Posts by Cassius

http://societyofepicurus.com/dialogue-on-th…ch-for-meaning/

RW 4 hrs Is living a "meaningful" life an Epicurean concept at all? An Epicurean "virtue"? If so, what constitutes a meaningful life for an Epicurean? If there are multiple paths, what are some Epicurean examples?

RW PD 5 comes closest to addressing this. "Wisely, honorably, justly, pleasantly". Is there anything necessarily meaningful there? Many people (e.g. Stoics, probably) would say living honorably and justly are meaningful goals and their achievement inherently rewarding, and that the struggle to live that way is meaningful as well, but for Epicurus, these are merely instrumental goals in service of the goal of pleasure. It's not clear to me that he finds the pursuit of the instrumental virtues "meaningful".

IV: If your life has genuinely been a meaningful -- that is, you've created meaning in it -- then you can take pleasure in it.

It's always the pleasure that determines whether a thing is meaningful, not the other way round. And if you've lived a pleasurable life, it should help you face the prospect of death. Living well and preparing for death amount to the same thing.

Letter to Menoeceus 126:

"And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirableness of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well."

Like · Reply · 2 hrs · Edited

IV: "A meaningful life" is usually so vaguely defined that it could mean 1f609.png;) anything. No one to date has been able to define the single meaningful life that every human should have. At least one that wouldn't be torture to some people..

An Epicurean might approach this as the combination of personal interests and morality. "What thing or idea or activity excites me and produces pleasure in me and others.

Having "meaning" in and of itself doesn't seem to be a virtue. Taking meaning in a specific pursuit may or may not be a good thing. They would have to be evaluated by pleasure produced and justice followed.

Perhaps we could say (as Epicureans) that meaning is something that we create in our own lives by pursuing our interests morally and justly.

MS: Is a life of a tiger meaningful? Or a monkey? Or a pig? isn't pig' life the most "useful to ohers"?!

Like · Reply · 3 hrs

CA:: I agree with IV:'s second comment in particular. Unless you define "meaningful" the question cannot be answered, and most of the definitions of "meaningful" are going to be loaded in a non-Epicurean way. (Such as meaningful to the gods, or meaningful in "the great scheme of things, or the like)

CA: I am not at all sure that an ancient Epicurean would ever ask this question, and it would probably come up only with someone whose thoughts are oriented from another philosophy: "what constitutes a meaningful life?"

MJ: Meaning like virtue, is sometimes pretty relative in my opinion. What is meaningful to you may not be to someone else. So it would come down to a value judgement of what is meaningful to you, what pleasure do you get out of this subjective meaningfulness.

MJ: It was meaningful for me to attain a blackbelt in Taekwondo, it was meaningful for me to graduate from college and basic military training etc. others may share these sentiments, but others may not.

MJ: I set goals and upon completion of those goals there was a cathartic sense of pleasure when accomplished.

MJ: So totally meaningful to me, but perhaps not to someone who never shared those goals.

HD: According to nowdays psychology in a meaningful life one's purpose in life exceeds himself, for example living virtuously, faithfully, etc. This is a conceptual end of life that is related to religion, and the idealist in general philosophies. The epicurean philosophy considers the individual and his happiness-in tetms of feelings- as the most valuable good in life. The corresponding term related to the Epicurean philosophy is "the pleasant life".

CA: BIG LIKE to that last comment by Haris!

HD:That's why the title of my book is"Epicurus, and the Plessant Life".

CA: "Epicurus And The Pleasant Life" is much better than "Epicurus And The Meaningful Life"!

HD: The meaningful life has no "meaning".

CA: Exactly! About the same as calling it "Epicurus and The Virtuous Life!" 1f642.png:-)

RW: So life is without meaning and pursuing meaning is a vain thing?

CA: Again, Ron, what is your meaning when you say "meaning"? Does my life have "meaning" in terms is is significant to me? Darn right it does, to me, and that is all that counts.

Dialogue on the Search for Meaning

Philosophers have always disagreed about what is the telos, the ultimate end or aim that we should pursue.…

SOCIETYOFEPICURUS.COM

Hiram Crespo ... And the last Twentieth msg also deals w meaning https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/.../happy-twentieth.../

MS: It is a strange term 'meaningful life' , for me this has implications or nuances of judgement and validation, both of which are not free from trouble or unnecessary stress.

Use and Misuse of "Images" and "Fantastic Impressions"

There is mention in Lucretius about how images floating throug the air strike us, even when we are asleep, and that these images striking our brains (at least, not through our *open* eyes) create stimulation that leads to dreams and sometimes thinking we see things that we really don't.

(1) One problem is if people use this to conclude that we are seeing pictures of real gods moving among us. That would be wrong and would be a "false anticipation" because we know from other reasoning about the gods that they are perfectly blissful, and in the intermundia, and so there is no way we are going to see them moving around us. Even if we received images all the way from the intermundia (which apparently there was speculation that we do), those images would only be of blissful and perfect beings who have no interest in us.

(2) Another problem is that some later Epicureans elevated this process of receiving images, forming a concept, and then comparing those concepts to what we see in the future. (I think DeWitt speculates probably in response to Stoic drumbeating about the importance of logic.) And they considered this extended process to be a "fourth leg of the canon" in addition to the three that Epicurus had stated. The error here is that "concepts" are formed in our mind only after we make judgments about what we get from the three canonical faculties, and the process of making judgments involves opinion and the possibility of error. Thus although this process of forming concepts is very important and useful, it is not safe to call it a "test of truth" because the concept we are using could be erroneous. Yes any sensation can be erroneous, but we trust the canonical faculties to be programmed by nature and not by ourselves. Concepts formed by our judgment/opinion could be totally erroneous and are not subject to the same natural correction mechanism as for example "looking twice" would do it for the eyes.

The second issue is a generalization of the first. We would conclude that a concept of an actively intervening god is a "false opinion/concept" because it is not based on any proof and it is contradicted by other evidence (our other observations from images and our reasoning about things that are "perfect"). If the person arguing for the false concept of an active god is alleging that he saw a vision of a god visiting him, then we can't necessarily rule out that he saw "something," because all sorts of images are flying through the air. But we would conclude that his perception of the image was distorted or a "false anticipation" in the same way that we see images of oars in water being distorted. Just like with vision or any other sense, a perception from a canonical faculty is reported "truly" (honestly) but that is not to say that the perception conveys all the facts accurately.

Those are the two issues I see being raised most often about the flow of atoms and how we process them. Going in the direction of a "fourth leg of the canon" has the potential to let the nose of dialectical logic into the canon. The people who think that the existence of images can be used to prove the existence of active gods are not considering that these images can be distorted, and distorted images can be just as false to the facts as a view of a tower that appears round at a distance but is really square.

Note: Letter to Menoeceus (Bailey) For gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision. But they are not such as the many believe them to be: for indeed they do not consistently represent them as they believe them to be. And the impious man is not he who popularly denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many. For the statements of the many about the gods are not conceptions derived from sensation, but false suppositions, according to which the greatest misfortunes befall the wicked and the greatest blessings (the good) by the gift of the gods. For men being accustomed always to their own virtues welcome those like themselves, but regard all that is not of their nature as alien.

WK Regarding SF cepticism and Epicurus one thing that should be pointed out is that in atomism the only thing that exist are atoms and void (atoma kai kenon). Therefore your notion of an individual yourself along with the notion of the isolated things (objects) around you that are " other" or "not me" is false . Everything is a soup of atoms. This concept is quite similar to the hinduism Maya and the "co arising" in Budism but is not the same thing. So it just happens that a temporary agregate of atoms carry some atomic processes that makes for uncertain "knowledge" within a delirious "subjectivity". Pleasure and pain are part of this process so, what we can do is to make sure we have the best possible handling of things, and achieve the real pleasure that arises from *concrete* and adequate atomic relationship within this environment which we can think we are imersed as aliens but in fact we belong to. Stay with the Hegemones and take the red one.

Like · Reply · 1 hr · Edited

Cassius Amicus I want to talk about this point: "one thing that should be pointed out is that in atomism the only thing that exist are atoms and void (atoma kai kenon). Therefore your notion of an individual yourself along with the notion of the isolated things (objects) around you that are " other" or "not me" is false . Everything is a soup of atoms." <<<< I am beginning to question whether formulations like this are as productive as they could be if stated more precisely. I am not being critical because I use this expression myself, but what I think we really mean when we say "nothing exists but atom and void" is that nothing exists ETERNALLY and WITHOUT CHANGE except "atoms." The problem I have with simply "exists" is that the implication it raises is just what is being discussed here with Matrix allegories - that the world around us is somehow NOT REAL simply because it is composed of atoms in motion through the void. The truth is that the entire structure of Epicurean philosophy is geared toward our "temporary aggregate of atoms" which "carry some atomic processes that make for" knowledge - though it may be uncertain within the span of our lives. This is ALL that we have, and it seems to me to be poor messaging to imply (or state explicitly!) that our lives - all that we have - are somehow "unreal" because they are not eternal and unchanging like the nature of the atoms.

There is a passage from Diogenes of Oinoanda directed against Aristotle that makes the point that the flow of atoms is not so fast that we cannot grasp it which I think makes a similar point:

[[Others do not] explicitly [stigmatise] natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge [this], but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?

Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing [is] at no time apprehensible by sense-perception. And indeed [in no way would the upholders of] the view under discussion have been able to say (and this is just what they do [maintain] that [at one time] this is [white] and this black, while [at another time] neither this is [white nor] that black, [if] they had not had [previous] knowledge of the nature of both white and black.]


(Again, not directing this against Washington Kuhlmann but thinking out loud about how best to state this proposition.)
Like · Reply · 1 · 42 mins · Edited

Cassius Amicus So to follow up, in a sense the observation that nothing exists "eternally and without change" except atoms and void is not an observation that should send us into fits of depression, as it is often used. In fact, the opposite is true. The observation that we are alive only for a short while before our atoms again disperse ought to be an clanging wakeup call - telling us to get out of bed, open our eyes, and smell the roses *now* because what we see around us is not going to be there forever.

VS14: "We are born once and cannot be born twice, but for all time must be no more. But you, who are not master of tomorrow, postpone your happiness. Life is wasted in procrastination and each one of us dies without allowing himself leisure."

VS30: Some men throughout their lives spend their time gathering together the means of life, for they do not see that the draught swallowed by all of us at birth is a draught of death.

VS42: The same span of time embraces both the beginning and the end of the greatest good. (Which interpreted as Norman DeWitt suggests is another affirmation that all that will ever happen to us happens to us in life, which is our most prized possession.)

Jimmy Daltrey February 22 at 10:58am How would Epicurus account for depression?

AR A disturbed soul (nervous system). A confused soul. A corrupted (miseducated) soul. Nature made. See the letter to Menoeceus. See OTNOT on how Nature makes monsters. See how all men cannot be brought to wisdom.
Like · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 2:04pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey I read the letter, is he saying the depressed should simply kill themselves?
Like · Reply · February 22 at 11:17am

Hiram Crespo The 25 th book On Nature deals w moral development and discusses neuroplasticity, including E's view that we should change the structure of our brains. So I think E would encourage practices along those lines that have been shown to change brain structure.
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 11:23am

AR Epicurus is not making a blanket recommendation to suicide. Read Menoeceus again. Only life provides the opportunity for happiness. Death is the end of sensation. All good comes through sensation, and recollection of their presentations.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 2:08pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey Thanks, I'll look at the book. I think what I am getting at, is whether there is a therapeutic practice (beyond medication) that would enable a person to understand how they could, should, address their problem?
Like · Reply · February 22 at 11:32am · Edited

Jason Baker It's hard to imagine a practicing Epicurean having the company of fellow Epicureans, living according to nature, ever becoming depressed. Exercise, conviviality, cooperation, autarky... these things don't leave much room for malaise.


Clinical depression is another thing entirely. Pharmacological intervention would likely be necessary before Epicurean philosophy would be of any benefit.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 11:34am

Jimmy Daltrey Jason Baker: interesting, however how many Epicureans live in Epicurean communities? I get the point though, it would make for amazing therapy.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 11:37am

Hiram Crespo That is true. There are cases that require medical attention. But neuroplasticity shows that long term change is possible so we have to continue supporting the study of nature - scientific research in this regard.
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 11:38am

AR Even a depressed person will benefit from practicing all the techniques that Epicurus recommends, such as detecting and avoiding false beliefs, understanding desires and their categories, understanding decision making, understanding reasoning and learn...See More
Unlike · Reply · 6 · February 22 at 11:58am · Edited

Jason Baker You're sitting in the midst of a virtual community, Jimmy! Not quite the same effect as a physical community, but it has therapeutic value all the same, particularly that frankness that some confuse for unfriendliness.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 11:41am

Elli Pensa Jimmy Daltrey who was that philosopher that killed himself ...Epicurus ??? NO ! Zeno died around 264 BC. Laertius reports about his death: "As he left the school, he tripped, fell and broke a toe. Hitting the ground with his hand, he cited words of Niobe: "I am coming, why do you call me thus?" Since the Stoic sage was expected to always do what was appropriate (kathekon) and Zeno was very old at the time, he felt it appropriate to die and consequently strangled himself.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 11:59am

Elli Pensa - Epicurus : And so he who advises a young man to live well, and an old man to die well, is a simpleton, not only because life is desirable for both the young and the old, but also because the wisdom to live well is the same as the wisdom to die well. (letter to Menoeceus)
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 12:00pm

Jimmy Daltrey Elli Pensa, honestly not interested in discussing Stoics. What is the obsession?
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 12:06pm

AR Also Diogenes's Epicurean Inscription is therapeutic...

It starts as follows......See More
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 12:40pm · Edited

Elli Pensa Jimmy Daltrey Excuse me, this is not an obsession. It is an answer in your question when you said : "I read the letter, is he (Epicurus) saying the depressed should simply kill themselves?"

Where Epicurus says that ? Why are you drawing so rapid concl...See More
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 12:34pm

Jimmy Daltrey I'm sorry Elli Pensa, I'm English and if I want to know something, I ask. It has nothing to do with Socrates. If this group is only for people who already know all there is to know, should I leave? I was quiet enjoying the exchange. Perhaps I misunderstood this "Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass quickly through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It would be easy for him to do so once he were firmly convinced" AR directed me to the letter.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 12:44pm · Edited

AR So there, Epicurus is saying that life is preferable, even to that person that says that death is preferable. If they were really convinced they wouldn't be alive now saying so.
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 12:51pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey I read it as an exhortation for the miserable to end it all. He says "why does he not", not "why has he not", "would be easier", not "would have been easier"
Like · Reply · February 22 at 12:57pm

AR ok. Epicurus is mostly pro-life. Even when old and very sick, he made the best of every moment by continued practice, until his last moment.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 2:07pm · Edited

Jose Torres Nicely done.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 2:01pm

Jason Baker Jimmy Daltrey, translations and secondary sources have their bugbears. Several members here have collected multiple translations together for study on their web pages outside of FB and published their reasonings on most topics of interest. We're working to make that more accessible to the masses, but in the meantime questions are best framed after studying the material. The premises of many questions dissolve away entirely after doing so.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 4:12pm

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Elli Pensa Against the depression Epicurus said in greek : «παρεγγυῶν τὸ συνεχὲς ἐνέργημα ἐν φυσιολογίᾳ καί τοιούτῳ μάλιστα ἐγγαληνίζων τῷ βίῳ» that means “I recommend constant activity in the study of Nature and this way more than any other I bring calm to my life". For this purpose, he introduced Κανονικὸν (Canonikon), an empirical methodology of inquiry consisting of observation by the senses and drawing inferences for the unknown based on analogies with the observed. This approach made Epicurean philosophy very comprehensive and among all ancient philosophies by far the most compatible with modern scientific findings. Modern scientific findings means the science of medicine that has a field that is called "Endocrinology" that diagnoses and treats diseases of the endocrine organs or dysregulation of hormones homeostasis.


The major hormones that create happy feelings are (many of the ones below also act as neurotransmitters):

• ACETYLCHOLINE: Alertness, memory, sexual performance, appetite control, release of growth hormone.

• DOPAMINE: Feelings of bliss and pleasure, euphoric, appetite control, controlled motor movements, feel focused.

• ENDORPHINS: Mood elevating, enhancing, euphoric. The more present, the happier you are! Natural pain killers.

• ENKEPHALINS: Restrict transmission of pain, reduce craving, reduce depression.

• GABA (Gamma Amino Butyric Acid): Found throughout central nervous system, anti-stress, anti-anxiety, anti-panic, anti-pain; Feel calm, maintain control, focus.

• MELATONIN: “Rest and recuperation” and “anti-aging” hormone. Regulates body clock.

• NOREPINEPHRINE: Excitatory, feel happy, alert, motivated. Anti-depressant, appetite control, energy, sexual arousal.

• OXYTOCIN: Stimulated by Dopamine. Promotes sexual arousal, feelings of emotional attachment, desire to cuddle.

• PHENYLETHYLMINE (PEA): Feelings of bliss, involved in feelings of infatuation (high levels found in chocolate).

• SEROTONIN: Promotes and improves sleep, improves self esteem, relieves depression, diminishes craving, prevents agitated depression and worrying.
Unlike · Reply · 7 · February 22 at 11:29am · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey Cool, where does he say this?
Like · Reply · February 22 at 11:33am

Jason Baker Letter to Herodotus.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 11:38am

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Elli Pensa In his Canon says this and that. As he gave to the DOCTORS his CANON and this was, is and will be THEIR TOOL and THEIR METHOD to search and confirm (with their senses and their experiment) what is the people's disfunction in the hormones.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 11:42am · Edited

Luke Kelly There isn't anyone who wouldn't benefit from Epicurean teaching, but in general philosophy is no better for mental illnesses such as depression than it is for physical ailments like a broken leg.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 12:02pm

Elli Pensa Luke Kelly I disagree with you and your example of a broken leg. When the body suffers the soul suffers too and vice versa. The epicurean philosophy is confirmed by the recent scientific findings in the field of the psychotherapy and psychiatry.


I ha...See More

Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 12:16pm · Edited

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Shana HT Stop treating depression as a mental thing, when its a physical one. its all brain chemistry.


pre civilized cultures had almost no incidence due to omega 3 rich diet and physical work throuout day.


heal it like any disease, with right medicine, food and excercise.


After going through post partum depression, this is what I learned.


no mumbo jumbo, straight up heal the body
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 12:11pm

Jimmy Daltrey There is a clear interplay between thought (which is physical, chemical and electrical) and brain structure and therapy can and does change brain chemistry and structure. That is just science...
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 12:34pm

AR The Epicurean soul is the nervous system. So yes, it is physical. The brain, peripheral nervous system, sensors...
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 3:25pm

Jimmy Daltrey I don't think an immaterial Soul became popular until a lot later. St Paul appears to have thought that the soul was physical, hence the resurrection of dead bodies to everlasting life not a spiritual afterlife (not a Christian btw)
Like · Reply · February 22 at 6:39pm

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AR The soul (nervous system) is part of the body. A confused, troubled, or corrupted (miseducated) soul can benefit from Epicurean advice just like a blessed soul can. Yes, nutrition is a part of health, as are other things, and events...
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 12:17pm · Edited

Ilkka Vuoristo I'd say he would account it as a medical condition that you should seek a doctor for.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 12:53pm

Jimmy Daltrey So Epicureanism makes no therapeutic claims? (I really should read up and come back). Does it propose simply propose pleasure as a means to happiness rather than providing a path? Surely advising people to not fear God and death shows that he believes that there is an ideal condition (happiness) to be attained by improvement (addressing fears)
Like · Reply · February 22 at 1:17pm

AR We are not legally licensed to treat clinical depression, or suicidal thoughts. We can give advice as friends and not as a substitute for medical experts. Don't sue us.



Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 1:29pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey I'm fine Alexander, just thinking through the implications of a philosophy based on happiness for the unhappy.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 1:33pm

Ilkka Vuoristo Depression is NOT unhappiness, and should not be treated as such. Depression is an imbalance in the brain chemistry of a person. Unhappiness is the imbalance of pleasure and pain in the life of a person.


It may be true that an informed pursuit of pleasures can help a person with depression, but it should not be the only treatment.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 2:10pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey Cognitive treatments appear to work well on depression. Brain chemistry is certainly affected by experience.
Like · Reply · February 22 at 2:16pm

Jason Baker Cognitive treatments may work well but depression research is still in its infancy and therapeutic philosophy may not be the solution for everyone. The tetrapharmakos is strong stuff, but it's no panacea. We're not homeopaths.


Personalized medicine may eventually define depression so narrowly that it's not used colloquially like it is today. In the meantime, we have to be very clear with our definitions in order to avoid confusion.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 4:25pm · Edited

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AR Yes. EP is fine for everyone, but if you think you're clinically depressed, or if you're suicidal then please see a doctor, just as you would do if you broke your leg.
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 1:10pm

Matt Jackson I agree with Ilkka and Alexander, the philosophy is designed for a normally functioning brain to seek pleasure and happiness. However if there is a physical and chemical abnormality then the person will not be helped by any philosophy and can only be treated clinically.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 1:21pm

Jimmy Daltrey However it offers improvement for normal people? I suppose if you were already happy you wouldn't need Epicureanism....
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 1:32pm

Matt Jackson I'd say so. If a person is afraid of the supernatural and illusions offered by religion, Epicurus's teachings are designed to alleviate those fears by removing religion and superstition, of the fear of death. Once gone a person can pursue a life without needless worry.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 1:35pm

Matt Jackson When a person realizes that we exist as animals in a completely naturalist world without any providence or fear of reprisal in the after life we get to reset the game's rules and not play the wrong way.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 1:38pm

Jimmy Daltrey So what value to an atheist? I have never feared those things.
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 1:42pm

Matt Jackson A continued understanding that pleasure is the highest good and that is the only thing to pursue. An atheist might consider Buddhism to be a viable option for their philosophical outlook, but Buddhism isn't seeking pleasure it seeks the middle path and detachment. So Epicurean philosophy would benefit anyone needing a life goal....pleasure.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 1:46pm

Matt Jackson It's like ultimately once it is realized that the hedonistic calculus is all there is then pleasure should be the number one goal.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 1:47pm

Jimmy Daltrey Rich people aren't always happy...some are downright miserable.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 1:50pm

Matt Jackson True so they could use a philosophy to color their life. Money doesn't equal happiness, so they need something to help illustrate how to be happy.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 1:52pm

AR Jimmy Daltrey

What benefit to an atheist?

Great question.

Many benefits. I speak from experience. One is proper use of imagination, another is knowing that virtues and scientific mindset are tools to be used towards the goal of happy living, resetting expectations based on experience and knowledge of categories of desires... others too.
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 2:25pm · Edited

Jason Baker Wealth and profligacy are mentioned directly in the principal doctrines, as well as several associated subjects, like fame and status. Philodemus wrote several books on wealth, household management, etc. The limits of pleasure are an important topic in Epicurean philosophy, perhaps even the main reason Epicurus separated himself from his philosophical forebears.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 4:59pm · Edited

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Mish Taylor As depression can and often does involve 'Anhedonia' - loss of pleasure - A combination of medical and 'Epicurean' lifestyle is in fact what is prescribed now, mindfulness, CBT, walking / living in nature, hobbies / art / creative outlets, talking therapy, avoiding stress / doing things you enjoy & etc.
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 1:33pm

Ilkka Vuoristo Depression is NOT unhappiness, and should not be treated as such. Depression is an imbalance in the brain chemistry of a person. Unhappiness is the imbalance of pleasure and pain in the life of a person.


It may be true that an informed pursuit of pleasures can help a person with depression, but it should not be the only treatment.
Unlike · Reply · 6 · February 22 at 2:10pm

Jimmy Daltrey Cognitive treatments work well on depression and experience changes brain chemistry. Who is to say depression isn't an imbalance? Some psychiatrists think that it is a cognitive response to environment.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 2:21pm

Jason Baker Depression is one of those words that has broadened in meaning to the point of near uselessness except in clinical circumstances. The colloquial and the technical aren't the same thing and we need to be clear which we're discussing.


It's like curing cancer. Which one?
Like · Reply · February 22 at 5:10pm

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Haze Elle As someone who has been depressed (and contemplated suicide for the better part of a year), but isn't now, I think that there are a few things we can glean from Epicurus. 1. removal of painful stimuli. in my case, my depression was highly linked to a class and teacher that made me feel stupid and worthless. removing these helped a lot. 2. knowledge that sensations of pain end. Depression can feel all consuming, and knowing that it will end helps with they. Otherwise I echo that Epicurus would likely recommend treatment based on an investigation of the bodily and social causes of depression.
Unlike · Reply · 5 · February 22 at 2:34pm

Christopher Connolly Depression is much more complex than some folks on here seem to believe. When you are in the grip of suicidal depression you probably wouldn't give a stuff what Epicurus or anyone other philosopher thought about it. It might be all your mind can cope with to to climb off the sofa and turn the TV off.


It can be a reaction to some sad or worrying event or it can come on for no apparent reason at all. I should think that a lifestyle which eschews hedonism in favour of more simple pleasure and is non-religious is a good defence against becoming depressed, but when it's already happened then the best treatment might be the things that Mish mentioned, or it might be medication, or it might be a combination of all of them plus the kindness of friends.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 3:48pm

Jason Baker I'm not entirely certain who in this discussion group believes depression is simple, the post may have been deleted or edited, can you point to a specific post that supports that premise? An important part of Epicurean inquiry into nature is the mulitiplicity of explanations for phenomena not fully explored. I don't know of any Epicurean that would claim cognition is an area of science fully explored.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 4:37pm

Christopher Connolly I was thinking of the opinion that depression is "a physical thing". That does seem to me to reduce the complexity of depression in an unrealistic fashion. I don't think I used the word "simple" though, Jason. Simple and complex are at different ends of the scale. There is space in between.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 4:40pm

Jason Baker You are absolutely correct Christopher Connolly, pardon my divergence from Epicurean multivalent logic into the Aristotlean excluded middle. Long practice has me falling into that trap from time to time.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 5:03pm

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Elli Pensa <<It might be all your mind can cope with to to climb off the sofa and turn the TV off>>.

Christopher Connolly the above action you described IMO is not an action of depression is a very good action to turn off that stupid box that called TV, then to ...See More
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 4:05pm

Jimmy Daltrey That is known as the "Stop it" school of mental healthcare. It has had limited scientific results.
Like · Reply · February 22 at 4:09pm

Elli Pensa There is no need of any scientific result how beneficial would be to stop watching that stupid box that is called TV. Here in Greece they are spreading terror through many programms from the morning till the late hours of the night. To not mention all the stupid stuff for horoscopes and the celebrities. To not mention movies of horror. And all these things to make you to feel stupid, ignorant and depressed.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 4:18pm

Christopher Connolly My experience from my last period of depression is that I lay on the sofa and watched snooker on the TV. I wasn't previously interested in snooker and I'm not really a fan now either, but at the time it was a nice, easy diversion and I found myself looking forward to it every day.


I honestly think that getting into the snooker championship, and starting to take an interest in it (although I can't remember who won) helped to kickstart my recovery.


So although I agree with Eli about celebs, horror and celebrities the TV can be therapeutic. It depends what's on!
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 4:44pm

Jason Baker Jimmy Daltrey, reread what Elli wrote. Perhaps there's another way of reading it that jives with your understanding? It would be better to ask Elli Pensa if she is talking about a clinically depressed person before assuming.


Watching television, especially alone, fulfills an unnecessary desire. Turning it off when it imbalances the hedonic scales is something a practicing Epicurean would do. A clinically depressed person isn't likely able to perform the calculus, intervention of some sort is required in that case. Epicurean philosophy places a lot of weight on friendship as a mechanism for healthy living. This is definitely a circumstance where the support of a friend is warranted.


Christopher Connolly, thanks for sharing that personal experience. It just goes to show that the hedonic calculus is a very personal thing and is going to be different for different people, times and places. The methodology of performing that calculus is going to be the same but the results will vary given different circumstances. I'm glad you were able to find a way out on your own!
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 4:56pm

Christopher Connolly Thanks Jason
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 5:19pm

Jimmy Daltrey I don't watch TV
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 6:35pm

Jason Baker You're in good company Jimmy, if I do say so myself.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 6:36pm

Cassius Amicus uploaded a file.

February 24 at 6:49am

Takis Panagiotopoulos has allowed us to share his excellent article on euthanasia here. Thank you Takis! Very well written and very much worth reading!

Euthanasia_Panagiotopoulos_2017.pdf
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Cassius Amicus Opening: "At the 5th Symposium, our exceptional friend Professor Evangelos Protopapadakis developed his thesis on euthanasia in Epicurean philosophy, highlighting specific keyaspects. I would like to expand on this after a short introduction.


The philosopher Epicurus is born and bred of the Hellene world. Epicurus had a firm graspon all the Greek ideology of his time, selected the right ideas, elaborated on them,introduced new thoughts and carried philosophy to new heights, proving his philosophyover the passage of time.


Today, as descendants we follow, analyze and apply the philosophy proposed by theEpicureans in order to reach a blissful life. Philosophy is an empty word, if in reality it does not lead to an enjoyable life, if it does not lead away from pain, grief and disappointment. Especially today and especially we, the

people of cities, are far removed from natural life and are full of anxiety, tension and nerves. And in the midst of an economic and humanitarian crisis, in an era of technological advances and conquest of space, we as societies are allowing the return of barbaric customs.


But we move against these times. In our philosophical quest, we determine which choices to make and which to avoid, and all this in our one and only life time, we Epicureans do not avoid talking openly about topics and words that are prohibitive to others. For pleasure which is the basis of life itself, to please both body and soul. To enjoy beautiful forms and Dionysian spectacles. To benefit from friendship. We declare that the natural law is not to harm one another and not to harm ourselves. We dare to say things as they are, without fantasies and allegories. We are not afraid to expose superstitions and all that persecute us from our childhood. And of course we talk comfortably about death as this helps us not fear it, at least not as much as others. Why yes, we fear death as human beings do. But when we overcome this fear, through our mental toil and hardship, as some things need a lot of work to be conquered, then we turn to other matters of concern. On how to reach life’s end and how to make it dignified so we can depart by having told stories on how we lived well for the duration of our life.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 6:53am · Edited

Cassius Amicus Because Footnote 2 looked to be particularly interesting I asked Takis for a translation, which he kindly provided:


Seneca. For a happy life. "They also say that the Epicurean philosopher Diodorus, who in his last days ended his life with his own hands, did not follow the teachings of Epicurus when he cut his throat. Some perceive this act as insanity, others as recklessness- but he saw it as happy and with complete awareness, testified for his action whilst departing life. He praised the tranquility of his past, anchored in the safety of the port and uttered some words that you will never want to hear, as if you would repeat his same act: "I lived: and saved my life from the path destiny laid out."

Cassius Amicus February 23 at 6:23pm

I want to address the question in the attached graphic from a different perspective than most of the existing answers, so I am reposting it here. Before my answer, however, it first has to be said that depression for biological/chemical reasons is primarily a medical question. Putting the medical cases aside, what I want to emphasize in answer to the question "How would Epicurus account for depression?" is this:

An ancient Epicurean looking at today might well say, "Why the Hell SHOULDN'T so many people be depressed?"

- Everywhere you look people are raised from childhood to believe that they are puppets of gods who created them and determined their fate and play with them like cats toy with mice. Why WOULDN'T people who are taught that nonsense be depressed - they would be crazy NOT to be!

- Everywhere you look people are raised from childhood to believe that when they die they will be tormented in hell for disobeying the gods if they do not follow all sorts of ridiculous rules to get into an eternity of harp-playing and slavish devotions to angels with wings. Why WOULDN'T people who are taught that nonsense be depressed - they would be crazy NOT to be!

- Everywhere you look people are raised from childhood to believe that the the goal of life is to be "virtuous," and that seeking to live happily is an impossible and irrational goal because happy living has no rational limit and someone else might always be happier than they are. Why WOULDN'T people who are taught that nonsense be depressed - they would be crazy NOT to be!

- Everywhere you look people are raised from childhood to believe that avoiding pain is the most important thing in life and the best that anyone can hope for. They are even taught that Epicurus taught that the mere absence of pain without any other description of that existence is the goal of life. Why WOULDN'T people who are taught that nonsense be depressed - they would be crazy NOT to be!

- Everywhere you look people are raised from childhood to believe that virtue or "being good" is its own reward, and that we have to accept their rules and be "good" according to their standard regardless of how it works in our own lives. Why WOULDN'T people who are taught that nonsense be depressed - they would be crazy NOT to be!

- Everywhere you look people are raised from childhood to believe that "other people" are more important than they are, and that whatever other people want is good, and whatever they want themselves is bad, just because other people want it, and that the most important rule in life is to give in and get along with other people, no matter who they might be. Why WOULDN'T people who are taught that nonsense be depressed - they would be crazy NOT to be!

- Everywhere you look people are raised from childhood to believe that riches and power are bad in themselves, or that riches and power are good in themselves, but that no matter which of those two alternatives they accept the choice should never be judged by whether the choice has the practical effect of making them happy in their own circumstances. Why WOULDN'T people who are taught that nonsense be depressed - they would be crazy NOT to be!

- Everywhere you look people are raised from childhood to believe that pleasure - every pleasure - is intrinsically evil, and a bad thing in itself. Why WOULDN'T people who are taught that nonsense be depressed - they would be crazy NOT to be!

We could go on until we reached at least forty examples, but this should suffice. An ancient Epicurean taking all this in might well further say:

Thank "God" people today *ARE* depressed, because that shows that as hard as religion and the academic establishment have tried, those who are depressed have still retained at least enough sanity to see how much is so very wrong, and to see how sad it is that their children are corrupted so soon after birth and deprived of the life of happiness that Nature made available to them!

We can teach "coping skills" a/k/a "stoicism" or we can teach children from a young age the truth about life and the goal of living, and encourage them with Epicurean philosophy along the way.

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Ilkka Vuoristo Pleasure and Pain are innate senses that cannot be silenced by teaching people nonsense. Cognitive dissonance is a terrible thing.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 23 at 7:16pm

Jimmy Daltrey Who was it who said insanity is the logical outcome of living in an insane world? I don't think religion is that much of a factor, the religious appear to be blissfully ignorant, and I'm not sure what you mean by virtue, the overarching ethos I see is beauty, power and social status. The idea of being "good" is forgotten as soon as we stop talking to small children, success is what it is all about. The positive regard of others, which is a fruitless pursuit..
Like · Reply · February 24 at 6:05am

Jimmy Daltrey I suppose it depends on where you live.
Like · Reply · February 24 at 6:07am

Elli Pensa Jimmy Daltrey of course the main factor is the religion and the false philosophies. This is the General Picture !!
Like · Reply · February 25 at 3:59pm · Edited

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Elli Pensa Everywhere and at worst in the homeland of Epicurus, in which the whole constitution is based on the inconceivable of : "In the name of the Holy and Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity".

Admin Edit 080620 - It appears that some of the linked photos in the post below have disappeared over time. I will try to relink them, but in the meantime, ultimately what this post is about is the question of the proper identification of Epicurus in "the School of Athens," with Elli questioning the identification of Epicurus as the chubby wreathed figurein this page at wikipedia.

Elli Pensa     (as of 080620 the original post is still available on Facebook at this link:  

February 23 at 9:20am

The famous fresco in the Vatican.

Issue: "How we find in Raphael’s fresco entitled, "The School of Athens“, the familiar figure of our teacher and philosopher Epicurus".

In Epicuru's epistle to Herodotus we read the following passage : "And besides we must keep all our investigations in accord with our sensations, and in particular with the immediate apprehensions whether of the mind or of any one of the instruments of judgment, and likewise in accord with the feelings existing in us, in order that we may have indications whereby we may judge both the problem of sense perception and the unseen”. i.e. according to this passage, for finding the figure of Epicurus in the famous fresco by Raphael, first of all we have to use our sensation that is called VISION.

Bearing in mind our known bust of Epicurus, which existed in Raphael’s era and maybe he would seen it somewhere, we SEE that Raphael has paint the face of Epicurus identical (like some other philosophers). And yet this (obvious or even the non obvious) is confirmed by the criterion, in accord with our feeling existing in us, this friendly group next to Epicurus, we see that has been painted "embraced". Raphael could not paint this friendly company otherwise, as the main feature and immortal good in the Garden was, is and will be the friendship.

E.S 78. The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter an immortal one.

From various speculations is known that Raphael, Botticelli and many other painters of the Renaissance, had studied the Epicurean Lucretius and his famous book "For the Nature of Things". Speculations "about who is who" in the fresco "School of Athens" came from the Vatican and the popes, and not by the painter himself. And these speculations as opinions are reproduced for centuries by various writers and art critics. But let everyone making his speculations, and holding their views and opinions ... Because we, the Epicureans, we have the criteria to find the truth: We use the tool and the method that is called "Epicurean Canon".

As mentioned above the title "The School of Athens" was not given by Raphael himself, and the theme of the mural is actually "Philosophy," or "the ancient Greek philosophy" since over the mural, the painter Raphael scored two words «Causarum Cognitio» this means « knowing the causes», a philosophical conclusion from the study of Aristotle's works, “Metaphysics Book I” and “Physics Book II".

Indeed, Plato and Aristotle appear to be the central figures in the scene. However, all the philosophers sought knowledge of first causes. Many of them had lived before Plato and Aristotle, and hardly a third were Athenians. It is assumed that every philosopher is on the picture, however the recognition of all is impossible, for two reasons : firstly because Raphael has not left any description of the persons that he designed, and second because Raphael has designed some of the philosophers based on his imagination. The painter Raphael has combined his imagination with his knowledge and created his own iconography system for painting them. Although Raphael had read something for them, but he had not seen any picture for some of them. For example, Socrates is immediately recognizable in the mural center because we know today, like Raphael then, a pattern of his type, how he looked from busts or statues, while the person that is presumed to be Epicurus is far removed from the standard type as encountered in his busts. The conjecture for Epicurus states that is a child "with a smirk", which is crowned with vine leaves. The same conjecture states that Raphael was inspired by the librarian and Catholic Cardinal of the Vatican Tommaso Inghirami who was known by the nickname "Faedra".

According to the famous bust of Epicurus (which is very likely known to Raphael) seems Epicurus clearly to be the person with the yellow chiton, who is standing among an embraced friendly company consisting of five (5) persons (women and men) from left and are distinguished next to the raised right hand of Plato.

And even though the speculations be, in this fresco that Plato is holding "Timaeus" and showing his hand up to the heavens (and his fantastic world of ideas) and Aristotle holding his "Ethics" showing his hand down to the earth (and the real world) …

…meanwhile a young friend of Epicurus, maybe Colotes, looking at his teacher, gestures his hand showing to these two, and asked:

- What do they say Teacher ?

And another hand, from the friendly company of Epicurus responded:

- They disagree in many issues, but it’s better to not give so much attention to their disagreement. Because the more we are here and we discuss our epicurean issues, so much more they will make their known logical fallacies.

http://www.epicuros.net/…/5_H-diashmh-toixografia-sto-Batik…

Cassius Amicus Elli I agree totally with the characterization of the painting, but on one point I am not sure. Would Raphael have had access to the bust of Epicurus? I think I have read that these were all uncovered in Herculaneum so that prior to the 1700's the face would have been "lost" for many centuries. And that would explain why we have the false etching of Epicurus floating around in the Thomas Stanley Encyclopaedia in the 1600's showing him largely bald (below). I wonder if anyone can confirm that all these busts came from Herculaneum:


https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…4BX2-oi-Ggee7NE
Like · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 9:52am · Edited

Elli Pensa <<Bust of Epicurus in Napoli


The portrait of Epicurus can be traced back to a prototype from the first half of the third century BC. He displays the features of a man with a mature face, with short hair worked into flaming locks that are combed forward from the top of his head with a large forehead furrowed by three parallel horizontal wrinkles, moustache, thick beard and an aquiline nose. He has a penetrating gaze which emerges from his slightly sunken eyes. The bust has drapery which falls over his left shoulder. The inscription on the base bears the name of the philosopher Epikouros: among the various known copies, only one kept in the Capitoline Museums at Rome has the same features and allows the portrait to be identified. The small bust was found in a room with shelving, together with three others depicting Hemarchus, Zeno and Demosthenes: it has been argued, with some justification given the presence of rolls of papyrus, that the portraits were originally used to indicate different sectors of the library according to the works contained within them. The presence of another portrait of Epicurus in Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, found in the tablinum, is not particularly surprising: indeed, he was the founder of the current of thought which inspired the writings of Philodemus of Gadara. The latter writer’s works were discovered in the library and were undoubtedly adhered to by the owner of the house Lucius Calpurnius Piso; Philodemus’ name is engraved on the silver cup with skeletons found in Pompeii, demonstrating the widespread presence of the image of the philosopher in Roman times.>>


<<Capitoline Museums, Italian Musei Capitolini, complex of art galleries on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. The collection was initially founded in 1471 by Pope Sixtus IV, who donated statuary recovered from ancient ruins. It was augmented by gifts from later popes and, after 1870, by acquisitions from archaeological sites on city property. The museum, opened to the public in 1734, occupies portions of the palaces that frame the Piazza del Campidoglio, a historic square designed by Michelangelo in the 16th century. (The plans were not fully realized until after his death.) The collection is housed mainly in the Palazzo Nuovo and the Palazzo dei Conservatori, which face one another across the square. It features such well-known Roman works as the bronze she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome; the Capitoline Venus; and the Dying Gaul>>
Like · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 9:56am

Elli Pensa Epicurus bust was not only in Herculaneum, but was in the Capitoline that Pope Sixtus IV has a collection from 1471. <<The inscription on the base bears the name of the philosopher Epikouros: among the various known copies, only one kept in the Capitoline Museums at Rome has the same features and allows the portrait (of Herculaneum) to be identified.====> <<Capitoline Museums, Italian Musei Capitolini, complex of art galleries on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. The collection was initially founded in 1471 by Pope Sixtus IV, who donated statuary recovered from ancient ruins. It was augmented by gifts from later popes and, after 1870, by acquisitions from archaeological sites on city property. The museum, opened to the public in 1734, occupies portions of the palaces that frame the Piazza del Campidoglio, a historic square designed by Michelangelo in the 16th century>>.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 10:05am · Edited

Elli Pensa Because, as described in the Naples museum, where there are all the famous findings from Ercolano, they have identified the bust of Epicurus with another from Capitoline Museum. And as I mentioned above the Capitoline Museum opened its doors to the mob after 1734. What a coincidence and a "divine miracle", this time we found the bust of Epicurus next to Metrodorus ??!!
Like · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 10:32am · Edited

Jason Baker It's a shame those Popes didn't document their acquisitions according to modern museum practice! It would have been nice to know where the bust came from, whether there were any other finds associated with it and who discovered it on what date.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 10:12am

Elli Pensa I have the impression that the painter Raphael was" flying" inside the Vatican like "a free butterfly" than that philosopher Gassendi. Please give me your speculation : who would had the full access inside the Vatican with the popes ?? The painter who painted the walls in Vatican or the philosopher Gassendi ?
Like · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 10:24am

Cassius Amicus Does this text clearly mean that a bust of Epicurus inscribed with his name stayed within the Vatican all those years, or was it the "collection" that was there, leaving the possibility that the Epicurus bust was added only later, after the excavations (?) I seem to remember something about that somewhere but I don't have access to my book on "The Sculpted Word" where I think I read that.... (not sure!!)
Like · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 10:51am

Cassius Amicus Here is an interesting discussion of the history of the bust at the British Museum - https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…9ybwu9tNDKvN-2c

bust
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BRITISHMUSEUM.ORG

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 1 · February 23 at 10:55am

Elli Pensa Note : They had in Rome all the statues of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle et al. to be painted by Raphael in his fresco. But "unfortunately" they had not in Rome all those busts of Epicurus who - what a coincidence - they have been found ALL in the same period. Question : The vatican sayings by Epicurus and the epicureans are known and preserved in a 14th century manuscript from the Vatican Library. But they had not the busts of Epicurus ?? Give me a break , I don’t buy it. Raphael has seen the bust and the face of Epicurus and made him exactly the same in his fresco "the school of Athens.

Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 12:13pm

Jason Baker The first paragraph in the above pasted image does smack of a bit of prevarication, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if there wasn't a publicly known bust of Epicurus until the 18th-19thC. Rafael likely would have drawn upon his own expertise and made his own, obvious conclusions *given his access to non-public areas. It's a pretty fantasy in any case.


*edited for clarity
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 6:23pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus Very interesting clip thanks Elli!
Like · Reply · February 23 at 5:50pm

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Elli Pensa Epicuru's position in the fresco by Raphael is next to Plato and Aristotle and not as a silly boy with a smirk! Our senses are not false and the Canon is the Epicurus gift as an infallible tool !! (y)
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 12:21pm · Edited

Elli Pensa Jason my friend, with the usage of the Canon our senses are first and then all the other speculations of a digging in a church in Rome OR of a villa in Rome which was closed and suddenly it was opened and they found an Epicurus bust.

In the fresco has the figure with the yellow chiton the same face with the bust of Epicurus ? Look the details of the face how identical are with all the busts of Epicurus that were discovered - what a coincidence - all in the same period when the museum in Capitolium was opened to the mob !!!

In the fresco let's have a look at that silly boy with a smirk....here is not the imagination of Raphael, here is the speculation of Popes. They had had hide an Epicurus bust or a real portrait of him in the Vatican with the epicurean sayings. Raphael found all the issues of the Epicurean Philosophy and he had read Lucretius. And even Raphael did not see the figure of Epicurus inside the Vatican... he was a free person to have and a relationship with someone that had a bust of Epicurus.


<<It is remarkable, however, says Mr. Combe, that notwithstanding the great number of portraits which the ancients possessed of Epicurus, it was not until nearly the middle of the last century that we were made acquainted with his real portrait>>.


Raphael had seen the face of Epicurus somewhere and he painted exactly the same with all the details. Our senses are not false ! And if their speculations are correct, why my speculation of this company that is painted is the only company in the fresco that is embraced and has friendly feelings ? Is the friendship inside the Garden something very important or not ? Why my speculation could not be correct and all the other speculations are ?

Because they say, we have not read anywhere that in the age of Raphael we found an Epicurus bust.

Well I do not buy it. Epicurus busts were exist everywhere, but they were hidden and when the people realized that it was the proper age they suddenly all they appeared in a digging or in a villa.

I take for granted that the discoveries that were by chance is only in Ercolano. In Rome the last philosophical schools were the Epicurean and the Stoic. And then came the popes....The stoic popes of course !
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 1:56pm · Edited

Jason Baker I am happy with your thesis, Elli Pensa, it pleases me greatly. I wish to be prepared against any and all criticism when I share it. That said, I just discovered that Raphael was made Prefect of Antiquities giving him authority over all archaeological...See More
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 6:24pm · Edited

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Γεώργιος Καπλάνης Έλλη, από την Αθήνα (Χρήστος και Τάκης) είπαν ότι οι αποθήκες του Βατικανού άνοιξαν μετά που πέθανε ο Ραφαήλ και συνεπώς δεν ήξερε πως ήταν ο Επίκουρος. Τα γνωρίζεις. Αυτό το είπα στην κόρη μου και αυτή ξέσπασε σε γέλια !! Γιά το κοινό , μου ΄λέει, άνοιξε. Ο Ραφαήλ και άλλοι σημαντικοί θα μπαινόβγαιναν όποτε ήθελα.!! Θεώρησε εξαιρετικά αφελή μιά τέτοια σκέψη.!!See Translation
Like · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 3:21pm

Elli Pensa Γεώργιος Καπλάνης φίλε μου και εγώ ξεσπάω σε γέλια με όσα ακούω κάποιες φορές !See Translation
Like · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 3:28pm · Edited

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Takis Panagiotopoulos The inscribed busts of Epicurus

We can do as many cases we want, but we've two known and confirmed facts.

1. The discovery occurred only in 1742 in Rome. During work on the construction of the portico to the church St Maria Maggiore, accidentally discovered the first double bust of Epicurus to Metrodorus, which were inscribed their names.

Dual bust immediately placed in the collection of Pope Benedict 14. The discovery was great because it finally became known as Epicurus and his Mitrodorou. It entails the identification of remaining anonymous busts with their form (thirty busts of Epicurus have been found, all copies of Hellenistic Roman period as Bernard Frischer says).

2. In 1753 the discovery happened also inscribed small bronze bust of Epicurus, the Villa of Papyri at Herculaneum Italy into the ashes Vezouviou2. In this way, finally confirmed the form of Epicurus. After dozens of centuries so we met again the gentle character of this great philosopher.

Οι ενεπίγραφες προτομές του Επίκουρου.

Μπορούμε να κάνουμε όσες υποθέσεις θέλουμε, όμως έχουμε δυο γνωστά και επιβεβαιωμένα γεγονότα.

1o.Η ανακάλυψη συνέβη μόλις το 1742 στην Ρώμη. Κατά την διάρκεια εργασιών για την κατασκευή στοάς στην εκκλησία St Maria Maggiore, ανακαλύφθηκε τυχαία η πρώτη διπλή προτομή του Επίκουρου με το Μητρόδωρο, όπου υπήρχαν χαραγμένα τα ονόματά τους. Η διπλή προτομή τοποθετήθηκαν αμέσως στην συλλογή του Πάπα Βενέδικτου του 14ου1. Η ανακάλυψη ήταν μεγάλη, διότι επιτέλους έγινε γνωστή η μορφή του Επίκουρου αλλά και του Μητρόδωρου. Είχε ως επακόλουθο την ταυτοποίηση των υπολοίπων ανώνυμων προτομών με την μορφή τους.

2. Το 1753 συνέβη η ανακάλυψη επίσης ενεπίγραφης μικρής χάλκινης προτομής του του Επίκουρου, στην Βίλα των Παπύρων στο Ερκολάνο της Ιταλίας μέσα στις στάχτες του Βεζούβιου2. Με τον τρόπο αυτό, επιβεβαιώθηκε οριστικά η μορφή του Επίκουρου. Συνολικά μέχρι σήμερα έχουν βρεθεί τριάντα προτομές του Επίκουρου, όλες ελληνιστικά αντίγραφα της ρωμαϊκής περιόδου όπως αναφέρει ο Bernard Frischer (σελ. 175). Μετά από δεκάδες αιώνες λοιπόν, γνωρίσαμε και πάλι την ευγενική φυσιογνωμία αυτού του μεγάλου φιλοσόφου. Ολόκληρο το άρθρο εδώ

Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 4:30pm · Edited

Elli Pensa That is to say Takis that our own eyes are false. THE SENSES ARE FALSE of what we SEE in the fresco. Because the discoveries of the two busts of Epicurus were in the same period. And you say among other things that you know what was behind of every secret door in the Vatican. And you say Takis that the popes speculation with that silly boy with a smirk is Epicurus, and it is correct. But mine, the epicurean is not correct, because the popes are frank persons and they did not have anything from Epicurus as a portrait somewhere to be seen by Raphael. And you want to believe of what they say, that all the busts were discovered - what a coincidence - all in the same period when the museum of Capitolium was opened to the mob in 1734 !!! All the things happened in 1734 and after. Epicurus did not exist before, his bust did not exist, his portrait did not exist and the Vatican sayings were exist ? Why the vatican sayings exist from 14 century ? By the way have you seen them somewhere inside the Vatican by your own eyes ?


Thanks Takis for the info, as I said, I do not buy it !

First thing first my own eyes, my anticipations and my feeling of pleasure against the pain that has been spread so many centuries. My speculation against theirs with the USAGE OF THE CANON.


"And besides we must keep all our investigations in accord with our sensations, and in particular with the immediate apprehensions whether of the mind or of any one of the instruments of judgment, and likewise in accord with the feelings existing in us, in order that we may have indications whereby we may judge both the problem of sense perception and the unseen".
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 23 at 4:39pm · Edited

Elli Pensa I take for granted and seriously that the discoveries by chance were only in Ercolano. In Rome the last philosophical schools were the Epicurean and the Stoic. And then came the popes....The stoic popes of course !
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 4:52pm

Elli Pensa The eminence heads of Italy discussed around the welcoming table of Medici for the purpose to reconcile Plato and Jesus, they were dreaming a religion that unites Christian morality and Greek Philokalia. For all this world after Alexandrian era Epicurus was a scandal, such a scandal was to be someone reasonable and to believe in those that catches with his hand and his conclusions after his judgment . His contemporaries were buried him already under calumny, slander and filthy perversions. His extensive work was neglected, lost and we owe in luck the few precious pieces that survived. Hidden for centuries like a spark in ashes were helpful as tinder when the crew of time arrived. The research and understanding have renovate his luminous figure, his genuine Greek figure, and inspired by his luminous physiognomy we restore the antiquity as it was in reality. (Excerpt from the book by the Professor of Philosophy Charalambos Theodoridis entitled "Epicurus - The True Face of the Ancient World")


Οι εξοχότερες κεφαλές της Ιταλίας συζητούσαν γύρω από το φιλόξενο τραπέζι των Μεδίκων για να συμβιβάσουν Πλάτωνα και Ιησού, ονειρεύονταν μια θρησκεία που να ενώνει χριστιανική ηθική και ελληνική φιλοκαλία. Για όλον αυτόν τον μεταλεξανδρινό κόσμο ο Επίκουρος ήταν σκάνδαλο, όπως ήταν σκάνδαλο να είναι κανείς λογικός να πιστεύει σ ‘ εκείνα που πιάνει με το χέρι του και στα συμπεράσματα που βγάζει με την κρίση του. Οι σύγχρονοί του ήδη τον είχαν θάψει κάτω από διαβολές, αισχρές συκοφαντίες και διαστροφές. Το πλούσιο έργο του παραμελήθηκε, χάθηκε και στην τύχη χρωστάμε τα λίγα πολύτιμα κομμάτια που σώθηκαν. Κρυμένα αιώνες σα σπίθα στη στάχτη χρησίμευσαν προσάναμμα, όταν έφτασε το πλήρωμα άλλων καιρών. Η έρευνα και η κατανόηση αναστήλωσαν τη φωτεινή φυσιογνωμία του, την γνήσια ελληνική και οδηγημένοι από τη φεγγοβολία της αναστηλώνουμε κι εμείς την Αρχαιότητα όπως ήταν στην πραγματικότητα.

(Απόσπασμα από το βιβλίο του καθηγητή Χαράλαμπου Θεοδωρίδη, Επίκουρος – Η Αληθινή Όψη του Αρχαίου Κόσμου).
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 5:49pm · Edited

Takis Panagiotopoulos by the evidence we have:


Case 1

1. Raphael was the only one who saw inscribed bust Epicurus , after the bust was lost until 1742

or

2. Raphael saw several busts and used randomly, even though he did not know to whom they belonged, as a non-inscribed bust Epicurus


Case 2

The form of the school of athens like Epicurus is simply an overview of a typical philosopher

personally I do not think

it is right the first
Like · Reply · February 24 at 4:19am

Elli Pensa What is the first by evidence Takis, ?

1. Raphael was the only one who saw inscribed bust Epicurus , after the bust was lost until 1742 ??
Like · Reply · February 24 at 4:23am

Takis Panagiotopoulos the evidence are the archaiological excavations
Like · Reply · February 24 at 5:14am

Elli Pensa And why to not use the method of analogy for the unseen and making some conclusions with the manifold way of thinking ?


The known : Raphael had painted many philosophers in his fresco as their physiognomy was exactly, since he saw somewhere, specially in the Vatican, their busts and portraits. Raphael had painted Plato, Aristotle holding their works and many others with the symbols of their works.


Analogy : Raphael had painted Epicurus in his fresco as he was exactly and as we see now with our senses how he is from his busts/portraits. Also Raphael had painted symbolically Epicurus not alone but in a company of friends, because maybe he had read from the Vaticans Sayings or Lucretius (known things) that Epicurus based his philosophy mostly on the friendship of same minded persons (the only company that had been painted embraced) and the pleasure that this immortal good has living like a god among men.


Conclusion with the manifold way of thinking : Raphael has seen inside the vatican a portrait/bust Epicurus OR Raphael has seen outside the vatican a portrait/bust of Epicurus OR Epicurus busts/portraits were not lost before 1742 OR Epicurus busts and portraits were hidden until 1742 OR Epicurus busts and portraits discovered by chance in 1742 OR Epicurus philosophy and his busts/portraits became known to the public in 1742 when the things had matured.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 24 at 5:25am · Edited

Cassius Amicus Elli I am SO SORRY. I did not read your original post closely enough, I missed seeing the arrow in your graphic, and I ignored the "yellow chiton" reference because I did not understand the word "chiton." And so I missed entirely the main point of your post! I should have figured it out at least from Jason's comment the found your theory attractive. Duh - I was very distracted yesterday is my only excuse....


So now that I understand the point this is a REALLY interesting thread. Your point is EXCELLENT! Have you developed any more argument to support it and/or seen it made anywhere else?


I contributed to getting it off track by focusing on the issue of when the busts Naples area busts were discovered, and so I missed asking this question: What is the authority for people concluding that the guy with the laurel on his head is Epicurus? Who first reached that conclusion and why? It doesn't seem traditional to portray philosophers with laurel leaves (I guess that is what that is called) so why would Raphael have portrayed Epicurus that way?
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 5:42am

Cassius Amicus Now as to the part of the argument that Epicurus is portrayed in a group because that is an Epicurean characteristic, I think in order to embrace that part I would want to compare that group on the left with the group on the right. Are they not too a group of friends? Who are they, and is there any message / parallelism in comparing the placement of Epicurus you are suggesting to the placement of this group? IE are they Stoics to counterbalance Epicurus?
Like · Reply · 1 · February 24 at 5:44am

Cassius Amicus For comparison - https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…3S_z2JjPm8kkqMU
UPLOAD.WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · February 24 at 5:46am

Cassius Amicus What? This identification list suggests NO major Stoics in the painting, nor identifies at all the group on the right that counterbalances the one Elli is suggesting is Epicurus? VERY FISHY! Very hard to believe! That group on the right should be scrutinized to see if they are Stoicshttps://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…z-5iwIwz00DDv-Q
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 5:50am · Edited

Elli Pensa Cassius you offer me very good points for thinkig and thanks
Like · Reply · 1 · February 24 at 5:50am

Cassius Amicus It is almost inconceivable to me that the guy who leads the group on the right (of Aristotle) with the pointy white beard, bald head, and very large stomach is not someone VERY important, and likely someone who is the opposite of an Epicurean.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 5:53am · Edited

Cassius Amicus There is no doubt but that Cicero's "ON ENDS" was a major influence from the time it was written and certainly was never lost in this period. And given the influence of stoicism and its friendliness and malleability into Christianity there is no way that Raphael did not highlight it with a very important place in this painting.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 5:55am

Cassius Amicus The point made here in the Wikipedia page as the ALTERNATIVE (that this is Heraclitus and Democritus) seems MUCH more reasonable than to suggest Epicurus.


"2: Epicurus Possibly, the image of two philosophers, who were typically shown in pairs during the Renaissance: Heraclitus, the "weeping" philosopher, and Democritus, the "laughing" philosopher."
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 5:58am

Cassius Amicus The portrayal / attitude of the woman in the front of the group Elli is suggesting is Epicurus indicates to me that she is very likely dismissive/disapproving of the core Aristotle/Plato duo and that would strongly suggest Leontium. If the group on the right are stoics it would be logical to portray them as relatively more approving of Aristotle/Plato while still with an air of smugness/superiority that they had advanced further. Anyone detect that in the guy with the big stomach?
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 6:08am

Cassius Amicus There might well be similar parallelism in the two groups closer to the front of the painting. Does anyone see any Ionian / Italian school division (From diogenes Laertius) going on? Not sure....


I see that the wikipedia article says that the group on the front left is Pythagorus. What that "U' figure on the black slate in that group? Whatever it is must be a dead giveaway as to the identity of that grouping.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 6:16am

Cassius Amicus Two of these characters in the "Epicurus group" are wearing something blue on their heads. What is that?

Like · Reply · 1 · February 24 at 6:20am

Cassius Amicus This article has more speculation that I find unsatisfying and evidences my concern that the identification of Epicurus with the guy with the leaves on his head is intended by some as an insult to Epicurus


Leaning on the marble block at the lower left, wearing a crown of fig leaves and with a satisfied smirk on his pudgy face, is the arch-epicurean Epicurus. The face here is the portrait of the Pope’s librarian Tommaso Inghirami, of whom Raphael also painted a fine oil portrait around 1510 ([1, Figure 38]; [9, color plate III]). Joost-Gaugier assembles an impressive argument thatInghirami was the brilliant Renaissance humanist whose learning underlay

the design of the entire Stanza della Segnatura, including the School of Athens[9, pages 17-42].


https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…660wW_xSFKuObXE
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 6:33am

Cassius Amicus That last referenced article says "One other point that might trouble a twenty-first century viewer is thatthe School of Athens contains no women. What a pity that Raphael did notinclude Hypatia, or Aspasia, or the wise woman Diotima of Mantineia whowas Socrates’ teacher/" As far as I am concerned the face and hair of that figure in front of the "Epicurus group" looks like it could well be a woman to me..... And of course this writer makes no reference to Leontium as a candidate worthy of inclusion......
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 6:37am · Edited

Takis Panagiotopoulos Raphael did not leave a map with names of philosophers. Τhe assumption that the Epicurus is this funny man belongs to a later period and expresses the image that the most people had to our philosophy at the Middle Ages..
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 24 at 6:42am

Cassius Amicus Depending on what supporting evidence and theories can be developed here there needs to be a major article written on "The Case For Epicurus Being Near the Center of Raphael's 'School of Athens'" and that ought to be as circulated as widely as possible. That would be a major accomplishment for reigniting interest in studying Epicurus, and it would be a major "blow for Epicurus" as Lucian referenced in "Alexander the Oracle Monger."
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 6:59am · Edited

Takis Panagiotopoulos I agree, but it is good to quote all the data we have from archeology etc. for the error in the form of Epicurus to the school of athens... and then develop the new very interesting case highlighted by Elli
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 24 at 7:31am · Edited

Cassius Amicus I agree Takis. It should be a very well researched and logical article, but if it thoroughly recounts the facts that have been passed over in the standard analysis it could have a major impact.
Like · Reply · 3 · February 24 at 7:45am

Cassius Amicus "Restoring Epicurus To His Rightful Place in the School of Athens"
Like · Reply · 3 · February 24 at 7:47am

Cassius Amicus If the grouping to the left of Plato is Epicurean, it is logical to scrutinize the grouping to the right of Aristotle as Stoic. That could be Zeno in the back in the place parallel to Epicurus, but there would need to be a tradition of some greek stoic being big and fat to mesh with the large bald man in front. I seem to recall that Cleanthes was reputed to be a wrestler, but we need to study DIogenes Laertius and other sources to see whether someone in the Stoic line would fit that caricature. If Chryssippus were both the second founder of Stoicism and the first main opponent of Epicurus, then he would be someone to look at closely.
Like · Reply · 3 · February 24 at 9:03am · Edited

Cassius Amicus Probably not Chrysippus: "Chrysippus, the son of Apollonius of Tarsus, was born at Soli, Cilicia.[3] He was slight in stature,[4] and is reputed to have trained as a long-distance runner.[5]"


However Chrysippus was largely bald and bearded -- https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…FUin_hRxDNv-wrg

Chrysippus - Wikipedia
in the Stoic school. When Cleanthes died, around 230 BC, Chrysippus became the third head of…
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · February 24 at 9:12am · Edited

Cassius Amicus Cleanthes - boxer; strong back: "Cleanthes was born in Assos in the Troad about 330 BC.[a] According to Diogenes Laërtius,[2] he was the son of Phanias, and early in life he was a boxer. With but four drachmae in his possession he came to Athens, where he took up philosophy, listening first to the lectures of Crates the Cynic,[3] and then to those of Zeno, the Stoic. In order to support himself, he worked all night as water-carrier to a gardener (hence his nickname the Well-Water-Collector, Greek: Φρεάντλης). As he spent the whole day in studying philosophy with no visible means of support, he was summoned before the Areopagus to account for his way of living. The judges were so delighted by the evidence of work which he produced, that they voted him ten minae, though Zeno would not permit him to accept them. His power of patient endurance, or perhaps his slowness, earned him the title of "the Ass" from his fellow students, a name which he was said to have rejoiced in, as it implied that his back was strong enough to bear whatever Zeno put upon it."
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:06am

Cassius Amicus Picture of Cleanthes:https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…SCOW_WowcF4xxuU

Cleanthes | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
IEP.UTM.EDU

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · February 24 at 9:09am

Elli Pensa Here is our man with the bald head !
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:13am

Elli Pensa Is this the man with his famous prayer-hymn to god Zeus ?


Most glorious of immortals, Zeus

The many named, almighty evermore,

Nature's great Sovereign, ruling all by law

Hail to thee! On thee 'tis meet and right


That mortals everywhere should call.

From thee was our begetting; ours alone

Of all that live and move upon the earth

The lot to bear God's likeness.

Thee will I ever chant, thy power praise!


For thee this whole vast cosmos, wheeling round

The earth, obeys, and where thou leadest

It follows, ruled willingly by thee.

In thy unconquerable hands thou holdest fast,

Ready prepared, that two-timed flaming blast,

The ever-living thunderbolt:

Nature's own stroke brings all things to their end.

By it thou guidest aright the sense instinct

Which spreads through all things, mingled even

With stars in heaven, the great and small-

Thou who art King supreme for evermore!


Naught upon earth is wrought in thy despite, oh God.

Nor in the ethereal sphere aloft which ever winds

About its pole, nor in the sea-save only what

The wicked work, in their strange madness,

Yet even so, thou knowest to make the crooked straight.

Prune all excess, give order to the orderless,

For unto thee the unloved still is lovely-

And thus in one all things are harmonized,

The evil with the good, that so one Word

Should be in all things everlastingly.


One Word-which evermore the wicked flee!

Ill-fated, hungering to possess the good

They have no vision of God's universal law,

Nor will they hear, though if obedient in mind

They might obtain a noble life, true wealth.

Instead they rush unthinking after ill:

Some with a shameless zeal for fame,

Others pursuing gain, disorderly;

Still others folly, or pleasures of the flesh.

[But evils are their lot] and other times

Bring other harvests, all unsought-

For all their great desire, its opposite!


But, Zeus, thou giver of every gift,

Who dwellest within the dark clouds, wielding still

The flashing stroke of lightning, save, we pray,

Thy children from this boundless misery.

Scatter, Oh Father, the darkness from their souls,

Grant them to find true understanding

On which relying thou justly rulest all-

While we, thus honoured, in turn will honour thee,

Hymning thy works forever, as is meet

For mortals while no greater right

Belongs even to the gods than evermore

Justly to praise the universal law!
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:18am

Elli Pensa Oh this is theology indeed. This leads to the religion indeed. This leads to the confusion indeed. This is against the whole Nature indeed.
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:19am

Write a reply...

Elli Pensa From the article that posted by Cassius we read :


1. In those pre-Copernican days, astrology was a respectable, complex, and sophisticated enterprise, and Paulus issued many annual prognostications with some notable successes (for instance, in 1524 predicting that the world would not be ending in a flood that year). His prognostications for 1480-1482 include mathematical challenge questions so advanced they went unanswered, on topics like properties of the sphere and cylinder, the value of π, and the quadrature of the parabola, showing a good knowledge of the work of Archimedes. A 1518 publication by Paulus concerning compound interest and the number of atoms in the universe introduced an early form of decimals to notate the results.


2. I offer, finally, as a theory of my own, a “null hypothesis” (in both literal and statistical senses): that Euclid’s figure may have no real mathematical meaning. The scene is a beautiful image of scholarship: the mathematicians of Athens would have been engrossed in some such geometric diagram. But,just as a Raphael “Madonna and Child” is an image of maternal tenderness,not an instructional diagram on how to hold one’s baby, it might simply be misplaced ingenuity to seek an actual theorem on Euclid’s slate.


3. Raphael’s School of Athens well deserves its fame as an image of an ideal world of intellectual life. Though the verall plan is clear, many details and identifications still remain undetermined. Might Euclid’s slate hold a new theorem? The present article has described some candidates; possibly a better one is still waiting to be found. In any case, the scene itself remains a magnificent image of an ideal life in mathematics.


From just the above three paragraphs of the article we see clearly that :

All the analyses, the interpretations, the speculations, the views, the opinions and so on of what we see in the picture "school of Athens" are based on Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics. i.e Mathematics, dialectics, geometry, poetry, theology, Logos, virtues and all that stuff that made the people to be confused and be against the real goal and the real world !


Where is the real study of Nature ?


Here is the challenge of a new article entitled "The Case For Epicurus Being Near the Center of Raphael's 'School of Athens' - with the collaboration of many of us - making clear to all of them and VS to their endless verbalism WHAT IS THE Epicurean Canon. The method of the Analogy. The clarification on words. The manifold way of thinking by Epicurus against all the dilemmas. What are the first principles of Nature, and whats the goal of human's life as set by Nature when he studies philosophy that is in accordance with Nature ?


I would be very glad if this post would be continued with the collaboration of many of us and be circulated at the internet.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 9:06am · Edited

Cassius Amicus Exactly Elli. There is strong, wide, and enduring interest in this work of art. A persuasive reinterpretation which shows how Raphael considered Epicurus to be near the center of the action would be a tremendous help in encouraging interest in him.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 9:08am

Elli Pensa Well, now the action ...volunteers and collaborators for this action ??
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 9:10am

Cassius Amicus As one starting point, the 2012 article by Robert Haas says that this book is the "state of the art" on this topic. We need access to the relevant parts of this book:


"Identifying the individual figures is an intricate, still-ongoing scholarly game; ...See More
Like · Reply · 1 · February 24 at 9:42am

Elli Pensa Is this book Cassius ? https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…G7cJ10qFA5a08Lg

Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura: Meaning and Invention
AMAZON.COM

Unlike · Reply · Remove Preview · 2 · February 24 at 9:49am

Cassius Amicus That must be it!
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:50am

Write a reply...

Elli Pensa Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier opens her discussion... with the bold asserion that "the Stanza della Segnatura belongs as much to the history of ideas as to the history of art", an assumption she goes on to explore through a painstaking examination of the imagery from Julius II's private library." Sixteenth Century Journal

Book Description


Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace has often been considered the artist's most aesthetically perfect work. Executed between 1508 and 1511, it features a painted ceiling, a pavement of inlaid marble, and four frescoed walls, all orchestrated with a cast of famous historical figures who exemplify the various disciplines of learning. Joost-Gaugier's study is the first to examine the elements of the Stanza della Segnatura as an ensemble, exploring the meaning of the frescoes and accompanying decoration in light of recent studies into the intellectual world of High Renaissance Rome.
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:50am

Cassius Amicus I think the identity of the figure marked (1) here is key - he is clearly someone to reckon with and not a filler. Determining who he is would tell us a lot. If the theory that this is a stoic grouping were correct, I suppose (6) would most likely be...See More

Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 10:35am

Cassius Amicus 1. We know the ancients made many copies of the image of Epicurus.


2. We know that 30! Have now been located.


3. We know that Epicurus was hated by church and Stoics alike.


4. We know that the church and academia have done what they could to discourage and suppress Epicurean philosophy.


5. We know that the establishment reports that the image identification was lost until the mid 1700a


6. We know the church and philosophical establishment are congenital liars.


My conclusion: the official records are entitled to little deference and the likelihood is that the image of Epicurus was never fully lost to those who wanted to find it.


Now how that applies to this work of art is a different question, but I think all church and establishment / academia records and positions regarding Epicurus should be viewed with great skepticism.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 12:21pm · Edited

Elli Pensa Cassius here they are, and with their written words

Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 1:00pm · Edited

Elli Pensa Cassius hi ! Please look at those two hands right down in the corner of the picture, next to the Fate of Zeno the Cytium, is like they are emptied and saying desperately : "we can not do anything at all everything is fated" !
Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 3:02am · Edited

Julius von Makanec there seems to be quite a lot of concept misunderstanding going on: e.g. we do not know what Aristotle MEANS by the phrase "contemplation of God"...
Like · Reply · February 26 at 5:58am

Cassius Amicus Yes I agree that the two hands do indicate that Elli. As we move away from the center of the picture is there any overall organization that can be assigned to how people are placed? I think one of the article said that it was divided into halves by "realist" vs "idealist" but that is not clear to me. I didn't yet have time to look to see if there was an "Italic vs Ionian" division from DL either....
Like · Reply · 2 · February 26 at 7:23am

Elli Pensa Julius von Makanec The "Ethical Evdimeia" is the first of three moral treatises of Aristotle (the other two are the "Ethics" and "Nicomachean Ethics"). The name "Evdimeia" was received by an Aristotle’s disciple with the name Eudemus of Rhodes, because the philosopher Aristotle respected Eudemus and devoted this treatise to him.

The thesis consists of seven books and are strictly moral; i.e. is not connected with politics, that is in the case in the "Nicomachean Ethics". The "Ethical Evdimeia" have at most a religious connotation. In these the true virtue is based on the religion and is a manifestation of the command and inspiration of a reasonable superman. This peculiarity echoes the Platonic heritage of Aristotle or, according to some others, the stoic effect.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 9:44am · Edited

Write a reply...

Cassius Amicus A good start!
Like · Reply · 1 · February 24 at 4:41pm

Cassius Amicus I wonder what we could do to stir up general interest in this. A Facebook group devoted solely to identifying the people and/or symbology shown in the fresco? That might get much wider interest (?)

Cassius Amicus shared a link.

February 21 at 4:34pm

We have recently seen the latest in a series of posts from Stoic-oriented people who question the accuracy of the characterizations of Stoicism frequently made in this group. The general theme usually takes the form "You misrepresent Stoicism in order to bash it...." but in response to challenge the posters never provide any citations to core stoic leaders (Zeno, Chrysippus, Epictetus, etc) to show that our characterizations of Stoicism are incorrect. The suggestion has been made that it would be good to post a formal challenge to the pro-Stoics to provide authoritative cites to oppose our position. So here it is.

We'll keep the results in a place where we can find them, and I'll even add them to my ongoing contrast chart linked below. Please keep in mind that we're talking about "Stoicism" as a philosophical movement, and we're not talking about modern cognitive behavioral therapy or modern neo-anything. If modernists want to invent their own eclectic philosophies and graft old names onto it, that's their business.

Also, please limit posts that essentially amount to "In my opinion you are wrong..." or "In my experience stoicism is...." As much as we might like to, we don't really have the time for simple statements of opinion - what we really want is **evidence** in the form of citations showing that Stoicism does not rate the denunciation that many of us here (echoing Nietzsche, Cosma Raimondi, and others) regularly give to it. As a practical matter in this group we study Epicurean philosophy, and we learn about Epicurus in part by studying the recognizable philosophies that have opposed him over the centuries - and Stoicism has been the leader of that pack.

Another type of response to avoid is the eclectic "well I pick and choose the BEST of all philosophies and I combine them as I see fit." Those types of comments can be made in the future in separate threads, and we can deal with the problems of eclecticism separately. I suspect neither confirmed Epicureans nor confirmed Stoics think that would be a productive use of time in this thread, and the Stoics would have even harsher words for eclecticism than would we.

So please submit your suggestions from the Stoic Authorities for how we should modify our characterizations. We will happily receive evidence that our opinions should be adjusted, because:

"In a philosophical discussion, he who is defeated gains more, since he learns more." - Vatican Saying 74

Epicurean Philosophy v. Stoicism - A Comparison Chart with Citations
Epicurean vs. Stoic A Comparison Chart With Citations To Sources In The Ancient Texts (see also a Comparison Chart on The Goal of Life) Issue Epicurean…
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Cassius Amicus In my post I made a reference to Cosma Raimondi - here is his letter as an example of the Epicurean position -


"It is not just a dispute between ourselves, for all the ancient philosophers, principally the three sects of Academics, Stoics and Aristotelians, declared war to the death against this one man who was the master of them all. Their onslaught sought to leave no place for him in philosophy and to declare all his opinions invalid — in my view, because they were envious at seeing so many more pupils taking themselves to the school of Epicurus than to their own.....


Though this was Epicurus’s judgment, the Stoics took a different view, arguing that happiness was to be found in virtue alone. For them the wise man would still be happy even if he were being tortured by the cruellest butchers. This is a position I most emphatically reject. What could be more absurd than to call a man ‘happy’ when he is in fact utterly miserable? What could be sillier than to say that the man being roasted in the bull of Phalaris,1 and subject to the most extreme torment, was not wretched? How again could you be further from any sort of happiness than to lack all or most of the things that themselves make up happiness? The Stoics think that someone who is starving and lame and afflicted with all the other disadvantages of health or external circumstances is nonetheless in a state of perfect felicity as long as he can display his virtue. All their books praise and celebrate the famous Marcus Regulus for his courage under torture.2 For my part I think that Regulus or anyone else, even someone utterly virtuous and constant, of the utmost innocence and integrity, who is being roasted in the bull of Phalaris or who is exiled from his country or afflicted quite undeservedly with misfortunes even more bitter, can be accounted not simply not happy but truly unhappy, and all the more so because the great and prominent virtue that should have led to a happier outcome has instead proved so disastrous for them.


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.


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.


Now that the Stoics have, I hope, been comprehensively refuted....


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Like · Reply · 3 · February 21 at 9:06pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus And here is Nietzsche https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…JTMxaQacRabJwYQ


Beyond Good And Evil, (Gutenberg edition, translated by Helen Zimmern) Chapter 1, section 9


You desire to LIVE “according to Nature”? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, “living according to Nature,” means actually the same as “living according to life”—how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature “according to the Stoa,” and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?… But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to “creation of the world,” the will to the causa prima.


Beyond Good And Evil, (Gutenberg edition, translated by Helen Zimmern) Chapter 5, section 188


188. In contrast to laisser-aller, every system of morals is a sort of tyranny against “nature” and also against “reason”, that is, however, no objection, unless one should again decree by some system of morals, that all kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness are unlawful What is essential and invaluable in every system of morals, is that it is a long constraint. In order to understand Stoicism, or Port Royal, or Puritanism, one should remember the constraint under which every language has attained to strength and freedom—the metrical constraint, the tyranny of rhyme and rhythm.


Beyond Good And Evil, (Gutenberg edition, translated by Helen Zimmern) Chapter 5, section 198


198. All the systems of morals which address themselves with a view to their “happiness,” as it is called—what else are they but suggestions for behaviour adapted to the degree of DANGER from themselves in which the individuals live; recipes for their passions, their good and bad propensities, insofar as such have the Will to Power and would like to play the master; small and great expediencies and elaborations, permeated with the musty odour of old family medicines and old-wife wisdom; all of them grotesque and absurd in their form—because they address themselves to “all,” because they generalize where generalization is not authorized; all of them speaking unconditionally, and taking themselves unconditionally; all of them flavoured not merely with one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, and sometimes even seductive, when they are over-spiced and begin to smell dangerously, especially of “the other world.” That is all of little value when estimated intellectually, and is far from being “science,” much less “wisdom”; but, repeated once more, and three times repeated, it is expediency, expediency, expediency, mixed with stupidity, stupidity, stupidity—whether it be the indifference and statuesque coldness towards the heated folly of the emotions, which the Stoics advised and fostered; or the no-more-laughing and no-more-weeping of Spinoza, the destruction of the emotions by their analysis and vivisection, which he recommended so naively; or the lowering of the emotions to an innocent mean at which they may be satisfied, the Aristotelianism of morals; or even morality as the enjoyment of the emotions in a voluntary attenuation and spiritualization by the symbolism of art, perhaps as music, or as love of God, and of mankind for God’s sake—for in religion the passions are once more enfranchised, provided that…; or, finally, even the complaisant and wanton surrender to the emotions, as has been taught by Hafis and Goethe, the bold letting-go of the reins, the spiritual and corporeal licentia morum in the exceptional cases of wise old codgers and drunkards, with whom it “no longer has much danger.”—This also for the chapter: “Morals as Timidity.”

Nietzsche on Stoicism’s “Fraud of Words”
The following passage from Nietzsche has many excellent uses in exposing the roots of Stoicism and all…
NEWEPICUREAN.COM

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 3 · February 21 at 4:55pm · Edited

Brock Nadeau Can I just claim that I am "indifferent" to Epicureanism. ?
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 12:14am · Edited

Elli Pensa Brock Nadeau IMO you do very well to be indifferent in something that has the suffix -ism.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 1:27am

Kev Ring Many posts on here are just talking about stoicism......stoic groups dont really talk about Epicureanism at all.......there is just a difference in either mindset or understanding. In many cases it is the latter. Now can we stop talking about stoicism and move on a little? They don't paticularily care...
Like · Reply · February 22 at 2:26am · Edited

Jason Baker "...stoic groups don't really talk about Epicureanism at all..."


Yes they do. Do a word search on the main Stoic philosophy discussion group (that you're a member of) here on Facebook. The topic comes up weekly.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 9:55am · Edited

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Cassius Amicus Kev Ring - It is not "They" who we should primarily care about educating. It is far more important first for Epicureans to understand Epicurus so that they are not taken in by the errors that can otherwise creep in. ....and still no citations....
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 3:12am · Edited

Elli Pensa There is no such a thing Epicurean-ism that some are talking about. There are some filthy hands that grabbed the Epicurus philosophy trying to transform it as to be similar to any miserable ideology. This is a criminal action that the ancient epicureans took position in the past and this story continues until nowdays. Because if there won't anyone to react on this, the phenomena around us will be getting worse and we will never become pleased and happy mister Kev Ring.


By the way did you read the inscription of Diogenis of Oinoanda ???


But I must warn you ..against other philosophers, especially those, like the Socratics...


But I must warn you... also against Aristotle, and those who hold the views of his Peripatetic School....


But I must warn you... against of what some men call “Fate,” or “Necessity.” ...


But I must warn you... against the disposition to grasp at one among several possibilities, when the proof is insufficient, and when several possibilities may be true according to the evidence, is characteristic of a fortune-teller, or a priest, or a fool, and not the path of a wise man.


But I must warn you... that we do not like Protagoras of Abdera, who said that he did not know whether gods exist, for that is the same as saying that he knew that they do not exist.


But I must warn you...that we do not agree with Homer, who portrayed the gods as adulterers, and as angry with those who are prosperous. In contrast, we hold that the statues of the gods should be made genial and smiling, so that we may smile back at them, rather than be afraid of them.


But I must warn you... that many men pursue philosophy for the sake of wealth and power, with the aim of procuring these either from private individuals, or from kings, who deem philosophy to be a great and precious possession.


But I must warn you... to know this also: We Epicureans bring these truths, not to all men whatsoever, but only to those men who are benevolent and capable of receiving this wisdom.


But I must warn you... that the virtues, which are turned upside down by other philosophers, who transfer the virtues from “the means” to “the end”, are in no way the end in themselves! The virtues are not ends in themselves, but only the means to the end that Nature has set for us!


But I must warn you ...to those who adopt Democritus’ theory, and assert that, because the atoms collide with one another, they have no freedom of movement, and that consequently all motions are determined by necessity, we Epicureans have a ready answer, and we ask in reply. “Do you not know that there is actually a free movement in the atoms, which Democritus failed to discover, but which Epicurus brought to light — a swerving movement, as he proves from the phenomena we see around us?” The most important thing to remember is this: if Fate is held to exist, then all warnings and censures are useless, and not even the wicked can be justly punished, since they are not responsible for their sins.


But I must warn you... what kind of gods or religion will cause men to act righteously? Men are not righteous on account of the real gods, nor on account of Plato’s and Socrates’ judges in Hades. We are thus left with this inescapable conclusion. Why would not evil men, who disregard the laws, disregard and scorn fables even more?


Thus we see that in regard to righteousness, our Epicurean doctrines do no harm, nor do the religions that teach fear of the gods do any good. On the contrary, false religions do harm, whereas our doctrines not only do no harm, but also help. For our doctrines remove disturbances from the mind, while the other philosophies add to those disturbances.


Fear of the gods; fear of death; fear of pain; fear of slavery to those desires which are neither natural nor necessary. The day will come when none of these shall interrupt the continuity of our friendships, and of our happiness, in the study of philosophy. In that day, wise men will tend the Earth, in a life close to Nature; our agriculture will provide for our needs, and we, and those who are our friends, will live as gods among men.


And Thus Ends the Inscription of Diogenes of Oineanda.


THE DAY WILL COME (...when none of these shall interrupt the continuity of our friendships, and of our happiness, in the study of philosophy) ....How that HOPEFUL DAY will COME without doing SOMETHING ??
Like · Reply · 5 · February 22 at 3:55am · Edited

Kev Ring That post is way too long to read ?? but ill give it a like!....fuck it! ?
Like · Reply · February 22 at 5:31am

Jimmy Daltrey I did actually join this group to find out about Epicureanism, not a constant compare and contrast with Stoicism.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 5:50am

Kev Ring Yeah its getting old. Im outa here i think. No harmony or joy to be found here.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 6:56am

Jimmy Daltrey There is a bit of a ranty feel to it. Angry.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 9:39am

Ilkka Vuoristo [admin hat]

We are experiencing a seasonal flood of posts and questions that are motivated by either an innocent curiosity about the difference from stoicism, or an outright hostility to Epicurean philosophy. It's a regular occurrence, about twice a year. This flood will end when malicious posters troll out and are Banhammered.
Like · Reply · February 23 at 6:53pm

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Elli Pensa mister Jimmy Daltrey the texts in the middle of the photo (as above) is about Epicurean philosophy. If you read all these right things then, there is a case that you do not need to read the false things in the right side of the text. Nobody could forced you to read something you do not like or to live your life according to something you do like. Freedom of choice is synonym with the free will actually. Mister Kev Ring, frankly I have no need for your "like" that comes without reading some things from Diogenis Oionanda inscription. I asked you first if you have read it, and in case you did not I responded to your comment which said that many post is about stoicism. When I post for Epicurean philosophy you could not read it. However there are some old women and old men, and mainly the uneducated, who can't read long texts because they think that they know everything and usually they find many excuses that they have problems with their eyes. HA
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 6:22am

Jimmy Daltrey Not very friendly.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 9:42am

Jason Baker Frankness is often confused with undfriendliness by the unfriendly. Not everyone is of the temperament to accept correction in the Epicurean way. There's a long tradition of it, going back to Epicurus' own life. Go then, be like Timocrates.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 10:03am · Edited

Elli Pensa Jimmy Daltrey Νot hostile.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 10:09am

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Matt Jackson Everyone understands this is a citation challenge right? Read the post again. You are to "cite" ancient authentic Stoic authors as support for any claim that Stoicism is being misrepresented by an Epicurean lens. This is to avoid a constant repeated discussion of personal opinions that don't really help the discussion.
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 6:31am

Matt Jackson So by all means if you disagree, please cite Zeno and Epictetus.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 6:33am

Kev Ring I think ye miss the point, and furthermore only show your true misunderstanding of what it is to be a stoic. A stoic has no need nor want to have a debate with Epicureans. Completely indifferent to your calls. To be honest i view it as anunusual and disharmonous mindset really. Elli Pensa, please note I liked your last post too. ? i wish you all well. I joined here to learn about Epicureanism. Not just constantly rant on about how much ye disagree with Stoicism. Perhaps in a way you have taught me enough to know its certainly not something i wish to pursue further. All the best. Back into the cave with you all. ?
Like · Reply · February 22 at 6:59am

Alexander Rios You should learn the basics by self study, then come ask well formed questions here.


Epicurus wrote three letters. Read or listen to them.

Menoeceus, then Herodotus, then Pythocles, then Menoeceus again.

After that I recommend The Epicurean Inscription of Diogenes.

After that I recommend Torquatus' Defense of Epicurus, Cicero.

The last you should read are the Principle Doctrines and Vatican Sayings.


Please start here.


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Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 7:51am · Edited

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Matt Jackson Public farewells aren't necessary. ??
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 7:02am

Cassius Amicus But they are classically Stoic!
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 7:38am

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Elli Pensa Mister Kev Ring. When I was at school there was a very nice teacher of mine who said to all of her pupils that the learning comes with the participation with your works. Well, give us your post and your work with a text of Epicurean Philosophy and say to us on what you disagree or agree, and what you do not understand or not.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 7:09am

Cassius Amicus "A stoic has no need nor want to have a debate with Epicureans. " Boy *that* is a view with which the ancient Stoics disagreed! Apparently Kev needs to read his Epictetus:


"Some of Epictetus’ comments are scattered, and of those some are more direct...See More
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 7:42am · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey Honestly Cassius Amicus, What is with the obsession with Stoicism? If i want to hear about Stoicism i will look into Stoicism. Nietzsche also...Nietzsche, brilliant, why on a page about Epicurus are we constantly seeing Nietzsche?...On the Stoics?
Like · Reply · February 22 at 9:30am

Jason Baker Jimmy Daltrey, you don't get to see much of it because it's removed from the group as a distraction but we're invaded by organized stoic groups for the purposes of trolling on the regular, a la Chan board invasions. They're organized on the Stoicism group and sockpuppets are set up specifically for the purposes of annoying us. We've had frank confessions and screenshots, this isn't paranoia. That alone is enough to cause someone, such as myself, who doesn't give a flying squirrel fart about stoicism to be disinclined to rehash the same old canards ("I don't think stoics would say, blah, blah, blah..." cite your sources!) time and again.


If you would actually read the original and secondary source material you would understand why.


Epicureans don't use Socratic dialogue, that approach (which seems to be VERY common in the Stoic Group) is deprecated here. READ the original sources and then read again the words we spin out regularly, then join the discussion.
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 10:17am

Mish Taylor What Jason said, and quite frankly, it does get boring this Stoic nonsense, doesn't it Jimmy Daltrey . - rhetorical, don't need a reply.
Like · Reply · 4 · February 22 at 10:21am

Jimmy Daltrey So that is interesting. The Socratic dialectic is not used. I didn't know that.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 10:46am

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Elli Pensa "In a philosophical discussion, he who is defeated gains more, since he learns more." - Vatican Saying 74 (y) (y)
Like · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 8:00am

Cassius Amicus I note several references in related threads to people who are asserting that Stoics would enjoy pleasure. As usual, no cites, and in this case it is PARTICULARLY important to document this assertion, given these very clear statements from Stoic authorities


“FROM THE MEMORABILIA OF EPICTETUS … bringing forward the peevish philosophers, who hold that pleasure is not natural, but accompanies things which are natural—justice, self-control, freedom. Why then does the soul take a calm delight, as Epicurus says, in the lesser goods, those of the body, and does not take pleasure in her own good things, which are the greatest? I tell you that nature has given me a sense of self-respect, and I often blush when I think I am saying something shameful. It is this emotion which prevents me from regarding pleasure as a good thing and as the end of life. Flor. 6. 50.” Discourses of Epictetus

“

He is impressed with Cynicism, but sees it as a vocation to itinerant teaching and bare-bones living rather than as a body of doctrine (3.22). Epicureanism he identifies with the pleasure principle and accordingly despises (3.7).” Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, entry on Epictetus.


“When you receive an impression of some pleasure, as with others, watch yourself, not to be carried off by it; however let it wait upon your business, and get some delay for yourself. Next remember both the times, when you will enjoy the pleasure, and when having enjoyed it later you will repent and reproach yourself; and against these refraining how much you will be glad and commend yourself. But if an opportunity appears to you to engage in the action, be sure you are not overcome by its softness and pleasure and attraction; but set against it, how much better is the awareness for yourself to have won a victory over it.” Epictetus, Enchridion


“And if any instance of pain or pleasure, or glory or disgrace, is set before you, remember that now is the combat, now the Olympiad comes on, nor can it be put off. By once being defeated and giving way, proficiency is lost, or by the contrary preserved. Thus Socrates became perfect, improving himself by everything. attending to nothing but reason. And though you are not yet a Socrates, you ought, however, to live as one desirous of becoming a Socrates.” Epictetus, Enchiridion


“What is our nature? To be free, noble, self-respecting. What other animal blushes? What other can have a conception of shame? We must subordinate pleasure to these principles, to minister to them as a servant, to evoke our interests and to keep us in the way of our natural activities.” Discourses of Epictetus, Chapter VII (Note: This entire chapter is dedicated to discrediting Epicurean philosophy.)

Chapter XX is also dedicated to attacking Epicureans: “What, then, do you hold good or evil, base or noble? Is it this doctrine, or that? It is useless to go on disputing with one of these men, or reasoning with him, or trying to alter his opinion. One might have very much more hope of altering the mind of a profligate than of men who are absolutely deaf and blind to their own miseries.”


“Diogenes, who was sent scouting before you, has brought us back a different report: he says, ‘Death is not evil, for it is not dishonour’; he says, ‘Glory is a vain noise made by madmen’. And what a message this scout brought us about pain and pleasure and poverty! ‘To wear no raiment’, he says, ‘is better than any robe with purple hem’; ‘to sleep on the ground without a bed’, he says, ‘is the softest couch.’ Moreover he proves each point by showing his own confidence, his tranquillity of mind, his freedom, and withal his body well knit, and in good condition. ‘No enemy is near,’ he says, ‘all is full of peace.'” Discourses of Epictetus, Chapter 24


“Moreover Epictetus also, as we heard from the same Favorinus, used to say that there were two faults far more serious and vile than any others, want of endurance and want of self-control, the failure to bear and endure the wrongs we have to bear, and the failure to forbear the pleasures and other things that we ought to forbear.” Discourses of Epictetus
Like · Reply · 3 · February 22 at 3:29pm

Cassius Amicus And that last list was just Epictetus. For other lengthy cites from Zeno and (yes) Marcus Aurelius, see here:https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…_NoRLi6iR-dfvKE

The Stoics On Pleasure
(Note: See also this Epicurean v Stoic comparison chart.) The following is a list of quotations from (or…
NEWEPICUREAN.COM

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 3 · February 22 at 3:30pm

Jimmy Daltrey Back to the Stoics again? Do we do the Peripatetics as well?
Like · Reply · February 22 at 3:50pm · Edited

Jason Baker We do, but they're not as thick on the ground as MoStos.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 5:13pm

Jason Baker But seriously, this thread was made specifically to keep the stoic discussion to one thread. Jimmy Daltrey, you've taken issue with our characterizations, this is your chance to correct them with citations!
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 22 at 5:18pm

Jimmy Daltrey Stoics are just soft core Cynics.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 22 at 6:53pm · Edited

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Vagelis Baltatzis Cassius Amicus ,


Stoa , Garden , Academy ( I do not like the words -ism) were ancient vivid philosophies. They were in many things correct and in many things wrong.


The physics of Stoa and Garden are in many things wrong from the view of modern physics . Ancient greek physics did not have experiments in the galilean sense . Actually, hellenistic science underwent a scientific revolution and was very close to the scientific revolution of Galileo,Kepler ,Neuton, but the Roman conquest of Greece stopped the advancement.


Stoic propositional logic was revolutionary for its time and the people could not understand it . Stoic ethics have to be tested in our everyday lifes and the results are observable . Many stoic elements were used by modern psychotherapy and there is experimental evidence for many stoic ideas and approaches. Modern Stoicism is a vivid community with many people from a different background.


Altough I agee more with stoic principles, than with epicurian principles , this does not mean I do not like Epicurus and many of his ideas. This also does not mean that I agree with ALL the stoic ideas . The Stoics (as also the Epicurians and other philosophes) were 2.300 years ago, They used the science and ideas of their time to advance on them. They did not use the ideas of ancient Egypt. In this sense we should use the knowledge of our time. It is not philosophy if I follow a group like a football club blindly and without critical thinking.


I will not write here to prove that Kepos is wrong. I think many ideas of Epicurus are correct and if they work for you, then its super for you . I disagree with some of the ideas of Epicurus (for instance that pleasure is the ONLY aim of life or that ethics exist ONLY for mutual benefit), but this is not our thread here .


I will write here only to show you that many of your ideas of Stoicism are almost completely wrong. I do not care if you want to have this ideas and most people in stoic fora don't care . I will do this, because it is very sad , if we have wrong things about greek philosophy.


Its one thing to say that sensual pleasures , ataraxia, wellbeing are parts of a rational life and it is different to say that they were against pleasures ,enjoyment and wellbeing.


The Stoics did not say that you have to be tortured to be happy. They showed the way that in all instanced of life you can be eudaimon. It is very counter-intuitive , but think of this. There are many people who cannot see, who do not have legs or who are ill. Many of them lead a very happy life . OF course they would prefer to see , to be able to walk etc., but this does not influence their wellbeing.

Epicurus ,himself , shows the truth of the stoic position in his last hours. He was very ill, he had pains, but this did not influence his psychological wellbeing.


Anyway, I will come to this again in the specific point of the table.
Like · Reply · February 23 at 6:41pm · Edited

Ilkka Vuoristo "[...] (for instance that pleasure is the ONLY aim of life or that ethics exist ONLY for mutual benefit) [...]"


Epicurus doesn't teach either of these....See More
Like · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 7:03pm

Vagelis Baltatzis Ilkka Vuoristo Maybe, some of my ideas about Epicurian philosophy are wrong. Maybe I could not be very precise in my words, because I mentioned this point very fast.


1. In my knowledge , the aim of our lifes according to Epicurus is ηδονή(hedone...See More
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:15pm

Ilkka Vuoristo The aim of life is Happiness (ataraxia and aponia) which is the state of ultimate pleasure (hedone), defined by the absence of any pain. These words have related meanings, but they differ in their contexts. For example, ataraxia is a form of pleasure, but not just any pleasure.


Happiness is the aim of life, whether we consciously accept this or not. Everything we do is aimed at being happy. The problem is that many think that some things leads to pleasure, when in fact they eventually bring pain.


The motivation to be ethical is a personal one: "I will benefit from this." But one of the main rules of ethics is "Don't harm others." So the benefits are for all humans. An ethical person is an asset to every other person. So ethics have instrumental value, but the value isn't limited to a single individual.


You seem to like these dichotomies of "only" and "or". Unfortunately life is much too complex for such divisions.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 2:10pm

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Vagelis Baltatzis Ok, almost all points are oversimplifications and extreme misconceptions of the stoic view. Most Stoics would laugh at most of these points. I do not have time to give citations for all of them at once . I will try to give one or two citations for a subject everyday.


I suspect most people here have not read the Discourses of Epictetus, Marc Aurel or Seneca. You cannot rely only on some sentences of the Enchiridion. The Enchiridion is a rough compilation of the discourses made by Arrian. It is not a presetation of Stoicism. Even the Discourses are not a presentation of Stoicism, because they are not epistles to present a subject, but normal vivid discussion in the school of Epictetus. So , we have to read the whole Discourses to have a opinion about Epictetus.


Its a historical tragedy, that 99 % of the Stoic ,the Epicurian, the Sceptic works did not survived the middle ages.


I suspect most of the misconceptions/oversimplifications are firstly because of ignorance (you have a good understanding of Epicurianism, but a superficial understanding of Stoicism) and maybe also from unconscious bias.


Lets see for example POINT 6.

What is the nature and the effect of death ?


For the epicurian view you write this :


"Death is the end of individual consciousness; the material of the soul disperses at death. The soul receives no rewards or punishment after death.6A " (which is correctly attributed to the Epicureans)


source : PD1 , Letter to Menoeceus , VS14


Then, for the stoic view , you write :


"Souls of particular men favored by the gods can expect to live on in “heaven.” Other souls travel to the underworld for unspecified times. Generally speaking the soul survives for at least some period of time after death to receive reward or punishment for actions on earth."


source : [Note For Researchers: Need cites for Stoic position here.]


If you do no have sources about the stoic position, why do you wrote this? LOL .This opinion about death is not only wrong, but is also 100 % antistoic.


Stoicism is meterialism. There is no afterlife, no otherworld, no fear of the gods . No fear of death. The soul, god/gods are materialistic . If hey say god/nature/zeus/gods/eimamene they mean the Universe/cosmos.


From a stoic point of view , death is for the humans the end of the individual consciousness. Of course there is no reward or punishment after death.


Discouses of Epictetus , book 3,

CHAPTER XXIV

p.398


(Epictetus speaks about death)


"Say that harvesting ears of corn is ill-omened, for it means destruction of the ears; yes, but not the destruction of the world. Say that the fall of the leaf is ill-omened and the change of the fresh fig into the dry and of grapes into raisins; for all these are changes from a previous state into a new one. This is not destruction but an ordered dispensation and government of things. Going abroad is a slight change; death is a greater change—from what now is, not to what is not, but to what is not now.


'Shall I then be no more?'


You will not be, but something else will be, of which the world now has need; for indeed you came into being, not when you willed it, but when the world had need. "


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Like · Reply · February 23 at 6:43pm · Edited

Elli Pensa Epicurus speaks about everything and all the stoic shit have to be SILENT now ! ======>> Epicurus to Menoeceus: Greetings.


Let no one delay to philosophize while he is young nor weary in philosophizing when he is old, for no one is either short of the age or past the age for enjoying health of the soul. And the man who says the time for philosophizing has not yet come or is already past may be compared to the man who says the time for happiness is not yet come or is already gone by. So both the young man and the old man should philosophize, the former that while growing old he may be young in blessings because of gratitude for what has been, the latter that he may be young and old at the same time because of the fearlessness with which he faces the future. Therefore the wise plan is to practice the things that make for happiness, since possessing happiness we have everything and not possessing it we do everything to have it.


THE GODS


Both practice and study the precepts which I continuously urged upon you, discerning these to be the A B C’s of the good life. First of all, believing the divine being to be blessed and incorruptible, just as the universal idea of it is outlined in our minds, associate nothing with it that is incompatible with incorruption or alien to blessedness. And cultivate every thought concerning it that can preserve its blessedness along with incorruption. Because there are gods, for the knowledge of them is plain to see. They are not, however, such as many suppose them to be, for people do not keep their accounts of them consistent with their beliefs. And it is not the man who would abolish the gods of the multitude who is impious but the man who associates the beliefs of the multitude with the gods; for the pronouncements of the multitude concerning the gods are not innate ideas but false assumptions. According to their stories the greatest injuries and indignities are said to be inflicted upon evil men, and also benefits.


THE GODS INDIFFERENT TO WICKEDNESS

[These stories are false, because the gods], being exclusively devoted to virtues that become themselves, feel an affinity for those like themselves and regard all that is not of this kind as alien.


DEATH


Habituate yourself to the belief that death is nothing to us, because all good and evil lies in consciousness and death is the loss of consciousness. Hence a right understanding of the fact that death is nothing to us renders enjoyable the mortality of life, not by adding infinite time but by taking away the yearning for immortality, for there is nothing to be feared while living by the man who has genuinely grasped the idea that there is nothing to be feared when not living.

So the man is silly who says that he fears death, not because it will pain him when it comes, but because it pains him in prospect; for nothing that occasions no trouble when present has any right to pain us in anticipation. Therefore death, the most frightening of evils, is nothing to us, for the excellent reason that while we live it is not here and when it is here we are not living. So it is nothing either to the living or to the dead, because it is of no concern to the living and the dead are no longer.


THE INCONSISTENCY OF PEOPLE


But the multitude of men at one time shun death as the greatest of evils and at another choose death as an escape from the evils of life. The wise man, however, neither asks quarter of life nor has he any fear of not living, for he has no fault to find with life nor does he think it any evil to be out of it. Just as in the case of food, he does not always choose the largest portion but rather the most enjoyable; so with time, he does not pick the longest span of it but the most enjoyable.


And the one who bids the young man ‘Live well’ and the old man ‘Die well’ is simple-minded, not only because of the pleasure of being alive, but also for the reason that the art of living well and dying well is one and the same. And far worse is he who says: ‘It were well never to have been born or having been born to have passed with all speed through the gates of Hades.’ For if he is saying this out of conviction, why does he not take leave of life? Because this course is open to him if he has resolutely made up his mind to it. But if he is speaking in mockery, he is trifling in the case of things that do not countenance trifling.


(to be continued)
Like · Reply · February 23 at 6:51pm

Elli Pensa 'THE FUTURE


As for the future, we must bear in mind that it is not quite beyond our control nor yet quite within our control, so that we must neither await it as going to be quite within our control nor despair of it as going to be quite beyond our control.


THE DESIRES


As for the desires, we should reflect that some are natural and some are imaginary; and of the natural desires some are necessary and some are natural only; and of the necessary desires some are necessary to happiness [he refers to friendship], and others to the comfort of the body [clothing and housing], and others to life itself [hunger and thirst].


Because a correct appraisal of the desires enables us to refer every decision to choose or to avoid to the test of the health of the body and the tranquillity of the soul, for this is the objective of the happy life. For to this end we do everything, that we may feel neither pain nor fear. When once this boon is in our possession, every tumult of the soul is stilled, the creature having nothing to work forward to as something lacking or something additional to seek whereby the good of the soul and the body shall arrive at fullness. For only then have we need of pleasure when from the absence of pleasure we feel pain; and conversely, when we no longer feel pain we no longer feel need of pleasure.


THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE HAPPY LIFE


And for the following reason we say that pleasure is the beginning and the end of the happy life: because we recognize pleasure as the first good and connate with us and to this we have recourse as to a canon, judging every good by the reaction. And for the reason that pleasure is the first good and of one nature with us we do not choose every pleasure but at one time or another forgo many pleasures when a distress that will outweigh them follows in consequence of these pleasures; and many pains we believe to be preferable to pleasures when a pleasure that will outweigh them ensues for us after enduring those pains for a long time.


Therefore every pleasure is good because it is of one nature with us but every pleasure is not to be chosen; by the same reasoning every pain is an evil but every pain is not such as to be avoided at all times.


EXPEDIENCY: THE CALCULUS OF ADVANTAGE


The right procedure, however, is to weigh them against one another and to scrutinize the advantages and disadvantages; for we treat the good under certain circumstances as an evil and conversely the evil as a good.


SELF-SUFFICIENCY OR CONTENTMENT WITH LITTLE


And self-sufficiency we believe to be a great good, not that we may live on little under all circumstances but that we may be content with little when we do not have plenty, being genuinely convinced that they enjoy luxury most who feel the least need of it; that every natural appetite is easily gratified but the unnatural appetite difficult to gratify; and that plain foods bring a pleasure equal to that of a luxurious diet when all the pain originating in need has been removed; and that bread and water bring the most utter pleasure when one in need of them brings them to his lips.


Thus habituation to simple and inexpensive diets not only contributes to perfect health but also renders a man unshrinking in face of the inevitable emergencies of life; and it disposes us better toward the times of abundance that ensue after intervals of scarcity and renders us fearless in the face of Fortune. When therefore we say that pleasure is the end we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in high living, as certain people think, either not understanding us and holding to different views or willfully misrepresenting us; but we mean freedom from pain in the body and turmoil in the soul. For it is not protracted drinking bouts and revels nor yet sexual pleasures with boys and women nor rare dishes of fish and the rest – all the delicacies that the luxurious table bears – that beget the happy life but rather sober calculation, which searches out the reasons for every choice and avoidance and expels the false opinions, the source of most of the turmoil that seizes upon the souls of men.


THE PRACTICAL REASON


Of all these virtues the source is the practical reason, the greatest good of all – and hence more precious than philosophy itself – teaching us the impossibility of living pleasurably without living according to reason, honor, and justice, and conversely, of living according to reason, honor, and justice without living pleasurably; for the virtues are of one nature with the pleasurable life and conversely, the pleasurable life is inseparable from the virtues.


DESCRIPTION OF THE HAPPY MAN

“Because who do you think is in better case than the man who holds pious beliefs concerning the gods and is invariably fearless of death; and has included in his reckoning the end of life as ordained by Nature; and concerning the utmost of things good discerns this to be easy to enjoy to the full and easy of procurement, while the utmost of things evil is either brief in duration or brief in suffering.


He has abolished the Necessity that is introduced by some thinkers as the mistress of all things, for it were better to subscribe to the myths concerning the gods than to be a slave to the Destiny of the physicists, because the former presumes a hope of mercy through worship but the latter assumes Necessity to be inexorable.


As for Fortune, he does not assume that she is a goddess, as the multitude believes, for nothing is done at random by a god; neither does he think her a fickle cause, for he does not suppose that either good or evil is dealt out to men by her to affect life’s happiness; yet he does believe the starting points for great good or evil to originate with her, thinking it better to plan well and fail than to plan badly and succeed, for in the conduct of life it profits more for good judgment to miscarry than for misjudgment to prosper by chance.


THINK ON THESE THINGS


Meditate therefore by day and by night upon these precepts and upon the others that go with these, whether by yourself or in the company of another like yourself, and never will your soul be in turmoil either sleeping or waking but you will be living like a god among men, for in no wise does a man resemble a mortal creature who lives among immortal blessings.
Like · Reply · February 23 at 6:51pm

Vagelis Baltatzis Elli Pensa I am here in a friendly discussion with Cassius Amicus.


I responded to a point of the table and gave evidence from the stoic works for it. ...See More
Like · Reply · February 23 at 7:04pm

Ilkka Vuoristo [admin hat]

Yup. This discussion is now taking a break for at least 8 hours.
Like · Reply · 3 · February 23 at 7:06pm

Cassius Amicus Vagelis: I am sorry I was away this afternoon and could not respond sooner. There are many references on the internet to sentiments like the graphic below from Eusebius, who would be expected to know the situation but whom I have not quoted so far in my chart in preference for actual Stoics. As to your Epictetus quote I do not find that to be particularly clear, especially in light of the underlying divine fire context that is typical of stoicism - if you have others please post them. In the meantime I believe the following from Eusebius to be more representative. Also there are many references to this quote from Marcus Aurelius who is willing to entertain, at least, an afterlife, which to an Epicurean would be a very dangerous and damaging admission of a fantasy:: "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” —Marcus Brian Aurelius


Also Lactantius: CHAP. XVIII.—THE PYTHAGOREANS AND STOICS, WHILE THEY HOLD THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, FOOLISHLY PERSUADE A VOLUNTARY DEATH.

Others, again, discuss things contrary to these, namely, that the soul survives after death; and these are chiefly the Pythagoreans and Stoics. And although they are to be treated with indulgence because they perceive the truth, yet I cannot but blame them, because they fell upon the truth not by their opinion, but by accident. And thus they erred in some degree even in that very matter which they rightly perceived. For, since they feared the argument by which it is inferred that the soul must necessarily die with the body, because it is born with the body, they asserted that the soul is not born with the body, but rather introduced into it, and that it migrates from one body to another. They did not consider that it was possible for the soul to survive the body, unless it should appear to have existed previously to the body. There is therefore an equal and almost similar error on each side. But the one side are deceived with respect to the past, the other with respect to the future. For no one saw that which is most true, that the soul is both created and does not die, because they were ignorant why that came to pass, or what was the nature of man. Many therefore of them, because they suspected that the soul is immortal, laid violent hands upon themselves, as though they were about to depart to heaven. Thus it was with Cleanthes 441 and Chrysippus, 442 with Zeno, 443 and Empedocles, 444 who in the dead of night cast himself into a cavity of the burning Ætna, that when he had suddenly disappeared it might be believed that he had departed to the gods; and thus also of the Romans Cato died, who through the whole of his life was an imitator of Socratic p. 89 ostentation. For Democritus 445 was of another persuasion. But, however, “By his own spontaneous act he offered up his head to death; “ 446

Like · Reply · 2 · February 23 at 10:19pm · Edited

Vagelis Baltatzis Cassius Amicus , this is ok. this is fb. We all have our everyday lifes ,work, responsibilites etc. . Its normal to comment after many hours. It is not like some teens in youtube comments , where they have to answer fast in order to appear as "winners" . This is a discussion about history of philosophy, which takes time and effort.


To be honest I think Lactantius and Eusebius are not trustworthly. They are Christians and write some 100 or 150 years later than Marc Aurel . They read hellenistic philosophy through their own christian bias and they want to see christian "truths" in pagan philosophers. It is very easy to misunderstand stoic philosophy if you have a christian background. Lactantius confuses here the Pythagorians with the Stoics. With this logic , we should also look at the christian description of Epicurianism to learn about Epicurianism.


Marc Aurel did not wrote a presentation of stoic philosophy. He was a stoic philosopher , but the Meditations are his personal diary . In a diary you write many thoughts and existential doubts that came in your mind, not just a presentation of the X or Y philosophical system. As I understand this point of Mark Aurel, he takes different possibilities and says that everything is fine. As a matter of fact, we do not know 100 % what happens after our death. It is similar to the arguments of Socrates in his Apology .


The few survived stoic works that we have are from Epictetus ,Musonius Rufus and very few pages of Hierocles. Seneca has some platonic elements, hence we should check Seneca with Epictetus . Even Epictetus and Seneca do not have a formal stoic presentation, but there is a vivid discussion with students and their questions and problems.


Epictetus and Musonis Rufus nowhere say something about soul surving after death. From a stoic point of view , god is nature. Our elements are part of Nature. They will go back to form other objects, but our consciousness ends.


I think we should understand the philosophers from their own eyes . Epictetus is very clear on this . He answers "you will not be" and he makes an naturalistic analogy between our death and the harvesting of corn(ear is an old word of corn) , with the grapes -> raisins or the fresh fig -> dry fig


To be honest, I am surprised that you think Epictetus may have afterlife views, because Epictetus wants to cure the fear of death , which may come from a wish to have immortality. It is not death that we are afraid of. We fear our idea of death according to Epictetus.


Another source of Epictetus that death is the end of our consciousness( and this is natural and normal) .


"He has given me senses and primary conceptions; and when he does not provide necessaries, he sounds the recall, he opens the door and says, "Come." Where? To nothing you need fear, but to that whence you were born, to your friends and kindred, the elements. So much of you as was fire shall pass into fire, what was earth shall pass into earth, the spirit into spirit, the water into water. There is no Hades, nor Acheron, nor Cocytus, nor Pyriphlegethon, but all is full of gods and divine beings. "


PS. gods/god are the elements .

god is the Universe/Cosmos. the word "god" is very misunderstood today , because of Christtianity. It should be better to say the Universe is an organism, in other words that biology and physics are interconnected.


Epictetus Discourses book 3, CHAPTER XIII


WHAT A 'FORLORN' CONDITION MEANS, AND A 'FORLORN' MAN


p.366


I think it is fair, in light of the evidence, to correct the point 6 and to write : according to the survived works of "authentic" Stoics like

Epictetus ,Musonius Rufus , the stoic view is that death is the end of consciousness and this is a natural process . According to some later writers, some earlier Stoics (but we do not have their actual works to judge) may also had the view that the material soul survives until the next εκπύρωση(ekpyrosis).
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:39pm · Edited

Vagelis Baltatzis on POINT 11)" is Life a thing of value ? "


you write about the stoic position only "Do not consider life to be a thing of value "


To be honest, I think its polemical and unjust to write only this as the stoic answer, without to explain the full story from the stoic perspective. You write only this for the only people in the ancient world who were against the death penalty and against the (common in the ancient world) exposure of infants.


Firstly, I will give citations for their view to prove that stoically its rational and in our nature to love and to respect the human life and then I will give citations about stoic applied ethics about the death penalty and the ancient child exposure.


On point 11 , the term "indifference" is a stoic technical term, which is not similar to the everyday use of the word indifference. The technical term "indifference" means something that is not a necessary condition of my wellbeing(eudaimonia,ataraxia). Life and death are natural processes of the Universe .Its natural that we all are going to die . Many people we know have died or will die , becausee of age,sickness etc. If some people die, this will not hamper necessarily my eudaimonia(wellbeing) and also if they life , this does not mean that I have eudaimonia necessarily. This can be observed easily as many people ,who have dead relatives are happy, and many people , who have alive relatives are not happy. This means that life and death are not necessary conditions on our wellbeing. We only think that they are and this thinking may decrease our wellbeing.


So, life is an ""indifferent" but it is a preferred "indifferent"(προηγμένο αδιάφορο-proegmeno adiaphoro) like health, sex, marriage, wealth etc. They are not necessary conditions of our wellbeing(as also people who do not have them can be happy) , but they are preferred . For example we prefer to have health and we tace care of out body and mind, but even if we were sick , even then we could be happy.


"{61} Again, of things indifferent, they call some preferred (proēgmena), and others rejected (apoproēgmena). Those are preferred, which have some proper value (axian), and those are rejected, which have no value at all (apaxian echonta). And by the term proper value, they mean that quality of things, which causes them to concur in producing a well-regulated life; and in this sense, every good has a proper value. Again, they say that a thing has value, when in some point of view, it has a sort of intermediate power of aiding us to live conformably to nature; and under this class, we may range riches or good health, if they give any assistance to natural life. Again, value is predicated of the price which one gives for the attainment of an object, which some one, who has experience of the object sought, fixes as its fair price; as if we were to say, for instance, that as some wheat was to be exchanged for barley, with a mule thrown in to make up the difference. [106] G Those goods then are preferred, which have a value, as in the case of the mental goods, ability, skill, improvement, and the like; and in the case of the corporeal goods, LIFE, health, strength, a good constitution, soundness, beauty; and in the case of external goods, riches, glory, nobility of birth, and the like"


Diogenes Laertius :Stoic Doctrines (2)

Sections 94-159


https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…I5svQ9MAWSREk7o


Also ,


"In the same way though life is indifferent, the way you deal with it is not indifferent. Therefore, when you are told 'These things also are indifferent', do not be careless, and when you are urged to be careful, do not show a mean spirit and be overawed by material things."


Epictetus Discourses, book 2,


CHAPTER VI


ON WHAT IS MEANT BY 'INDIFFERENT' THINGS


The stoic philosophical position is the middle way between asceticism(in the modern sense) and self-indulgence.


STOIC APPLIED ETHICS


As we see , although life is an stoic "indifferent", out approach to life(to ours and to the life of others) is not indifferent and it is antistoic to be indiffirent towards life. Stoicism and at particular Epictetus ' teaching is about humanism and admiration to the human lives . He even writes that the death penalty(even for criminals) is wrong and inhuman(he writes this 2.000 years ago, in an age where human life was not much worth in the contemporary ancient roman culture). Even 50 years ago this idea of Epictetus would be revoltionary. Even today in some parts of the USA and China this idea of Epictetus is revoltionary. Do you know of any other ancient who were against the death penalty(even for criminals) ?


"What!' you say. 'Ought not this robber and this adulterer to be put to death?'


Nay, say not so, but rather, 'Should I not destroy this man who is in error and delusion about the greatest matters and is blinded not merely in the vision which distinguishes white and black, but in the judgement which distinguishes good and evil?' If you put it this way, you will recognize how inhuman your words are; that it is like saying, 'Should I not kill this blind man, or this deaf one?' For if the greatest harm that can befall one is the loss of what is greatest, and a right will is the greatest thing in every one, is it not enough for him to lose this, without incurring your anger besides? Man, if you must needs harbour unnatural feelings at the misfortune of another, pity him rather than hate him; give up this spirit of offence and hatred: do not use these phrases which the backbiting multitude use, 'These accursed and pestilent fools'."


Epictetus, Discourses, book 1 , CHAPTER XVIII


THAT WE SHOULD NOT BE ANGRY AT MEN'S ERRORS

p.256


Furthermore (and this is also for point 10 about children and women, although I will write another day only for point 10) , in the ancient grecoroman world it was morally accepted to expose the infants if they family could not economically afford them or(often) if they were girls. Sex-selection was very common in the ancient world and most families (indirectly by exposing) killed most of their female infants.


https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…I7Uo3cj1FqB_O3E


Guess who were against infanticide ? The "inhuman" Stoics ! Especially Musonius Rufus , the teacher of Epictetus


XV.

EI ΠANTA TA ΓΙNOMENA TEKNA ΘPEΠTEON

XV

SHOULD EVERY CHILD THAT IS BORN BE RAISED?


https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…QvATFz0qEdKNKM0


(I will not post the text here, it would be to difficult for the reader. Its already to difficult. You can read the text in the above link. As I said above this is also for point 10 about children and women, because often infanticide was done for female children.
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:53pm · Edited

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Elli Pensa Vagelis Baltatzis You misunderstood the shit was not for you. Was for the teachings of your teacher Epictetus who was slandered Epicurus in a worst way.
Like · Reply · February 23 at 10:18pm

Vagelis Baltatzis It is not appropriate to call someone names if you disagree with them . I also disagree with Epicurus on many points . I did not say that Epicurus is shit.


Maybe Epictetus was wrong in this view of the Epicurians. Maybe he was right. He lived in a time with actual Epicurians and maybe knew their teaching better than me and you. Maybe he was biased . That's not the point.


The point is that disagreement with arguments is a healthy thing in the philosophical pursuit. But if we start to insult Epicurus, Epictetus ,Aristoteles etc only because we disagree with them, then the philosophical discussion is stoned to death ..
Like · Reply · February 24 at 10:01pm · Edited

Elli Pensa Epictetus DID NOT USE THE CANON. Actually he did not use any kind of reasoning according to Nature. Epicurus did not know the epicurean philosophy better than any Epicurean in every era.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 2:34pm

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Jimmy Daltrey I thought "heaven" was a far far later innovation, not even the early Christians thought that the dead went to heaven, but that the dead were kind of sleeping and would come back to life. Souls were considered to be substantial and either hung around for a bit or dispersed. You have Elysium, Hades and Tartarus, but I honestly don't know that the Athenian philosophers thought them to be real. I get the impression most were agnostic about an afterlife.
Like · Reply · February 24 at 9:01am · Edited

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Jason Baker It is helpful to be clear on what is meant by heaven. Is it the intermundia, the space between physical worlds, is it the intermundia, the space between ideal worlds, is it the place where clouds race, is it the place where the gods dwell? Does your so...See More
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 1:48pm

Jimmy Daltrey If Cassius Amicus could elaborate it would be good. I doubt very much Cicero meant the book came from the realm of the dead. It would be most ironic if he meant it came from the gods.
Like · Reply · February 24 at 1:56pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus Jimmy Daltrey Oh I think that the meaning WAS that if fell from the gods, but with the important qualifier of "as if" and/or tongue in cheek humorous implication, as of course that could not happen.
Like · Reply · 3 · February 24 at 4:40pm

Alexander Rios Plato's gods (stars, moon, sun, planets ...) gave it (our faculties) to us, so we could set Plato straight, because he gave them (his gods) so much boring tedious work to do.

</sarcasm>
Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 6:32pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey I'm lost, what does Platos gods have to do with Epicurus or Stoics?
Like · Reply · February 24 at 6:18pm

Alexander Rios First, I was just playing...


but much of Epicurus' philosophy is a counter reaction to Platos' philosophy. The Stoics didn't show up until Epicurus was old, and even so they were negligible (not popular during his lifetime). The state promoted Plato. Platonism was everywhere during his youth.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 25 at 2:56pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey That's what I was thinking. Plato is the Theist in this story. The quarrels with the Stoics seems to be later and centred on free will from the Epicurean side and human kinship from the Stoics. Both are materialistic with naturalistic ethics.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 2:59pm

Alexander Rios I don't know much about the Stoics, but their Providence, Universal Reason, talk of Sacrifice, accepting your Fate, and pursuit of Virtue... stink of Religion to me, even if they claim no supernaturalism.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 4:24pm

Jimmy Daltrey There is a teleological element, arguing from nature a flower will flower, a river will flow downstream, a horse will run and a dog will bark, virtue is simply acting in accordance with your nature. The principle point of disagreement between Epicureans and Stoics is whether pleasure or reason is primary in humans. I haven't got to the Skeptics yet.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 5:08pm

Jimmy Daltrey The virtues are no different in Epicureanism. https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…XzjMzCzpOKijZWE however the emphasis is different.
Epicurus | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Epicurus is one of the major philosophers in the Hellenistic period, the three centuries following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E. (and of
IEP.UTM.EDU

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Jimmy Daltreyhttps://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…FTQN_gtOaWdmIEE

Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics
AMAZON.CO.UK

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · February 25 at 5:23pm

Jimmy Daltrey I hope I'm not sidetracking your group, I find this very interesting, but if it isn't the kind of debate you'd like, let me know. (I am an atheist btw)
Like · Reply · February 25 at 5:33pm · Edited

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Matt Jackson As I am somewhat of a newcomer to Epicurean philosophy it might be good to see my perspective. I'm an avowed materialist and naturalist, rabidly so. I formerly pursued idealist paths so I am very well versed in that area. So all Providence and idealism is out. I do not believe in managing and suppressing my emotions as in Buddhism and Vedanta and seeing the world as an illusion. I am drawn to hedonism as I believe NOTHING supersedes my personal pleasure (barring the obvious wellbeing of my loved ones as that is inextricably tied to my happiness). What would the benefits of Stoicism be for me given the description I have relayed to you?


Just curious, if you were hypothetically trying to sell someone on it?


* I'm just looking for a list of perceived positive things. No arguments, just what you think the positive things would be.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 24 at 6:20pm · Edited

Vagelis Baltatzis Actually you did this question in the epicurian group . I could give you an answer from a stoic point of view , but obviously you are here to hear the epicurian point of view on your question. Hence, I will be silent.


But, later you should also make this question to stoic fora and also ask about Epicurianism in stoic fora to have all views. Generally take also the modern scientific point of view in consideration. Have a critical and open mind and not fanatize yourself with philosophical views/schools( not from the past, neither from the modern age) . If it works for you , then its fine . just my 2c
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Neo Anderthal you will get herd control under equilibrium conditions judgding from historical perspectives
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Cassius Amicus In terms of an afterlife for those who deserve it ("heroes") this from Diogenes Laertius in his book on the Stoics is quite clear:


"151. Hence, again, their explanation of the mixture of two substances is, according to Chrysippus in the third book of his Physics, that they permeate each other through and through, and that the particles of the one do not merely surround those of the other or lie beside them. Thus, if a little drop of wine be thrown into the sea, it will be equally diffused over the whole sea for a while and then will be blended[67] with it. Also they hold that there are daemons (δαίμονες) who are in sympathy with mankind and watch over human affairs. ***They believe too in heroes, that is, the souls of the righteous that have survived their bodies."***
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 10:10pm

Cassius Amicus Even MORE clear from the same source: "Nature in their view is an artistically working fire, going on its way to create; which is equivalent to a fiery, creative, or fashioning breath. And the soul is a nature capable of perception. And they regard it as the breath of life, congenital with us; from which they infer first that it is a body and secondly that it survives death. Yet it is perishable, though the soul of the universe, of which the individual souls of animals are parts, is indestructible. 157. Zeno of Citium and Antipater, in their treatises De anima, and Posidonius define the soul as a warm breath; for by this we become animate and this enables us to move. Cleanthes indeed holds that all souls continue to exist until the general conflagration; but Chrysippus says that only the souls of the wise do so.[71]"
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 10:11pm

Vagelis Baltatzis This is from Diogenes Laertius who writes about the older Stoics. We do not have actual works of them to judge. In my opinion we should always give priority to the actual works, especially if there is a conflicting teaching.


But even in the acount of Diogenes Laeritus , firstly the demons and the heroes are quasi mythical beings like the epicurian gods.


The epicurians gods in the metacosmia(between the worlds) are also immortal if I am not mistaken. Does this mean that Epicurus believed in immortality ?


The wise are a role model , not actual people like you and me . No Stoic said that he was wise.


According to Diogenes Laertius , only Cleanthes hold the view that all souls exist until the next conflagation, and even then we do not know really what he believed or if the continuation of the soul (until he next ekpyrosis ) impies continuation of the self identity.


Musonius Rufus and Epictetus speak many times about death and the fear of death many people have. In no occasion do they say that a self identity continues after death. They want that people overcame the fear of death. But they say nothing of an personal afterlife. The opposite, Epictetus says that "you will not be " , and compares us with the corn and the grapes after they die .


We should give priority to the actual stoic works we have and not to compilations about ideas hundreds years ago of their age(especially if its a disagreement) . We should say the opinion of Epictetus and we should also include in the second paragraph that according to Diogeners Lertius this and this ..


Look also at my comment and citations about point 11 of the table.
Like · Reply · February 24 at 11:24pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus "The epicurians gods in the metacosmia(between the worlds) are also immortal if I am not mistaken. Does this mean that Epicurus believed in immortality?" For the gods, yes.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 11:22pm

Alexander Rios Some translations say the gods were/are incorruptible and do not say immortal.


Does incorruptibility mean immortality? Is immortality binary or on a relative scale?


I've been adjusting my opinion on the subject of real gods, after reading Lindsay's "Everyone's Wrong about God".


Lindsay argues that before Christianity, "immortality" was a relative scale, and not just binary (yes/no). So a being whose lifespan could exceed the lifespan of a human by an order of magnitude would effectively be considered immortal by a human.


Thinking about what a real god could be. My own ideas...


We speak of real gods, with bodies, senses, souls (nervous systems) made from bound elementary particles. They have maximal felicity. All good and evil come by sensation.


Perhaps incorruptibility means they can not be misled, from following their nature, their senses, instincts and feelings.


Their bodies must be made of bound elementary particles whose bonds can be cleaved, because they need to have internal movements to maintain themselves, to eat, and to grow up too. They can learn too, and recall the past, and make predictions (visualize futures), so they must have internal movements (reorganize their brains).


Perhaps they have regenerative capabilities similar to other animals that can regenerate cleaved limbs.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 25 at 11:26pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus Alexander have you read the section of On the Nature of the Gods.... The idea seemed to have been that the Gods have control of their atoms and the ability to replace them continuously. I think DeWitt says deathlrss rather than immortal. It may well be that effective deathlessness is readily reachable with technology so although the same race of beings was not originally deathlrss (from eternity) but eventually achieved deathlessness.
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Jimmy Daltrey I still don't see any suggestion of a heavenly afterlife or suggestions of a non-physical realm, where souls of the dead may go (which are like air, but still matther). Is there a non physical realm? The closest to that would appear to be the metacosmia", you've refer to. If the gods are in the void between atoms can they be physical? I thought that for Hellenic philosophers in general, the gods were physical beings, immortal, but material.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 12:28pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus I think underlying this question as to the gods and also the question of the afterlife is the disagreement between Stoics and Epicureans as to what type of "material" we are talking about. The Epicurean position on the gods is in the Velleius presentation of Cicero's "On the Nature of the Gods" but the bottom line is that for Epicureans ALL things - including gods, men, and souls, are made of natural and inanimate atoms. In that framework there is no room for ambiguity as to continuation of ANYTHING that is uniquely "you" after death other than the atoms themselves. The Stoics and others were hedging by focusing on a "Divine fire" that is infused and/or animated by "reason," and so there was a strong implication of transmigration of souls such as even in the Epictetus quote posted above, or even outright life after death in the references to the "heroes". Again the bottom line is that most everyone but the Epicureans were looking for comfort in finding themselves to be part of some divine scheme controlled by a divine reason, and as a result they were content to hand themselves over to their destinies (since those were determined by the gods). Epicurus rejected in absolutely clear terms supernatural gods, out--of-body souls, or continuation of your uniqueness in any way. And that is why regardless of the stoic ambiguity as to what happens after death (leading to Marcus Aurelius fluttering hopelessly in the wind) the fundamental disagreement between Epicurean and Stoic was wide as could be.


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Jimmy Daltrey Sorry Cassius, I still don't get it. Even the divine fire is fire not a Christian style "Holy ghost". There was a kind of vitalism at the time, however again, the "life force" was an airy, firey real thing, not some supernatural emanation. If this "soul" or "life force" could live separately from the cadaver, or indeed move from being to another is moot and nobody is really sure, however. It is a "thing" in the same way a rock is a thing. in fact, from a monistic point of view, there is nothing but "things" in different forms. Even thoughts are things. Excuse me for questioning you, but the dualism you appear to be addressing isn't within these traditions. Are you thinking of the Platonists or Pythagoreans?
Like · Reply · February 25 at 1:22pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus No need to excuse your self for questioning me! I am just another researcher trying to do the best I can. and part of the issue here is that I am not primarily interested in opposing modern stoicism or anyone else, except as it appears as a result of trying to clarify Epicurean philosophy, which is my main goal. So I can't afford the time to survey every stoic who ever lived as that's not my purpose. I have to rely on the gerneralizatons that are supported by credible people from the period and most all that I read points to stoicism having a model of a universe wirh every component (including souls) ordered by a central organizer. Not everyone will agree with this but I think a practical result of the model is for normal people to believe that their souls are part of this divine order and surrender to the idea that they belong to God for eternity and thus to trust Him for whatever happens later. I think that explains the stoic Christian affinity and I think that was terrible for the history of the world.
Like · Reply · 6 · February 25 at 1:31pm

Jimmy Daltrey As I understand Monism there is no God and Us dichotomy. Everything is made up of matter and there is nothing outside it, nothing that is not matter, nothing that is not of the same stuff as us. You appear to be describing Plato, whose theory of insubstantial forms, a transcendent "One", and supernatural souls were picked up on by the Christians from the Neo-Platonists. The Christians (I know a bit about Christians) picked up on Stoic ethics but the theology is dualistic and Platonic but I know at least that the Stoics were monistic materialists. There is only the physical world.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 1:54pm

Cassius Amicus Jimmy I never hear you use the term "divine fire." Why not? "The principle of the nature of the Divine Fire gives understanding as to Phusis being the intelligent and purposeful Whole of which we are a part – hence the idea that each individual is a ‘spark of the Divine Fire’."https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…zo6HyMESi0LKL6s
Like · Reply · February 25 at 6:30pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey Cassius I did mention divine fire two posts up when we were discussing the holy ghost. As I understand it this is pneuma, the life force, which pervades all matter. Kind of like an energy field (perhaps). Everything is just energy is the way I look at it. I suppose the bloke who wrote that blog can see it it as a god, like Spinoza I suppose, but I don't think anyone is postulating a transcendent fella like Jehovah. Richard Dawkins calls pantheism "sexed up atheism", Einstein was a pantheist apparently and here's Hawking: "However, if we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable by everyone, not just by a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we should know the mind of God. (p.193)"
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 25 at 7:20pm · Edited

Alexander Rios Hawkings deeply regrets saying that. See his subsequent works where he makes amends for saying/writing that mess.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 26 at 10:01am

Jimmy Daltrey I only took it as a metaphor. This is Einstein ; . He remarked that “the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously”. When asked if he believed in God, Einstein explained: “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”
Like · Reply · February 26 at 1:24pm · Edited

Alexander Rios Yes. Ok. Spoken by the man who died without accepting the consequences of quantum indeterminacy (swerve).
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 7:02pm

Jimmy Daltrey Lol..The ancient Greeks were silent on general relativity.....Nobody is perfect...The point is that Einstein and Hawking use God as a metaphor for the laws of nature. Neither believed in a big bloke with a beard passing moral judgements.
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Jimmy Daltrey My view is, on a day to day basis, wherever are made up of waves or particles, it doesn't really make any difference. It's how we live our lives that is important. Keep a clear head and don't screw it up.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 7:46pm

Alexander Rios The standard model, is particles. That's what the experimentalists detect. It can all be cast into field theory too, but nobody detects fields... they compute fields... fields are abstractions of those models.
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Cassius Amicus Just for completeness in this thread, I should include here what we Epicureans ought to consider of great reliability in understanding the stoic view of divinity - the testimony of the Epicurean Velleius as recorded by Cicero in "On the Nature of the Gods," in which he refers to "He (Chryssipus) attributes divinity to the sun, moon, stars, and universal space, the grand container of all things, and to those men likewise who have obtained immortality", The full cite is:


“Zeno (to come to your sect, Balbus) thinks the law of Nature to be the divinity, and that it has the power to force us to what is right, and to restrain us from what is wrong. How this law can be an animated being I cannot conceive; but that God is so we would certainly maintain. The same person says, in another place, that the sky is God. But can we possibly conceive that God is a being insensible, deaf to our prayers, our wishes, and our vows, and wholly unconnected with us? In other books, he thinks there is a certain rational essence pervading all Nature, indued with divine efficacy. He attributes the same power to the stars, to the years, to the months, and to the seasons. In his interpretation of Hesiod’s Theogony, he entirely destroys the established notions of the Gods; for he excludes Jupiter, Juno, and Vesta, and those esteemed divine, from the number of them; but his doctrine is that these are names which by some kind of allusion are given to mute and inanimate beings. The sentiments of his disciple Aristo are not less erroneous. He thought it impossible to conceive the form of the Deity, and asserts that the Gods are destitute of sense; and he is entirely dubious whether the Deity is an animated being or not.”


“Cleanthes, who next comes under my notice, a disciple of Zeno at the same time with Aristo, in one place says that the world is God. In another, he attributes divinity to the mind and spirit of universal Nature. Then he asserts that the most remote, the highest, the all-surrounding, the all-enclosing and embracing heat, which is called the sky, is most certainly the Deity. In the books he wrote against pleasure, in which he seems to be raving, he imagines the Gods to have a certain form and shape; then he ascribes all divinity to the stars; and, lastly, he thinks nothing more divine than reason. So that this God, whom we know mentally and in the speculations of our minds, from which traces we receive our impression, has at last actually no visible form at all.”


“Persæus, another disciple of Zeno, says that they who have made discoveries advantageous to the life of man should be esteemed as Gods. The very things, he says, which are healthful and beneficial have derived their names from those of the Gods. He therefore thinks it not sufficient to call them the discoveries of Gods, but he urges that they themselves should be deemed divine. What can be more absurd than to ascribe divine honors to sordid and deformed things? Or to place among the Gods men who are dead and mixed with the dust, to whose memory all the respect that could be paid would be but mourning for their loss?”


“Chrysippus, who is looked upon as the most subtle interpreter of the dreams of the Stoics, has mustered up a numerous band of unknown Gods; and so unknown that we are not able to form any idea about them, though our mind seems capable of framing any image to itself in its thoughts. For he says that the divine power is placed in reason, and in the spirit and mind of universal Nature; that the world, with a universal effusion of its spirit, is God. He also says that the superior part of that spirit, which is the mind and reason, is the great principle of Nature, containing and preserving the chain of all things; that the divinity is the power of fate, and the necessity of future events. He deifies fire also, and what I before called the ethereal spirit, and those elements which naturally proceed from it — water, earth, and air. He attributes divinity to the sun, moon, stars, and universal space, the grand container of all things, and to those men likewise who have obtained immortality. He maintains the sky to be what men call Jupiter; the air, which pervades the sea, to be Neptune; and the earth, Ceres. In like manner he goes through the names of the other Deities. He says that Jupiter is that immutable and eternal law which guides and directs us in our manners; and this he calls fatal necessity, the everlasting verity of future events. But none of these are of such a Nature as to seem to carry any indication of divine virtue in them. These are the doctrines contained in his first book of the Nature of the Gods. In the second, he endeavors to accommodate the fables of Orpheus, Musæus, Hesiod, and Homer to what he has advanced in the first, in order that the most ancient poets, who never dreamed of these things, may seem to have been Stoics.”


“Diogenes the Babylonian was a follower of the doctrine of Chrysippus; and in that book which he wrote, entitled “A Treatise concerning Minerva,” he separates the account of Jupiter’s bringing-forth, and the birth of that virgin, from the fabulous, and reduces it to a natural construction.”
Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 7:10am

Jimmy Daltrey <<Zeno (to come to your sect, Balbus) thinks the law of Nature to be the divinity>> Pantheism. See my Einstein quote above. It would be an error to assume they were theists as we would understand modern Christians, Muslims or Jews. Remember that there is only the physical world, nothing can come from outside the physical world and there is no such thing as the supernatural or a spiritual realm. This is why i am an Igtheist. Before we start discussing Gods, we should establish what we mean by "God". To date, there is no consensus on what a God is, natural, supernatural, immanent or transendent, physical or spiritual, intervening or indifferent, so the question of "is there a god?" Is a bullshit question. We would be better off stopping lunatics teaching creationism in schools, preaching hellfire to gays and blowing themselves up in public spaces than trying to fit ancient Greeks into 21st century conceptions of what a god is or isn't. Every ancient Greek or Roman of any school, Epicurean or Platonist, would have sacrificed to the Gods. The Christians were in fact the first "atheists" in refusing to sacrifice to the State gods and were put to death for it.
Like · Reply · February 26 at 2:21pm · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey I remain an atheist btw ?
Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 2:22pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus " I remain an atheist btw ?" Then unless you restate your case in Epicurean terms, with a proper definition of a "god," you write yourself out of the Epicurean garden! [Please note the ]
Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 2:48pm

Jimmy Daltrey I don't think there are any spooky things intervening in our lives and when we die that's it. I think that covers it ?
Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 2:52pm

Cassius Amicus And neither did Epicurus! But that was not his definition of a god
Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 2:53pm

Jimmy Daltrey I don't believe in supermen living on hills either, or indifferent beings hiding in the gaps between atoms...What does intrigue me is how Epicurus accounted for such complexity in the universe, how matter organises itself into so many different complex structures, but it is early days in my reading, must get on with that.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 26 at 3:19pm

Cassius Amicus And Epicurus' gods did not live in hills, or hide in the gaps between atoms, either. We don't have the detail we would like due in part to the apparently missing final book of Lucretius, but Cicero/Velleius makes clear that any "gods" that exist would live in an environment that allowed thems to be selfsustaining and trouble-free (which is clearly not the Earth). As for the complexity of the universe both the letter to Herodotus (if I remember correctly) and Lucretius specifiy that we should logically conclude that the universe is filled with life, and if it is both eternal and infinite then we should expect to find not only deathless creatures, but numberless amounts of them. That's in my view also a logical reference to the "isonomia" principle mentioned by Velleius.

Manuel Andreas Knoll February 24 at 10:24pm

Writing a chapter on Epicurus and asking for your help: some authors claim that an example for a desire that is natural but not necessary is, for him, sexual desire, others that it would be exotic foods and drinks...is there a reliable source about that? Thanks!

Cassius Amicus My comment is that the implication of stating the question this way is going to lead to a fundamental misunderstanding. The authoritative statement from Epicurus is only this from the letter to Menoeceus: "We must consider that of desires some are natural, others vain, and of the natural some are necessary and others merely natural; and of the necessary some are necessary for happiness, others for the repose of the body, and others for very life. The right understanding of these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and (the soul’s) freedom from disturbance, since this is the aim of the life of blessedness. "


And close behind in authority is this from Torquatus in Cicero's "On Ends": “Nothing could be more instructive, more helpful to right living, than Epicurus's doctrine as to the different classes of the desires. One kind he classified as both natural and necessary, a second as natural without being necessary, and a third neither natural nor necessary. The principle of classification is that the necessary desires are gratified with little trouble or expense. The natural desires also require but little, since nature's own riches, which suffice to content her, are both easily procured and limited in amount. In contrast, for the imaginary desires no bound or limit can be discovered.”


You are not going to find a list of what fits under what category, and all suggestions that there is a hard and fast list are speculation and in my view contrary to the fundamentals of Epicurean philosophy. What we have instead is the statements in the letter to Menoeceus that " Every pleasure then because of its natural kinship to us is good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen: even as every pain also is an evil, yet not all are always of a nature to be avoided." ... "And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good."


All of the ones you have listed (sex, exotic food, exotic drink) are natural, but not necessary, but that does not at all answer the question as to whether a particular Epicurean would pursue them at a particular time and a particular place. Because:


"And again independence of desire we think a great good — not that we may at all times enjoy but a few things, but that, if we do not possess many, we may enjoy the few in the genuine persuasion that those have the sweetest enjoy luxury pleasure in luxury who least need it, and that all that is natural is easy to be obtained, but that which is superfluous is hard. And so plain savours bring us a pleasure equalto a luxurious diet, when all the pain due to want is removed; and bread and water produce the highest pleasure, when one who needs them puts them to his lips. To grow accustomed therefore to simple and not luxurious diet gives us health to the full, and makes a man alert for the needful employments of life, and when after long intervals we approach luxuries disposes us better towards them, and fits us to be fearless of fortune."


And in the Vatican sayings it is stated explicitly 63 "Frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess."


So my contention is that there is no absolute list of what desires should be engaged in or refrained from that apply to all men at all times and all places, which is what a list of explicit desires/pleasures would entail. Even the worst of debauchery would not be prohibited if in fact those choices led to pleasant living (PD10) And sometimes even fame and power can succeed in producing a pleasant life (PD7). It is easy enough to say that air and water are necessary and natural, and that Iphones are neither natural nor necessary, but that analysis really means nothing without knowledge of the context of the person making the decision about whether to choose or avoid it. All pleasure is "good," and there is no intrinsic "evil" in Epicurean philosophy other than pain itself. The categories are of assistance in thinking about the cost/benefit issues that are involved, but there is no list that everyone must follow - every person in every question must make the same analysis - what will happen to me if I choose or avoid this particular action? (Vatican 71: "Every desire must be confronted by this question: what will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished and what if it is not?")
Like · Reply · 8 · February 24 at 11:08pm · Edited

Manuel Andreas Knoll could you please give me the exact reference to Cicero's "On Ends"?
Like · Reply · February 25 at 5:28am

Cassius Amicus i don't have the line number Manuel but you can word search the paragraph and find it here and many other places - I have a link here to the Rackham version and i think it is on wikisource too -- https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…yod7H2UGq7qRx6w

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Cassius Amicus Looking for a page and line here - https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…rGj3a1-DhuAw-4Y
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, On Ends - De Finibus Bonorum Et Malorum
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Manuel Andreas Knoll Cassius Amicus Thanks a lot!
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Hiram Crespo PD 26. All desires that do not lead to pain when they remain unsatisfied are unnecessary, but the desire is easily got rid of, when the thing desired is difficult to obtain or the desires seem likely to produce harm.

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Hiram Crespo if it leads to pain when unsatisfied, it's necessary. if it doesn't, it's unnecessary.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 11:09pm

Cassius Amicus Good catch, Hiram! PD26 gives a slightly different slant than the one Cicero used, but from either standpoint it seems to me it always remains necessary to carry out the VS71 analysis: "Every desire must be confronted by this question: what will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished and what if it is not?"
Like · Reply · 3 · February 24 at 11:13pm

Ron Warrick Epicurean: Life is basically easy if you don't desire too much, so don't screw it up by indulging desires unnecessarily.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 24 at 11:20pm

Cassius Amicus However in relation to that it is clearly possible to err by not indulging desires enough: 63 "Frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess."
Like · Reply · 3 · February 24 at 11:21pm

Ron Warrick Cassius Amicus Exceeding the limit of frugality would indicate an unhealthy desire for something other than what a wise purchase might provide, so the "however" is in a way superfluous.
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Cassius Amicus Interesting to consider that PD26 implies that "unfulfilled desire" is not by definition painful in all cases, or else PD26 would make no sense. Next time we talk about the relationship of 'removal of pain" to pleasure (the 'replenishment' theory) we need to remember that cite
Like · Reply · 1 · February 24 at 11:38pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus The subtext churning beneath the question of the proper use of these categories is one of the biggest issues dividing people in understanding Epicurus today. Are we using these categories to (1) calibrate desire down toward a minimum target (pursuing ONLY what is natural AND necessary) or are we using the categories to (2) assist us in predicting the cost in pain of any action against the pleasure that would result (so as to attain the maximum pleasure at reasonable cost in pain)? I contend interpretation 1 is asceticism and stoicism and error, and that interpretation 2 is what Epicurus intended because it is compelled by pleasure as the guide of life and the short span of time in which we have to follow it. Why would anyone who is convinced that this life is all we have ever contend that we should accept less pleasure in life than is possible at a reasonable cost of pain? Cicero was right in stating that the Epicurean goal is "a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasure." The only way to avoid that conclusion is to rip the fabric out of pleasure as ordinarily understood by holding that Epicurus did not refer to ordinary pleasure but instead redefined "pleasure" as a mysterious negative ("absence of pain") - which is why the meaning and intent of that phrase is one of the other big controversies in Epicurean studies.
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Gary Purdy Oh, not calibrate, too much reason
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Manuel Andreas Knoll My weekend will be devoted to form an opinion on exactly this problem...I'd like to come out with (2) as a result (as you say, (1) is too close to stoicism and ascetism) but PD III and other statements point towards (1) and Marcuses's term "negative hedonism" for Epucurus...maybe the key is the interpretation of PD XVIII
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Cassius Amicus Manuel if you are studying this issue I have collected further cites and references to support my opinion here:https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…so2MwXacwLNHRkg

Full Cup Fullness of Pleasure Model
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Cassius Amicus I should also have mentioned Manuel that I completely agree that PD3 (and PD4) are troublesome when using the standard viewpoint, and IMO they must be judged as responses to Plato's philebus. That is what I go into in my link on the fullness of pleasure model...
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Manuel Andreas Knoll Thank you all! I guess I should have explained myself a bit better. My question started off by interpreting the fundamental classification in LM (DL X 127) in combination with PD 26 (DL X 148). That is why I doubt that sexual desires - clearly natural - are not necessary because if they remain not satified in the long run they will lead likely, and for most people, to some pain on a psycho-emotional level, frustration or perversions etc.. This not the case with exotic drinks and foods. So the latter seems to be a better example for a desire that is natural not not necessary. Would you agree?
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 25 at 2:03am · Edited

Ilkka Vuoristo You're seeking an artificially clear-cut answer to a question that _can't_ have one. All desires are had by individuals who have to discover which desires are necessary to themselves. Epicurean Philosophy doesn't contain a master list of the approved desires.


It's possible that most people would say that a good sexual relationship is a "must-have", but then there are people for whom sexual pleasure has no interest or who can easily ignore/replace it. The goal of the philosophy is to guide people in their choices, not to dictate which choices are the 'right' ones.


When we are talking about sexuality, we also have to remember that we are most likely missing a key part from the writings of Epicurus. The extant works say contrary things about it.
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 25 at 3:08am

Manuel Andreas Knoll Well, I am confronted with secondary literature that all presents clear-cut answers and I am questioning some of those....and in case of exotic food and beverages I'd say from a philosophical perspective there is a clear-cut answer that they are not necessary, however, many people feel pain if they can't afford them....I think philosophical guidance often means distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary desires...and I'd also say Epicurus was quite authoritative at times...isn't the standard the wise man and his desires?
Like · Reply · February 25 at 4:28am · Edited

Cassius Amicus Manuel I think the answer to your question has to come from realizing that Epicurus builds up from a foundation, and once established he does not contradict himself as he goes forward. The secondary literature is primarily stoic (or Aristotelian or Platonic or general anti-Epicurean) influenced and incorrectly forces Epicurus into their mode of thinking. If you have the time the best book that explores this the deepest in my view is Gosling & Taylor "The Greeks on Pleasure" - and in tracing back the history it is easier to see that the ascetic model of Epicurus cannot be correct. Yes Epicurus WAS authoritative - even dogmatic - on certain issues, but he was dogmatic first and foremost that success in pleasurable living (measured not by abstract "objective" reason but by the faculty of pleasure) is the only standard set by nature, and the means of achieving it are purely instrumental and will vary by context with the individual and the situation involved.


Another example of this which may be even more clear is to compare Epicurus in the PD40's as to justice (where is it cyrstal clear that justice is not absolute and varies from person to person and by situation) to the classic Cicero/Platonic/Stoic "true law is right reason in accord with nature ...and there will not be different laws in Rome and Athens..." formulation. The other philosophies are postulating a "reasonable man" standard emanating from the universal divine fire/god that will apply to everyone. In the non-supernatural atomistic infinite universe of Epicurus such a single standard is nonsense.
Like · Reply · 3 · February 25 at 6:37am

Manuel Andreas Knoll Thank you, this is all very helpful! And I like that interpretation that leaves room for individual differences and contexts...a confirmation could be Vatican 51 althought that is likely from Metrodorus
Like · Reply · 1 · February 25 at 6:51am

Cassius Amicus Exactly Manuel good catch! "You tell me that the stimulus of the flesh makes you too prone to the pleasures of love. Provided that you do not break the laws or good customs and do not distress any of your neighbors or do harm to your body or squander y...See More
Like · Reply · 1 · February 25 at 7:02am

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Cassius Amicus And whenever I mention books I have to suggest Manuel Norman DeWitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy" which flies in the face of most of the conventional secondary literature. A large part of the difficulty in reconciling how Epicurus' views on pleasure fit together is to realize that Epicurus was fighting Plato's premises and attacking the arguments made by Plato in Philebus as to limits and purity and mixed states. If you don't see the Anti-Platonism and understand that these arguments have a background and context, then it can indeed look like there are contradictions in Epicurus that make no sense. But understanding the background (such as that there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain, so that *quantitatively* it becomes a truism that absence of one means the presence of the other) is IMHO the key to seeing how these deep references (such as only needing pleasure when we have pain) fit together into the big picture.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 25 at 6:44am

Manuel Andreas Knoll Absolutely, the views in Plato's Philebus are a strong opponent for Epicurus, so was the Academy
Like · Reply · February 25 at 6:54am

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Cassius Amicus I fully agree with Ilkka Vuoristo on his full comment and in relation to this especially: "Epicurean Philosophy doesn't contain a master list of the approved desires." << That way of saying it reminds me to also point out the related observation that Epicurean Philosophy doesn't contain a master list of the HIGHER AND LOWER desires" either. We see all the time people influenced by other perspectives trying to say that natural and necessary are "HIGHER" desires (as if they are intrinsically more "noble" or "worthy" according to some mystical standard). That isn't supported in Epicurean theory at all - pleasure is pleasure, and the only natural standard is whether the activity in fact leads to more pleasure and less pain or the reverse.


That's another example of grafting a Stoic standard onto Epicurus and it is very misleading to attempt to do so.


Once again this is an issue that DeWitt explores extensively in his "fullness of pleasure" and "unity of pleasure" discussion.
Like · Reply · February 25 at 6:49am · Edited

Manuel Andreas Knoll However, PD XVIII seems to distinguish physical and intellectual pleasure and thus to anticipate Mill's views
Like · Reply · February 25 at 6:58am

Cassius Amicus And Torquatus also says explicitly that mental pleasures and pain can be more intense. But that isn't a "higher/lower" standard but purely a practical analysis in which pleasure itself remains the standard.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 25 at 7:06am · Edited

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Cassius Amicus Manuel IMO you are wrestling with some of the most important questions in Epicurus. I hope if you are writing a paper or a summary you will let us know what you come up with so we can read it. My page of references is very much a work in progress so if you find references / arguments that are relevant I would very much like to add them to help others find them in the future.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 25 at 7:05am

Manuel Andreas Knoll Well, I am just writing a subchap. in my De Gruyter studybook "Ancient Greek Philosophy" which is in German....it took me eight years to arrive at chap. 12: The Hellenistic Philosophers...I'd be glad to send you the subchap. when it is finished
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 25 at 7:10am · Edited

Manuel Andreas Knoll

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Manuel Andreas Knoll But when this task and some others is completed I will work on my own views that should be published in a book with the working title "The Hedonist Ethics"....then I hope we can have some more discussions...but there is still a long way to go...if you give me your email-address I could send you small paper I have written for Italian colleagues that I have recently completed on "Critical Theory and Hedonism: The Central Role of Aristippus of Kyrene for Theodor W. Adorno’s Thought"
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 25 at 7:14am

Hiram Crespo On whether sex is necessary, the thousands of cases of abuse of children in every continent by clergy that claims to be celibate appear to demonstrate that

1. Celibacy is unnatural and

2. Human beings need erotic affection and love

To what extent seems to be the key. Perhaps we can study human nayure and come up with a "natural measure of sex" that is necessary for most people. I am not familiar with any empirical studies on this.
Like · Reply · 5 · February 28 at 5:02pm · Edited

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Manuel Andreas Knoll good point
Like · Reply · 1 · February 25 at 9:20am

Bartosz Morzynski That is strawman argument. It's not even correlation.


There are thousands, if not millions, of people who live normally without having regular sex.


If anything your example could be used as a proof that pleasure cannot be ultimate good, because it can lead to bad outcomes (pedophilia, rape, etc.).
Like · Reply · February 28 at 4:16pm

Hiram Crespo Bartosz Morzynski that makes no sense. If rape and pedophilia are caused by repression of libido that means that those who engage in them have NOT set pleasure as the goal and have not treated sex as a natural need that needs a healthy outlet
Like · Reply · February 28 at 4:18pm

Bartosz Morzynski Hiram Crespo I'll use an example.


Someone believes that pleasure (including sex) is the ultimate good. He's not repressing his libido, He's actually doing his best every weekend and sometimes even weekdays to get that pleasure, but with no luck. However he still believes sexual desire needs to be fulfilled, it's a pleasure after all. So he decides to spike someone's drink with ruffies - he doesn't want to keep his libido waiting any longer and fulfilling his sexual desire will bring him pleasure, which means it's a good thing.


Pleasure as ultimate good + no libido suppression = rape.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 4:28pm

Mish Taylor Bartosz Morzynski 1. A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 28 at 4:33pm

Bartosz Morzynski Mish Taylor How do we recollect it with the doctrine that pleasure is the ultimate good though? Which one takes priority - not harming others or pleasure? If it's the first, then it's not Epicureanism.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 4:37pm

Jason Baker Bartosz Morzynski, sex doesn't have to involve another person, unless you're missing both hands. Masturbation does you no harm and harms no other, unlike rape. The former would be the Epicurean solution, the latter, not so much.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 28 at 4:42pm · Edited

Hiram Crespo Bartosz Morzynski the Principal doctrines say that such a man, as a rapist, will never be able to secure his ataraxia as he doesnt know if and when he will be uncovered. Think of Bill Cosby's fall at the end of a hugely successful life.
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 28 at 4:54pm · Edited

Mish Taylor Bartosz Morzynski As with most things, you should make considered choices, if the 'pleasure' is unnecessary and in achieving it you harm another, that makes you an 'a-hole'. As Hiram points out, this would be forever on your conscience and would cause some deep rooted dis-pleasure.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 28 at 4:51pm

Hiram Crespo From the Letter to Menoeceus: "He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life....

And...See More
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 28 at 4:53pm

Hiram Crespo Note **tranquility of mind ** is needed for a life of stable and steady pleasure. And note that our teaching says that not all pleasures are therefore to be chosen, and not all pains avoided. If you study this in good faith you will be able to plan a life filled with pleasures
Unlike · Reply · 4 · February 28 at 5:39pm · Edited

Bartosz Morzynski Hiram Crespo That's a great quote.


It appears to me that the main reason why Epicureanism is misunderstood is because people apply Socratic reasoning to Epicureanism ("if something is 'good' it should be always choosen")....See More
Like · Reply · 2 · February 28 at 5:22pm

Bartosz Morzynski Mish Taylor Problem arises when an individual doesn't consider his act bad nor his conscience is being tormented by realization of what he did.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 5:24pm

Mish Taylor Bartosz Morzynski Well he wouldn't be an Epicurean then, as I said he would be an A-hole.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 28 at 5:26pm

Jason Baker "maybe it's due to translation and in original ancient Greek it doesn't appears to be"


I think you've nailed it Bartosz Morzynski.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 5:41pm

Hiram Crespo We re not going to change doctrine but there is no need. People just have to sincerely study it, and not superficially. Also the reason why we do not have tranquility as the end is because there is no real equivalency between the pleasure and aversion ...See More
Unlike · Reply · 3 · February 28 at 5:43pm · Edited

Hiram Crespo In other words this philosophy does not tell you what to do or give you absolutes. It empowers you to use your mind and senses and faculties in all choices and avoidances.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 28 at 5:46pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus Mish Taylor "Well he wouldn't be an Epicurean then, as I said he would be an A-hole." << Bingo. He would either be a A-hole, or not human, and with Epicurean ethics we are talking about humans.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 28 at 6:18pm

Bartosz Morzynski Mish Taylor Cassius Amicus that's a typical True Scotsman fallacy. We can call those people "animals", "inhuman", etc. but the fact remains no matter how you dress it - they are still humans. And those humans can easily apply Epicurean philosophy to their life and be content with it (purse pleasure that doesn't bring any long-term pain - everything seems in accordance with Epicurean doctrine).
Like · Reply · February 28 at 6:21pm

Cassius Amicus "Or another way of fixing misconception with Epicureanism would be to say that "tranquility is a the ultimate good" (of course I'm not trying to convince anyone to start changing the main doctrine of 25 century old philosophy, it's only my observation). This way it would make more logical sense to say that pleasure is *usually* to be one of the most important things in life, however if it brings more pain in a long-term, then it is to be avoided. Otherwise we have sort of paradox" <<< No, down this road lies disaster, unless you want to redefine tranquility and give it a special meaning. The "smoothness" of our experience of pleasure IS a secondary consideration to experiencing pleasure - the calculation is not how smooth, but the next balance of pleasure over pain, with smoothness being one of the factors in weighing that balance. But sometimes lack of smoothness is necessary, such as in fighting a battle or war for self-preservation. There is no "faculty of tranquility" which would allow measuring tranquility in the abstract. there are only faculties of pleasure and pain.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 28 at 6:21pm

Mish Taylor Bartosz Morzynski I am quite sure that you are old enough to have realised that some humans are not very nice humans, just because they perceive themselves otherwise, does not make it so. In your earlier post the scenario you depicted involved spiking a drink, this is pre-meditated with the aim of taking advantage of & indeed violating another human. I'll say it again - the act of an A-HOLE!
Unlike · Reply · 2 · February 28 at 6:36pm

Jason Baker Maybe we should start another discussion on abnormal psychology as we seem to have a bit of thread-drift here, or bring it back around to how perversion can be inculated by culture.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 28 at 6:57pm · Edited

Bartosz Morzynski Mish Taylor I understand and fully agree. I'm just trying to point out that Epicurean model cannot be applied to every human being, because - as you pointed out - if an asshole adapts it, he can follow it to the letter and remain asshole. You cannot sa...See More
Like · Reply · February 28 at 7:48pm

Mish Taylor Goodnight Bartosz , if you do discover today's utopia, come back and tell us your findings, be happy, enjoy life and peace of mind
Like · Reply · February 28 at 7:54pm

Bartosz Morzynski Mish Taylor Utopia doesn't exist, nor will it ever exist, but to my understanding the surest way of coming close to happy, good life is by finding (or creating by yourself) a concept which in theory could give rise to it (“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”).


Thank you and have a good night!
Like · Reply · February 28 at 8:00pm

Jason Baker Bartosz Morzynski, there are 40 principal doctrines, not one. Ignoring that and stripping everything away to "Pleasure is the chief good" without the context of the rest of it is to equate it with limitless hedonism. The thing that distinguishes Epicurean philosophy from other hedonistic philosophies are the limits of pleasure. Do you think you're the first person to level this criticism at Epicurean philosophy? Epicurus anticipated you, friend.


"He who is acquainted with the natural limits of life understands that those things that remove the pain that arises from need, and those things which make the whole of life complete, are easily obtainable, and that he has no need of those things that can only be attained with trouble."
Like · Reply · February 28 at 10:13pm · Edited

Bartosz Morzynski Jason Baker Of course not, that is an assumption that you made, not me Just because someone (many people, in fact) had similar questions doesn't mean I can't ask them, right?


And I understand that there are other doctrines, but to my understanding ...See More
Like · Reply · 1 · February 28 at 9:18pm

Jason Baker Of course you may ask Bartosz!


Some of the error may even be my fault as I wrote principle doctrines as opposed to principal doctrines. There is a world of difference between the definition of the two words in English. In Greek Κύριαι Δόξαι is quite clear, they are key, controlling, most important doctrines.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 10:35pm

Michael Carteron March 1 at 10:27pm I've read references to Epicureans living in communes, indeed one source claims Christian monastaries were based on them, taking over the existing communities. This is said to be an early example of communism. So what truth is there to all this?

Ilkka Vuoristo Very little truth. There's no evidence of this.
Even the original Garden group wasn't a commune, but a school and a house owned by Epicurus. The other people were either faculty, guests, or both.
Laertius 10 -- 11
"Friends indeed came to him from all parts and lived with him in his garden. [...] He further says that Epicurus did not think it right that their property should be held in common, as required by the maxim of Pythagoras about the goods of friends; such a practice in his opinion implied mistrust, and without confidence there is no friendship."
Unlike · Reply · 6 · March 1 at 11:10pm

Michael Carteron I wonder where they get this idea then.
Like · Reply · March 2 at 12:03am

Ilkka Vuoristo Who knows... They probably think that because we have communes today, the Garden must have been one (because people were living together).
Unlike · Reply · 1 · March 2 at 12:15am

Michael Carteron Well based on the Laertius reference and what I've read elsewhere, it seems there were ancient communes. Perhaps the Epicureans have been wrongly lumped in with them.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · March 2 at 12:17am · Edited

Panos Alexiou Pythagoreans had a cult like commune structure afaik.
Like · Reply · 2 · March 2 at 7:30am

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Elli Pensa Friends indeed came to him from all parts and lived with him in his garden. This is stated by Apollodorus, [11] who also says that he purchased the garden for eighty minae ; and to the same effect Diocles in the third book of his Epitome speaks of them as living a very simple and frugal life ; at all events they were content with half a pint of thin wine and were, for the rest, thoroughgoing water-drinkers. He further says that Epicurus did not think it right that their property should be held in common, as required by the maxim of Pythagoras about the goods of friends ; such a practice in his opinion implied mistrust, and without confidence there is no friendship.

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IMO there is a confusion between the epicurean hospitality and the commune living by some others.

The above from Laertius makes to us clear that the garden was not a commune of people who were sharing any property in common. Epicurus purchased the garden and there was a hospitality by him when his friends were visited him in Athens, and stayed there as long as they could or liked.
Unlike · Reply · 3 · March 2 at 9:59am

ɳɑʈɧɑɳ ɧɑɾɾʏ ɓɑɾʈɱɑɳ Coincidentally, I was having a dialogue (that felt more like a monologue :P) with someone the other day who made this assertion to justify a separate point. To my knowledge, there is no reasonable link between the 'commune' and 'Epicureanism' any more than there is between any two other cooperative human behaviors.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · March 2 at 2:30pm · Edited

February 26 at 3:45pm **“Cicero’s Presentation of Epicurean Ethics” – Fake News?**

I don’t have time for as long a discussion as this deserves, but I want to highlight the attached excerpt from Edith Packer’s “Cicero’s Presentation of Epicurean Ethics.” The topic is a key authority for our understanding of Epicurean Ethics, the presentation by Torquatus in Cicero’s “On Ends.”

In his discourse Torquatus states:

“The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain. What possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain. He will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement.”

But Packer demurs and criticizes Torquatus harshly:

“But the total effect [of this passage] is not really Epicurean. This is true partly because of the excessive emphasis on luxurious pleasures …[and] partly because of the absence of comment on the happiness of the tranquil life. There is no hint of the difficult intellectual asceticism which Epicurus considers necessary to the attainment of a life free from disturbance.”

To this my personal reply to Packer is: “Fake news!”

We are all today familiar with the term “fake news” from all sides of the political spectrum. As unpleasant as that subject is to discuss, a great liberating wind is sweeping through the twenty-first century in that people of all persuasions are coming to see that the "gatekeepers of truth" have never merited the trust that they have claimed for generations.

In deciding between Packer and Cicero we should ask: Who had access to more Epicurean texts? Who had more access to Epicurean scholars? Who visited Athens at the height of Epicurean philosophy and learned from those who were committed to the philosophy? Packer or Cicero?

It is certainly possible that Packer is correct and Cicero is not. But if Packer is right then we are looking not at innocent error, but in fact “Fake News” of the highest order, spun by a lawyer (Cicero) for purposes of undermining Epicurean philosophy. But would Cicero have dared to stretch his own credibility by writing such a distortion in a world filled with Epicureans amply equipped to dispute him?

My personal view is that Cicero (or the source from which he copied) was correct. Torquatus was accurately describing the Epicurean model of a life of pleasure as the ultimate good. In turn, Packer is furthering the modern majority academic view -a great distortion which insists on viewing Epicurean philosophy through anti-Epicurean eyes.

Numbers of quotes can be marshaled on both sides of this issue, but my analysis starts with the premise that Epicurus expected others to understand that when he spoke of pleasure (which Torquatus has earlier stated is so plainly desirable that it needs no argument to support) he included in that term all types of pleasure, including those which some categorize as “of motion” and “static.” (I use quotes because I follow those who argue that these categories were not of great significance to Epicurus himself).

Most interpreters fail to explain to modern readers that Epicurus was speaking at a time and in a context where every educated person would understand the preliminary arguments. The leading philosophers, especially Plato in his “Philebus,” had advanced the challenge that pleasure CANNOT be considered a candidate for the “highest good” or the “goal of life.” Plato argued that this is true because pleasure (allegedly) has no “limit” – we always want more. The Platonic argument concludes that nothing which has no limit (an “end point”) can be considered to be a “highest good” because no type or status of pleasure can be considered to be “the highest.”

Epicurus lived in a world that held Plato in great esteem, and so in disagreeing Epicurus logically would have formulated his theory of pleasure to defeat the Platonic argument. Epicurus did that in large part by pointing out two major points:

(1) Nature gives living beings only two types of feelings: pleasure and pain. Thus to a living being experiencing any feelings at all, the absence of one amounts to the presence of the other. If we could measure the total experience of any living being at any time, the “absence of pain” that being was experiencing would constitute in quantity the exact measure of the amount of pleasure that being is experiencing. Why is this important? Because:

2) The Platonic objection that pleasure has no limit is wrong. In contrast to false and speculative models such as are specialized in by idealists, Epicurus suggested that we consider life as a vessel, with the liquid content of the vessel being all of the numerous types of pleasure that are available in life. A vessel (like a man) is a real thing, and a vessel can be filled to the top with liquid, just as a life can be filled with pleasures. After the vessel is filled, all that is then poured into it amounts only to variation, not an increase in the quantity or quality of pleasure. Thus the use of terms like purity, absence of pain (aponia) and smoothness / tranquility (ataraxia) are only descriptive adjectives/adverbs for the desirable state of maintenance of a vessel: that of holding its contents filled to the top, without leaking, overflowing, or under-filling.

Seen in these terms, the goal of life thus defined is not a "higher" or "mysterious" state of pleasure different from that which people ordinarily understand as pleasurable, and this goal requires no opaque terminology to describe it. Rather, the desired state / highest life - the model which serves as a guide, is that of a life experienced when filled to the top with pleasures of all kinds, a life conducted as most nearly possible without leaking or spilling (ataraxia for those who must use a Greek word) or under-filling (aponia).

So in my view Cicero was right and Packer was wrong. The goal of life identified by Epicurus was just as testified to by Torquatus, the same goal aptly summarized separately by Cicero himself : “a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasure.”

“Cicero’s Presentation of Epicurean Ethics” – Fake News?
I don’t have time for as long a discussion as this deserves, but I want to highlight the attached excerpt from Edith Packer’s “Cicero’s Presentation of Epicurean…
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Jimmy Daltrey Here is De Witt reviewing Packer https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…hAsVLyhBdpQRFkw

Cicero's Presentation of Epicurean Ethicsby Mary N. Porter Packer -…
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Unlike · Reply · Remove Preview · 2 · February 27 at 6:28am

Jimmy Daltrey Cicero's Presentation of Epicurean Ethics. New York, The Columbia University Press, 1938. Pp. 127. Columbia Diss. This study is most commendable. It is clearly written and well printed, acutely reasoned and amply documented. The treatment confines itself to De Finibus I-II and is divided into two chapters: 1. Cicero's Presentation of Epicurean Philosophy in De Finibus I. 2. Cicero's Critique of Epicurean Philosophy, Presented in De Finibus I and II. Each chapter concludes with a summary, and the text of Epicurus himself is abundantly cited. The conclusion is that Cicero failed "to understand Epicureanism as a consistently unified philosophy (p. 81)," but is acquitted of having been "deliberately and intentionally unfair (p. 119)." It is only to this acquittal that I take exception. Every debater has the choice of arguing to reveal the truth in its entirety or of arguing to make points. The former method is adapted to the Supreme Court, the latter to a trial by jury. Cicero was a crafty old trial lawyer and he deliberately argued to make points, because he was pleading before a reading audience, which functions like a jury, and his shrewd legal mind had long discerned the vulnerability of Epicureanism before this style of attack. His attitude was that of William J. Bryan toward biological evolution, and his pleadings are comparable to a Scopes trial, but I do not believe he could have misrepresented the truth so successfully had he not understood it completely. In the Scopes trial, the crafty old lawyer was on the opposite side-Clarence Darrow. NORMAN W. DEWITT. VICTORIA COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Like · Reply · 1 · February 27 at 6:31am

Cassius Amicus Yep. That is where i first learned of this article.
Like · Reply · 2 · February 27 at 6:32am

Jimmy Daltrey De Witt appears to be saying that Cicero indeed knew Epicureanism very well, but willfully misrepresented it. So yes, Cicero probably did know the texts better than Packer, and chose to portray the Epicureans falsely. The "continuous enjoyment of vivid pleasures" strikes me as a caricature. Epicurus did not advocate making a habit of stuffing yourself with wine and lobster.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 27 at 7:23am

Cassius Amicus And it is not necessary to stuff oneself with wine and lobster to live in continuous vivid pleasures, which is the point that is lost on those who insist that pleasure is a disreputable goal.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 27 at 7:33am

Cassius Amicus Further, Dewitt is not saying that that the misrepresentations and false conclusions are in Torquatus' presentation - it is in Cicero's commentary, generally delivered by himself or a non-Epicurean character, where the presentation and summaries are unbalanced.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 27 at 7:36am · Edited

Cassius Amicus Probably a minor point but worth making nonetheless. One of Cicero's most frequent correspondents, and possibly his publisher, was Atticus the devout Epicurean. There's no way to resolve any of this, but it seems much more likely to me that the Atticus / Cicero relationship would have disposed CIcero to express his disagreements via direct commentary rather than by outright fabrications of his prime correspondent's philosophy. Cicero was not writing these commentaries at a time when he could lightly dismiss the effects of upsetting his friends unnecessarily.


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Atticus and the Publication of Cicero's Works on JSTOR
John J. Phillips, Atticus and the Publication of Cicero's Works, The Classical World, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Mar. - Apr., 1986), pp. 227-237
JSTOR.ORG

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 1 · February 27 at 8:19am · Edited

Jimmy Daltrey Interesting how people read things differently. I read "vivid pleasures" as in external pleasures, food etc, it could also be an internal sense of pleasure. I think Packer took it to be the first also, hence her comments that Epicurus' asceticism was being down played.
Like · Reply · February 27 at 2:05pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus Yes that's exactly right Jimmy. It almost seems like people who are disposed for whatever reason to look at pleasure from a negative outlook are going to end up stoic-oriented and be suspicious of pleasure, always interpreting it negatively or restrictively. I think Epicurus was the opposite - taking pleasure as Nature's "go" signal, and therefore sanctioned by nature, the tendency is to follow nature and "go" unless the practical results of temporary pleasure are followed by too much pain. And that's another angle - some people seem to think that any pleasure at all is going to bring unbearable pain, and that all pain is unbearable, so that the goal is to suppress all pain at ANY costs, even if that means having no pleasure.


You used the word "internal" but Epicurus is very clear that "mental" pleasure is pleasure, and in fact often more intense ("vivid"?) than physical pleasure.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 27 at 1:26pm

Jimmy Daltrey The Stoics were more suspicious of desire than pleasure. According to AA Long, pleasure was nice to have but one could be a good person (and hence a tranquil person) with or without it as long as one didn't lust after it. You are 100% right that mental pleasure is glossed over when it should be central. I'd choose a good conversation in preference toan ice cream.(although good conversation with ice cream is good
Like · Reply · February 27 at 2:08pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus I largely agree with what you wrote Jimmy and and I have tremendous respect for AA Long but presuming he said that (you haven't listed a cite) he presumably was speaking broadly and/or making the point that the Stoics really didn't like either one, as they are distractions from their single goal of virtue(?)
Like · Reply · February 27 at 5:17pm

Jimmy Daltrey I'll pull out a reference. Stoic virtue is the same as Epicurean virtue, the former have ataraxia incidental to virtue, the latter have virtue instrumental in obtaining happiness. Virtue is no more and no less than "practical wisdom", prudence, justice...See More
Like · Reply · February 27 at 5:45pm

Eric 'Siggy' Scott "Pleasure is an optional extra"


It's slightly more than "optional." It has "selective value," and is in line with nature. Therefore virtue requires us to pursue some natural pleasures. Anything that is natural for humans is something that we should seek out, for such things are "well chosen."


That's what differentiates Stoicism from Cynicism.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 10:05am · Edited

Jason Baker Eric 'Siggy' Scott, the standard of choosing is /anything/ that is natural for humans?


That's a can of worms.
Like · Reply · 1 · February 28 at 1:16pm

Jimmy Daltrey Eric: there are loads of things that appear "natural", the blind pursuit of power for its own sake, gluttony, rape, theft, murder...The goal is to distinguish what it is wise to pursue or foolish. It is nice to have cake, or sex, or money, but it shouldn't become your life's goal, and you should be able to be content without such things. Happiness is self sufficient and does not depend on externals.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 2:13pm

Jason Baker I find the Epicurean categorization of desires to have far more utility in pursuing happiness wisely.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 2:26pm

Jimmy Daltrey I don't see a conflict; here is Cassius Gaius Longinus <<I hope that people will understand that for all, cruelty exists in proportion to hatred, and goodness and clemency in proportion to love, and evil men most seek out and crave the things which accrue to good men. It's hard to persuade people that ‘the good is desirable for its own sake'; but it's both true and creditable that pleasure and tranquility are obtained by virtue, justice, and the good. Epicurus himself, from whom all your Catii and Amafinii take their leave as poor interpreters of his words, says ‘there is no living pleasantly without living a good and just life.'>>
Like · Reply · February 28 at 2:37pm

Eric 'Siggy' Scott Jason: " the standard of choosing is /anything/ that is natural for humans?"


Haha, it sure would be, if the discussion stopped there. The Stoics had as much to say about what they meant (and did not mean) by "natural" as the Epicureans did, however.


Jimmy: 'there are loads of things that appear "natural"'


Indeed there are. But we're talking specifically about the Stoic view of ethics. Clearly they considered "gluttony, rape," etc, to be well outside the bounds of what is healthy or "natural" for humans.


"Happiness is self sufficient and does not depend on externals."


Of course. That's the definition of the Stoic position!


But virtue *does* require us to choose to manipulate externals in certain ways. That's why the Stoics were so critical of Aristo and the Cynics.


For instance, Seneca and Epictetus both admonish us to keep our bodies clean. To choose otherwise would be unnatural, and therefore vicious.


Of course, whether our bodies are clean is outside our sphere of control. But the *choice* to make an attempt to be clean is within our power. Being clean thus has "selective value," or is "to be promoted."


My point is that "optional" isn't quite the right word to describe the Stoic view of preferred externals.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 4:02pm · Edited

Jason Baker Well since we're talking about pleasure and not sanitation, let's quote-mine the stacks.


From Plutarch: "For example, Epicurus says that pleasure is good, whereas Antisthenes who said "I'd rather go mad than feel pleasure" thinks it is bad. And the Stoics say that pleasure is indifferent and not preferred, but Cleanthes held that it is not natural and does not have value in life, but, like a makeup brush, it is not natural. Archedemus says that it is natural in the way that armpit hairs are natural but does not have value; and Panaetius says that one kind of pleasure is natural and another kind is unnatural."
Like · Reply · February 28 at 4:33pm

Jimmy Daltrey Jason, indifferents can be preferred (ice cream) or unpreferred (sweaty bum). In either case neither has direct bearing on one's ability to make wise or foolish choices, which are good and bad respectively.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 4:41pm

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Cassius Amicus My list of quotes of the Stoics on Pleasure - Here's just a single one from Epictetus. Yes the main distinction is that the Stoics insist that virtue is the goal and not pleasure, but I'd submit that it is impossible to read what the Stoics wrote and conclude as a practical matter that pleasure should not be avoided, and not something a wise man would allow himself to experience when there is a way around it:


“When you receive an impression of some pleasure, as with others, watch yourself, not to be carried off by it; however let it wait upon your business, and get some delay for yourself. Next remember both the times, when you will enjoy the pleasure, and when having enjoyed it later you will repent and reproach yourself; and against these refraining how much you will be glad and commend yourself. But if an opportunity appears to you to engage in the action, be sure you are not overcome by its softness and pleasure and attraction; but set against it, how much better is the awareness for yourself to have won a victory over it.” Epictetus, Enchridion


https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…5sMUSUGROkd0y3I

The Stoics On Pleasure
(Note: See also this Epicurean v Stoic comparison chart.) The following is a list of quotations from (or…
NEWEPICUREAN.COM

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · 2 · February 27 at 5:53pm

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Alexander Rios Wow!


Like · Reply · 1 · February 27 at 6:53pm

Jimmy Daltrey I think anger, complaining and fear get worse press. Are they talking about physical or mental pleasures? Is this blind lust or chocolate chip cookies? It's hard to judge without the context. They clearly appear to be saying that pleasure isn't necessary to live a good life, but that must depend on how you see good. Is someone who sacrifices their own pleasures to look after a sick parent leading a good or a bad life? Who is the better person a political prisoner in North Korea or Kim Jong Un? I don't see the point of sacrificing pleasure unless for a greater good.
Like · Reply · February 27 at 7:34pm

Jimmy Daltrey If you have no greater good, pleasure seems logical, but people join the army to probably get killed. Tricky...
Like · Reply · February 27 at 7:36pm

Jimmy Daltrey Why resist a tyrant? It would have been easier to collaborate with Hitler or Stalin but people didn't. I'm thinking of the French resistance, Greek too thinking about It.
Like · Reply · February 27 at 7:40pm

Jimmy Daltrey Are the Stoics more military minded than the Epicureans? Duty, virtue, eschewing pleasure? What would an Epicurean do if invaded? Fight or take to the hills?
Like · Reply · February 27 at 7:51pm

Cassius Amicus None of this is "tricky" at all. If someone wants to live pleasurably that means doing what it takes to achieve that, and that means considering all of the mental and physical ramifications of all choices and acting on that calculation. Sure the calculation can get complicated, but the general principle of the calculation that pleasurable living is the goal is very simple. And Epicurus was very clear that fighting or ANY response to protect oneself is proper - it is only stoics/idealists who insist that there is an absolute list of dos and donts
Like · Reply · February 28 at 7:34am

Jimmy Daltrey Are you confusing virtue ethics with deontology? The Stoics have "be wise" and that is it. What is wise in one set of circumstances may be foolish in another so constant understanding. and calculation is required. The notion of commandments and moral absolutes would be alien to the philosophies of the period. Those would be more legal concerns imposed by the State.
Like · Reply · February 28 at 11:33am · Edited

Jason Baker Virtue ethics and deontology are often cast as being in opposition to one another, but they both are predicated on the premise of "performing" according to some standard. One must measure oneself against that standard in order to determine if one is "acting" according to nature.


I'm not an actor in anyone's play.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 28 at 12:12pm

Jimmy Daltrey I'm confused now. Epicurus had exactly the same set of virtues, but they are a means to happiness rather than an end in themselves. So an Epicurean and a Stoic would act similarly in a given situation, both relying on wisdom, courage, prudence, moderation to guide their judgement. Surely?
Like · Reply · February 28 at 1:58pm

Jason Baker Jimmy Daltrey Given a comparison of the extant literature and the lives of the various proponents of the two schools as examples, I'm confident in concluding that this is not the case. I'm not certain how similarities can be drawn at all. This tendency of MoStos to smooth over the differences, when ancient stoics not only couldn't but refused to reconcile the two, appears to me to be mere eclecticism.


We're treading on Scottish ground, but can a cafeteria Christian be considered a real Christian if they don't have fellowship or doctrine? I don't see why the same sort of criticism can't be applied elsewhere. What point is there to have different words for things if the meanings attached to them don't matter?
Unlike · Reply · 1 · February 28 at 2:51pm

Jimmy Daltrey I posted this on the other thread; Cassius Gaius Longinus; I hope that people will understand that for all, cruelty exists in proportion to hatred, and goodness and clemency in proportion to love, and evil men most seek out and crave the things which a...See More
Like · Reply · February 28 at 2:54pm

Jimmy Daltrey When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of revelry, not sexual lust, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is wisdom. Therefore wisdom is a more precious thing even than philosophy ; from it spring all the other virtues, for it teaches that we cannot live pleasantly without living wisely, honorably, and justly; nor live wisely, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them." Letter to Menoeceus"
Like · Reply · February 28 at 3:07pm