Posts by Cassius

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.

For those who come across this thread because of its reference to Meetup groups, there is a discussion going on over at Facebook on this topic where Elli Pensa is also participating.

Epicurean Philosophy | I'm starting an in-person Epicurean philosophy meetup group in Toronto | Facebook

I'm starting an in-person Epicurean philosophy meetup group in Toronto. Welcome all!

www.facebook.com

Episode 267 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today's episode is entitled: "Virtue Is Not Absolute Or An End In Itself - All Good And Evil Consists In Sensation"

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."

Yes. Her book is accessible to a wider audience. After time for those who are really interested in the ideas there is Dewitt and many other options.

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

Quote from AxA

I'm new to the study of Epicurus and have found the teachings of this school very refreshing

AxA when you get a chance let us know about your own background in philosophy and that might help us make recommendations to you.

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.

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

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

Welcome to Episode 268 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 nature of Pleasure and its role as the guide of life. These two discussions will be closely related, but first we follow up on last week's episode as to how it is Pleasure, rather than Virtue, that actually serves as the guide of life.

Next week we will dive deeper into the many aspects of Pleasure, but this week we will start with the role that Pleasure plays in the overall scheme of Nature - as a faculty, as a criterion of truth, and as the "guide of life" per Lucretius' line which is translated as:

1. Lucretius Book Two [167]:
   1. Munro: "But some in opposition to this, ignorant of matter, believe that nature cannot without the providence of the gods, in such nice conformity to the ways of men, vary the seasons of the year and bring forth crops, aye and all the other things, which divine pleasure, the guide of life, prompts men to approach, escorting them in person and enticing them by her fondlings to continue their races through the arts of Venus, that mankind may not come to an end."
   2. Rouse: "But some in opposition to this, knowing nothing of matter, believe that without the gods’ power nature cannot with so exact conformity to the plans of mankind change the seasons of the year, and produce crops, and in a word all else which divine pleasure, the guide of life, persuades men to approach, herself leading them and coaxing them, through the ways of Venus, to beget their generations, that the human race may not come to an end."
   3. Humphries: "Some people do not know how matter works. They think that nature needs the will of the gods to fit the seasons of the year so nicely to human needs, to bring to birth the crops And other blessings, which our guide to life, the radiance of pleasure, makes us crave through Venus' agency. "

Discussion Outline will be here:

Pleasure Is The Guide of Life

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I see that Hicks in the Loeb says "so great that nothing could augment them."

thanks Eikadistes - that's the Bailey version I think.

Today in the podcast recording Joshua brought up the letter to Idomeus, and one phrasing caught my eye, the underline

Quote

[22] When he was on the point of death he wrote the following letter to Idomeneus: ‘On this truly happy day of my life, as I am at the point of death, I write this to you. The disease in my bladder and stomach are pursuing their course, lacking nothing of their natural severity: but against all this is the joy in my heart at the recollection of my conversations with you. Do you, as I might expect from your devotion from boyhood to me and to philosophy, take good care of the children of Metrodorus.’ Such then was his will.

I would presume the meaning Epicurus intended to be understood was something like "on a scale of 1 to 10 my pain is a 10!"

This is far beyond my capacity to evaluate, but I wonder if this structure has any relationship to the structure involved in equating "absence of pain" with the highest pleasure. In other words, is this another example of Epicurus stressing a point by referencing its opposite, just as Aulus Gellius referenced in "Attic Nights"?

I've pasted the Aulus Gellius reference below, but if there's any merit in this analogy, this example might be useful not just for showing:

(1) how Epicurus's statement provides an illustration that one can be happy even under great pain ( i.e., pleasure and pain can both exist at one time, but in differnt part's of one experience, and that the happiness can be seen as the pleasure in some parts of experience outweing the pain in others, but also

(2) that "absence of pain" is clearly an expression, or manner of speaking, that emphasizes the presence of pleasure by noting the absence of dilution by any amount of its opposite.

If the Greek grammatical structure is parallel, this observation might be of some use in explaining how to understand "absence of pain" not as something obscure but as a figure of speech intended to be a way of emphasizing the point.

- Aulus Gellius :

There is absolutely no one who is of so perverted a character as not sometimes to do or say something that can be commended (laudari). And therefore this very ancient line has become a familiar proverb:

Oft-times even a fool expresses himself to the purpose.

But one who, on the contrary, in his every act and at all times, deserves no praise (laude) at all is inlaudatus, and such a man is the very worst and most despicable of all mortals, just as "freedom from all reproach" makes one inculpatus (blameless).

Now inculpatus is the synonym for perfect goodness; therefore conversely inlaudatus represents the limit of extreme wickedness. It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example:

“And not unwillingly they charged,”

and again:

“Not then would you divine Atrides see Confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight.”

Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words: “The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains.”

Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool “unlovely.” For just as he expressed abhorrence of the “unpraised” man by the denial of praise, so he abhorred the “unlovable” by the denial of love.

• Attic Nights 2:6

That's the main reference but I will include the other too, with the most relevant part underlined:

Plutarch, in the second book of his essay On Homer, asserts that Epicurus made use of an incomplete, perverted and faulty syllogism, and he quotes Epicurus's own words: "Death is nothing to us, for what is dissolved is without perception, and what is without perception is nothing to us." "Now Epicurus," says Plutarch, "omitted what he ought to have stated as his major premise, that death is a dissolution of body and soul, and then, to prove something else, he goes on to use the very premise that he had omitted, as if it had been stated and conceded. But this syllogism," says Plutarch, "cannot advance, unless that premise be first presented."

What Plutarch wrote as to the form and sequence of a syllogism is true enough; for if you wish to argue and reason according to the teaching of the schools, you ought to say: "Death is the dissolution of soul and body; but what is dissolved is without perception; and what is without perception is nothing to us." But we cannot suppose that Epicurus, being the man he was, omitted that part of the syllogism through ignorance, or that it was his intention to state a syllogism complete in all its members and limitations, as is done in the schools of the logicians; but since the separation of body and soul by death is self-evident, he of course did not think it necessary to call attention to what was perfectly obvious to everyone. For the same reason, too, he put the conclusion of the syllogism, not at the end, but at the beginning; for who does not see that this also was not due to inadvertence?

In Plato too you will often find syllogisms in which the order prescribed in the schools is disregarded and inverted, with a kind of lofty disdain of criticism.

In the same book, Plutarch also finds fault a second time with Epicurus for using an inappropriate word and giving it an incorrect meaning. Now Epicurus wrote as follows: "The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of everything that pains." Plutarch declares that he ought not to have said "of everything that pains," but "of everything that is painful"; for it is the removal of pain, he explains, that should be indicated, not of that which causes pain. In bringing this charge against Epicurus Plutarch is "word-chasing" with excessive minuteness and almost with frigidity; for far from hunting up such verbal meticulousness and such refinements of diction, Epicurus hunts them down.

• Aulus Gellius - Attic Nights

Again to repeat past credits -- all credit belongs to Joshua for finding the Aulus Gellius reference.

Good to see you take the initiative AxA.

There are a lot of subtleties in Epicurean philosophy but there's no reason that the right group can get together and learn them together.

Let us know if we can be of help.

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All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

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We have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

Welcome to the forum!

That's consistent with my current understanding that the real problem here got launched by the Stoics, which is a point that Cicero seems to me in On Ends, where his treatment of Stoicism is pretty slashing.

Aristotle's problem doesn't seem to be so much an overfocus on virtue but his supernatural prime mover orientation and evasion of pleasure as the basis of happiness.

About 17 hours from now we will be recording our "Virtue" extravaganza episode. We'll be talking live so there's no telling what topics the final episode will cover, but I've further refined the "talking points" I'd like to see us cover at the link below. If anyone has any last minute quotations to submit or suggestions for topics, there's still time to let us know in this thread.

Virtue Is Not Absolute Or An End In Itself Because All Good And Evil Consists In Sensation

Good to hear from you Titus. Yes it is amazing how AI can talk! It can provide options, but as to judgement or the wisdom of doing such a thing I suspect it will always fall short.