employ it. With respect to Martin K., I think that the "gods" part of his statement is on the money, BUT, "belief" in our society tends to indicate 'faith', with a connotation of 'dogmatic' or 'blind faith' in a supernatural sense. This wouldn't jive with Epicureans from any age.

We may translate Epicurus in 'Letter to Menoeceus' as recommending "belief" in a natural "God", but we can confirm that Epicurean epistemology does not accept 'faith' as a reasonable criterion of knowledge. In other words, we don't need to "believe" in something with which we have direct experience.

Therein, I think, lies the key: *whatever* he was talking about is grounded in natural experience. Whether we're discussing happy space beings, or the prototype of a superhuman ubermensch, or Star Trek-ish energy beings of pure pleasure, or preconceptions experienced in dream states, 'belief' is not required.

Cassius Amicus: " BUT, "belief" in our society tends to indicate 'faith', with a connotation of 'dogmatic' or 'blind faith' in a supernatural sense. This wouldn't jive with Epicureans from any age." I COMPLETELY agree with you Nathan, and in my humble opinion I think Epicurus would to - as I think Martin Kalyniuk probably does too.

MK: Spot on! Epicurus doesn't think faith is a valid vehicle to knowledge.

His argument for thinking there are gods is that we have such a deeply chiseled impression of them on our minds as human beings.

Any concept we have must have come somehow from outside us from something materially real. Therefore there are really gods.

For Epicurus - as for Aristotle - the senses are always substantively correct. Mistakes are made in the interpretation of the knowledge they yield to us. But if all men claim to see substantially the same thing, say, "white" or experience something, perhaps, "being cold." They might misinterpret the details or the how and why, but not the phenomena itself.

Atheism for Epicurus would be at bottom an attack on the reliability of sense perception.

A poster at Facebook wrote on this topic:

I have wanted to say something since seeing the notification, but did not want to gloss so serious a subject. I have time at the minute though, so here I go!

Reflex reaction: yes. Dispensing with all talk of the Epicurean gods is certainly to lose sight of something central to the school.

Face value, the answer is simple. To be an authentic Epicurean requires a firm grounding in the classics.

This is fairly obvious to me anyway. How you can know who Epicurus is but not Zeus would be beyond me.

Anybody actually interested must know who or what Lucretius or Philodemus speak of when writing. You cannot meaningfully read the Epicurean literature outside the classical context, really.

To claim the Olympians are culturally irrelevant or incomprehensible is ridiculous. Why are you reading an ancient Hellenic thinker at all anyway then?

As for the non-intervention of deities equalling the non-existence of them - it's a patently poor argument. Epicurus himself saw a definite difference. Don't think much of his reasoning powers: why are you here?

In the original comment quoted I provided two ways in which Epicurus insisted on the gods' importance to his thought: anthropological aetiology and top standard of ataraxia.

They are complimentary sides to a single coin. We can aspire to perfect equanimity because we are physically and mentally like the beings that already live it. Take away the latter, the former becomes a sizably trickier task.

Are we fitted for that state? Or is it a superhuman impossibility engendered in the same way as superhuman beings by the brain of primitive homines sapientes? An Epicurean's top task becomes a mimetic delusion à la Dawkins.

As for the factual existence of the gods, I wouldn't like to go to war for them on this front. Still, a religious quality of commitment to atheism is at least as narrow-minded as an Abrahamic monotheism.

Most educated people in Western societies today tick "Spiritual but not religious" when asked. I don't know that it is helpful to be dismissive of the ubiquitous human experience here. Particularly with such crushing and uncomprehending condescension.

What one senses staring out from Delphi or up at the ceiling standing in the centre of the Pantheon, has precisely fuck all to do with knowing what makes thunder.

An ideal Epicurean would see the legitimacy of mythos, and the gods in them as powers personified, for education and reflection, poetic and philosophical. The same could be said of the ideal applicant to Oxford or Cambridge 70 years ago. Couldn't read Greek, need not apply. Sad the state of affairs presently in academia.

Finally, so far as I can tell, nobody has engaged with Epicurus' argument for that there are in very fact gods. I outlined it in the relevant earlier comment.

If you are a thoroughgoing materialist, it is tremendously difficult to account for the universal scale of the human experience here. Where the concept comes from, why it is not culturally confined, its persistence across literally all recorded time.

If you face facts and the only explanations allowable are material causality: how do you escape his conclusion that they must have some basis in physical reality?

One more comment. You wrote "I don't want to create a whole new thread just to ask a question but I see no obvious way to ask a new question (like this) in the General focum. Thanks"

It's possible you are just seeing the way the forum operates, with everything needing to be under a thread of some kind (or a new thread created) for organizational purposes.

You can also post a general comment on your "wall" which i think is also visible to everyone outside the forum structure.

If you continue to run into issues please post, because questions like this help us set up the forum for better use by everyone.

Roger I reviewed the forum permissions, and you should have been able to see a Create Thread button once you went to the General Discussion Forum. Can you check there again and let me know? Thanks!

Welcome RogerAlyn ! When you get a chance please introduce yourself and let is know about your background in Epicurus and areas of interest. Thank you for joining us!

Hi Roger and thanks for joining us.

Do you not see an option to start a new thread in the General Discussion setting? Should be a button at the top right of the forum list? I will check forum settings - let me know if you don't see the option.

If I have picked up the right section of the Greek, here is the original and the Bailey translation of the "gods among men" reference:

Here we ought to consider whether Epicurus should be thought of as a god himself. In addition to Epicurus' own "gods among men" comment, probably the most important reference is the opening of Lucretius' book 5. Was Lucretius being tongue-in-cheek, deadly serious, or something in between? I don't know how to begin to discuss it legitimately without comparing translations, so here are four:

Recently (July 7th) MK posted the following as part of a post on whether the Epicureans were in fact "atheists." The part I'd like to focus on is: "The gods are integral to Epicurean ethics as a standard to aspire to of absolute ataraxia." Without getting into the debate about what "ataraxia" means, I think there is another important point here. We may or may not agree with them, but it seems clear that to the Epicureans the "gods" were not simply abstractions - from the texts we know that they had a form/appearance "similar" to humans, a language "similar" to humans (Greek), and presumably other real attributes which allowed Epicurus and the ancient Epicureans to participate in public ceremonies without considering themselves to be ludicrous. We can add Lucretius' "hymn to Venus" as Roman example, and also cite Cicero, as did Martin, for the point that Epicureans were firmly convinced of their speculations on many of these aspects of divinity.

My question is this: Are we today overlooking an important (integral? critical?) component of Epicurean philosophy when we fail to articulate and identify concrete examples of the ultimate standards to which we should aspire? It sounds like the ancient Epicureans were quite comfortable in referencing Venus and / or Zeus and similar entities in ways that were consistent with their philosophy. By failing to consider this part of Epicurean philosophy, are we failing to identify in concrete terms the standard to which we should aspire, and leaving our standard at a useless level of abstraction?

Yes I agree Hiram. We are aren't talking rocket science here. We're talking simply thinking about the way people generally think in 2018, and applying the lessons that have been in learned in the last 75+ years to the current generation. We know from our last almost ten years of work on Epicurus to know what to expect the major issues, and the major reactions, to be, and we can fine-tune an introduction to the situation we find ourselves in today.

It would be relatively simply to rework the major observations from DeWitt Chapter 1, plus the observations of the Epicurus Reader introduction, into a summary that would prepare a 2018 reader for reading the original texts.

A question was posed privately that would be good for group discussion. Let me summarize it this way. "Which of the ANCIENT TEXTS would you recommend first to NORMIES as an introduction to Epicurean philosophy?" The twist here is that we're talking about ancient texts rather than modern commentaries, and we're talking about recommendations to people who do not have a background in understanding issues in Greek philosophy in general, or Epicurus in particular. The obvious possibilities include the letters of Epicurus, Lucretius, selections of Diogenes Laertius, Diogenes of Oinoanda, and Cicero. Here are some initial thoughts carved out of a private conversation:

I would consider the Torquatus section of "On Ends" for that purpose almost as much as the Epicurus letters. It seems to me that the letters are so condensed and presume so much about background teaching that it can be dangerous to start with them, especially the letter to Menoeceus given the "absence of pain" passage. The Torquatus section does not have that issue, and it is really a more broad presentation.

Lucretius also has merits in that regard, as it doesn't have the "absence of pain" focus that people get caught on with Menoeceus. That problem is so big, and so pervasive right now, that it just about consumes the question and calls for another starting point than Menoeceus. I am completely convinced that a normie who is led to think that the goal of life is the "nothingness" implied in a typical discussion of "absence of pain" (without the technical background) is going to be turned off and lost at that moment (as he/she should be if he takes the presentation as emulating stoicism). {Also, see the nearby Michael Onfray discussion for an example of someone far smarter than a "normie" who found the interpretation of "absence of pain" so hard to swallow that he decided Lucretius was at odds with, rather than following, Epicurus.)

Diogenes Laertius himself might in some instances be a better choice but might be too detailed. We have a real problem here that needs to be addressed.

Just look at this page of the ancient texts on Epicurus.net -- https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…oQJ4Pl5CEwEneJh None of them really stand alone as being clear for us today. Torquatus explains the ethics well, and if you read that first then you aren't so tempted to get misled by the "absence of pain" passage in Menoeceues. The letter to Herodutus has a lot of good material, but doesn't read all that smoothly. The argument in Lucretius is more clear, but you first have to get past the flowery hymn to venus and sacrifice of Iphigenia to give a normal modern reader a chance to get into the argument about eternal / infinite universe / atoms before he/she is totally turned off. Even then, the modern reader needs to be told what is about to be discussed or else the detail about atoms and void can appear to be a total waste of time. There's still a lot more to be done to organize a good understandable presentation of Epicurean philosophy for normal people.

So what are your thoughts on this?

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So the bottom line at this point is that if some normal person asked me "What ancient Epicurean text should I read first?" I really don't have a good answer. There is too much discontinuity of thought between the Epicurean age and today for a normie to pick up any existing ancient text and read it without serious risk of misunderstanding or turnoff. The optimum answer is something like "Read Torquatus first, but before you do that, read this brief essay on what you're about to read." But at this moment I cannot point to that brief essay either. The absence of that document (or that series of documents, each one of the series aimed at different sets of normies) is for me the crucial missing link. No doubt people could make suggestions on that introductory piece and we ought to discuss that too. There's always chapter 1 of DeWitt's book, but that's probably too long and not directed at this purpose.

Poster RR: Cassius Amicus I'm also fairly certain that Michel Onfray has never read any of DeWitt's material on Epicurus. To my knowledge his only cited material on Epicurus (rather than Lucretius) has been the extant letters (and maybe a few of the Vatican sayings and PDs). I do think he's a bit unfair in his estimate of Epicurus, but that's a problem that many academics have, even those who recognize the need for a counter-history of philosophy. Do you think he offers a fair assessment of Lucretius?1

Cassius Amicus I scanned back through the article but I am short of time to reread the whole thing. Let me focus on this passage: "On the other hand, the Roman Epicureanism of Lucretius turns its back on the Greek formula. We are unaware of the biography of this Roman philosopher. We can barely affirm that he was a knight during the first year of the Common Era, but from his work we can deduce that his body was one of great health. Lucretius does not wish to define ataraxia as solely the satisfaction of necessary and natural desires; he wishes that all desires be satisfied if they are not repaid by a greater displeasure."

BINGO he is hitting on THE BIG issues. Do we limit desires to natural and necessary? Or do we evaluate ALL desires, and choose whether or not to satisfy them, according to the calculus or cost and benefit? And the issue of the definition of "ataraxia" is closely related to this - I contend the modernist definition of ataraxia is erroneous and in fact has no real meaning, If we follow this line of Onfray's thinking to go past "natural and necessary," we are inevitably led back to the common sense definition of ataraxia as no more esoteric than "one or a combination of any number of ordinary mental and physical pleasures without any mixture of disturbance/pain."

So if Onfray's interpretation of Lucretius follows through with these comments, then that is excellent. But in the meantime I would temper my enthusiasm for his interpretations by keeping front and center that Epicurus himself was the master who Lucretius was attempting to follow as closely as possible, so we should never admit that there is a conflict between the two. It sounds like Onfray was (in my view) on the right track, and it's up to us to carry that track all the way back to Lucretius to reclaim the full force of the philosophy. Which means the first part of that passage cited above about Lucretius "turning his back" on the Greek formula (presumably meaning Epicurus) is just totally wrong.