Posts by Cassius

Episode 294 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Distinguishing Dogs From Wolves And Pleasure From Absence of Pain"

Quote from Rolf

Wow, what a mess. I’d struggle to write a more misleading and inaccurate description of Epicureanism if I tried. It’s a real shame that some people will read this and think they have an accurate impression of the philosophy.

Yes it is a mess.

And everyone needs to be aware that other than Emily Austin's book, DeWitt's book and probably a few others that don't come to mind at the moment, what is being presented in this article is by far the majority and mainstream version of what is taught about Epicurus today.

In fact you have to really work hard to find something OTHER than this interpretation.

So right from the start I like to warn people to be prepared. For this purpose I arbitrarily divide the world into two categories of people:

If you're a "Category 1" person who thinks the most important thing in life is to be calm and tranquil and avoid conflict and disagreement at any cost (which is what many people who claim to love Epicurus want you to accept was what Epicurus taught) then you've come to the wrong place in visiting EpicureanFriends!

On the other hand, if you're a "Category 2" person willing to stand up against a crowd, be independent, and read the texts for yourself, then there's nothing more rewarding than studying the ancient texts for yourself. That's the only real way to get to the bottom of what Epicurus was really saying, and that's what we are doing at Epicureanfriends - some of us in the original languages and some of us in translations.

I'd like to think it is possible to change someone from being a Category 1 person into a Category 2 person, and indeed I do think we have seen some of that over ten years at EpicureanFriends. But it is an extremely hard thing to do, and the longer and more deeply someone has accepted Stoicism or Buddhism or something similar in the past, the harder it is to do.

VS52. Friendship dances around the world, bidding us all to awaken to the recognition of happiness.

VS41. We must laugh and philosophize at the same time, and do our household duties, and employ our other faculties, and never cease proclaiming the sayings of the true philosophy.

Also Don, I think an effective counterpoint to the modern implications of "flee" (that you are running away in fear, even panic, as if someone had yelled "fire" in a theatre) I would use what you have cited from the last day of Epicurus as to arraying pleasure against pain, as in a battle.

To me a battle or opposition analogy is much more indicative of the real meaning. The word isn't by any means wide enough to cover your actions toward pain pain in every instance, because sometimes you are actually choosing pain.

So I can see why the translators might use choose and avoid, as avoid doesn't have the fear and panic associations. "Avoid" has other negative connotations of its own, however, such as a certain lack of "seriousness" as if your action is a matter of mild preference as opposed to something important.

In the end just like in so many cases words have many connotations, some accurate and intended and some not, so it's always a matter of taking care to explain when there is ambiguity.

And I would say that to take the full modern understanding of "fleeing" from pain at face value would be a huge misreading. Epicurus didn't "flee" from the gods, he stood up to them, worked to understand them, and actually embraced certain aspects of them. And as a generalization that kind of face-up-to-it -and-overcome-it where-necessary attitude is a lot more accurate picture of the correct attitude toward pain than the single word "fleeing" can convey.

flee

verb [ I or T, never passive ]

us /fliː/ uk /fliː/present participle fleeing | past tense and past participle fled

Add to word list

C1

to escape by running away, especially because of danger or fear:

flee from She fled from the room in tears.

flee to In order to escape capture, he fled to the mountains.

This strikes me as being particularly poorly stated (or well stated if your goal is to misrepresent Epicurus).

Epicurus does not distrust our reasoning abilities. Epicurus insists on reason, Epicurus uses reason vigorously and thoroughly, Epicurus establishes the existence of atoms and his entire physics based on reason, Lucretius describes Epicurean philosophy as true reason.

What Epicurus is distrustful of is Stoics and others who claim for reason things that reason (in the form of dialectical logic) cannot do. Words are useful, but they are not reality, and you cannot find truth by looking to syllogisms rather than by using the senses, anticipations, and feelings along with reason.

It's not reason that is to be distrusted, but Stoicism.

Interesting choice of words that I find very telling, whether chosen consciously or subconsciously.

Don't approach pain in life as something to be overcome through reasoned effort, through realization that pleasure is the guide and goal of life, and even through the judicious use of pain for the production of greater pleasure.

No, don't approach pain with vigor and determination to keep pain in its place.

Just FLEE from pain with as much speed and abandon as you can!

That's the message of Epicurus as the Stoics and other enemies of Epicurus want you to see it.

And I see that to prevent there being any ambiguity, the authors kindly spelled out in the final words before the chapter on Epicurus that the best kind of pleasure is absence of pain, particularly of the mental variety - so no need to worry about focusing any attention on bodily pleasures!!!

I failed to notice the tag line at the top of the front cover. This pretty much says it all, and it carries the implication that the reader is not going to discard his Stoicism, just recharge it. I'd predict the Stoic reader will find plenty of ways to make his Stoicism even worse in the neo-Epicureanism of the material referenced in the first posts above.

Well thank you for starting my day with a reminder of all that is wrong with modern Epicurean philosophy!

I will check out the background of what you posted there and have much more to say.

But first I will say:

For those of us who have read extensively into the background of what the texts really say, we can grit our teeth and remember that ataraxia and aponia in now way exclude the active pleasures of life nor make us want to go live in an ascetic commune where "religion" and controversial subjects are never discussed.

But the opening you have posted there is calculated to exactly produce the kind of "beautiful obscurity" that it does produce -- a vision of total resignation from active pleasures and withdrawal from society and minimalism that is truly indistinguishable from asceticism.

All you have to do in life is negative:

• Don't have any desires (at all, because if you do then they aren't fulfilled).
• Don't be afraid of gods or death (without any explanation as to why - just don't!)
• Don't worry about anything you don't already have (because you can get by with bread and water and air).
• Don't worry about anything terrible (not covered in the opening and held untul later. They acknowledge that most people find this unconvincing, and explain it only with a reference to Marcus Aurelius repeating but not explaining what are essentially Epicurus' words ).

Again, many of the things covered here have a grain of truth to them that can be saved from the wrong construction by knowing the subtleties of Epicurus' terminology. But the real problem I have with this approach is that 98% of normal healthy vigorous people reading this will read this and see it is the philosophy of undertakers giving seminars at nursing homes, and they will run as far and as fast as they can in the opposite direction. And even though i am no longer in my most healthy and vigorous years I will do all i can to keep up with them and get as far as I can from this brand of "Epicurean" philosophy.

I may understand completely that it is not necessary to live forever in order to experience the fulness of pleasure, but that doesn't mean I am going to live like an ascetic in a stupor during the years that I do have.

Here's a note which will unfortunately probably not make sense until the episode is released, but I want to come back to it:

Near the end of the episode Joshua and I read two sections from "Academnic Questions" in which Cicero (actually his hero Antiochus) is criticizing use of the sorites method of argument. Within that passage there is a section that also criticizes the Dialecticians. It gets pretty subtle as to which side Cicero is on, but I gather that what is probably going on here is that Cicero is in fact criticizing the claims of Dialectics (such as I gather the Stoics was making) as sufficient to find truth. In other words, I am taking this as Cicero taking the side of Skepticism, and criticizing the claims even of the dialecticians to establish truth through wordplay. That would likely be a criticism with which the Epicureans would agree, but of course from this skeptical point of view Cicero/Antiochus is arguing against anyone's claim to know anything with confidence.

If upon hearing the episode some hears a different point, please let me know. Here are the two sections from which we were quoting:

Posts one and three in this thread:

Thread

Sorites Argument Referenced in Cicero's Academic Questions

Going through Cicero's "Academic Questions" today I came across the following reference to the "Sorites" Argument. There is a lot of interesting material in AQ, and some good reference to Epicurus, but surrounded by a lot of gobbledygook. This is an example of good information:

https://handbook.epicureanfriends.com/Library/Text-C…icQuestions/#xv

[…]

Cassius

March 18, 2025 at 4:47 PM

Quote from Bryan

because it is not possible for the good to be placed anywhere, when nothing painful or distressing is further withdrawing."

Thanks for that one -- it seems to me now that has totally escaped my prior notice. It may not be a specific picture standing alone without more, but it's DIRECTLY on point.

.... another reason "we" need to pay more attention to Plutarch's material.

Working on editing this episode, and it is long and has a lot going on in it, so I better make this comment while it is on my mind:

One of the questions from Cicero that we address specifically is this one:

Quote

Grant that to be in pain is the greatest evil; whosoever, then, has proceeded so far as not to be in pain, is he, therefore, in immediate possession of the greatest good?

From the context I think it is pretty clear that what Cicero is saying is something like "OK I will spot you that being in pain is the greatest evil, but I still challenge you on this -- just because I remove that evil, that does mean that i am in immediate possession of the greatest good (pleasure)?"

I see this as a persuasive argument because most people are going to think that just because I remove a thorn from my toe, my toe is not therefore immediately in the greatest good (pleasure). My toe feels better when it is in a warm bath and being massaged, so you Epicurus are being ridiculous to argue that removing the thorn immediately places my toe in the *greatest* pleasure.

So that challenge demands an answer, and I think the most persuasive answer has to include another visual analogy rather than just the assertion that "absence of pain is the greatest pleasure" or "when one has no pain one has no further need for pleasure."

And as for me, the best picture analogy that I know from the texts that I can cite with authority is that of the vessel being filled in the opening of Lucretius Book SIx:

Quote from Lucretius 6:09

For when he saw that mortals had by now attained well-nigh all things which their needs crave for subsistence, and that, as far as they could, their life was established in safety, that men abounded in power through wealth and honours and renown, and were haughty in the good name of their children, and yet not one of them for all that had at home a heart less anguished, but with torture of mind lived a fretful life without any respite, and was constrained to rage with savage complaining, he then did understand that it was the vessel itself which wrought the disease, and that by its disease all things were corrupted within, whatsoever came into it gathered from without, yea even blessings; in part because he saw that it was leaking and full of holes, so that by no means could it ever be filled; in part because he perceived that it tainted as with a foul savor all things within it, which it had taken in.

To me therefore, the best analogy is to look at the question of "the highest pleasure" as referring conceptually to one's entire life (either over the whole lifespan or at a moment in time) and analogizing that life to a vessel or jar. The person who does not approach the question through Epicurean philosophy has a leaky jar, and thinks that it requires constant pouring in of new pleasure because of those leaks.

The correct philosophy allows one to see that an unlimited quantity of liquid is not required, because once you seal the leaks through correct philosophy, you find that the jar can be filled to the top (rather easily, in fact) and that once filled, you need no more liquid (pleasure) poured into it, because the jar cannot be filled any further past "full."

So yes, Cicero, a correct philosophy tells us that when we succeed in sealing the leaks and filling the jar with pleasures, we are immediately therefore in possession of the greatest pleasure, because the jar (our life) is full and cannot be filled further.

And there is no magic transformation from "a jar full of pleasures" to "absence of pain." The label "absence of pain" is a mental assessment that the jar is full of pleasures of mind and body, and that the jar contains no mixture of pain, because all pain has been dispelled.

I am sure there are probably other word pictures that can be painted. The first examples I could document from the text would be that of Chrysippus' hand, and of the example of comparing the host pouring wine to the guest drinking it, both of which are preserved by CIcero.

If anyone is aware of other analogies from the texts to which we can point, please add them here. There are probably others in Lucretius (plain vs ornate blanket, multiple opportunities for sex, plain food vs fancy food) but I am not sure that those are quite as clear as the vessel analogy in book six. Many of the "satisfaction" analogies apply, but I think those are more open to someone asking why the more luxurious option is not in fact preferable when it is available. The "vessel" analogy and the examples given by Cicero seem to me to be somewhat less open to "what about" questions.

Comparing a life to any single jar is also open to "well I want a bigger jar" but a concrete object like a jar seems to be an easier way to get agreement as to the terms of the hypothetical. And of course some people object to any and all use of hypotheticals, but maybe calling them "analogies" makes them easier to accept.

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Quote from Don

It seems to me that "universals" is simply a high falutin' way of recognizing patterns across disparate individual entities, physical or abstract. To me, that sounds like the faculty of prolepsis and not some complicated philosophical construct.

Yes I agree that's the basic point, stated in a very friendly way.

Stated more pointedly, there's a huge "life or death" divide between (1) the desire to look for universals in other worlds of ideal forms or divine aspects of this world, and (2) the desire to look for the best way of life in natural processes that are open to any normal human being with no requirement of priest or expert to explain it to you.

In my view an awful lot of the division between Epicurus and the other schools comes down to exactly this. Epicurus' opponents identified exactly this issue very early on, and they have treated him and his philosophy in a very unfriendly way for 2000+ years as a result.

As long as the discussion stays within the guard rails of "being happy" or "finding pleasure through simplicity," it's all fun and games and smiles.

Go much deeper than that, however, in discussion of Epicurus with an intellectual activist, and you'll find out what that activist really cares about, and it's not how best to balance pleasure and pain. That's why all this is so important.

Rolf also on the sorites issue, see this extended discussion of it by Cicero from Academic Quetions:

Thread

Sorites Argument Referenced in Cicero's Academic Questions

Going through Cicero's "Academic Questions" today I came across the following reference to the "Sorites" Argument. There is a lot of interesting material in AQ, and some good reference to Epicurus, but surrounded by a lot of gobbledygook. This is an example of good information:

https://handbook.epicureanfriends.com/Library/Text-C…icQuestions/#xv

[…]

Cassius

March 18, 2025 at 4:47 PM

Glad to see i am not the only one who is not super familiar with Bertrand Russell. I know he is extremely well known, but the impression I have of his views is not at all totally favorable - I gather he was much more inclined to skepticism than was Epicurus.

However, he's a major figure, like Will Durant (with whom I was confronted recently) and so it's good to know where to find major points from influential people that are relevant to Epicurus.

Quote from Pacatus

(Bertrand Russell notwithstanding).

Pacatus what are you referring to there? I know Russell is a major figure but I am not familiar with the details of his works.

Quote from Rolf

The comparison between the “heap of sand” analogy and “absence of pain” is interesting. Would you mind explaining it a bit more?

The central issue is what is the sorites paradox/syllogism in the first place. Some of this is contained in DeWitt's reference quoted here.

But contrary to the view that the point is that the sorites method of argument is an absurd request for an arithmetical rule on things that everyone understands, I would say that the point is somewhat different.

Words like "heap" and "good" are useful even though they have no mathematical precision, but it needs to be understood that these words lack not only mathematical precision but any intrinsic meaning of their own absent reference to the individual items that are being described in summary.

Epicurus is arguing that "pleasure" as a concept has no meaning apart from the individual instances of pleasure which are contained within the summary term. Of course the concept is very useful as a way to communicate ideas, but Plato and the others are asserting that there is an absolute realm of ideas where there is a "perfect" or "form" of pleasure, and that pleasures are pleasures because they somehow mystically partake in this form or idea.

"Absence of pain" is something similar - it is a concept and not an individual experience. The individual experiences are two - pleasure and pain. Denominating something as "absence of pain" is useful, but in this paradigm "absence of pain" means exactly the same thing as "pleasure" because there are only two possibilities. But not only does "absence of pain" as a concept mean nothing in itself, the rest of the chain is to observe that "pleasure" as a concept means nothing in itself apart from individual instances of feelings of pleasure. The search for "absence of pain" means nothing more or less than the search for "pleasure," and both of those words in quotes mean nothing more than real feelings of real beings at particular times and places.

I would argue that as a concept the word "pleasure" is useful to describe the goal of life, because you need to describe the goal of life in words different from or "virtue" or "piety" or "nothingness" depending on whether you're talking to a Stoic or an Abrahamist or a Buddhist/Hindu. But using the word "pleasure" in that conceptual way is not a full description of a particular experience by a particular person at a particular lime and place. For that you need words like "sex" or "drugs" or "rocknroll" or "resting" or eating or drinking or sleeping or reading philosophy or even simply reflecting on your good memories or expectations.

Likewise you could say exactly the same thing as said in that last paragraph about "absence of pain," since in a system of only two options, absence of pain always means pleasure. But there's another important use for the term "absence of pain" -- to refer to period of time when ALL of the experiences that a person is feeling are pleasurable and not painful. "Total" absence of pain would mean that in that time period you're looking at there are only specific pleasures, and no specific pains, and thus that circumstance cannot be improved. Yes "total absence of pain" is a very broad concept, but it is a concept that describes "the limit of pleasure" -- it provides a description of a situation that cannot be improved, and if you are interested in philosophical arguments (not everyone is) then you want the term "absence of pain" so you can have a definite description of a condition that fulfills the requirements of the logicians. They argue as did Plato and Seneca that in general philosophical terms, something that can be made better cannot by definition qualify as THE good or THE goal of life.

A life in which pain is absent is a term that gave the Epicureans in the past, and us today, a logical description of "the best life" to which we all should aim. We won't succeed in eliminating all pain from our lives any more than Epicurus did. But it's important for those of us who want to have a clear idea of the goal that Epicurus was talking about. And it's important to be clear about the goal not only so we can live better ourselves, but so that we can prevent the Stoics and Buddhists from trying to turn Epicurean philosophy into a tool of their own mistaken ideas.

Yes I agree that atomism was identified as the threat to be destroyed, but not so much just because it wasn't water, or fire, but because atoms weren't as easy to make DIVINE. The stoics had no problem reconciling fire with divinity. I suppose you could say (as many do now) that god(s) created the atoms, but it sounds like the religionists identified atoms as more of a threat, even though Democritus himself was a strict determinist, which would have made his views more religious-compatible.

Maybe adding on the swerve made Epicurus more of a potent threat than Democritean atomism.

Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus 45 (Bailey)

These brief sayings, if all these points are borne in mind, afford a sufficient outline for our understanding of the nature of existing things. Furthermore, there are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number, as was proved already, are borne on far out into space. For those atoms, which are of such nature that a world could be created out of them or made by them, have not been used up either on one world or on a limited number of worlds, nor again on all the worlds which are alike, or on those which are different from these. So that there nowhere exists an obstacle to the infinite number of the worlds.

Lucretius Book 2-1023 (Life On Other Worlds; Nature Never Makes A Single Thing of A Kind)

Now turn your mind, I pray, to a true reasoning. For a truth wondrously new is struggling to fall upon your ears, and a new face of things to reveal itself. Yet neither is anything so easy, but that at first it is more difficult to believe, and likewise nothing is so great or so marvelous but that little by little all decrease their wonder at it. First of all the bright clear color of the sky, and all it holds within it, the stars that wander here and there, and the moon and the sheen of the sun with its brilliant light; all these, if now they had come to being for the first time for mortals, if all unforeseen they were in a moment placed before their eyes, what story could be told more marvelous than these things, or what that the nations would less dare to believe beforehand? Nothing, I trow: so worthy of wonder would this sight have been. Yet think how no one now, wearied with satiety of seeing, deigns to gaze up at the shining quarters of the sky! Wherefore cease to spew out reason from your mind, struck with terror at mere newness, but rather with eager judgement weigh things, and, if you see them true, lift your hands and yield, or, if it is false, gird yourself to battle.

For our mind now seeks to reason, since the sum of space is boundless out beyond the walls of this world, what there is far out there, whither the spirit desires always to look forward, and whither the unfettered projection of our mind flies on unchecked.

2-1048
First of all, we find that in every direction everywhere, and on either side, above and below, through all the universe, there is no limit, as I have shown, and indeed the truth cries out for itself and the nature of the deep shines clear. Now in no way must we think it likely, since towards every side is infinite empty space, and seeds in unnumbered numbers in the deep universe fly about in many ways driven on in everlasting motion, that this one world and sky was brought to birth, but that beyond it all those bodies of matter do naught; above all, since this world was so made by nature, as the seeds of things themselves of their own accord, jostling from time to time, were driven together in many ways, rashly, idly, and in vain, and at last those united, which, suddenly cast together, might become ever and anon the beginnings of great things, of earth and sea and sky, and the race of living things. Wherefore, again and again, you must needs confess that there are here and there other gatherings of matter, such as is this, which the ether holds in its greedy grip.

2-1067
Moreover, when there is much matter ready to hand, when space is there, and no thing, no cause delays, things must, we may be sure, be carried on and completed. As it is, if there is so great a store of seeds as the whole life of living things could not number, and if the same force and nature abides which could throw together the seeds of things, each into their place in like manner as they are thrown together here, it must needs be that you confess that there are other worlds in other regions, and diverse races of men and tribes of wild beasts.

2-1077
This there is too that in the universe there is nothing single, nothing born unique and growing unique and alone, but it is always of some tribe, and there are many things in the same race. First of all turn your mind to living creatures; you will find that in this wise is begotten the race of wild beasts that haunts the mountains, in this wise the stock of men, in this wise again the dumb herds of scaly fishes, and all the bodies of flying fowls. Wherefore you must confess in the same way that sky and earth and sun, moon, sea, and all else that exists, are not unique, but rather of number numberless; inasmuch as the deep-fixed boundary-stone of life awaits these as surely, and they are just as much of a body that has birth, as every race which is here on earth, abounding in things after its kind.

Isonomia

Cicero - On The Nature of The Gods - Book 1 (Yonge)

XIX. These discoveries of Epicurus are so acute in themselves and so subtly expressed that not everyone would be capable of appreciating them. Still I may rely on your intelligence, and make my exposition briefer than the subject demands. Epicurus then, as he not merely discerns abstruse and recondite things with his mind's eye, but handles them as tangible realities, teaches that the substance and nature of the gods is such that, in the first place, it is perceived not by the senses but by the mind, and not materially or individually, like the solid objects which Epicurus in virtue of their substantiality entitles steremnia; but by our perceiving images owing to their similarity and succession, because an endless train of precisely similar images arises from the innumerable atoms and streams towards the gods, our mind with the keenest feelings of pleasure fixes its gaze on these images, and so attains an understanding of the nature of a being both blessed and eternal.

Moreover there is the supremely potent principle of infinity, which claims the closest and most careful study; we must understand that it has the following property, that in the sum of things everything has its exact match and counterpart. This property is termed by Epicurus isonomia, or the principle of uniform distribution. From this principle it follows that if the whole number of mortals be so many, there must exist no less a number of immortals, and if the causes of destruction are beyond count, the causes of conservation also are bound to be infinite.

You Stoics are also fond of asking us, Balbus, what is the mode of life of the gods and how they pass their days. The answer is, their life is the happiest conceivable, and the one most bountifully furnished with all good things. God is entirely inactive and free from all ties of occupation; he toils not neither does he labor, but he takes delight in his own wisdom and virtue, and knows with absolute certainty that he will always enjoy pleasures at once consummate and and everlasting.