Posts by Cassius

Here, I wonder if it is not the ILLUSIONS that have made our journey unpleasant ---- ? In fact perhaps the transition from the prior slide is that once we reach the summit of the mountain we found nothing but another illusion ??

" I do think the baby animals without adult heads might reinforce the point" ... without heads being the logical precursor to eventually developing heads like Jefferson, Hitchens, Lucretius etc

Following that last thought, it is possible that when we are young and strong that we particularly fall prey to climbing mountains for the challenge, then we fall back to religion as we fall off the heights.

i guess part of the answer is whether you prefer to go with the analogy that we leave the garden voluntarily (to climb the mountain) or whether we are deceived to leave it.

i think you are correct nate that any order will work, but it did occur to me to say that Skepticism might logically be the LAST one, because I think it is a common problem that people bounce to skepticism AFTER they see how the various schools totally disagree with each other - and they give up thinking that any one could be correct.

But i didn't suggest that earlier because I was thinking that the 'winds of skepticism" made a good link to why one would lead the garden in the first place. But if you came up with something else to explain leaving the birth garden, then yes skepticism might actually fit best right before the hero "comes back to his senses"

Ok only very minor edits at this point.

Panel 2 - "We may come doubt" should be "We may come to doubt..." [[[ Sorry - now I see you commented on that already]]]

Panel 3 - this is not a correction but a thought -- might "groundless conceptions" be better as "groundless abstractions"?

Ok, now back to panels one and two for conceptual questions:

- If I were explaining this diagram to someone, I would emphasize that when we say "we begin" we are referring to "at birth" / "as children" etc. I might still look for more in the diagram to emphasize this connection to explain why this is our starting point.

- OK, and this might be more important, the next panel introduces the fact that we are leaving / have left the initial garden of pleasure in our childhood. But what is it that causes us to do that? Is it because we are frustrated that "our perceptions do not always comport with the atomic reality with which we interact"? Someone might argue that an Epicurean might say the opposite, that indeed our PERCEPTIONS will NEVER contradict the reality with which we interact. Isn't it not so much that our perceptions contradict reality but that our IDEAS of what life "should be" conflict with the reality. Is it in fact not often true that the reason our ideas / ideals conflict with reality is that they are perverted/corrupted by the outside influences in the next several panels.

Might it be better to indicate that the winds of skepticism are what blow us as children out of the garden? Probably, but we are also blown out of our original peacefulness by the storms of dialectic, the mirages of religion, and the false heights of virtue.

In other words, I am addressing here - Should we make more clear what it is that causes us to leave the garden in the first place?

I think this is coming along VERY well! Let me check your other posts.

I hope others will comment! One minor thought going through my mind is that our stoic friends might quibble with the wording of the mountain of virtue description - they probably see their mountain not as much of a "dismissal of anguish" or a "sanctuary from the storm" as much as glorious height to be scaled or a "better" or "more worthy" way....

Nate I'm still wondering if things would be more clear if there was a character in the picture representing the "We" who is referenced in first bubble of panel one. On panel two, you have animals moving toward the oasis, but not one thing representing the "we." Would it be more clear if the "we" were represented by a uniform someone/something moving through the diagram and encountering those people? To some extent that's the way the cave analogy worked, with the main character moving from place to place in the landscape.

You know, the second panel has the Epicureans lined up facing toward the oasis with Epicurus at the end, and that works well I think. The first panel, however-- I'm not sure that it has the same kind of "theme" that pulls it together in the same way or shows that it is a progression (still thinking)

I think what you're going back and forth on is part of the issue. Somebody looking at panel one at first glance might think the entire theme is "Stormy Dialectic" due to the placement of that term in the center.

Maybe we're so close to the details that we need some fresh eyes to ask some fresh questions like "What is this all about?" or whatever. Maybe it might be a good idea to start a new post at FB with some kind of general question like "Give me your general thoughts on seeing this for the first time?" (not good phrasing) or something that would help us get an idea of what a new person would ask in order to get oriented.

And maybe that plays into the issue of how to fit the two panels together. One above the other with some kind of huge arrows pointing out the pathway? Or side by side?

I think somehow we're missing an in-your-face method of telling people what this is.

Nate I see the title "Allegory of the Oasis" is still there.... which is fine....I wonder if some other general label or box might still serve to tie the whole thing together and explain the scenario --- for example box 1 starts with "We" -- who is "we" and how might it be conveyed to the viewer what role the viewer should assume in reading through the progression?

Ok I guess to be rigorous i have to say I disagree with LD's post because of the "entirely due to" clause!

Definitely the denial of providence was huge, but I think the denial of an afterlife probably was at least as practical a reason for Epicurus to be condemned by religion, at least by the "priestly caste" part of religion, which uses punishment/reward in the afterlife as stick / carrot.

I've always wanted to read Dante but never found the time. I remember DeWitt referring to the punishment as more than just being in the sixth circle, but also including something about souls being confined in their coffins with their dead bodies (?)

Quote from Godfrey

It seems like many things in EP are not absolutes but are subject to each person's contemplation with respect to the Canon and the types of desire

I have come to think that that is one of the most important aspects of understanding Epicurean philosophy. In the absence of gods or of central points of reference within the universe or of "fate" which would serve as a guarantee that the same action in human affairs would always produce the same result, it doesn't seem possible that it is even possible that there could be a set of absolute rules that applies in all situations. That's a pretty disconcerting realization for those of us who (like me) were raised on absolute rules, but given the Epicurean view of the nature of the universe it really couldn't be any other way. PD10 is pretty stark in throwing this in our face, but all of the final 10 PD's essentially make the same point - that there aren't absolute rules. And that leaves as the thing that is absolute for us our sense of pleasure and pain and the "programming" which nature gives us at birth.

That's an excellent next step Nate! I am going to think on it tonight to see if I have anything else. Were you going to use a particular animal to dramatize the movement along the path?

Just a few comments ---

2 - "When your anticipations do not complement reality..." Possibly "comport with reality" or "agree with reality" or "conform to reality" ??

Oh wow this is great I am reading now!

I am so glad you asked the question Godfrey - I am reviewing this now -- here is the cite --

https://archive.org/stream/moralia…/search/unknown

This is typical of what I see. From Bailey, it is included in a list with absolutely no context whatsoever. I begin to suspect that the Plutarch reference above (hardly a friendly source) is the only real cite:

https://archive.org/stream/Epicuru…/search/unknown

Good grief, I hope that THIS is not the only source of this phrase. I am remembering Plutarch but so far this is all I can find:

Plutarch, Is "Live Unknown" a Wise Precept? 3, p. 1129A: {Rhetorically addressing Epicurus} Don’t send books everywhere to advertise your wisdom to every man and woman ... What sense is there in so many tens of thousands of lines honoring Metrodorus, Aristobulus, and Chaeredemus, and published with so much industry that they cannot remain unknown even after they’re dead? Who are you to call for the obliteration of virtue, the uselessness of skills, silence to philosophy, and forgetfulness of good deeds?

http://www.attalus.org/translate/epicurus.html

Still haven't found the cite yet, but this is an explanation of how this doctrine was qualified, from Chapter 4 of EAHP ---

https://newepicurean.com/a-time-for-all…cinnatus-model/

Godfrey this "live unknown" is a phrase that Epicurean commentators talk about a lot, but I think it needs to be considered VERY carefully. It comes to us without any context in an Epicurean text, I believe through Plutarch (?) (I will look it up after I finish this note.) People who take a very passivist/quietist view of Epicurus construe it strongly as if it were written in stone for all contexts, while I think a more balanced view is that - like most of his doctrines - how to apply it depends on the context.

Clearly there were multiple Epicurean sayings indicating that it is a good idea to live free of too much entanglement with too many people -- to stay away from politics as a career path - and things like that. So no doubt there is a grain of important truth here, but we can see from the examples of many Roman and Greek Epicureans - including Epicurus himself - that we shouldn't take this too literally.

However given all those caveats what LD and i are saying I think still stands that it is a good idea to be cautious with giving up too much of one's privacy.