Posts by Cassius

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Welcome @Geoff ! Your work in Australia with the Epicurean Meetup Group is an inspiration to us all!

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Aurelius Espinoza For this specific example, I meant a stressful job for the rest of your life, or at least a big part of it. If it's only 2 weeks, then that's a completely different situation1

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Aurelius Espinoza I overall agree with you though. I think the confusion comes from the fact that Epicurus himself lived an ascetic lifestyle (he lived on bread and water, a bit of cheese was a luxury, etc). My interpretation is that he wanted to prove that it is possible to be happy with little (and in bad health). His disciples, such as Metrodorus, weren't as radical in their practice. I guess what is relevant for modern Epicureans is that one size doesn't fit all, as you say
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Cassius Amicus Now see, I don't believe the comment about cheese and bread should be interpreted that way, even for Epicurus himself. (You wrote: "that Epicurus himself lived an ascetic lifestyle (he lived on bread and water, a bit of cheese was a luxury, etc.)")

There are no flat statements that he **always** lived that way. The statement in DL is: "In his correspondence he himself mentions that he was content with plain bread and water. And again: “Send me a little pot of cheese, that, when I like, I may fare sumptuously.” Such was the man who laid down that pleasure was the end of life."

Epicurus, you, or me could easily say that we are CONTENT with bread and water while not meaning that we commit to eating it three meals a day. I can say I would be content with bread and water if needed, and mean it, while eating a regular diet.

I think those statements were made for figurative statements for purpose of stating the principle (that he COULD compete with Zeus in that way), but not to be taken as a general rule even for him. There are numerous examples of Epicurus speaking figuratively, such as go to visit his friends "spinning around three times first" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Philosophers, X.5: Then again to Themista, the wife of Leonteus: "I am quite ready, if you do not come to see me, to spin thrice on my own axis and be propelled to any place that you, including Themista, agree upon.")

And then the flowery wording he used in addressing people in letter:

Plutarch, Against Colotes, 18, p. 1117D: But if, Colotes, you had met with expressions of Socrates’ such as Epicurus pens in a letter to Idomeneus: "So send us for the care of our sacred body an offering of first-fruits on behalf of yourself and your children – so I am inspired to put it;" to what more unmannerly terms could you have resorted? {Traditionally, first-fruits were offered to a god – support for Epicurus’ bodily needs is so depicted.}

Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, VII p. 279F: It was in fact, for the sake of the belly and the pleasures of the flesh in general that this man flattered Idomeneus and Metrodorus. ... Epicurus, in fact, was the teacher of these men.

Aelius Theon, Preliminary Exercises, 2, I [p. 169 Walz] {II,154 Butts}: ... faulty arrangement, but especially metrical and rhythmical style, like many of the phrases of the orator Hegesias ... as well as some of the phrases of Epicurus, such as where he writes to Idomeneus: "Oh you who have from youth have regarded all my impressions as pleasurable."

Plutarch, Against Colotes, 17, p. 1117B: Colotes himself, for another, while hearing a lecture of Epicurus on natural philosophy, suddenly cast himself down before him and embraced his knees; and this is what Epicurus himself writes about it in a tone of solemn pride: "You, as one revering my remarks on that occasion, were seized with a desire, not accounted for by my lecture, to embrace me by clasping my knees and lay hold of me to the whole extent of the contact that is customarily established in revering and supplicating certain personages. You therefore caused me," he says, "to consecrate you in return and demonstrate my reverence." My word! We can pardon those who say that they would pay any price to see a painting of that scene, one kneeling at the feet of the other and embracing his knees while the other returns the supplication and worship. Yet that act of homage, though skillfully contrived by Colotes, bore no proper fruit: he was not proclaimed a Sage. Epicurus merely says: "Go about as one immortal in my eyes, and think of me as immortal too."

Not to mention that doing anything "with Zeus" would have to be figurative, or else violate Epicurean theology about the way the gods live.

Also, surely devoted Epicureans like Atticus and those at the Villa of the Papyri and most other Epicureans did not live like ascetics, or the philosophy would never have spread. Lucretius was fanatically devoted and gives no hint that he himself ate an ascetic diet.

Else I think it is totally impossible to square with Epicurus' will, which showed him to be well off with numerous slaves. He had at least four slaves, and apparently more than that, as enumerated here: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…3lRvJWYAxXcjFDQAnd that doesn't include the apparently very significant additional income and property that he doled out to his friends and supporters when he died. It is very unlikely that Epicurus would have had access to so many assets (even luxuries) in other areas of life, but chose to be an ascetic in the category of food.

I don't see any other way to square these statements with the numerous statements Epicurus made endorsing ordinary pleasures, including wine, food, sex, etc., being stuff of the best life. What is clearly true is that he was (as in VS63) arguing that everyone should choose a sustainable lifestyle so as not to err in either direction of too much or too little luxury, so as to be master over circumstances and be able to live economically/ independently **if necessary** for the sake of overall pleasure/avoidance of pain.

But in most cases even in the time of Epicurus, it was possible for many people (like himself) to live normal middle class or higher lifestyles, while not eating an ascetic, without being at the mercy of levels of pain that are not worth the pleasure.

So there is no way I would interpret Epicurus as telling everyone to eat bread and water all the time, and to splurge only on cheese. That's a rhetorical device, even for him. People who eat better than that are not by definition deficient Epicureans.

I think we are moving towards agreeing that in every area, one size does not fit all, and that would have to be a perspective that Epicurus applied even to himself. Eat only beans when necessary, and eat bread and cheese for discipline so you can always be independent, but when circumstances allow eating a normal diet or even higher, then by all means do so if the pleasure of doing so outweighs the pain/expense/effort in doing so.

(This is an important question and comes up often, so I edited several times. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this.)Manage

Epicurus - Last Will
EPICURUS.NET

Aurelius Espinoza Point taken. There is also historical context: the collapse of Alexander's empire, constant civil wars, the siege of Athens, etc

A suggestion for the list of reasons to study Epicurus:

That happiness is not obtained by accumulating wealth, power and fame, beyond what we need for self preservation and helping our friends. Limiting our desires is key to the philosophy. This goes against everything our consumeristic societies tell us to do.1

Cassius AmicusGroup Admin Thanks Aurelius. For those who have not seen us debate this before, I would say that the formulation **beyond what we need for self preservation and helping our friends** needs work to make it more accurate, but in general I agree with you that Epicurus has important things to say on this issue. Everyone can fine-tune their own list but as number 12 for this purpose I have added:

(12) Epicurus will teach you that happiness is not generally obtained by pursuing goals of wealth, power, fame, or material possessions, and that it is necessary to understand our limitations and adjust our desires accordingly.1

Aurelius Espinoza I purposely mentioned self preservation and friendship. Friendship is absolutely key for our philosophy, and Epicurus has often been accused of being an egoist when the opposite is true. I added "self preservation" because an Epicurean must learn to becontent with the bare minimum in case he has no access to luxury. That is not to say that luxery must be rejected in all circumstances, just that he must be psychologically prepared for crisis situations.1

Cassius AmicusGroup Admin "an Epicurean must learn to be content with the bare minimum in case he has no access to luxury" Just curious, are you a "survivalist"?

Aurelius Espinoza Not even close 1

Aurelius Espinoza I mean that if I'm short on money, I'll be content with going out less to restaurants and movies. If I can't afford a big house, I'll be content with a small studio, etc1

Aurelius Espinoza If I happen to come across a lot of money, than I'd spend it on a trip to Japan and invite a friend or something like that. But if getting that money means I have to do a stressful job that i hate and associate with difficult people, I can do without the money

Cassius AmicusGroup Admin I absolutely agree with that kind of calculation, and the way you expressed it. So we have no essential difference, I think. But there are at least two errors a lot of people make to warn about in making a general list: (1) some ascetic mentalities who do disagree, and who will never accept VS63 that you can err by being too frugal just like you can err by being too luxurious, and (2) some absolutist mentalities who think there is a "one size fits all" level of living that everyone should seek to achieve in every circumstance.

Cassius Amicus Ok the second example though is more nuanced. When you say: "If I happen to come across a lot of money, than I'd spend it on a trip to Japan and invite a friend or something like that. But if getting that money means I have to do a stressful job that i hate and associate with difficult people, I can do without the money." Part 1 we fully agree. But part 2 is very difficult to assess. I you have to do that job the rest of your life, I fully agree. But what if you only have to do that job for a week in order to earn the money for the trip to Japan? How long would the trip have to last for it to be worthwhile? I bet a lot of people would properly choose to do the job for a week in exchange for the trip to Japan.

I started to do a separate post on exactly this question so thanks for advancing the ball!

Cassius AmicusGroup Admin There are some people who argue that ANY additional pain in ANY circumstance is not to be chosen, because our goal is "absence of pain." That formulation has to be unwound in many different ways before it can be properly assessed, but the way most people who would say that mean it, they would be flat wrong (from the Epicurean viewpoint). As the letter to Menoeceus says, we sometimes choose pain when greater pleasure is gained that way, so no one should ever think that that could be the Epicurean position. But I think a significant number of people are confused by the "absence of pain" discussion to think that "never accept any pain" is what Epicurus meant.

1) Yep

2) the search button is unfortunately at the very bottom of the page; I haven't been able to move it but will check on that again

Yep that is the problem. The best I can think of to do publicly is to refer people to their local libraries, which generally do have it, and Ebay. We can always encourage them to search for the PDF too, but we have to be discrete.

Thanks Mako!

Yes I agree that using the texts is far preferable. We'll just have to balance the anticipated audience and maybe produce two tracks. People who come to a Meetup group are going to be much more basic and probably need more commentary. If we can move to a higher level we definitely want to refer to the original texts.

I updated the post in the link to provide references, especially to the Mark Riley article.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…41675399214748/

Elli's comments on Procedure:

I would like to know what are the main issues that they will be discussed there to participate. However, to be frank I did not read this english book with details yet, but I have already read with details the known book to the greek epicureans by the Late proffesor of philosophy Charalambos Theodoridis. Since the procedure in the Garden of Thessaloniki was going like this : to participate in the discussions that were among old and new members and to have the right for asking any of my questions, I had to read the whole of the book by Charalabos Theodoridis firstly by myself. And in the personal meetings that were and still are each week, when one of the old members wrote his work presentation, I had a general picture of the EP what were the main points that I heard and as they being dissussed from the old member's work presentation.

In addition I would like to say my opinion, and please correct me if I am wrong : there is a danger of a failure in the discussion i.e a missunderstanding or a complexity on the issues concerning EP IF the book or any other book would be discussed with this procedure. The Epicurean Philosophy is a whole philosophical cosmotheory and can't be discussed without the new member had not read the whole of the book by himself yet. This goes like the methodology of the Canon : we start to have an idea for the general picture and then we examine each part. Cassius my friend what do you say about that ?

The procedure that is based on my experiences from the two greek gardens is : A text of one or two pages of a presentation work (with personal thoughts) on any epicurean issue, by an old or a new member that has the knowledge of the general picture of EP. Epicurus enriched the ability of the self- judgement on issues and things, the self innovative, and the self creativity in general, and not to read books and discussing chapters one by one. The books are the sources that have to be written below in a work presentation by someone that had already read some books concerning the epicurean philosophy. And when that someone finished his reading, then the others are making some corrections on that work presentation, adding something more or to answer to some questions. This is a kind of procedure that is based on the two way process, as in the same time the teachers become students and the students become teachers.

Meanwhile it would be better to know something for someone who takes so quickly such kind of initiatives of what issue could be discussed in any chat room without doing any presentation work for this book by himself. This is my opinion my friends and it is based on my experiences with the purpose to prevent a mess in any discussion. Thanks.

Cassius Amicus All of these are excellent points Elli and I think we need to work toward implementing them all. In the context in which we are working now, I think we can implement them on a step by step basis, with trial and error, and work toward a smoother implementation over time. I suspect that only a few of us will attend the first online sessions, and that this will be all hard-core people who are friendly and understanding. Lots of time will be spent on understanding how the software works, and working out a protocol for speaking (so we don't talk over each other), etc.

And I also see the online initial meetings as very informal and not requiring too much investment in time by people who can pop in and out instantly. this is not the same as people traveling to a formal meeting who you really need to be careful about making sure the meeting is efficiently staged. In our case, in initial trial meetings, we can just work through the procedure together, but with the goals you stated in mind, and then over time we can develop a set procedure that fits the environment.

To me, what we are doing here is not a one-off deal where we are making a presentation to the world. We are still in the process of developing the best ways to do this, and as long as we are courteous and friendly then if we throw up our hands at the end of the first meeting and say "we're going to start all over next week" then that is fine. Also, once we get a routine down once, it would be preferable and ideal to do these on a continuing basis, with different sessions for people who are at different levels.

Brett wants to do a book club approach on DeWitt, and I am fine with that even if it is just me and him. I think that would be valuable for any of us too, but what I really want to see us work on is our own discussion plan which is the purpose of this thread below. All of this must come together over time and by trial and error, and then when we have worked through the kinks we can restart the series and go over and over and over again, getting better all the time. So two tracks: (1) a book club approach, and we can do more than just dewitt over time, and (2) a general "meetup style" lecture/discussion based on general outlines

And to specifically address the issue of your not having read the Dewitt book I see no problem with that - the first chapter is a very general summary of the philosophy, and you know that very well already. And even as the book proceeds we would be coming from the point of view of "DeWitt says this" but then throwing every point up to discussion to agree or disagree, and you are fully able to do that. I think you too would get a lot out of Dewitt's book, but you already know the points he is talking about. I wish I had access to an English translation of the Greek book you are talking about, and then I would know how much to push you to read DeWitt. If your own views are reflected in the Greek book, then as I know your views, I know you are already close to DeWitt on most points. But if your Greek book is like the English "junk" that is so dominant today, then you would really get good new ideas from DeWitt. Of course DeWitt is NOT the end-all authority on anything. He just attempts to present Epicurus without demeaning him and undercutting him every other paragraph.

Yes I think so too. These are the kinds of things we can talk about in strategy sessions. We can come up with a format in some easily editable format and people can customize it to their liking, but we can provide the majority of the content to make customization easy.

Our recent discussions on overall goals have me thinking that we really need to focus on some particular goal that we can all agree on, without being more ambitious than we can handle, and I am thinking that one obvious choice would be to develop an organization / implementation plan for local groups. Obviously Meetup is an easily accessible way to get a few people together, but what I am talking about is coming up with a set of talking point / reference handouts that we could make available to everyone to hand out at each Meetup meeting to serve as discussion points to keep the meeting on point and moving forward.

One option would be to do a "book club" type of plan, and just plan to discuss a chapter a month of some basic Epicurean book (probably Dewitt's), but I tend to think that the book club model might be better after an initial series of several meetings to let the people who come get to know each other at least a little before jumping into a project to read a book. Plus, anyone coordinating a series of meetings on a book club would want some kind of basic lesson plan guide to know what to emphasize anyway.

I presume a series of handouts for a generic (Pre-book-club) meeting would contain, for example, something like:

(NOTE: I will convert these to shared Google Docs for further editing)

Meeting 1 -

Meet at restaurant, greet each other, order dinner, and then start discussing from this list:

A - Basic information about the life of Epicurus

B - Reasons why people should be interested in Epicurus

(1) Epicurus was widely regarded by some of the world's greatest thinkers, including Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Nietzsche, as one of the world's most important philosophers.

(2) The reason Epicurus has always been held in great esteem by some, and has been hated by many others, is that he taught a way of looking at Nature and our place in it much different from that taught by the religions and philosophies most of us know today.

(3) Epicurus will teach you why your happiness, and not religious and philosophical abstractions, should be the goal of your life.

(4) Epicurus will teach you about the true nature of the soul, and how to deal with the fear of death.

(5) Epicurus will teach you how to deal with the fear of gods and the threats of religions

(6) Epicurus will teach you that your emotions are not things to be feared, but important guidance on how you should live your life.

(7) Epicurus will teach you that you need not consider your world to be unknowable, and that confidence in your place in the world is possible.

(8) Epicurus will teach you that knowledge is based on the senses, and that calls to "logic" and "reason" must always be grounded in the evidence of the senses.

(9) Epicurus will teach you the true role of the "virtues" and their purpose in life.

(10) Epicurus will teach you why friendship is the most important tool in happy living.

(11) Epicurus will teach you how the nature of "justice" varies with time, place, and circumstance, but has a unifying purpose in human life that is the same for all.

(12) Epicurus will teach you that happiness is not generally obtained by pursuing goals of wealth, power, fame, or material possessions, and that it is necessary to understand our limitations and adjust our desires accordingly.

C - Basic list of ideas that Epicurus taught, starting first with the brief outline of Epicurean thought drawn by Thomas Jefferson: as his "Syllabus of the doctrines of Epicurus"

(A) Physical

- A1 The Universe eternal.

- A1a Its parts, great and small, interchangeable

- A2 Matter and Void alone.

- A2a Motion inherent in matter, which is weighty & declining

- A2b Eternal circulation of the elements of bodies.

- A3 Gods, an order of beings next superior to man.

- A3a enjoying in their sphere their own felicities,

- A3b but not meddling with the concerns of the scale of beings below them

(B) Moral

- B1 - Happiness the aim of life

- B1a - Virtue the foundation of happiness

- B1b - Utility the test of virtue.

- B2 - Pleasure active and in-dolent.

- B2a - In-dolence is the absence of pain, the true felicity

- B2b - Active, consists in agreeable motion

- B2c - it is not happiness, but the means to produce it.

- B2d - thus the absence of hunger is an article of felicity; eating the means to produce it.

-B3 -The summum bonum is to be not pained in body, nor troubled in mind

-B3a - i.e. In-dolence of body, tranquility of mind.

-B3b - to procure tranquility of mind we must avoid desire & fear, the two principal diseases of the mind.

-B4 - Man is a free agent.

-B5 - Virtue consists in: 1. Prudence 2. Temperance 3. Fortitude 4. Justice

-B6 -to which are opposed: 1. Folly 2. Desire 3. Fear 4. Deceit

D - What we will plan to discuss in future meetings

- Meeting 2 - Basic Principles of Nature (Physics)

- Meeting 3 - Basic Principles of Thinking (Canonics)

- Meeting 4 - Basic Principles of Living (Ethics)

And if we flesh those out with bullet points that might be enough topics for Meeting 1

Then we set up Meeting 2 -

A - Meet, Greet, Order Dinner

B - What we'll talk about tonight: The Twelve Fundamentals of Physics

- 1. Matter is uncreatable.
2. Matter is indestructible.

3. The universe consists of solid bodies and void.
4. Solid bodies are either compounds or simple.
5. The multitude of atoms is infinite.

6. The void is infinite in extent.
7. The atoms are always in motion.
8. The speed of atomic motion is uniform.
9. Motion is linear in space, vibratory in compounds.
10. Atoms are capable of swerving slightly at any point in space or time.
11. Atoms are characterized by three qualities: weight, shape and size.
12. The number of the different shapes is not infinite, merely innumerable.

C: Implications of the Physics - Why These Are Important:

1 - Because if nothing comes from nothing and nothing goes to nothing, then the universe is eternal and was never created by any god

2 - Because if the universe is composed of atoms and void, then everything is made of atoms and void, and there is no supernatural dimension

3 - Because if the universe is infinite in extent, then there is nothing outside the universe as a whole; everything is natural

4 - Because if the atoms are always in motion then everything is constantly changing and no bodies / worlds ever stay the same eternally

5 - Because if atoms can swerve, then the whole universe is not a billiard ball computer, and free will is possible

6 - Because if atoms have limited characteristics, even though they are infinite in number they still combine in ways that are governed by the nature of the atoms, and the combinations we see are natural and understandable by science (the properties and qualities issue).

We end by discussing what will come up at Meeting 3 (Principles of thinking)

Then we set up Meeting 3 -

A - Meet, Greet, Order Dinner

B - What we'll talk about tonight: The Principles of Epicurean Canonics

- 1

- 2

- 3

-4

C, Why these are important

ETC......

I think we could set these up on one or two page PDFS for handing out to everyone, and these can be used to keep the meetings on track and serve as something for people to take home and remember for next time, etc.

The reason I raise this as a project is that we can work together to put this lesson plan together, and we can ourselves set up weekly or monthly chats to talk about what ought to be in each lesson plan and how the elements should be presented.

Working together on a project like this would be a good way for us to get to know each other better, learn to cooperate with each others, and provide us an agenda for ourselves to talk about when we schedule our meetings.

I can continue on with setting up raw outlines, but it would be very useful for us to talk each one through together, live, just like we were in a real meetup group working with new people for the first time.

What do you think about this? Would this be feasible? If so, then I suggest that we set up our first conference call via Skype or Discord and start working on Meeting 1 (which I've already largely laid out. We can do this in addition to Brett's suggestion of talking through DeWitt's book, and just do these on separate nights.

What say you?

I posted this at Facebook and will highlight it here too:

We have been discussing doing more regular voice/text/video chatting, and Brett Wheat has suggested that we schedule something to review the first Chapter and/or segment (we'll have to decide what) of Epicurus and His Philosophy, probably this weekend. If you would be available for a chat probably at the Discord server please post here and let us know any time/day considerations. Otherwise Mr. Wheat and I will probably just appear in the server at the appointed time and discuss Chapter 1!

Yes I agree. Different people are going to read at different rates, so we'd have to figure out how to coordinate time if we were having voice/video chats. In the meantime, when you start posting comments if you can refer to the chapter, then I can break down the thread to track each chapter.

We could conceivably schedule a Discord chat for this weekend to cover the first chapter and/or logical segment. Let me post and see if we can interest anyone - but heck we can do this just ourselves if needed.

If we end up doing a "book club" styled analysis, we can make one thread per chapter, and then put all those threads in a subfolder for the book.