Posts by Cassius

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 08/29/2015***

** This is the one hundred and twenty-first in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

** Here are the highlights of this week's posts:

**On Aug 22, Michael C asked: "Must every position held by Epicurus originally stay the same today?" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…75750249140603/ That prompted quite a lot of discussion, and on Aug 23 I started a new thred entitled "Must I believe XXX that Epicurus Said?" This is a regular topic of discussion and anyone who has more comments is welcome to chime in: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…75949865787308/

**On Aug 26, Takis P. posted a very pleasant "bon voyage" video from Greece: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…77193798996248/

**On Aug 27, over at the Society of Friends of Epicurus, Hiram posted a link to where many of Nietzsche's books can be downloaded for free: https://www.facebook.com/SocietyOfFrien…893735570709899 While Nietzsche's philosophy must be handled carefully, Nietzsche was generally an admirer of Epicurus, and he had important things to say about many areas of interest to student of Epicurus, especially in his analysis of stoicism.

**On Aug 28, I posted "Is the Fountain of Pleasure Tainted? Or Is The Taint In How We Approach It?" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…78102285572066/

**On Aug 29, I posted "A Season Of The Year to Remember Fallen Epicureans": https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…78647568850871/

**Thanks to all who participated in the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus

**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:

1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.

2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)

3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)

4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 08/22/2015***

** This is the one hundred and twentieth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

** Here are the highlights of this week's posts:

**New rumblings of political and economic changes began to be heard around the world last week, as the summer begins to draw to a close, and posting this past week was light. Before we check the highlights, this is a good time to remember that no matter what happens in the world at large, there are eternal issues of truth and untruth that lay just beneath the surface in almost every issue, so it never pays to get so distracted by current events that we forget the philosophical underpinnings.

** To start off the week, Hiram posted a link to discussion of his "Religion As Play blog post: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…72069022842059/

** Thanks to Domagoj for finding an article about how the "lorem ipsum" dummy text used by typographers derives from the Epicurean portion of Cicero's "On Ends." https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…74265649289063/

**This past week included the Twentieth of the month, and both I and Steve K. posted on the topic. My post was about the question of whether "virtue is its own reward." https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…74634485918846/

** Steve K's post was to a well written article "Why Epicurus Matters Today" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…74460055936289/

** Last for the week was my post on "Things That Never Change, and Things That Do" highlighting the twelve fundamental principles of physics that Epicurus held to be the foundation of his philosophy. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…75110749204553/

** That's it for the weekly update - a short update for a short week. This can be expected to pick up as the season changes, so please be sure to post your comments, questions, and links as they occur to you.

**Thanks to all who participated in the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus

**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:

1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.

2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)

3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)

4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 08/15/2015***

** This is the one hundred and nineteenth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

** Here are the highlights of this week's posts:

** Much conversation continued on posts from earlier weeks that revolved around issues of religion, and I posted a refresher on Lucian's "Alexander the Oracle-Monger" to remind us of the Epicurean examples of how to deal with the topic: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…68980213150940/

** In a similar vein, the issue arose of whether epistemology comes before physics, or vice versa, and we discussed how the Epicureans treated the topics together: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…69402559775372/

**Thanks to Michael H. for posting a ling to the Archealogy Magazine article on Diogenes of Oinoanda. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…70396506342644/

**We also had a post on the topic of religion vs philosophy and how "reason" may not adequately convey the proper alternative to religion. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…70788312970130/

**Ellip P posted what turned out to be the longest discussion of the week, on how a researcher theorizes that the fall of the Roman Empire can be attributed to biology. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…68495483199413/

**Elli P also posted links to what may be a new source for a statue of Epicurus - this one in a standing pose. She has promised to keep us up to date on this new source. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…70925316289763/

**Hiram posted a link to a "Patheos.com" article on the influence of Randian ideas on society. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…71307882918173/

**And most recently as I posted this is a new blog entry at NewEpicurean.com which compares the faculty of pleasure to the nature of money. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…71607402888221/

**Thanks to all who participated in the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus

**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:
1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.

2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)

3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)

4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 08/08/2015***

** This is the one hundred and eighteenth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

** We've just finished another full week with many excellent posts. Before I dive into them, let me remind everyone that there is a good reason why posts in our Epicurean Philosophy Group forum frequently contain, and generate, heated commentary. The orthodox mainstream viewpoint is that Epicurus fits neatly into a consensus in which general attitudes such as "knowing oneself" and "moderation" and "happiness" are the best that Greek philosophy has to offer. Epicurus is held to be just another in a line from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle and through the Stoics who held heated debates on details, but rarely strayed from these same fundamentals.

Read about him in any generalist article on the internet, and you will find Epicurus portrayed as a teach of asceticism in the Stoic mold, whose main contribution was to apply an unusual definition of "pleasure" to mean nothing more than "absence of pain." This view reduces Epicurus to an unimportant footnote who deserves nothing more than a mild appreciation for his ability to turn a phrase, such as "death is nothing to us." And we are to understand that this phrase is a neat contribution because, to be perfectly blunt, "EVERYTHING" is really "nothing" to us. And that's because **all** moderns and ancient Greeks agree that by employing "reason" we can rise about the pain of ordinary life and aspire to a higher world of nobility through thought alone.

The regular posters in this group know that these generalities are far off base, and they have taken it upon themselves to understand how these distortions arose and respond with a more authentic interpretation of Epicurus. Many (but not all) of us have come to this viewpoint through studying the work of Norman DeWitt. DeWitt, who is all but written out of school by the society of modern commentators, provided a radically different interpretation through his "Epicurus and His Philosophy." Since its publication in the late 1950's, DeWitt's book has provided new generations of students of Epicurus the sort of guide to understanding Epicurean philosophy which has not existed in readily-available form since the ancient world.

For those of us who have followed DeWitt's lead and begun to see how Epicurus differs from the ancient and modern consensus, it is not sufficient to smile and nod and link to the babbling of pop psychologists about "happiness" and "pleasure" who fail to provide clear definitions of those terms. Our arguments are often aimed agains anciend and modern Stoics, because the Stoics were the first to attack Epicurus and systematize the arguments against "pleasure." But casual readers should understand that "Stoicism" is best understood as a general umbrella term with several common characteristics. It is a common attitude that has always existed, from the ancient world to today, and it is the very opposite of the Epicurean viewpoint.

When we refer to "Stoicism," what we are really referring to is any attiude that holds the following:

- that pleasure is the enemy of good living;

- that empty words like "virtue" can be the goal of life without further need for definition;

- that "fate" governs everything in the lives of men, to which the best response we can give is to seek to mentally deny the reality of pain;

- that the universe is governed by a supernatural overlord, call it gods or "divine fire" which is the source of all meaning in the universe.

It is *helpful*, but not necessary, to identify that these ideas have their roots in Ancient Stoicism. But it is *necessary* to identify, as Epicurus did, that these ideas are the mortal enemy of living in accord with the path Nature has set for all living things: the pursuit of mental and bodily pleasure.

The world is full of enemies of the Epicurean view of life, and we cannot hope to succeed in living the full pleasurable life that is possible to us unless we identify these enemies and gird ourselves against their attacks. Just as the fear of gods and the fear of death have plagued humanity throughout the ages, the "fear" of pleasure and of pain, and the consequences that occur when they are handled unintelligently, are tremendous obstacles to living the best life that is possible to us. All of these fears must be confronted and overcome.

The theme which unites the regular posters who defend Epicurus in this group is their devotion to living according to Nature. What they see in Epicurus was a pathbreaking leader who blazed the trail we are now following, and who deserves credit, respect, and thanks for his work. In addition to appreciating Epicurus, and for the same reasons, I appreciate the efforts of everyone here who work to present and defend the fundamentals of Epicurean philosophy. We all profit from the work going on here, and I urge new readers to join us in the fight to rediscover the truth about Epicurean philosophy.

Now for news from the week:

**Hiram posted on "Stages of Development in Hedonist Spirituality" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…65457326836562/

**In the first of series of excellent graphics this week, Elli posted a graphic analogizing Epicurean and Stoic "vases." https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…65924240123204/

**Elli also posted on the Epicurean attitude toward "isms" and political ideology. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…65260430189585/

**Elli posted on Epicurus' commentary on sexual relations. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…66642740051354/

**Elli posted on Metrodorus' saying about going to death "crying aloud in a glorious triumph song that we have lived well" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…66776746704620/

**Elli posted on an excerpt from Dimitris Liantinis book "Ta Hellinika" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…66903776691917/

**Hiram started a thread welcoming new members. We urge all new members to say hello and identify themselves: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…65360206846274/

**Elli posted on the amusing story of Thesmopolis the Stoic https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…67305559985072/

**Elli posted on Epicurean Self-Sufficiency as discussed by Dr. Christos Yapijakis https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…67301166652178/

**Elli posted a graphic contrasting Zeno and Epicurus on the issue of fate: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…66797926702502/

**Alexander R. posted on scientific findings about horses and their facial expressions https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…67499989965629/

**Elli posted on a possible bust of Idomeneus of Lampsacus https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…67729483276013/

**Elli posted an excerpt from Carl Sagan on the Ionian school (of which Epicurus was a part) https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…67722993276662/

**Elli posted an illustrative story on friendship. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…67551743293787/

**Elli posted a graphic on Metrodorus' saying about only being born once. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…68079576574337/

**Elli posted on the "babbling" comment recorded in the Bible as stated by Epicureans (and stoics) against "St Paul". https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…68238639891764/

**Thanks to all who participated in the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus

**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:
1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.
2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)
3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)

4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 08/01/2015***

** This is the one hundred and seventeenth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

** After several slow weeks in July we've had a burst of activity to start August. And credit for the most-commented post of the week (perhaps the full year!) goes to Cecil the lion and Elli: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…63686343680327/ This post of course covered the killing of Cecil the lion, but also covered a wide range of issues. Closely related to that post was this one, also by Elli, on another "big game" hunter: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…64879300227698/ And also related was "The Hidden History of Greco-Roman Vegetarianism": https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…64171380298490/

** In other posts:

** My "Action As A Requirement of Pleasure" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…62580217124273/

**In another animal post, Alexander R. on dolphins: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…62814547100840/

**Elli prepared a new graphic to mark the discovery of an earth-like planet in another galaxy: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…62814870434141/

**Douglas M.da.S. asked about "An Archaeology of Ataraxia" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…63011853747776/

**Elli posted an excellent essay on Christianity by Emma Goldman: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…62591103789851/

**Elli prepared a new graphic on a comment by Nietzsche about Epicurus: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…63303370385291/

**Hiram linked to a video about Epicurus on Friendship: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…63713037010991/

**Domagoj started a thread on Epicurean political thought: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…62838913765070/

**Hiram linked to an article on "meaning" as healthier than "happiness" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…63468200368808/

**Elli created an excellent graphic based on a passage from Lucian on the importance of clear thinking. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…64038543645107/

**Richard A started a thread on Buddha, Epicurus, and Lao Tse: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…64521853596776/

**I started an article on "Purging Yourself of Stoicism" based on an article Domagoj sent my way: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…64925646889730/

**Thanks to all who participated in the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus

**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:

1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.

2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)

3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)

4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 07/25/2015***

** This is the one hundred and sixteenth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

** The summer continues to be a little slow, but we had a number of good discussions (see below) even as events in Greece reduced in intensity from a boil to a simmer. Here are the highlights of the past week:

**Samej D. linked to "Naturalistic Traditions: Were Epicurus and the Atomists Naturalistic?"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…59221737460121/

**Hiram posted to an article that needed deconstructing entitled "We Never Really Die...." https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…59041297478165/

**This past week contained the Twentieth of July, and commemorations were posted by me (https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…59886300726998/ ) and one of our most reliable long-term observers of the Twentieth: Steve K.: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…60295227352772/ Steve K's gets the award for widest interest, as his graphic of seasoned french fries was accompanied by the title "Sex-pectations: The Problem With Having Sex...."

**Also on the Twentieth, I linked to an article with some sligh (or unintentional humor) about Greeks trusting banks. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…59930244055937/

**Elli reminded us of an older post on the difference between Stoicism and Epicurean philosophy. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…60515347330760/

**Samej D. linked to a video that in the end had a good message I think Epicurus would have endorsed: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…61297047252590/

**Yiannis T. linked to an article on Alan Watts and Acceptance of Death. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…61470477235247/

**Elli posted new graphics with a cite to Lucretius Book 1: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…61811883867773/

**Winning the "most commented post of the week" award was Elli in her post about Angela Merkel and religion: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…60723947309900/

**And topping off the week was a graphic of Epicurus superimposed on a Greek flag, with commentary we'll need a translator to understand.

**Thanks to all who participated in the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus
**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:
1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.
2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)
3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)
4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

http://newepicurean.com/peace-and-safe…ieth-of-july-2/

Peace and Safety to the Epicureans of today, no matter where you might be!

Vatican Saying 45: “The study of nature does not create men who are fond of boasting and chattering or who show off the culture that impresses the many, but rather men who are strong and self-sufficient, and who take pride in their own personal qualities not in those that depend on external circumstances.”

We seem to be in the midst of a long hot summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the season is far from over. Across the globe troubles are breaking out in almost every corner, and the Epicurean homeland in Greece is ground zero for financial earthquakes that threaten to spread across Europe, if not the globe.

It can be discouraging to watch the news every day and see how little the world has learned from Epicurus. Our leadership class is as fond as ever of boasting and chattering, but most of all they wish to show off their “culture” that impresses the many, rather than showing off their understanding of the truth about the nature of things. Religion and mainstream philosophy have united to create a political orthodoxy from which no dissent is allowed, and those that do dissent are demonized. Almost every position legitimately traceable to Epicurus (as opposed to spurious “grin and bear it” positions of his Stoic rivals) is dismissed as anti-social heresy, and few understand the Epicurean doctrines well enough to even begin to think about applying them.

“Living simply” is widely endorsed as political and social orthodoxy despite the explicit rejection of this interpretation in VS 63: “There is also a limit in simple living, and he who fails to understand this falls into an error as great as that of the man who gives way to extravagance.”

And so one can read endlessly on the internet, endlessly looking for insight from Epicurus, until one is left with the gloomy conclusion that the brilliant subtlety of his philosophy has been mashed into incoherence into “what’s good is easy to get and what’s terrible is easy to avoid” – as if this should be taken at face value as the height of wisdom.

But does all this mean that we should despair that all is lost, and that we are helpless prisoners of religion and the stoic denial of pleasure and emotion? Not at all.

There is no reason that we ourselves cannot become people “who are strong and self-sufficient, and who take pride in their own personal qualities not in those that depend on external circumstances.” While this may mean that we must temporarily or permanently put aside our dreams of unlimited personal luxury and worldwide brotherly love, we need to remember that such goals as these have always been pie-in-the-sky imaginings and never our birthright. The later ancient Epicureans saw their own world collapse around them, as overzealous religionists destroyed the Greco-Roman civilization under which they flourished, so what we are going through today is not unique to us. Although our civilization may meet the same end, individually we have many advantages in science and technology and communication that the ancient Epicureans never dreamed of having. We can – and must – use these tools to stay in touch with each other, to study true philosophy, and fill our days with pleasures that are within our control.

In almost any circumstance we may confront, we should keep in mind that “The benefits of other activities come only to those who have already become, with great difficulty, complete masters of such pursuits, but in the study of philosophy pleasure accompanies growing knowledge; for pleasure does not follow learning; rather, learning and pleasure advance side by side.” [VS27]

We may find ourselves with a front seat for watching the collapse of Western Civilization, but so long as we can, we should study and apply the insights that Epicurus left us. It may be a lonely path, but it has always been – and always will be – the path that Nature created for us.

And to the day we die – no matter how or when that will be – we ought to remember Epicurus with the same respect and admiration that Lucretius wrote about:

WHO is able with powerful genius to frame a poem worthy of the grandeur of the things and these discoveries? Or who is so great a master of words as to be able to devise praises equal to the deserts of him who left to us such prizes won and earned by his own genius? None, methinks, who is formed of mortal body. For if we must speak as the acknowledged grandeur of the things itself demands, a god he was, a god, most noble Memmius, who first found out that plan of life which is now termed wisdom, and who by trained skill rescued life from such great billows and such thick darkness and moored it in so perfect a calm and in so brilliant a light.
…
But unless the breast is cleared, what battles and dangers must then find their way into us in our own despite! What poignant cares inspired by lust then rend the distressful man, and then also what mighty fears! And pride, filthy lust and wantonness? What disasters they occasion! And luxury and all sorts of sloth?

He therefore who shall have subdued all these and banished them from the mind by words, not arms, shall he not have a just title to be ranked among the gods?
– Lucretius Book V (Munro)

*THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 07/18/2015***

** This is the one hundred and fifteenth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophyCopies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored atEpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

** Summers have a tendency to be slower times for philosophy discussions, as Epicureans fill the warmer months with the activities of pleasant living, rather than dreaming up abstractions to change the world. Nevertheless this week we had several interesting threads, including:

**A discussion of the excerpt from Diogenes Laertius that emotion is no hindrance to wisdom.https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…56496011066027/

**Hiram's post on Vatican Saying 28:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…56908897691405/

**Hiram's setting up of an Epicurean Discusion at Disqus.com:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…57032424345719/

**Hiram's post on "An Epicurean Case for Pastafari"https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…57763510939277/

**My post on warning against taking superficially a saying of Marcus Aurelius:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…56880601027568/

**Hiram's link to an article on "The self-deception of the intentionally childless."https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…57820014266960/

**Brent Rivera linked to "The Importance of Eating Together" which Epicurus surely would have endorsed:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…56491324399829/

**Elli created a new graphic on PD32 and the nature of justice:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…57952624253699/

**Hiram linked to "Philosophy Core Concepts - Epicurus on Mental and Bodily Pleasures"https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…58728097509485/

**And then, in our most-commented post of the week, the we discussed how to view the news about the ISIS child decapitating the Syrian soldier from an Epicurean perspective:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…58665174182444/

**Then, just before press time, Hiram posted a link to "The Science Behind Eternal Consc iousness" which Ilkka handled with a swift reference to Victor Stenger.https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…59041297478165/

**Thanks to all who participated in the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here:EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus
**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:
1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.
2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)
3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)
4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/ Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 07/11/2015***

** This is the one hundred and fourteenth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion ishttps://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophyCopies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored atEpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don’t receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, “strike a blow for Epicurus – that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!”

** The attention of Greece and its friends around the world continues to center on the financial crisis. Before linking to our major posts on that subject, this is a good time to remember that while Epicurean philosophy provides the essential basis for analyzing questions like this properly, it does not at all guarantee that each of us will reach the same answers. In the civil war that tore apart the Roman Republic, Caesar’s father-in-law, and perhaps Caesar himself, were identified as holding at least some Epicurean views, while Cassius Longinus, one of the prime leaders of the rebellion, was also Epicurean. Any review of the last ten principal doctrines of Epicurus reveals that it is a bedrock principal that there is no “absolute justice,” and that “justice” is going to differ with time and place and people involved. That’s because there *is* no absolute standard of “right” and “wrong” that applies everywhere and at all times. Each person is born with life, “free will,” and the faculty of pleasure and pain, and it is only by this faculty of pleasure that anyone knows that which is truly desirable for him.
Epicurus said, “For I at least do not even know what I should conceive the good to be, if I eliminate the pleasures of taste, and eliminate the pleasures of sex, and eliminate the pleasures of listening, and eliminate the pleasant motions caused in our vision by a visible form.” This means that “the good” does not exist in a divine dictate from the gods; nor does it exist in some ideal platonic form in another dimension. “The good” for each of us is what our own faculty of pleasure tells us is pleasing to us in our own experience. Individual experiences are going to differ dramatically, and it is to be expected that different people will pursue their own desires in different ways.

So in my view, it is not possible to say that a devoted Epicurean would want to agree with the Troika and preserve the existing Greek status in the European Union, any more than it is possible to say that a devoted Epicurean would wish to exit the Euro, start printing drachmas, and follow a totally new course. Each of us have our views on which course would be best. But here is where I think it IS possible to say something about an Epicurean viewpoint, and how the Epicurean would be distinguished from other viewpoints.
It is core Epicurean doctrine that Gods do not interfere with our lives, and death is nothingness to us. That means that THIS life is all we have; that we are not going to heaven or hell after death, and that if we are going to experience any joy and delight it is going to be in THIS lifetime. And thus we must live our lives to the fullest possible to us – as we have no other. We must “seize the day.”

In contrast to this, a fascinating article was posted this past week entitled “Putting the Greek Back in Stoicism.” It was linked and discussed in our group here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…52929258089369/Reading the article is extremely enlightening for what it suggests the Greeks should do in this time of crisis. If you’ve ever wanted an example of the “stick-your-head-in-the-sand” attitude at the bottom of Stoicism, this is a good article to see it. It makes a couple of platitudinous points which are worth pointing out, with comment:

• Focus on things you can control – get over things that you cannot control <<< “Get over them” means what? forget about them? Epicurus advises study of all issues, including death and the gods.

• Bear in mind that things could have been worse << Nothing I can find about thinking about things being worse… Instead, the focus is on action to create a better life: “PD16. Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life.”

• Learn self-control through occasional acts of self-denial. << And this one again confuses a tool “selfcontrol” with the end – pleasure. Learning self control for the sake of self control leads in a circle to nothing. And in the meantime, the supposed wisdom of the men cited in the article is NOT leading toward happiness in any ordinarily understandable version of that term as related to pleasurable living. Instead, if you listen to them, the goal is as far from pleasure as one could hope to find.

Even when sanitized in modern jargon, the poison is still there – buried just beneath the surface. Instead of “study nature and learn to live pleasurably” the emphasis is on “close your eyes and you’re one step closer to complete anesthesia.”

A similar list posted in another link can be used to illustrate the same point. In a video entitled “The Secrets of Happiness” we see “happiness” as defined by someone who is focusing on the absence of pain, rather than the pursuit of pleasure.https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…55227731192855/
I summarized these, again with comment, in the following list:
1) “Stop being so hopeful – expect that most things are going to go wrong.” No. Focus on pleasant living as your goal, act intelligently and rationally to deal with your circumstances and attain the pleasure that is possible and that can be gained without excessive pain, and in **most** cases (not all) you have reasonable grounds for confidence of success.
2) “Stop ranting about how awful other people are – most annoying people aren’t evil, they’re just anxious or sad.” Another presciption for disaster. Look at people realistically, and see whether in fact they are “having a bad day” or they belong to ISIS.
3) “Think of death a lot. Keep a skull on your desk.” Ridiculous,. There is no point in being morbid. Think of death AS appropriate – which is when you need to remember that life is short, that your time is important, and that the time you waste spouting platitudes like this list is gone forever..
4)”Laugh at yourself – think of yourself as a loveable fool.” See response to item 3. Laughing is appropriate, but taking your life unseriously is not. it’s the only one you have.
5) “Talk to yourself – ask yourself what you really want.” This one is arguably decent but if you work to ground yourself in a firm philosophy like Epicurus advised, it won’t be so necessary to reinvent the wheel every time something even a little bad happens.
6) “Stop trying to make yourself happy. It’s impossible. Make others happy.” Pure Stoicism. Happiness isn’t important, and the implication is that it is bad to pursue it.
7) “Look at yourself from outer space. From this height all your problems are small.” In other words, look at yourself from the perspective of a non-existent god or a non-existent Platonist philosopher king. You, and your problems, are nothing in the “great scheme of things.” The trouble is, as Epicurus pointed out, there IS no “great scheme” of things. Your life is all you have, and if you don’t deal with your problems intelligently, and not by minimizing them, you lose the only life you have.
“Throw your phone off a cliff.” Another veiled suggested to drop out, tune out, and turn off. And why not, when you have an eternity in heaven after you’re dead? Or, from the perspective of this video, you’re a worm anyway that is of total insignificance, so who cares what you learn on the phone.
9) “Give up the idea that you should be normal. Everyone one is weird, and that’s totally ok.” In other words, it’s totally Ok if your neighbor joins ISIS.
These are the Secrets of HAPPINESS? Not for a minute. They are the secrets of manipulating others into thinking you are praising happiness while you are in truth preaching asceticism, austerity, self-denial, pain, and the renunciation of every bit of pleasure that life calls you to pursue.
So to return to the theme of this introduction, I think it is entirely possible for someone of Epicurean disposition to look at his or her situation within Greece and reach entirely different conclusions as to what direction will lead to maximum net pleasure for them. But whichever choices an Epicurean makes, he or she should pursue them with vigor and every weapon of intellect available, because life is short, the night is long, and for all the rest of eternity we experience nothing. As Horace said, we must “seize the day.”
**In other posts this week:
** Hiram posted to “Meditation changes your brain for the better”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…53925201323108/and “depression makes your brain smaller”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…53925681323060/
** Hiram also posted “Cosma Raimondi – The Rebirth of Epicurean Fervor”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…53925681323060/And speaking of Cosma Raimondi, I posted on him as well:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…54324044616557/
** The Society of Epicurus posted an interesting link on “Are you sure you’re an epicure?”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…54297894619172/
** I posted an article entitled “The Real Troika”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…54403071275321/
** Hiram posted “Cultivating the Mind of An Epicurus”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…55137464535215/
** Hiram posted another “welcome new members” thread, which we encourage all new members to participate in:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…55571464491815/
** Our latest discussions on the Greek crisis took place mostly here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…55149411200687/
**Hiram posted to an interesting article on “Proposing an Objective Morality”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…56141804434781/
**Thanks to all who participated the the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here:EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus
**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:
1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you’ve combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and “Epicureanism for Modern Times” that you can find by searching facebook.
2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply “Epicurean Philosophy,” is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an “About” and a “Sticky” post with our forum rules.)
3 – If you prefer to post in a “private” group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have “Epicurean Private Garden.” Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)
4 – If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check outhttps://www.epicureanfriends.com/ Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 07/4/2015***

** This is the one hundred and thirteenth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion ishttps://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophyCopies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored atEpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don’t receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, “strike a blow for Epicurus – that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!”
**In followup to last week, events in the homeland of Epicurus are heating up fast. Tomorrow is the referendum that regardless of outcome appears to have important implications for the future of Greece. Posts on this topic include:

Elli transcribed into English and uploaded a complete copy of an article by George Kaplanis entitled “The Crisis And Epicurean Logic”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…51735744875387/

Posts on the referendum itself:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…49919888390306/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…51606884888273/

Elli’s post on commentary by a UN Human Rights expert:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…51749811540647/

Elli’s post on a cite to Nietzsche:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…51152371600391/
My post relating a passage from Lucretius on difficult times:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…52247128157582/

My post on “no fate but what we make for ourselves”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…52578868124408/

Elli’s post on PD39https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…53062798076015/

Other significant posts this week include:

Hiram’s post on “a ship is safe in harbor”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…50890291626599/

Hiram’s post on Paul as the great corrupter of the doctrines of Jesushttps://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…50890291626599/

** My post on a thread at the Epicurus page interpreting Epicurus with stoic overtones (the comments, that is)https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…50834738298821/
My post on coming up with a better version of VS14 which doesn’t refer to “leisure” (a word that does not appear in the text).https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…49918281723800/

** Hiram’s “How Religion is bad for ataraxia”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…51802331535395/

**Hiram’s post on the Uberization of the economy.https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…51842461531382/

**Alexander’s link to an article on “fear and pleasure.”https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…52492028133092/
*
*Jakob AE. posted a copy of a thesis he wrote on hedonism:https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…52685454780416/

**I posted on the relative scarcity of modern interest in the Epicurean commentary on politics/justice, even though these consume almost 25% of the space in the Principal Doctrines.https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…52683688113926/

**Elli’s graphic on PD39https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…53062798076015/

**Thanks to all who participated the the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here:EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus

**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:
1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you’ve combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and “Epicureanism for Modern Times” that you can find by searching facebook.
2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply “Epicurean Philosophy,” is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an “About” and a “Sticky” post with our forum rules.)
3 – If you prefer to post in a “private” group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have “Epicurean Private Garden.” Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)
4 – If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check outhttp://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…fx3yVxw&amp;s=1 Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 06/27/2015***

** This is the one hundred and twelfth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

**I am posting this Saturday night, as at this very moment things are reaching a crisis stage with the financial system in Greece. The topic is being discussed here https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…49919888390306/ and I hope our friends in Greece will keep us posted on developments in the coming days. Greece is the home of the most active group of Epicurean students anywhere in the world, and we certainly hope that they remain safe and sound as the crisis deepens.

**In other posts this week -

**Mark C. is a talented musician, and this week he posted a rough cut of a song he composed with on the theme of "death is nothing to us." It would be great to see Mark continue to work on this and develop other tunes with Epicurean themes. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…47431418639153/

**Carlos V. posted a link to an article about "Classics for the People - Why Whe Should All learn from the ancient Greeks" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…47473258634969/

**Hiram posted a link to a video by PhilosophyIO, which Hiram indicates has been discussing Epicurus recently. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…48325318549763/ Once again you'll find there the standard confusing discussion of how "static" pleasures are to be preferred *over* "moving" pleasures. Sigh. You can see the speaker choke on trying to describe that at the 2:30 point, if you like.... "Nothing is really going on, but it's just really enjoyable." Don't be surprised if you find his explanation unimpressive.

**There was some significant followup conversation this week about Seneca's comments on "natural and necessary" desires. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…48288508553444/

**Here as a commentary post on the tetrapharmakon - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…48994428482852/

**Hiram posted a link to an article he wrote on "against the common good." https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…49593331756295/

**I posted a link to an excellent video about a reconstruction of a Roman town in Portugal. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…49540255094936/

**This post discusses Vatican saying 14 and points out some improvements that could be made in the standard translations. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…49918281723800/

**And then today, I posted a video of a bear jumping into a swimming pool and used it to highlight several important issues in discussing pleasure. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…50038705045091/

**To end where we began, a lot is going on in Greece this week, and many of our Greek friends are focused on some issues of critical importance to their future. Hopefully we'll receive updates as the crisis unfolds, and we wish our friends in the homeland of Epicurus well as they go through this difficult time.

**Thanks to all who participated the the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus
**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:
1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.
2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)
3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)
4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

LM asked me a question on the NewEpicurean page, and I put some effort into the answer, so I am pasting it here:

LM - What does this mean? I really can't figure it out, unless he's referring to, for example, when we look back on a period of unrequited sexual desire that caused us great emotional pain at the time, and now we are glad that it is all in the past.
"The limit of mental pleasure, however, is reached when we reflect on these bodily pleasures and their related emotions, which used to cause the mind the greatest alarms."
Like · Reply · June 21 at 2:28pm · Edited

NewEpicurean: Leonard that is an excellent question and here is what I think: Epicurus was concerned about the LIMIT of pleasure because Plato had argued that nothing that is unlimited can be satisfied, and if pleasure is unlimited, then it cannot be the guide to life. Epicurus responded that pleasure DOES have a limit, and that limit occurs when all pain has been driven away, and we experience pleasures (ordinary pleasures, not something mystical or anesthesia) to the extent that is possible for us to experience physically. (Meaning, when the senses are full of pleasure and you experience nothing but the pure pleasure.) So that shows that bodily pleasures have a limit - once you are full of pleasure there is no increasing the quantity - all you do is vary the TYPE of pleasure, which is not an increase in quantity.

The same phenomena occurs with the mind. Your mind can be close to full of ordinary mental pleasures (again, nothing mystical, and not anesthesia) but so long as fear of death and fear of the gods remain, then you are not experiencing pure mental pleasure unmixed by pain. Looked at that way, this sentence from Epicurus is very simple: the limit of mental pleasure is when ALL fear and anxiety is removed, and the most hard-to-beat fears and anxieties that cause the greatest alarm are fear of gods and of death. Defeat those fears through study of nature - remove them from your mind entirely through study - and you can experience pure mental pleasure, unmixed with any pain. And that's the "limit" of mental pleasure - after that, quantity cannot be increased, it only varies.

All of this does not establish anything mystical at all - it simply shows that Plato was wrong, and that pleasure CAN be satisfied and used as the guide of life. Nothing mystical; nothing dark; simply a clear and practical analysis that Nature has made pleasure the guide to life.

Note: This is in reference to the post I started here, but the point is separate and deserves its own point: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…47094572006171/

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 06/20/2015***

** This is the one hundred and eleventh in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and other discussion cites are referenced at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

**Here are a few highlights from the week:

**Hiram and Panagiotis continued their series of memes for the 40 Doctrines, with this one on PD15 as to the limits of natural wealth. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…44868102228818/

**Hiram posted on "Epicureanism as a Religious Identity" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…45023762213252/

**Hiram posted on the "fullness of pleasure" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…45208155528146/

**Hiram posted on "The Epicurean Nag Hammadi" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…45606728821622/

**Alexander posted a link to an article comparing the pleasures of sex and alcohol to the pleasures of religion and having children. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…45323132183315/

**Hiram posted a reminder of the resources we have posted in our files section: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…45412735507688/

**Hiram and Panagiotis posted a meme on PD16 and the role of reason: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…45730348809260/

**Hiram posted an interesting question on a passage from Cosma Raimondi on the "intention" of Nature: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…45726942142934/

**Elli posted an announcement that a third edition of "Epicurean Principal Doctriines - Tee Art of Wellbeing" by Christos Yapijakis was being issued - regretably only in Greek - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…46012812114347/

**Hiram and Panagiotis posted a meme on PD16 - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…44269815621980/

**Panagiotis posted a link to a Master's Thesis entitled "Epicurean Mission and Membership from the Early Garden to the Late-Roman Republic." I only had a chance to read part, but it appears excellent. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…46460398736255/

**Alexander posted a link to a new article on particle physics. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…46530102062618/

**Alexander also posted a link to an article on "Machine dreaming", linking it to the letter to Herodotus - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…46538952061733/

**Hiram reminded us that "A Partially Examined Life" will be discussion "A Few Days In Athens" this Sunday https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…46544115394550/

**Hiram posted "Reasonings On Community" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…46409045408057/

**Domagoj posted a link to an article by Jaakko Wallenius, who until his death was an active internet posted on Epicurean ideas. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…46092652106363/

**Today was the 20th and I posted a memorial: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…46816235367338/

**I also posted today a meme on Jefferson's statement of the calculation of pleasure https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…47052288677066/

**Last for the week as of this writing, I posted a blog entry on how a passage from Seneca illustrates the meaning of PD3. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…47094572006171/

**Thanks to all who participated the the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus

**Options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet include:

1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.

2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)

3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have "Epicurean Private Garden." Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)

4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

I've been looking for a more understandable version of Horace's Ode III,29, where he discusses "fortune" and how to deal with it in Epicurean terms. I now see Peter St. Andre has done a version. Here's a key part and the full translation is at the link:

Joyous and self-possessed is the life of he
Who each day can say: "I have lived — tomorrow
The Father may fill the sky with black storm-clouds
Or purest sunshine,

Yet even so he can't upset what is past:
He can't complete or alter or make undone
Whatever the fleeting hour has once produced."
For haughty Fortune,

Full poem: https://stpeter.im/writings/fire/horace3_29.html

"This Aegean Storm"
(Horace, Odes III.29)
translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Maecenas, descended from Etruscan kings,
Smooth wine not yet opened and blooming roses
And fragrant hair oils have long been ready
For you at my house.
Break free from all hindrances: do not always
Contemplate the humid Tibur, Aefula's
Sloping fields, and the ridge of that parricide
Old Telegonus;
Forsaking loathsome wealth and sky-high power,
Shaking your head at the smoke and wealth and noise
Of decadent Rome, I urge you to leave: for
Change is pleasant,
And a simple dinner at a peasant's small
Hut all lacking in fine purple tapestries
Loosens the troubled brow of the richest man.
For see already:
Andromeda's shining father shows forth his
Secret fire; Procyon and the savage star
Of Leo rage, and the sun brings back the days,
Drought-filled, without rain;
The shepherd with his sluggish flock seeks out shade
And stream and the wild brambles of savage
Silvanus, and the quiet banks lack even
An unsteady breeze.
Yet you worry about the health of the State;
Troubled over the City, you're anxious about
The Seres and Cyrus-ruled Bactra and the
Fractious Scythians.
Wisely the god suppresses the outcome of
Future times in darkest night, and he laughs if
Mortals are disturbed by that which is beyond
Their proper orbit.
Take care to deal clearly with what's before you —
The rest is carried along like a river:
Now gliding calmly within its channel down
To the Tuscan sea,
Now churning gnawed rocks and uprooted tree-trunks
And cattle and homes until the surrounding
Woods and hills resound with noise when the fierce flood
Roils the placid stream.
Joyous and self-possessed is the life of he
Who each day can say: "I have lived — tomorrow
The Father may fill the sky with black storm-clouds
Or purest sunshine,
Yet even so he can't upset what is past:
He can't complete or alter or make undone
Whatever the fleeting hour has once produced."
For haughty Fortune,
So pleased with her cruel affairs and stubbornly
Playing her games, keeps shifting around all her
Dubious honors, smiling now on me and
Now on someone else.
I praise her while she stays. Yet when she spreads her
Her too-swift wings, I give back what she's granted
And wrapped in my strength I seek out poverty,
Honest and bereft.
It's not my way, when the southern gales roar out
Of Africa, to make abject prayers and
Votive offerings to strike a bargain lest
My exotic wares
Should add to the wealth of the rapacious sea;
It's then that the gods and a favoring breeze
Carry me and my two-oared skiff safely through
This Aegean storm.

Peter Saint-Andre > Writings > Ancient Fire

"Epicurus maintains that soul atoms are particularly fine and are distributed throughout the body (LH 64), and it is by means of them that we have sensations (aisthêseis) and the experience of pain and pleasure, which Epicurus calls pathê (a term used by Aristotle and others to signify emotions instead). " http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 06/06/2015***

** This is the one hundred and ninth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com, and referenced as well at the end of this post.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

**This week we had a particularly good set of posts on core Epicurean doctrines, and tonight (and going forward) I plan to focus on making sure you didn't miss the most important ones, rather than try to list every one.

We had a series of excellent graphics prepared by several people. These are excellent for sharing, and I hope as many group members as possible will post and share them on their own timelines.

First, Panagiotis A. produced a series on the Principal Doctrines. Each of those generated excellent discussion, and I am listing them as follows:

**PD 6 - To secure protection from men anything is a natural good, by which you may be able to attain this end. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…37785612937067/

**PD 7 - Some men want fame and status, thinking that they would thus make themselves secure against other men. If the life of such men really were secure, they have attained a natural good; if, however, it is insecure, they have not attained the end which by nature's own prompting they originally sought. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…38402876208674/

**PD 8 - No pleasure is in itself bad, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…38868216162140/

**PD 10 - If the objects which are productive of pleasures to profligate persons really freed them from fears of the mind—the fears, I mean, inspired by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, the fear of pain—if, further, they taught them to limit their desires, we should not have any reason to censure such persons, for they would then be filled with pleasure to overflowing on all sides and would be exempt from all pain, whether of body or mind, that is, from all evil. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39817249400570/

**PD9 - If every pleasure were condensed and were present at the same time and in the whole of one’s nature or its primary parts, then the pleasures would never differ from one another. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39550452760583/ **I want to particularly highlight this one on PD9 because it contains some excellent discussion on the nature of pleasure.

** Our other major graphics designer, Elli P., also produced several graphics on important Epicurean points:

** VS21 - "We must not force Nature but persuade her. We shall persuade her if we satisfy the necessary desires and also those bodily desires that do not harm us while sternly checking those that are harmful." https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…40037286045233/

**VS 78. "The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter an immortal one." https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…40395846009377/

**Elli also shared a link from her Greek page illustrating some confusion between Stoic and Epicurean ideas: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…38760869506208/

Also as usual, Hiram C. posted a series of original articles:

**On Epicurean virtue: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…837780169604278

**Reasonings on Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39823886066573/

**Contemplations on Tao Series - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…40060196042942/

**An excellent post about Lucian's "science-fiction" adventure essay, cutely entitled "The True Story" - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…40151482700480/

**Other posts of note this week include:

** One by me on a graphic about a "balanced life" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…36555979726697/

** A post by me about conflicting translations (including VS42) and the need to scrutinize them for accuracy. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…37134736335488/ And a related post about conflicting translations on marriage, here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…37808186268143/

** A post by me to a graphic posted by a friend that gave a good opportunity to discuss the nature of pleasure. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…37771686271793/

**A post by me citing a comment by Gassendi on the Epicurean view of pleasure: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…38466879535607/

**A post to a new file upload brought to my attention by Francisco Martinez - a great article on iconography associated with Lucretius - lots of good images / etchings here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…38838269498468/

**A post by Yiannis T. to a new website containing many ancient Greek texts: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39205516128410/

**Related to Yiannis' post, a clip from that same website about the meaning of "canon." https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39242846124677/

**A post by Alexander R. about the future of cyborgenic organisms. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39322082783420/

**A post by Dragan N. with a quote from an unusual source with Epicurean overtones. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39578309424464/

**And mentioning Dragan reminds me that his post from last week "Why Men Won't Marry You" remains a hot topic https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…35121579870137/

**A post by Elli on a three year old boy with a very active imagination. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39664222749206/

And that's it for this week!

**Thanks to all who participated the the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus

**Note: Here is a list of several options for those who wish to discuss Epicurus on the internet:

1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.

2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)

3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, we have"Epicurean Private Garden."Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)

4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. Work is starting on a FAQ and other resources. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…39242846124677/

I just glanced at the new website Yiannis Tsapras linked for the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, and I noticed something that may be worthy of comment. On their page entitled CANON, they have a book they describe as containing "a searchable database and a bibliographic guide to the authors and works included in the TLG® Digital Library." That reminds me of what I think is a **major** distinction between what "canon" means in "Epicurean Canon" vs. "canon" as the word is generally used today. For example, check this link at wikipedia for "canon": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CanonOn this "disambiguation" page, they have ten or so possible meanings for "canon", all of them referencing what amounts to a "body of laws."

As I understand it, the Epicureans used the word "canon" in a much different sense, not to refer to a "body of laws" but to the "tests of truth." In Epicurean terms the "tests of truth" are NOT a set of written rules, laws, or guidelines, but the faculties of sensation give us by nature: (1) five senses, (2) the faculty of pain and pleasure, and (3) the faculty of anticipations. The Epicurean Canon is NOT the Principal Doctrines, or any set of rules whatsoever. The Epicurean Canon is applied by trusting the senses and intelligently processing the information they provide, with the test of truth always requiring that anything considered to be true must be validated by information provided by these three categories of faculties.

Here is Bailey's translation where Diogenes Laertius explains this point. It is crucial, because Epicurean philosophy is not a system of logical syllogisms constructed from reason alone. It is above all a procedure for intelligently following the lead of Nature.

See Also - NewEpicurean.com Nietzsche On Stoicism's Fraud of Words

Genealogy Of Morals, Part III, Section 15

"Suffering people all have a horrible willingness and capacity for inventing pretexts for painful emotional feelings. They already enjoy their suspicions, their brooding over bad actions and apparent damage. They ransack the entrails of their past and present, looking for dark and dubious stories, in which they are free to feast on an agonizing suspicion and to get intoxicated on their own poisonous anger. They rip open the oldest wounds, they bleed themselves to death from long-healed scars. They turn friends, wives, children, and anyone else who is closest to them into criminals. "I am suffering. Someone or other must be to blame for that" - that how every sick sheep thinks. But his shepherd, the ascetic priest, says to him: "That's right, my sheep ! Someone must be to blame for that. But you yourself are this very person. You yourself are the only one to blame. You alone are to blame for yourself!" . . . That is clever enough, and false enough. But one thing at least is attained by that, as I have said, the direction of resentment has been changed."

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.”

Additional Cites From The Collection At The Epicurus Wiki
The following are not explicit references to Epicurus, but highly consistent with the Epicurean perspective:

Thus Spake Zarathustra, Walter Kaufman translation
“I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go. Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth…”

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…3/?notif_t=like

One of our friends shared this graphic with the comment "What else can one wish for.....love life!❤" I agree that this is an excellent picture of pleasure - ordinary, understandable, non-platonic pleasure. But the majority of the Epicurean authorities out there would have you believe that this picture has very little, if anything, to do with Epicurean pleasure. They would have you believe than anything more than bread and water is "unnecessary" and that if you work to save money for a vacation to a place like this, you are unnecessarily disturbing your tranquility because you can be just as happy - in fact MORE happy, by cultivating "katastematic" pleasure - a big word that they rarely take the trouble to explain to you - and when they try it is little more than gibberish. I suggest that stoics should stay in their caves, and that open-minded people should question the stoic-ascetic commentators. Students of Epicurus should ignore the ascetic sniping and look to the same standard of pleasure and the good life to which Epicurus referred "“For I at least do not even know what I should conceive the good to be, if I eliminate the pleasures of taste, and eliminate the pleasures of sex, and eliminate the pleasures of listening, and eliminate the pleasant motions caused in our vision by a visible form."

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• Cassius Amicus I really need to collect examples of statements like this: "Epicurus conceived of pleasure in two ways. "Kinetic" pleasure is that pleasure felt while performing an activity, such as eating or drinking. "Katastematic" pleasure is that pleasure felt while being in a state. This is the pleasure of not being disturbed, of being free from pain. Both types of pleasure occur in the body and the soul. The absence of pain (katastematic pleasure) in the soul (ataraxia), though, is the highest good for Epicurus." The clear implication of this statement is that the goal of life is "absence of pain" rather than " pleasures of taste, and eliminate the pleasures of sex, and eliminate the pleasures of listening, and eliminate the pleasant motions caused in our vision by a visible form." So this - and many other - commentators, would have us believe that Epicurus recognized the good by sensing active pleasures, but then defined the "highest good" as something else entirely - the *negation* of sensation. Hogwash.
  

  Read more: Epicureanism - Epicurus On Pleasure - Ataraxia, Pain, Sense, and Kinetic - JRank Articles http://science.jrank.org/.../Epicureanism-Epicurus-on...

  
  

  Epicureanism - Epicurus On PleasureOther Free Encyclopedias » Science Encyclopedia » Science & Philosophy: Ephemeris to Evolution - Historical Background » Epicureanism - Epicurus On Pleasure, Epicurus On Human Excellence, Epicureans And Stoics Compared, Other Aspects Of EpicureanismSCIENCE.JRANK.ORG

**THIS WEEK IN EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY - 05/30/2015***

** This is the one hundred and eighth in a series of weekly reports on news from the world of Epicurean Philosophy. Our home base for discussion is https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ Copies of these posts, and links to active Epicurean websites, are stored at EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com.

** We welcome all participants and lurkers. If you apply to participate and don't receive a reply promptly, please send an email to an admin about your interest in the group. We are here to discuss Epicurean Philosophy, have fun, and in the words of Lucian, "strike a blow for Epicurus - that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him!"

**This week I am posting on time and will return to my traditional format after a couple of important points:

**First, this is a good time to review the options available for those who wish to discuss Epicurus within any of several custom frameworks. This past week we had many discussions on the same topic, and it's clear to me that things are shaping up in this general direction:

1- If you are someone whose views are fully formed, and you've combined several disparate viewpoints into your own personal mix, and you mainly want to talk casually to other people of the same eclectic type, there are several excellent facebook groups including EPISTOBUZEN and "Epicureanism for Modern Times" that you can find by searching facebook.

2- If you are focused primarily on Epicurus, and you want to participate in a forum where people will defend Epicurus strongly from all challenges, then you have two Facebook options. Our open and main group, entitled simply "Epicurean Philosophy," is the home base of this post. Anyone can read the posts there, and all you have to do is ask in order to join. (Note that there is an "About" and a "Sticky" post with our forum rules.)

3 - If you prefer to post in a "private" group where your posts are not readable by outsiders, last week we set up just such a group, "Epicurean Private Garden" and that is now getting off the ground. Because it is a private group, you cannot find it by searching, and you have to email one of our admins in the open group if you wish to join. Please note that our About and Sticky Post rules in the private forum are the same as the open forum, and the private forum will be moderated to the same standards as the open forum (or perhaps slightly tighter!)

4 - If you are not only focused primarily on Epicurus, but you wish to assist with a forum platform where pro-Epicurean activists can build for the future, check out https://www.epicureanfriends.com/www.EpicureanFriends.com. I am working on a FAQ list there, and setting up the forum in such a way that it can be used for reference material in the future. Anyone can read the posts, but only approved members can create new posts or comment.

The second general comment is that recent debates continue to sharpen the issues that separate our Epicurean Philosophy Facebook group from other groups, which are the same that separate Epicurean philosophy from other philosophies. If you are the sort person whose primary emphasis is Stoicism, Buddhism, or some similar philosophy, and you have concluded that "nothingness" or "escape from pain" is your primary focus in life, then you are going to be more at home in one of other groups listed above, and not in the Epicurean Philosophy Group. You are welcome to read and participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Group, but you are going to find that those views will be challenged vigorously, as the Epicureans challenged them in the ancient world. Unfortunately, we are finding on a fairly regular basis that people who are committed to opposing viewpoints wish to come into the main group and argue their anti-Epicurean positions for purpose or argument, and not because they are genuinely interested in supporting Epicurean views. Such posts are in violation of our "About" section, and in the end such people will be removed from the group. The reason for that is simple: We are dedicated to providing a reliable source of EPICUREAN philosophy to those who come by with a sincere interest in learning. We are not going to allow anti-Epicurean arguments to remain unanswered in the group, and after a while it simply becomes too distracting to reply to them all. Check out either of the groups mentioned above and you will see an eclectic combinations of ideas with little way to differentiate them if you are not already familiar with Epicurean philosophy. If you come to the main group you should not have that problem.

*** Much of the division comes down to this: Some people - MANY people, in fact - are happy to endorse Epicurus and study him, but they do so because they believe that his "absence of pain" remarks make him a kind of Super-Stoic, more ascetic even than the famous philosophers of Stoicism. Such people believe that Epicurus preached that we should pursue only "Necessary" pleasures, which they define as little more than breathing, drinking water, and eating bread while locked in their cave.

The administrators of the Epicurean Facebook Page differ in the finer points of their positions on this issue, but they uniformly reject the characterization of Epicurus that I just mentioned. In general they hold to a view stated well by Thomas Jefferson and quoted today by Alexander Rios from Jefferson's "Head and Heart" letter:

**** Let the gloomy monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly; & they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms.****

The Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group, and the web pages set up by its core administators, are dedicated to pointing the way back to an understanding of Epicurus that gives full effect to his philosophy, and does not stand it on its head through an out-of-context reading of a few passages in the letter to Menoeceus. All of us are happy to explain why those passages do NOT mean that Epicurus was an ascetic or a Stoic, but our primary goal is to explain that to people of good faith who really want to know, and not to people whose primary goal is to argue for argument's sake, and otherwise distract us from the work that we are doing to research, write, and reinvigorate the Epicurean movement.

--- End of sermon ---

This week Hiram continued with a series of good background posts on Epicurean theory. These included:

Reasonings About Philodemus on the Stoics - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…34248633290765/

The Pleasure - Aversion Faculty https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/the…n-introduction/

A Notice that the Partially Examined Life Website will be reading "A Few Days In Athens" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…35105996538362/

A post on the "Book of Community" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…34770049905290/

Reasonings about Philodemus on Music https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…36031499779145/

Epicurus' Instructions on Innovations: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…36074026441559/

*** This week has also been an excellent one for "memes" put together by Panagiotis Alexiou and Elli Pensa. Here are a few:

On Friendship - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…34327403282888/

On the Categories of the Desires - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…34328083282820/

On Death is Nothing To US - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…34751746573787/

On Diogenes of Oinoanda's passage on "Shouting to all Greeks and Non-Greeks that PLEASURE is the end of life" https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…33478563367772/

On Principal Doctrine Four: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…35473289834966/

On Principal Doctrine Five: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…36008823114746/

On Principal Doctrine Three: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…35473183168310/

On Epicurus Replies to Zen: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…35969573118671/

On Vatican Saying Eleven: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…36075223108106/

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*** I also want to mention a post that Dragan made this week about marriage, which contains some good commentary, especially by Elli - https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…35121579870137/

There's more that I did not capture here, but this post is too long already -

**Thanks to all who participated the the Facebook forum this week. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/ or hop around the internet world of Epicurean Philosophy by checking the links here: EpicurusCentral.wordpress.com
*
Live Well!
Cassius Amicus