Posts by Cassius

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Excerpts from Facebook discussion:

HDJ: I'd like to add my two cents from a bystander's point of view. There are many rigorous scientific articles showing many benefits of the act of sex. Maybe Epicurus might have chosen his words differently with the knowledge we have today?

Cassius Amicus I agree with what I think you are saying, HDJ, but I think the problem is not so much that he chose his words poorly (and that might be an issue with translation) but that we only have fragments without the overall context. He seems to have been addressing someone who was clearly so over-indulging in this department that he was causing trouble for himself or others (else why would the topic even be addressed?). I don't think Epicurus was unaware of the benefits of sex and certainly he was not unaware of its pleasure. But it seems that the parts of Epicurean texts which survive are heavily slanted toward Epicurus warning someone *against* doing something in particular that is pleasurable, while those which certainly would have existed *encouraging* the pursuit of pleasure are only the general statements.

I think we could compare the phrase that is preserved about Pythocles, that "if you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not give him more money, but restrain his desires." To me, this is one of those sayings that CLEARLY can be only understood if we know the pre-existing state of Pythocles. Is he rich and cynical and degenerate from wasting money? Then yes, restrain his desire for money. But is Pythocles poor and at the point of death and wishing only for a few of the common ordinary "luxuries" of life? Then I cannot imagine that Epicurus would say such a thing to such a pitiful person.

I strongly suspect that the surviving fragments come to us reflecting "cherry-picking" by stoics and their sympathizers who wanted to preserve sayings from Epicurus with which they agreed, or which they could shape to their own uses.

Fortunately someone also preserved for us 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." I think VS63, if thoroughly considered and applied, is the key to blowing away all the stoicisms that have clung onto Epicurean theory like barnacles.

And if you apply VS63 to your question you come up with the same conclusion you have reached, that ALL activity, even/especially sex, has to be evaluated in context of the situation that applies. And as you note, in general, sex is a natural and healthy and pleasurable part of life.

http://newepicurean.com/the-wider-impl…assionate-love/

Cassius Amicus 03-5-2016 0 Comments

One of the most troublesome topics used by those who erroneously advocate the view that Epicurus taught "ascetic quietism" is the advice given in Vatican Saying 51. Here is Vatican Saying 51 in three different translations:

Vatican Saying 51:

Epicurus.net: "[addressing a young man] I understand from you that your natural disposition is too much inclined toward sexual passion. Follow your inclination as you will, provided only that you neither violate the laws, disturb well-established customs, harm any one of your neighbors, injure your own body, nor waste your possessions. That you be not checked by one or more of these provisos is impossible; for a man never gets any good from sexual passion, and he is fortunate if he does not receive harm."

Cyril Bailey (Epicurus The Extant Remains): "You tell me that the stimulus of the flesh makes you too prone to the pleasures of love. Provided that you do not break the laws or good customs and do not distress any of your neighbors or do harm to your body or squander your pittance, you may indulge your inclination as you please. Yet it is impossible not to come up against one or other of these barriers: for the pleasures of love never profited a man and he is lucky if they do him no harm."

Epicurus.info: "I learn that your bodily inclination leans most keenly towards sexual intercourse. If you neither violate the laws nor disturb well established morals nor sadden someone close to you nor strain your body nor spend what is needed for necessities, use your own choice as you wish. It is surely difficult to imagine however than none of these would be a part of sex because sex never benefited anyone. It would be better if it did not harm you.

In this post I won't recite the lengthy exposition of the subject in Book IV of Lucretius, but the Bailey translation of this discussion can be foundat this link beginning with the phrase "There is stirred in us that seed..."

Rather, what I'd like to submit is that this passage should not be singled out as a special condemnation of "love," or "sexual relations," or even what we might refer to as "romantic love." My reasoning goes like this:

First, the pleasures of these activities are no less desirable than any other pleasures, for we know from the Letter to Menoeceus that "all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good," and we know from surviving fragments from Epicurus' treatise "On the Ethical End" that he taught: "I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound and the pleasures of beautiful form."

Our starting point is therefore the desirability of pursuing pleasure all pleasures, limited not by our on concepts of "good" or "worthy" or "noble" or "virtuous" pleasures, but only by an intelligent analysis of whether indulgence in any pleasure will lead to greater pleasure or to its reverse - greater pain, This is of course the analysis expressed by Epicurus himself in the Letter to Menoeceus:

"While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is should be chosen, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good."

Seen in this way, Epicurus is doing nothing more in regard to passionate love than he is doing to any other passionate activity that may lead to pleasure or pain depending on the circumstances involved. In the passage cited above to the "young man," we could just as easily substitute any other pleasure which can be experienced in such intensity that it can become intoxicating - not only sex, but also alcohol, or race-car driving, or mountain-climbing, or snow-skiing - any activity that contains within in both thrills and danger.

If we play that substitution game, do we find that Epicurus warns us never to engage in such activities because they involve danger? No! We can and should apply the warning Epicurus gave to the "young man" whether our passionate interest is in sex, drugs, rock and roll - or pursuing "virtue" through asceticism. The analysis follows the same pattern:

1) "Does your activity violate the law?" If it does, you can be sure that its dangers are well defined in terms of the punishment you will suffer if you are found out and reported to the authorities. Sometimes laws can and should be broken, depending on the situation, but it is very prudent to ask at the beginning of the analysis whether there are in fact laws that would be broken by the activity.

2) "Does your activity disturb well-established morals?" If we presumed that Epicurus considered "well-established morals" to be legitimate expressions of common sense in human relations, rather than the arbitrary norms we often associate with religious or social rule-making, then we can see again that violation of common sense in dealing with other people is going to lead to friction and a negative reaction from them, which is just the kind of thing we can expect to detract from our calm experience of happy living. The issue is not that arbitrary rules are broken, but that in violating these rules we can expect painful reactions from the people we are involved with in the rule-breaking.

3) "Does your activity sadden someone close to you?" If we take "someone close to you" as referring to a friend, then we can easily see the problem, because it is clear in Epicurean theory that our friends are among our most important possessions. If "someone close to you" refers to a non-friend, then we also can see the likely problems that will occur from that person deciding to retaliate.

4) Does your activity "strain your body?" This part of the test seems clearly to relate to current or future physical pain, and needs no elaboration.

5) Does your activity "spend what is needed for necessities?" Here we see (Bailey uses the word "waste") that the test derives from the long-term analysis of the pleasure or pain that results from the activity. The question is not posed in a way that indicates that "no" possessions should be spent on the activity, but whether the expense threatens our long-term survival (our "necessities"), or is "wasted" in terms of the pleasure that is gained. Worthwhile purchases are the stuff life is made of and which we should choose to pursue. Loss of necessities or "waste" means the focus is that the result in pleasure is no worth the pain that will received as its cost.

As we come to the concluding passages we have to look carefully at the translations, because some imply that Epicurus is saying that it is "impossible" not to be checked by one of these warnings and that "sex never benefited anyone." I am not competent to provide a better translation so I will not attempt it, but I will say that Epicurus would not have been considered the great philosopher that he was if he had produced a passage on such an important topic that was inconsistent with the rest of his philosophy. It seems to me that the focus of the Epicurus.net translation is the closest to the probable intent, because it has Epicurus saying to apply the tests he has listed and then, if the circumstances of the activity indicate a likelihood of greater pleasure than pain, then "use your own choice as you wish."

It would be very helpful if we had a thorough and well-researched analysis of the final phase which Epicurus.net translates as "It is surely difficult to imagine however than none of these would be a part of sex because sex never benefited anyone. It would be better if it did not harm you." In order to grasp the shades of meaning we would need to pick through the various meanings of "sex," of "benefited anyone," and "it" in the dangling phrase "It would be better if it did not harm you."

It seems to me that the correct interpretation is to view the discussion about sex as an integrated part of Epicurus' overall teaching - that pleasure should be pursued intelligently, with "intelligently" defined as "can I reasonably expect the activity to lead to greater pleasure, or greater pain." From the Letter to Herodotus and everything we know about Epicurean physics and epistemology, we know that circumstances control the outcome of all ethical decisions, and that no set of choices are ever singled out for "always bad" or "always good" treatment. The idea that sexual relations is an exception to this rule, and that it is "always bad" flies in the face of the rest of Epicurean philosophy, and should be rejected as an unfortunate result of the fragmentary nature of our surviving texts. In fact, the final passage of Lucretius' Book IV is devoted to an illustration of how romantic love, when it is enduring and therefore real, wears away the hardest obstacles.

Seen in this way, the tests that Epicurus applied to sexual relations should be considered for its wider implications, and not just as a special commentary on sex. We should keep an open mind about engaging in any activity until the circumstances are fully evaluated as Epicurus advised. But once the circumstances are evaluated, and we determine that the benefits in pleasure will outweigh the penalty in pain, then use your own choice as you wish. Sexual relations, is not only not an exception to this rule, it is one of the most basic pleasurable activities of life - the sort of activity without which we would not even know "the good."

MC: Aristotle spoke of eudaimonea, translated as a state of being happy. Is this the same word the Epicureans used to describe their goal, and how does the Epicurean conception differ exactly?

PA: Literally means being in good spirits.

RW: The goal that is actively aimed for by Epicurus is avoidance of physical pain and mental anxiety. If, as is likely, eudaemonia ensues, that is a kind of bonus. But if it never occurred, you'd still be fine.

PA: Ataraxia is the goal.

TH: I kind of wish you could have avoidance of physical pain and mental anxiety AND eudemonia!!! Maybe we should start a new philosophical school of thought? By the way, my spelling of the word is via the dictionary. May not be the Greek way though.

IV: "Eudaimonia" as a word means "happiness" (alternatively flourishing etc.) The main difference between the philosophical schools is the definition they offer to that word. For the aristotelians, this would be a life of "virtuous action in accordance with reason", while Epicureans say that it's a life "free of pain in the body and anxiety in the mind". When ancient philosophers say "eudaimonia", it's like they were saying "my car". Obviously they are talking about a similar thing, but also about a different car. I think that Epicureans shouldn't use "eudaimonia" for the reason that it _will_ be confused with aristotelianism. We ought to use the word "ataraxia" because it defines a discussion along Epicurean lines.

Cassius Amicus: TH need not start a new school of thought, because pursuit of pleasure AND avoidance of pain IS Epicurean philosophy. As IV says, in modern discussion (and a I probably don't need the "modern" qualifier) eudaemonia is an Aristotelian-associated word that comes loaded with all sorts of requirements IN ADDITION to pleasure, notably including all the virtue/reason idealism that Aristotle inherited from Plato and which Epicurus rejected. RW's formulation, which never uses the word pleasure and in fact reads normal understanding of the word "pleasure" out of the equation, is what happens when you take a Stoic-inspired view of Epicurus and try to conclude that "avoidance of pain" is the complete meaning of Epicurean philosophy, which it most certainly is not. It's necessary to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and that means never forgetting the numerous statements of Epicurus such as "Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing." Of course those who insist on arguing that pleasure = nothingness will never agree.....

RW: "Seeking pleasure" implies having a desire which is unfulfilled, i.e., pain. Satisfying a necessary desire and ridding ourselves of its pain, in an intelligent way, is pleasurable. But since many desires can be resolved by realizing they are unnecessary and that satisfying them or attempting to satisfy them will have further painful consequences, it makes sense to describe avoidance of pain as primary. The question that arises is whether it makes sense to seek pleasure in the absence of any desire. It does, if the pleasure is thoughtfully chosen with the object of fortifying us against future pain. (Just as it sometimes might make sense to choose a somewhat painful activity for the same purpose). Such pleasures largely comprise those we share with others as part of the creation and maintenance of friendship, which is our bulwark against future pain.

Cassius Amicus: ""Seeking pleasure" implies having a desire which is unfulfilled, i.e., pain" NO! Incorrect! A standard example of how this is wrong is the pleasure of smelling roses, which is pleasurable but certainly not something that you "lacked" or were "in pain for" before smelling those roses. The "replenishment" theory of pleasure is so full of holes that only my friends the Stoics find it servicable, and if you read Gosling & Taylors the Greeks on Pleasure you will find ample documentation how inadequate it is to explain pleasure in that way. What you are doing RW is placing pain as the center of universe for life, and the guiding star of all. You are certainly not alone in doing that and there are many philosophers who do, but I can't think of any way to be more anti-Nature or anti-Epicurean than that. But again, this chain of discussion is very useful because it shines the light on a path of thought that is absolutely incompatible with identifying pleasure as the guide of life. Some people said "No, Epicurus was wrong to say pleasure was the guide." The worst of his opponents never had the guts to make the argument while he was alive, but the moderns have slyly twisted his words. Black is white! Up is down! And "Pleasure" they say, is **nothing more** than the absence of pain." Hogwash. HD, I hope you are feeling MY pain! wink emoticon Do you see what is happening here Haris? And Ron is NOT being insincere or willfully obtuse. RW's Epicurus is who Epicurus is to at least 80% of those who know anything about him in the world today! (And my number is probably too low a percentage....)

RW: Consider: I spoke of "seeking pleasure", in response to your claim re same. Experiencing pleasure may or may not be the result of "seeking pleasure". There are fortuitous pleasures as well. I haven't claimed Epicurus believed all pleasure is "nothing more than" the absence of pain, only that the sort of pleasure that counters present or future pain is largely the only sort worth the effort of seeking.

Cassius Amicus: In other words, the activity of pursuing relief from pain is the only kind of activity worth pursuing (????)

AR: Seeking pleasure is not less important than avoiding pain. "...decide what to choose and what to avoid by referring to the goal of obtaining a body that is healthy and a soul that is free from turmoil, since this is the aim of living happily. It is for the sake of living happily that we do everything, as we wish to avoid grief and fear. When once we have attained this goal, the storm of the soul is ended, because we neither have the need to go looking for something that we lack, nor to go seeking something else by which the good of our soul or of our body would be improved. For you see when we lack pleasure and we grieve, we have need of pleasure, because pleasure is not present. >>> On this account we affirm that Nature has provided that Pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily; -Epicurus, LTM"

RW: Cassius Amicus Or avoidance of future pain, yes. Of course I interpret pain broadly, as I believe Epicurus does, to include any sensation of disturbance or lack, even the slightest. It doesn't take much to nudge us to seek pleasure or relief.

Cassius Amicus: And thus in the space of this short thread we observe how Epicurean philosophy, which had swept the world by clearly pointing out that the purpose of life is to BOTH seek pleasure AND avoid pain, as normally understood by normal people, devolved into word game, of interest mainly to those disaffected Stoics who desperately sought to mask their own morbid fascination with emotionlessness by renaming it "pleasure."

RW: My impression is that you insist on seeing differences between our viewpoints that may not exist, or are at worst minor quibbles. I see no Epicurean point in your insisting that I should seek more intense pleasures or my insisting that you should seek fewer, as long as both of us are living prudently. And certainly no point in suggesting the other is pathologically deviant.

Cassius Amicus: RW I hope you see that my problem is not focused on you but in the fact that the viewpoint you are stating is that of the "orthodox" commentators such as Rist which I cited in the nearby post and with which you appear to agree. Look at how you phrased your last comment - "as long as both of us are living PRUDENTLY....." The test of the goal is whether we are in fact living happily/pleasurably, not prudently or wisely. Yes prudence and wise living are necessary to living happily, but there is no test for prudence and wisdom other than how successfully we achieve pleasurable living. Maybe you think I am splitting hairs but this is the central argument of much of what we know from the texts (Torquatus, Diogenes oinoanda, et. Al) and so it is worth emphasizing. In fact, I would argue that no one who does not understand it really understands the central message of Epicurus. Wisdom and the other "virtues" are desirable only because they lead to pleasurable living, not the other way around.

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

Here's a point on which I sometimes see confusion:

The Epicureans held that the faculty of pleasure and pain given to living things by Nature is the only "real" standard for what is desirable and what is undesirable. In other words, the faculty of pleasure and pain is the only direct contact with reality - the only "sense" - which we have as the basis for knowing what things in life are to be chosen and which are to be avoided. Epicurus went to great lengths to explain how this faculty must be used intelligently, and how we sometimes chose pain, and sometimes avoid pleasure, in order to - over time - achieve greater pleasure or avoid greater pain. But in the end, the key point remains that there is no "real" standard higher than pleasure and pain by which to judge our goals in life. This summary should be plain from the texts, but a good point of reference for this is the Epicurean speaker in Cicero's "On Ends." There, Torquatus says:

Strip mankind of sensation, and nothing remains; it follows that Nature herself is the judge of that which is in accordance with or contrary to nature. What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, beside pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance? Some members of our school however would refine upon this doctrine; these say that it is not enough for the judgment of good and evil to rest with the senses; the facts that pleasure is in and for itself desirable and pain in and for itself to be avoided can also be grasped by the intellect and the reason. Accordingly they declare that the perception that the one is to be sought after and the other avoided is a notion naturally implanted in our minds. Others again, with whom I agree, observing that a great many philosophers do advance a vast array of reasons to prove why pleasure should not be counted as a good nor pain as an evil, consider that we had better not be too confident of our case; in their view it requires elaborate and reasoned argument, and abstruse theoretical discussion of the nature of pleasure and pain. Here's the issue that is potentially confusing: Does the fact that pleasure and pain are our only Natural standard mean that in fact all humans make all decisions based on pleasure and pain? The answer to this question was as obvious to Epicurus as it is obvious to us - of course not!

First let's fill in a gap that many people today have been "educated" to ignore. Epicurus held that humans have "free will" - they are not preprogrammed by Nature or anything else to inflexibly be controlled by their environment, or their genes, or their upbringing. All of these are influential to varying degrees, but Nature has not dictated that men must follow the faculty of pleasure and pain. That's why it is necessary to repeat, as Epicurus did, the truth that freedom of thought is an essential part of the human makeup:

Who, then, is superior in your judgment to such a man? He holds a holy belief concerning the gods, and is altogether free from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the end fixed by nature, and understands how easily the limit of good things can be reached and attained, and how either the duration or the intensity of evils is but slight. Fate, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he scorns, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance is inconstant; whereas our own actions are autonomous, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath that yoke of destiny which the natural philosophers have imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we honor the gods, while the necessity of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to men so as to make life blessed, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil. He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance.

But whether they choose willfully, or whether in individual cases they feel constrained to do so, many people in fact do NOT in fact identify a life of pleasure as "good," or the avoidance of pain as "bad." Indeed most philosophies, with Stoicism being a prime example, are rooted in the goal of suppressing the idea that pleasure is to be followed, or that pain is to be heeded! Need I mention that religion is fundamentally the same in naming the pursuit of pleasure as an evil? The thread that unifies all of these is that through the manipulation of "reason" or "divine revelation" they seek to substitute some other standard in the place of the standard Nature herself has set.

If you are among those who react with "Life isn't like that!" when you hear that pleasure and pain are the only natural faculties, be assured that Epicurus knew that too, and so much of Epicurean philosophy is geared toward diagnosing and explaining how other factors "beyond" pleasure and pain have come to be substituted for Nature's standard. At the time of Epicurus the dominant view of ethics was derived from "virtue" (for the Stoics) or derived from "ideals" (for Plato) or derived from "essences" (for Aristotle). One of the great benefits of studying Epicurean philosophy is that of learning how the Epicureans ripped these false standards to shreds by pointing out the illusions and errors on which they are based.

So don't for a minute think that Epicurus held that everyone in fact acts all the time according their feelings about pleasure and pain. Epicurus taught that we are born with the goal of living life to use these faculties intelligently to live a life that is both as pleasurable as possible while also as painless as possible - "a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures." As Torquatus said, "Every animal, as soon as it is born, seeks for pleasure, and delights in it as the Chief Good, while it recoils from pain as the Chief Evil, and so far as possible avoids it. This it does as long as it remains unperverted, at the prompting of Nature's own unbiased and honest verdict."

Yet while all living things are born this way, false philosophy, false religion, and false "culture" easily corrupt and confuse many people as to their proper goal. Against these obstacles we have to fight escape corruption and perversion, and find our way back to the goal of Nature. There is no better leader in that fight, no better guide to that path, than Epicurus.

(the photo for this post comes from the excellent music video "Ode to Lost Joy")

Over time the chart for comparison of Epicurus with Stoicism needs to be expanded to other philosophers. I have set up a template but hardly made any progress beyond that. The template is here and if anyone would like to help, please let me know and I can grant access to the Google Doc.

This page is a work in progress and is in early stages of development! Suggestions are welcomed. Each line is a paraphrase of a line from an ancient text. Cites will be added and each line is being worked into more modern paraphrase, but for the time being cites to the ancient texts for each line can be found at the corresponding location at the NewEpicurean Narrative outline here or the NewEpicurean Fundamentals outline here. At present, the best way to read through the outline is simply to click down each item in the index to the left. Many more hyperlinks will be added in the future. ▸ The Message Of The Epicureans ▸ Epicurus Overcame The Terror Of Religion And Showed Us How To Live According to Nature ▸ The Teachings of Epicurus About Knowledge ▸ Knowledge Is Based On The Senses, Not on Reasoning Alone ▸ Confidence Is Built Step By Step On The Conclusions Established By The Senses ▸ The Teachings of Epicurus About the Nature of the Universe ▸ Nothing Comes From Nothing ▸ Nothing Is Destroyed To Nothing ▸ The Universe As A Whole Has Always Existed, and Will Always Exist ▸ Nothing Has Eternal Independent Existence Except the Elemental Particles ▸ Combinations of Matter and Void Are Perishable And Do Not Last Forever ▸ All That We See Around Us Arises From The Properties And Qualities of Combinations of Particles And Space ▸ The Elemental Particles Are Constantly In Motion ▸ Elemental Particles Have the Capacity To Swerve At No Fixed Place Or Time ▸ The Universe As A Whole Is Boundless ▸ The Universe Is Populated With Life In Other Worlds ▸ In Other Worlds There Are Beings Lower and Higher That Ourselves, Some of Whom Have Attained Immortality and Perfect Happiness ▸ Although We Lack Evidence About The Things We See In The Sky, Many Natural Explanations Are Possible ▸ Knowledge of the Universe Is Gained Naturally, By Intelligent Use of the Images We Receive In the Flow of Elemental Particles ▸ The False Threat Posed By Religion ▸ The Teachings of Epicurus About Nature's Goal For All Life ▸ Life Begins When Our Bodies Are Formed And Ends When We Die - Death Is Nothingness To Us ▸ The Goal of All Living Beings Is to Live Pleasurably ▸ Reject The Argument That Pleasure Is Not the Goal of Life Because Pleasure Has No Limit ▸ Reject The Argument That We Should Pursue Virtue Rather Than Pleasure ▸ Nature Calls All Living Beings to Pursue Pleasure Intelligently ▸ Mental Pleasure And Pain Are More Intense Than That of the Body ▸ In Pursuing Pleasure Intelligently Sometimes We Will Choose Pain ▸ "Fate" Does Not Exist - We Have Much Freedom To Choose Our Path In Life ▸ Life Is Desirable So That We May Live Pleasurably ▸ Wise Men Pursue Pleasure Through Reasoning And Not Through Chance ▸ Wise Men Live According To Their Means And Circumstances ▸ Wise Men Embrace Emotion And Do Not Seek To Suppress It ▸ Life Is Short So It Must Be Used Wisely To Maximize Happiness ▸ Store Up Good Memories To Enjoy When Times Are Bad ▸ Treasure Friendship As Essential To Happiness ▸ Treasure Freedom From the Crowd And Proclaim True Philosophy To Those Who Will Listen ▸ Reject the Argument That There Is Single Absolute Justice And A Single Way For All Men To Live ▸ Treasure Your Community Of Friends And Protect It From Those Who Would Harm You ▸ The Epicureans' Great Commission For Life According to Nature

Outline location for current version

Initial version as of 2/7/16:

The students of Epicurus considered him to be a father figure who had left them the most precious of gifts: a true philosophy which allowed them to understand how to live their lives. Key aspects of this philosophy were:

1. Religion is an oppressive and terrorizing weight which prevents mankind from studying and understanding the true ways of Nature.

2. Epicurus' life was devoted to the study of Nature, and this allowed him to discover the laws of Nature which determine what things are possible and what things are not possible.

3. Epicurus' study of the laws of Nature allowed him to see that the fears and anxiety which torment mankind can be fought successfully.

4. Epicurus therefore taught that in order to live successfully, we must see:

A) That the desire for pleasure can be satisfied, and the fear of pain can be extinguished, if we consider our natural capacities and limits as human beings. Once we understand these capacities and limits for desire and fear, we are able to see that it is possible to achieve a life of continuous pleasure in which pleasure is maximized and pain is minimized.

B) That there is in fact a highest good toward which all should strive, and it is happiness. If happiness be present, we have everything; if happiness be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

C) That Nature provides to all living things a faculty of pleasure and pain by which to assess happiness. This faculty of pleasure and pain is the ultimate guide of life by which we must intelligently decide what we should choose and what we should avoid.

D) That evil in life arises by our own actions, or by force of Nature, or by chance, and not by the actions of gods.

E) That the most reliable way to maximize pleasure and at the same time to minimize pain over our lifetimes is to study and apply the lessons of Nature so that we can better decide what to choose and what to avoid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

References:

Lucretrius Book III

THEE, who first was able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted marks, not so much from a desire to rival thee as that from the love I bear thee I yearn to imitate thee; for why need the swallow contend with swans, or what likeness is there between the feats of racing performed by kids with tottering limbs and by the powerful strength of the horse? Thou, father, art discoverer of things, thou furnishest us with fatherly precepts, and like as bees sip of all things in the flowery lawns, we, o glorious being, in like manner feed from out thy pages upon all the golden maxims, golden I say, most worthy ever of endless life. For soon as thy philosophy issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud voice to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation throughout the whole void: the divinity of the gods is revealed and their tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake nor clouds drench with rains nor snow congealed by sharp frosts harms with hoary fall: an ever-cloudless ether overcanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely round. (Munro translation)

Lucretius, Book I:

At a time when humanity lay prostrate upon the Earth, crushed down under the weight of religion, it was Epicurus - a man of Hellas - who first dared to lift up his mortal eyes and stand up - face to face - this hideous threat scowling down from heaven upon men. Epicurus was not discouraged by the fables about the gods, or by thunderbolts, or by any of the threatening roar of heaven. These served only to spur him on, filling him with courage and the desire to be the first among men to burst the bars holding tight the gates of knowledge about Nature. Thus the living force of his soul won the day, and through mind and spirit Epicurus traversed the immeasurable universe, far beyond the flaming walls of the world, and returned again to us - a conqueror - to relate those things that can be, and those that can not, and to tell us on what principle each thing has its powers defined - its boundary-mark set deep. By his victory Epicurus trampled the terror of religion underfoot, and in turn lifted up to the stars those who follow his example.***

Epicurus then looked around him and saw that mortals had attained those things which their needs required, that their lives had been established in safety, and that they abounded in wealth and honor and fame, and were proud of the good names of their children. Yet Epicurus also saw that despite this, the hearts of men were filled with anguish, and all lived with tortured minds, without respite, and raging with complaints. And then he understood that it was a false understanding of Nature that wrought the disease that corrupted the vessel of life and tainted all that was gathered within it, and that this false view of life rendered the vessel so leaky and full of holes that it could never be filled.***

So with words of truth Epicurus purged the hearts of men, showing the limits to desires and fears, explaining the truth about the highest good toward which we all should strive, and pointing out the path whereby we may work toward that goal on a straight course. He explained the nature of evil in mortal affairs, and that these evils come to pass by chance, or by force of Nature, rather than by the will of the gods. Epicurus then showed us from what gates we must march forth to combat each of these evils, proving to us that it is mostly in vain that we toss our hearts in gloomy billows of care. For just as children tremble and fear everything in the dark, so do we - even in the light - dread things that are not a bit more to be feared than the imagination of children. These terrors and darknesses of mind must be dispelled, but not by gleaming shafts of daylight. Terrors such as these can only be scattered by study of the laws of Nature.

***

And so Epicurus taught us to grasp the principles of things above, the principles by which the sun and moon go on their courses, and the forces by which every thing on Earth proceeds. And he taught that above all we must find out by keen reasoning the nature of the soul and of the mind, and the nature of those things that frighten us when we are under the influence of disease, or buried in sleep, or when we seem to see or hear those who are long dead, and whose bones the Earth holds in its embrace. ***

Letter to Menoeceus:

So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed towards attaining it.

...Therefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing.

Principal Doctrine 3:

The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together.

Principal Doctrine 4:

Continuous bodily pain does not last long; instead, pain, if extreme, is present a very short time, and even that degree of pain which slightly exceeds bodily pleasure does not last for many days at once. Diseases of long duration allow an excess of bodily pleasure over pain.

Principal Doctrine 9:

If every pleasure could be intensified so that it lasted and influenced the whole organism or the most essential parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another.

Principal Doctrine 11:

If we were not troubled by our suspicions of the phenomena of the sky and about death, fearing that it concerns us, and also by our failure to grasp the limits of pains and desires, we should have no need of natural science.

Principal Doctrine 18:

The pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied: and the limit as regards pleasure in the mind is begotten by the reasoned understanding of these very pleasures and of the emotions akin to them, which used to cause the greatest fear to the mind.

Principal Doctrine 19:

Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures by reason the limits of pleasure.

Principal Doctrine 20:

The flesh perceives the limits of pleasure as unlimited, and unlimited time is required to supply it. But the mind, having attained a reasoned understanding of the ultimate good of the flesh and its limits and having dissipated the fears concerning the time to come, supplies us with the complete life, and we have no further need of infinite time: but neither does the mind shun pleasure, nor, when circumstances begin to bring about the departure from life, does it approach its end as though it fell short in any way of the best life.

Principal Doctrine 21:

He who has learned the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain due to want and makes the whole of life complete is easy to obtain, so that there is no need of actions which involve competition.

Boris Nikolsky - Epicurus on Pleasure

Thanks for the kind words about the forum, and Welcome to the most conscientious observer of the Twentieth that I know!

[Distilled from a Facebook discussion for future reference]:

When we refer to the CANON as so important, I think there is something else going on which is not obvious. It is also important to think about the elements of the canon. The translations I read of the word "canon" indicate that it meant "test of truth" or "measure of truth." As I read it, Epicurus was saying that the senses, anticipations, and pain/pleasure were the three legs of that canon. That means that these three legs are the means given by nature for observing and testing everything we come into contact with around us. And of these three legs, there is only *one* leg, the pleasure-pain leg, which gives us any information as to a contact's desirability or undesirability.

So I think we need to make very clear why we are referring to the canon. It does the canon no harm to say that we can and must go outside the canon in order to think about what the canon is telling us as it applies to our future actions. That's the only way we can make decisions about the longer-term results of our actions, and that's why Epicurus was not a range-of-the-moment hedonist. But Epicurus also saw that in the end, if we want to live according to Nature, all evaluation of the results of our actions can be judged by no other standard than the legs of the canon. So all decisions are ultimately tested by and must be brought back to the canon itself, and in the canon, the only test of desirability is pleasure and the only test of undesirability is pain. That's why the discussion of the Canon is so critical and separates Epicurus from those who held "reason" or "logic" to be the keys to proper living.

Diogenes Laertius: "Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth..... Every sensation, he says, is devoid of reason and incapable of memory; for neither is it self-caused nor, regarded as having an external cause, can it add anything thereto or take anything therefrom. .... Hence it is from plain facts that we must start when we draw inferences about the unknown. For all our notions are derived from percepti\ons, either by actual contact or by analogy, or resemblance, or composition, with ***some slight aid from reasoning.***"https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…tml&h=_AQESsBDD

In the photo : "The more the person is concerned with the study of nature, the more he succeeds fearlessness, the more he uses the measurement of pain and pleasure. These two produce pleasure that belongs to the individual, (because pleasure belongs to the one who feels it, of course). At the same time, however, the person practices the art of sufficiency which is improved with the study of nature and the more one achieves self-sufficiency, the more freedom he acquires and thus greater the pleasure it provides to the individual.

Let's not insist on completeness of the analysis (which anyway does not exist), but in the method. It includes the general picture. We can later move to the rest which are the multiple causes of human happiness. We can combine the rest. Then, we are going to see what emerges from the composition of the rest. In a more compound form we will observe the rebound and feedback. The more this process provides pleasure to a person, the greater the desire to study the nature. The system does not use the law of excluded middle, i.e. pleasure or no pleasure, fearlessness or not fearlessness etc, but uses the Epicurean Multi-valued way of the Canon where the above causes constantly get different values depending on the decisions and our actions. Imagine, for example, that I give great importance to the fearlessness and succeed pleasure from there, but I give little importance to self-sufficiency. So, depending on the general activity at a certain time, one cause will affect the other continuously taking different values and all the separate data will pulsate and will affect one another until the system settles and perhaps I wish that calmness means Katastematic pleasure of the individual. The system is dynamic, it is evolving like the Nature and covers the needs of the Epicurean philosophy, which observes things as they proceed and as Diogenes of Oenoanda writes (in response to Peripatetics) this flow, flowing as he says, can be scrolled quickly but not so fast as not to conceive a situation of it". By George Kaplanis

Thanks for dropping by Alexander! I think I am going to hope that people will start their own new thread rather than add to each person when someone says hello, but i'm happy to see you under any circumstances - and my replying will allow you to test how notifications work

Thank you very much for posting Foggytown! Glad to have you and I look forward to a long and productive relationship. Facebook is definitely a mixed bag, and there are so many ways in which it can't be trusted that one has to be very careful if one uses it at all. I've always been quick to point out that "live unknown" comes to us without any context, and so we have to be careful with it, but Facebook is a good example of how putting out a little information about oneself can have totally unpredictable consequences. Much good can come from it, but so can much that is bad, and so this is another good place for a quote from the letter to Menoeceus: "Nor does he [the wise man] hold chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to men so as to make life blessed, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil. He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance."

PS - We are just getting off the ground with posting on the forum, so please be sure to let me know if you run into any problems. This software is among the most advanced that is available, but it has to be set up properly, and it may not be configured correctly yet. As an embarrassing example, until yesterday I had the permissions set incorrectly and no one but me had a "post new thread" button! But I think over the last few days things are finally falling into place.

See the agenda here: epicuros.gr/pages/en.htm

The current version of this slide, with backup material, is here.

This project was first launched through this post. A direct link to the existing version of the outline is here.

The current version of the presentation is here.

The existing version of the chart is here.

The existing version of the outline is here.