Posts by Cassius

Thank you Elli! Is there an English-letter version of the greek too?

At this link: Epicurean Friends Newsletter - March 2019

Info On Martha Nussbaum's Therapy of Desire here. More info and links will be added to this thread but in the meantime please search Nussbaum. Please be sure to see THIS thread where many of the same comments are made: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/index.php?thre…71HbJQAeGapTLTQ

Also, see the presentation by Elena Nicoli Reassessing Nussbaum's Interpretation of Epicurean Therapy.

I've been meaning to go through Nussbaum's "Therapy of Desire" to pull out some quotes relevant to that, and I will post a couple here.

Each of these points can be argued, without doubt. My main purpose in pointing these out is that if someone wants an appreciation for Epicurus without devoting a life to debating philosophy, Nussbaum is not a good place to start, and DeWitt is far preferable.

Let's start first with a statement by her with which I agree, that Epicurus was not proposing a "return to the simple life of nature" from page 109 --

From page 139, Nussbaum compares Epicurus unfavorably to Aristotle in that she thinks dialectic is essential, that the Epicurean pupil is passive, that the pupil is not suited for critical thinking...

Nussbaum takes the side of reason as an end in itself:

Nussbaum says Epicurean pupil has no autonomy and that autonomy is not valued by Epicurean philosophy:

Nussbaum thinks that the Epicurean view of friendship is at tension with itself:

Clive it interests me that you are English. My experience is that virtually everyone I have come into contact with from England is a dedicated "Stiff-Upper-Lipper" and primarily Stoic. I would be curious to anything you can offer as to your thoughts on the differences between the two and why you identify more with Epicurus.

I have set up this thread as a place to discuss holding a live seminar somewhere in the United States in 2019 if possible. Presumably we need a place that is easy to get to (centrally located) relatively inexpensive, and yet also a scenic attraction that is sufficient to motivate people who might want to combine the seminar trip with some other kind of site-seeing. We have people currently interested in Epicurus spread out over most of the country, on both the West and East coasts and numerous locations in between.

I'll be posting more ideas in this thread but for the time being this is just to set it up.

The first sentence of that excerpt is a list of Greek words which describe the various functions within the framework. Could someone who knows Greek help us come up with a list of each Greek word and the corresponding English translation? It looks like they are probably arranged from most mature to newest. Thanks! I will get to work on it myself at some point but I still don't have a good system set up even for typing the Greek characters.

This article is important enough to have its own thread in this subsection. Here is the final paragraph as a summary: the full text is here.

Thanks Michele. I guess we don't even really know the points that Bignone was making in his book, so it probably doesn't make sense to try to speculate about what his real intent in the book was without reading it. Presumably he didn't write his book just to show that Epicurus had only some of Aristotle's work -- that would be a pretty narrow topic! Presumably he was making all sorts of points about what Epicurus taught, and what Aristotle taught, for purposes of better understanding both, so I would think we'll just have to dig into the book to find out.

Great! Glad you are here.

I've never heard of this work of art before today , but it sure brings to mind the invocation in Book 1 of Lucretius!

Since Thou alone dost govern Nature’s laws, and nothing without Thee can rise to light, without Thee nothing can look gay or lovely; I beg Thee a companion to my lays, which now I sing of Nature, ..... Mean time, the bloody tumults of the war by sea and land compose, and lay asleep. For Thou alone mankind with quiet peace canst bless; because ‘tis Mars Armipotent that rules the bloody tumults of the war, and He by everlasting pains of love bound fast, tastes in Thy lap most sweet repose, turns back his smooth long neck, and views thy charms, and greedily sucks love at both his eyes. Supinely as he rests his very soul hangs on thy lips; this God dissolv’d in ease, in the soft moments when thy heavenly limbs cling round him, melting with eloquence caress, great Goddess, and implore a peace for Rome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Being_Disarmed_by_Venus

Quote from Oscar

I'm interested to hear more.

I bet you will get your wish, Oscar!

Michele:

Hiram wrote:

I found a synopsis in Italian, put it through google translate, and got this: "First published in 1936, this essay soon became a classic of Aristotelian exegesis. The basic thesis of Bignone, still persuasive, is that the philosophical formation of Epicurus unfolded through a very close comparison only with the dialogic works (now lost) of the young Aristotle, who at the time was still a Platonic all-round student. In essence, Epicurus could not know the most important Aristotelian treatises (such as the "Metaphysics", the "Physics", the "Ethics"), which would have constituted for him a far more solid and articulated dialectical shore." https://www.ibs.it/aristotele-perduto.../e/9788845259944.

ibs.it

L' Aristotele perduto e la formazione filosofica di Epicuro - Ettore Bignone -…
L' Aristotele perduto e la formazione filosofica di Epicuro - Ettore Bignone - Libro - Bompiani - Il pensiero occidentale | IBS

This seems hard to believe: "In essence, Epicurus could NOT know the most important Aristotelian treatises........?" He is suggesting that Epicurus was not aware of THE MOST IMPORTANT works of Aristotle? That seems hard to understand.... Perhaps a Google translate issue?

Alas Michele, their work is mostly in Greek only. Two years ago they live-streamed an event on Youtube, and they are getting better at adding videos to the internet, but so far they are only in Greek and they have not had the resources to add subtitles. Making progress in that direction is certainly something we need to work on.

Also I should add that there are two groups: The Garden of Athens, in which Christos is active, and the Garden of Thessaloniki, in which Elli and others are active.

Wow thank you for that picture Michele! All sorts of nice surprises today (combined with the Italian song!)

Quote from Matthaeus

But I’m an oddball of the group.

LOL

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the Garden of Athens in collaboration with the Greek branch of UNESCO and under the auspices of the Mayor of Athens and of the Mayor of Pallini will organize the 1st Panhellenic Meeting of Happiness "Happiness is a Human Right" in order to discuss philosophically and scientifically about happiness and present the Declaration of the right of happiness in the European Union. On the 20th of March (International Day of Happiness) we will announce the details of the 1st Panhellenic Meeting of Happiness which will take place on April 14.

Thank you for introducing yourself! One thing that would be of interest would be how your found this site.

I suppose to a certain extent it's all just a question of what you think is important enough to focus on persuading people about.

I personally think it is much more satisfying/pleasureable to me to focus on showing people the truth about how nature operates, and that based on those truths we property (according to nature) focus on the happiness of ourselves and our friends rather than trying to "save the world" which is not a goal that is likely to be attained at any rate.

I've said elsewhere and this discussion of and England-based philosophy is a good place to repeat it that the British "stiff upper lip" approach seems to continually get in the way of their good sense and lead them to stoic-like views.

To be charitable, maybe they were under more pressure than other places to conform to Christianity or Christian/Humanist idealism, but for whatever the reason they do not seem to have been able to keep Epicurean views unpolluted from Stoicisms. (I do need to exempt Frances Wright from that generalization!)

Here is a comment about scholarship in England made by DeWitt in the intro to his book - I wish I could read Italian - maybe michelepinto could tell me if he has read Bignone and likes him!

Quote from Daniel Van Orman

It is an abstract ideal - driven by emotions rather than nature.

Yes Daniel, that is a reminder of something important -- that ideas/abstractions generate emotions every much as strong (or more) than physical feelings. So it is not enough to say that something "is an abstraction so therefore it isn't real" -- Abstractions may not have physical reality independent from us, but they can certainly generate strong feelings nevertheless.

Quote from Daniel Van Orman

There is much they have in common - we have just been discussing what major differences they have. I think there is far more common than not.

I have long been an admirer of some of the work of John Stuart Mill -- I am less familiar with Bentham. But certainly in general to the extent they are both aimed after "happiness" they have much in common. The old saying "the devil is in the details" applies.

Quote from Daniel Van Orman

In my mind, the ideas fit together perfectly. If one places "greats happiness for the greatest number" at the center

Yes, that IF in that statement is the big hurdle.... and that IF is really at the center of much of the rest of the issue. Who has the "right" to enforce their view of the greatest happiness of the greatest number on everyone else who disagrees?