Posts by Cassius

It may be we will need to create a separate subforum for her, but let's start here. This thread originated here.

Some links:

Internet Encyclopedia of History Entry

Link to Her Letters

Internet Encyclopedia of History Entry: a. Theory of Love: The sentiment of love is predominantly an instinct. It is a passion which owes little to reason. “The precise truth is that love is just a blind instinct which one must personally experience in order to appreciate it. It is an appetite which one has for one object in preference to another. One is not able to provide reasons for why one has this particular taste (LMDS no. 2).” The instinctual and emotive nature of love precludes rational justification for its emergence and development.

Also: For Lenclos, the activity of love is the clearest human manifestation of the fundamental inclination to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain. Rather than the virtues, it is the passions which dominate the human will in its moral choices. Natural inclination determines psychological interaction as surely as it does the physical interaction of bodies. In exploring the romantic pursuit of pleasure, Lenclos argues for the fundamental equality and reciprocity between the genders.

I am no expert on Buddhism, but it is my understanding from my own reading, as bolstered from statements of people I respect, that (borrowing from a friend) throughout all the schools [of Buddhism] runs a thread that teaches that our existence is characterized by suffering, and that self-denial and intense meditation is required to reach a state of equanimity that is beyond suffering. As such, I have always seen Buddhism, like Stoicism, as at root all about the suppression of desire (which surely includes pleasure) and therefore totally incompatible with Epicurean philosophy.

However when in the face of generalizations like that I get:

"You don't know what XXX said in the year YYYY!" And of course there are hundreds of XXXs and dozens of YYYY's so the implication is we can't get a fair assessment of Buddhism til we have studied all of them.

Further, I get:

"Well that may be the position of the 100 million Buddhists in India, by there is Guru XXX in YYYY who had a couple of dozen followers but he was exactly like Epicurus - so don't judge Buddhism by those 100 million!"

And last but not least for this into post, I get: "But Epicurus is all about "freedom from pain" as the goal of life! That's exactly what Buddhism teaches! "

And I have to just sigh and start over with them on what Epicurus really wrote about pleasure.

That's just a sample. The purpose of this thread and subforum is to collect material that will help us all better distinguish Epicurean philosophy from Buddism.

I do ask this: Please try to avoid the above dismissals and let's attempt to fairly generalize, so that people can read this thread and subforum and be educated about the high-level situation, and not the details which are clearly exceptions to the general rule.

Also: The Facebook thread that originated this topic.

So far so good it appears jason!

Not sure what to say about that other than that I have little regard for Buddhism or Hinduism, so I don't consider their lack of a parallel to be an issue. But i think the real issue is more to be resolved by modern science anyway, and I don't gather that there is a lot of confirmation of the mind receiving info from outside directly. But it's possible that the experiments such as the primitive one mentioned about cell phones and other methods of manipulating the brain will lead in that direction.

A poster:

Just remember that the Hebrew word for 'heretic' is 'אפיקורוס' or 'Epikoros'. This author of this blog is much more favorable to Epicureans than many I've read. For example, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Epicurean Philosophy "stands for a refined and calculating selfishness [...] a [...] principle, but one which he wrongly applied, since he got rid of what was true [...] The whole philosophy may well be described in a trenchant phrase of Macaulay as 'the silliest and meanest of all systems of natural and moral philosophy'.

These are some of the shittiest ways of saying 'Epicureans just wanna have fun' I'm come across. [https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…TXXmQnr1u-pb4xz]

NEWADVENT.ORG CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Epicureanism

Well. There's a solid billion human beings who (blindly, or otherwise) follow a system that maintains that our outlook is both 'silly' and 'mean'.

Fair enough. I think their system is 'cruel' and 'brutal'. Early proto-Catholic in-fighting, and persecution of Arianists and Chalcedonians, violent crusades against Catharists, vicious wars between Catholics and Protestants, marginalization of Calvinists, persecution of Mormons ... and that's just sectarian in-fighting between people who all believe in Jesus and an afterlife. Not to mention their treatment of Jews and Muslims, who also believe in transcendental powers and an afterlife. They don't know what to do with us. ?

-------------------- end of poster's comments ---------------------
Cassius:

Here is a a clip from that page, with a phrase we all know, but which is increasingly significant to me:

FOR ALL GOOD AND EVIL IS IN FEELING.....! And that does not necessarily mean simply what we see, touch, taste, hear, or smell. Because PLEASURE and PAIN are feelings, and our minds
process those feelings, yes in part based on current senses, but also on what we have experienced in the past. I believe this means that "all good and evil" are in our emotional feelings / reactions to life. Not in simply the data that our senses present to us, but in our FEELINGS about that data.

Death is the end not only of what we see and taste and hear and feel, it is also the end of our consciousness' ability to FEEL anything pleasurable or painful. It seems to me that life without feeling - which is what I associated as the goal of Stoicism - is a living death. And that is what some philosophers, some religions, some people - really want - slaves - a living death! In effect they would prefer robots, and you might as well call the Abrahamic religions and the Stoic-like philosophies a form or "robotism." They consider Epicureans heretics, and paraphrasing the sentiment attributed to Tacitus I bet the ancient Epicureans considered them effectively "enemies of the human race."

1) "because all books can teach us something new." Yes indeed that is true, but it is also true that life is short, and you only live once, and you have to be selective about how you spend your time.

2) No I would not think that is a good summary of the sex position. The GENERAL position, of which sex is just a subcategory, is that all pleasure is desirable but some pleasures cause more pain than they are worth. Since there is no god and no fate and no mechanistic determinism, you have to evaluate each potential love interest and determine whether greater pleasure or greater pain will come from it. There is no one single answer to that question, and the idea that there MIGHT be a single answer is inconsistent with Epicurus at a fundamental level. There are no absolute moral rules. Everything is judged according to context in how much pleasure and pain it brings, considering both intensity and duration (time). If you are 25 and have a great time today, but die from a disease tomorrow when you could have lived to 80, you have very likely poorly judged the pleasure/pain calculus.

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.