Posts by Cassius

  • 15th Panhellenic Symposium Upcoming - February 15, 2025

    Quote from AxA

    Looking at previous editions, the sound quality is good enough that Google Translate in transcribe mode is able to do a pretty good job.

    Which presumably means we won't get much out of watching "Live" but that shortly after it's published to youtube they will do a speech to text, and maybe have an English version of that?

    Lately on Youtube I have noticed that some videos that I am sure were done in only english now have a foreign language audio option- 0r at least an auto-generated text translation.

    Is anyone following the technology here closely enough to clarify?

  • 15th Panhellenic Symposium Upcoming - February 15, 2025

    Christos Yapijakis has forwarded to me the agenda for this weekends Panhellenic Epicurean Symposium. There look to be many very good presentations.

    Unfortunately for most of us here, the Symposium is largely in Greek, but in years past it has generally been Live-Streamed to Youtube, and I suspect that will be the case again this year. I don't have an exact link to offer, but I bet you'll be able to find one at one of the following pages of the Gardens of Athens leadership:

    Επίκουρος - Επικούρεια Φιλοσοφία

    Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos
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    15th_Panhellenic_Symposium_of_Epicurean_Philosophy_2025.pdf

  • Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke

    Quote from Kalosyni

    "No hypothesis ought to be maintained if a single phenomenon stands in direct opposition to it."

    The main point I wanted to make (and failed to above) is that this strikes me as a cite that would be useful for explaining PD24

    PD24. If you reject any single sensation, and fail to distinguish between the conclusion of opinion, as to the appearance awaiting confirmation, and that which is actually given by the sensation or feeling, or each intuitive apprehension of the mind, you will confound all other sensations, as well, with the same groundless opinion, so that you will reject every standard of judgment. And if among the mental images created by your opinion you affirm both that which awaits confirmation, and that which does not, you will not escape error, since you will have preserved the whole cause of doubt in every judgment between what is right and what is wrong.

  • Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke

    I did some quick research and don't have much to offer yet. Might be that Bolingbroke has good things to say on Epicurean epistemology, and possibly that 's why Jefferson made note of it.

    But otherwise it doesn't sound like Bolingbroke is likely to be too Epicurean-friendly -- but thanks for posting this!

    According to dumas malone. did Thomas Jefferson make quotes from reading Lord Bolingbroke?

    ChatGPT said:
    Yes, according to Dumas Malone, Thomas Jefferson was influenced by the works of Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, and made references to his writings. Bolingbroke was an English philosopher and politician whose ideas on history, government, and religion left a significant impression on Jefferson. Malone, in his multi-volume biography Jefferson and His Time, notes that Jefferson was well-read in Enlightenment thought and that Bolingbroke’s skepticism of organized religion and advocacy for reason in politics aligned with many of Jefferson’s own views. While Jefferson did not always cite Bolingbroke explicitly, there are instances where his writings reflect themes and phrases that suggest familiarity with Bolingbroke's work.


    Can you give examples of Jefferson quoting Bolingbroke

    ChatGPT said:
    There are no direct quotations from Lord Bolingbroke in Thomas Jefferson’s writings that explicitly cite him as the source, but there is strong evidence that Jefferson was influenced by Bolingbroke’s ideas and sometimes echoed his phrasing. Jefferson owned copies of Bolingbroke’s works and referenced his arguments, particularly regarding religion, government, and history.

    Dumas Malone, in Jefferson and His Time, notes that Jefferson was especially drawn to Bolingbroke’s Letters on the Study and Use of History and The Idea of a Patriot King. Bolingbroke’s criticisms of priestcraft and hereditary privilege align closely with Jefferson’s own writings on religious freedom and republicanism.

    One notable example is Jefferson’s opposition to clergy-dominated governance, an idea that echoes Bolingbroke’s skepticism of religious institutions. Bolingbroke wrote in The Philosophical Works:

    “The clergy … have pretended to a divine right to dictate to mankind …”

    Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spafford (March 17, 1814), expresses a similar sentiment:

    “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot …”

    Another parallel appears in Jefferson’s arguments for religious freedom in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Bolingbroke had written that religion should be a matter of personal conscience rather than state enforcement, an idea Jefferson promoted throughout his career.

    While Jefferson did not frequently attribute quotations to Bolingbroke by name, scholars, including Malone, have pointed out the thematic and linguistic similarities between their works.

    Did Lord Bolingbroke approve of Epicurus?

    ChatGPT said:
    Lord Bolingbroke had a complex and somewhat critical view of Epicurus. While he appreciated aspects of Epicurean philosophy, particularly its emphasis on reason and the rejection of superstition, he did not fully embrace Epicureanism, particularly its ethical teachings.

    Bolingbroke was deeply influenced by classical philosophy, and in his writings, he engaged with the ideas of Epicurus alongside those of other ancient thinkers like Cicero, Seneca, and Lucretius. He admired the Epicurean rejection of religious fear and the belief that nature, rather than divine intervention, governed the world. This aligned with his own deistic views, which sought to strip Christianity of what he saw as superstition and priestly corruption.

    However, Bolingbroke was critical of Epicurus' ethical teachings, particularly the idea that pleasure is the highest good. He, like many Enlightenment thinkers, associated Epicureanism with hedonism and viewed it as insufficient for promoting virtue and civic duty. In this respect, he was more aligned with Stoic and republican ideals, which emphasized self-sacrifice and moral duty.

    Overall, Bolingbroke respected Epicurus as a philosopher who challenged religious orthodoxy, but he did not fully endorse Epicurean ethics, preferring a moral framework that emphasized public virtue over personal pleasure.

  • Episode 267 - Virtue Is Not Absolute Or An End In Itself - All Good And Evil Consists In Sensation.

    You know in listening to this episode and particularly our discussion of PD05 as compared with Torquatus' statements about how his own family's exploits can be reconciled with pleasure as the goal:

    I think sometimes it might be tempting to think that every moment of living prudently, honorably, and justly can somehow be a kind of pleasure in itself. Just as some people see "absence of pain" as a special kind of pleasure, it might be tempting to say that every moment of "living justly" is somehow pleasurable.

    But I think Torquatus' examples make very clear is that while the *end result* is more pleasure or less pain, there are certainly times when you are acting virtuously that those experiences are in themselves painful.

    Certainly the Torquatus ancestor who executed his own son for disobeying orders was not experiencing some kind of transcendent pleasure at the moment of watching his son's execution.

    I make these comments because it seems very clear that pursuing pleasure as the goal of life is a "NET / ON BALANCE" affair -- we can't expect that every moment of physical and mental experience is to be pleasurable, but what we can expect is that "on balance" the pleasures of life (both stimulative and non-stimulative) will outweigh the pains.

    So anyone who thinks that there it makes sense to calculate every mental and physical action - for example by living as minimally and ascetically as possible so that you never experience even the briefest moments of pain -- is not on the right track. To pursue such a path ignores how it is right and proper that we sometimes choose pain to live the most pleasant life possible to us.

  • Toronto Canada Meetup Group (Discussion on Implementation)

    I must have started and not finished an earleir email. Yes the docuwiki link is broken, but most all of the information that was in it is in the thread you saw.

    Apologies if I said this already, but I think one of the most important things to do is to "manage expectations." The more clear you are about what Epicurus is about and what you're trying to do with the meetup the better off you are, especially as to cross-currents with such things as Buddhism, Stoicism, and religion - especially religion. Lots of people simply associate Epicurus with happiness, and people can get turned off pretty quickly once they find that Epicurus had strong positions on supernatural religion and life after death. Diplomacy pays off, but a lot of awkwardness can be avoided if you diplomatically make it clear that Epicurus had those positions.

    And of course how you handle "politics" is up to you, but i think we've benefited a lot from keeping modern politics away from our philosophical discussions. While religion and life after death have some of the same pitfalls as politics, I think we've drawn the line correctly. Non-supernaturalism and no-life-after deah are so intrinsically bound up in everything Epicurus discussed that you can't really omit them and still be recognizably Epicurean. Day-to-day politics, however, is not very much discussed in the texts at all, so it's much easier to make the point "let's see if we can't be friends and discuss the eternal issues first; you guys can discuss politics at another time and place."

  • Welcome AxA

    AxA check this thread for some past discussion on Meetup group possibilities:

    Thread

    Planning And Execution of A Local Group

    Epicurean Meetings and Conventions

    New: Meetup Handouts

    Update: As of 2/10/25 as I am writing this, it is my understanding that the Sydney Australia Epicurean meetup group is no longer operational. I have left the links below in case you want to look for prior versions of the page, but at present i am not aware of any operational Epicurean Meetup groups.

    In most parts of the world, there are at present very few opportunities for regular people who are interested in Epicurus to get together to…
    Cassius
    January 8, 2018 at 6:58 AM

  • Welcome AxA

    Quote from AxA

    I look forward to attending the next First Monday gathering.

    AxA -- We will look forward to having you for that. We originally set that up just for that purpose - to have a special time to welcome in totally new people.

    What I think you'll find in your own work in setting up a meetup is that there are lots of compromises that have to be made. In order to have free flow of conversation, you really want to have people who have some experience with each other so that there can be a supportive and trustful environment.

    For better or worse, the world isn't always conducive to allowing "everyone" into every discussion, because there are trolls and worse who make a point of being disruptive.

    What we've done here is to try to develop a screening process in which we look for people to participate for a period of time on the forum, using discussion in the forum for a period of time as a sort of "get-to-know-you" process. We've found it very helpful to have real "zoom meetings" where people come on camera and get to know each other over time as "friends," but it takes time to develop that kind of trust and confidence. So what we do is let everyone on our zooms know that they can expect to see people they know, and not random strangers, in our normal regular meetings.

    The "First Monday" gives us a monthly date on which new people can ask to participate and our regulars can decide whether or not they'd like to appear themselves.

    We're looking to start doing "live streams" in the future, where we allow anyone and everyone to comment in the chat that goes along with the stream, but we're not quite at the point where we can get that done regularly.

    There's a *lot* to think about in arranging meetings of any kind. It's actually an interesting discussion in itself. Feel free to ask questions about the way we do it, or just keep us posted on what you end up doing yourself, and we'll all learn from each other and pursue what works best for each of us.

    In the meantime, we'll look forward to seeing you at the first of March, and please continue to post and let us know your thoughts about things here on the forum.

  • Episode 268 - Pleasure Is The Guide Of Life (The Role of Pleasure In Life)

    Further planning note:

    While we will start by addressing briefly in this episode the sweeping nature of "pleasure" in Epicurean terms, we'll reserve the the main thrust of that argument until episode 269.

    This episode will be devoted to the various proofs and arguments that Pleasure is the guide of life, which means we'll include the argument presented by Torquatus at Book One IX (lines 29 and thereafter) as to looking to the young of all species before they are corrupted.

    As Torquatus references, however, some Epicureans argue that this proof can be made through reason:

    ([31] There are however some of our own school, who want to state these principles with greater refinement, and who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense, but that thought and reasoning also enable us to understand both that pleasure in itself is matter for desire and that pain is in itself matter for aversion. So they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred conception leading us to feel that the one thing is fit for us to seek, the other to reject. Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too confident about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.)

    So for this episode, please let us know if anyone has suggestions for what to include in this part of the discussion. Both Cosma Raimondi and Lorenzo Valla touch on this, and there are probably others we should include as well.

    The discussion guide is now in better shape so this might be of help in thinking of additions:

    Pleasure Is The Guide of Life

  • Episode 269 - By Pleasure We Mean The Absence of Pain (All Experience That Is Not Painful)

    Welcome to Episode 269 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

    Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

    We are continuing our series of key doctrines of Epicurus, and this week and next week we are focusing on the full meaning of "Pleasure" in the Epicurean framework. Last week we discussed the central role that Pleasure plays as "Guide of Life," and this week we will dive deeper and focus on the full meaning of the word Pleasure in Epicurean philosophy.

    Discussion Guide:

    By Pleasure We Mean All Feeling Which Is Not Painful


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