Posts by Cassius

Don I think our different perspective there parallels our different perspective on PD10. I don't think the passage can be reconciled with the rest of the philosophy without acknowledging that sensual pleasures are pleasure too. Therefore I think the danger is on the other side - that of reading this passage as a blanket condemnation of sensual pleasures - which I think is in fact is the way a lot of people are interpreting it so as to arrive at an ascetic interpretations of Epicurus.

Discussing this is very helpful cause I agree this is a critical issue.

Citations relevant to this episode:

Vatican Saying 32: The veneration of the wise man is a great blessing to those who venerate him.

Velleius Previously In On The Nature of The Gods:

XVII ... We have then a preconception of such a nature that we believe the gods to be blessed and immortal. For nature, which bestowed upon us an idea of the gods themselves, also engraved on our minds the belief that they are eternal and blessed. If this is so, the famous maxim of Epicurus truthfully enunciates that "that which is blessed and eternal can neither know trouble itself nor cause trouble to another, and accordingly cannot feel either anger or favor, since all such things belong only to the weak." If we sought to attain nothing else beside piety in worshiping the gods and freedom from superstition, what has been said had sufficed; since the exalted nature of the gods, being both eternal and supremely blessed, would receive man's pious worship (for what is highest commands the reverence that is its due); and furthermore all fear of the divine power or divine anger would have been banished (since it is understood that anger and favor alike are excluded from the nature of a being at once blessed and immortal, and that these being eliminated we are menaced by no fears in regard to the powers above). But the mind strives to strengthen this belief by trying to discover the form of god, the mode of his activity, and the operation of his intelligence.

XX ... Well then, in this immensity of length and breadth and height there flits an infinite quantity of atoms innumerable, which though separated by void yet cohere together, and taking hold each of another form unions wherefrom are created those shapes and forms of things which you think cannot be created without the aid of bellows and anvils, and so have saddled us with an eternal master, whom day and night we are to fear. For who would not fear a prying busybody of a god, who foresees and thinks of and notices all things, and deems that everything is his concern? An outcome of this theology was first of all your doctrine of Necessity or Fate, heimarmene, as you termed it, the theory that every event is the result of an eternal truth and an unbroken sequence of causation. But what value can be assigned to a philosophy which thinks that everything happens by fate? It is a belief for old women, and ignorant old women at that. And next follows your doctrine of mantike, or Divination, which would so steep us in superstition, if we consented to listen to you, that we should be the devotees of soothsayers, augurs, oracle-mongers, seers and interpreters of dreams. But Epicurus has set us free from superstitious terrors and delivered us out of captivity, so that we have no fear of beings who, we know, create no trouble for themselves and seek to cause none to others, while we worship with pious reverence the transcendent majesty of nature.

Welcome to Episode 252 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 have a thread to discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

Today we are continuing to review Cicero's "On the Nature of The Gods," which began with the Epicurean spokesman Velleius defending the Epicurean point of view. This week will continue into Section 41 as Cotta, the Academic Skeptic, continues to attack the Epicurean view of the nature of divinity.

For the main text we are using primarily the Yonge translation, available here at Archive.org. The text which we include in these posts is available here. We will also refer to the public domain version of the Loeb series, which contains both Latin and English, as translated by H. Rackham.

Additional versions can be found here:

• Frances Brooks 1896 translation at Online Library of Liberty
• Lacus Curtius Edition (Rackham)
• PDF Of Loeb Edition at Archive.org by Rackham
• Gutenberg.org version by CD Yonge 

A list of arguments presented will eventually be put together here.

Today's Text

XLI. But they are free from pain. Is that sufficient for beings who are supposed to enjoy all good things and the most supreme felicity? The Deity, they say, is constantly meditating on his own happiness, for he has no other idea which can possibly occupy his mind. Consider a little; reflect what a figure the Deity would make if he were to be idly thinking of nothing through all eternity but “It is very well with me, and I am happy;” nor do I see why this happy Deity should not fear being destroyed, since, without any intermission, he is driven and agitated by an everlasting incursion of atoms, and since images are constantly floating off from him. Your Deity, therefore, is neither happy nor eternal.

Epicurus, it seems, has written books concerning sanctity and piety towards the Gods. But how does he speak on these subjects? You would say that you were listening to Coruncanius or Scævola, the high-priests, and not to a man who tore up all religion by the roots, and who overthrew the temples and altars of the immortal Gods; not, indeed, with hands, like Xerxes, but with arguments; for what reason is there for your saying that men ought to worship the Gods, when the Gods not only do not regard men, but are entirely careless of everything, and absolutely do nothing at all?

But they are, you say, of so glorious and excellent a nature that a wise man is induced by their excellence to adore them. Can there be any glory or excellence in that nature which only contemplates its own happiness, and neither will do, nor does, nor ever did anything? Besides, what piety is due to a being from whom you receive nothing? Or how can you, or any one else, be indebted to him who bestows no benefits? For piety is only justice towards the Gods; but what right have they to it, when there is no communication whatever between the Gods and men? And sanctity is the knowledge of how we ought to worship them; but I do not understand why they are to be worshipped, if we are neither to receive nor expect any good from them.

XLII. And why should we worship them from an admiration only of that nature in which we can behold nothing excellent? and as for that freedom from superstition, which you are in the habit of boasting of so much, it is easy to be free from that feeling when you have renounced all belief in the power of the Gods; unless, indeed, you imagine that Diagoras or Theodorus, who absolutely denied the being of the Gods, could possibly be superstitious. I do not suppose that even Protagoras could, who doubted whether there were Gods or not. The opinions of these philosophers are not only destructive of superstition, which arises from a vain fear of the Gods, but of religion also, which consists in a pious adoration of them.

What think you of those who have asserted that the whole doctrine concerning the immortal Gods was the invention of politicians, whose view was to govern that part of the community by religion which reason could not influence? Are not their opinions subversive of all religion? Or what religion did Prodicus the Chian leave to men, who held that everything beneficial to human life should be numbered among the Gods? Were not they likewise void of religion who taught that the Deities, at present the object of our prayers and adoration, were valiant, illustrious, and mighty men who arose to divinity after death? Euhemerus, whom our Ennius translated, and followed more than other authors, has particularly advanced this doctrine, and treated of the deaths and burials of the Gods; can he, then, be said to have confirmed religion, or, rather, to have totally subverted it? I shall say nothing of that sacred and august Eleusina, into whose mysteries the most distant nations were initiated, nor of the solemnities in Samothrace, or in Lemnos, secretly resorted to by night, and surrounded by thick and shady groves; which, if they were properly explained, and reduced to reasonable principles, would rather explain the nature of things than discover the knowledge of the Gods.

Lucretius Today Episode 251 is now available: "How Niagara Falls Helps Us Understand the Flux, the Heap, and the Epicurean Gods"

And applying that last observation about heaps and waterfalls to the statement in the letter to Menoeceus:

"When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality, as is supposed by some who are either ignorant or disagree with us or do not understand, but freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind."

Given that we know that Epicurus DOES accept the pleasures of profligates and the pleasures of sensuality as pleasures, the better interpretation of what he is saying is incorporate Epicurus's position on the heap/river questions, to the effect that:

We should not identify the concept of pleasure as being limited ONLY to the particular pleasures of profligates or sensuality (such as sex, food, drink, etc) because that is not our definition of pleasure as the goal. The concept of Pleasure, which we take as our definition of the ultimate good, includes NOT ONLY those particular pleasures but ALSO all other pleasures, such as those of the mind, literature, art, calmness, etc. This "Pleasure as the good" does not exist as a Platonic ideal, it exists and is recognized only by our perception of many particular pleasures. The unifying characteristic of any set of particular pleasures is not that they reflect or partake of some ideal Platonic form or Aristotelian essence, but that we feel it to be pleasure, rather than feeling it to be pain.

It has always made sense to mentally insert an "ONLY" so as to read "When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean ONLY the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality..." given that we know that sensuality and even the things that profligates do are pleasurable. But placing this sentence in the context of the sorites/heap/waterfall/river question gives us a context in which to supply the missing "only." Waterfalls and rivers and heaps are not ONLY individual grains of sand or drops of water, they are a composite of the individual particles. Pleasure is not ONLY sensuality, but it is also all feelings of all experiences in life which are not painful, because that is a necessary deduction from there being only two feelings, pleasure or pain, into one of which category all feelings must be placed.

You can't recognize heaps or waterfalls or rivers without recognizing their components, and you can't recognize Pleasure as the good without recognizing all the individual pleasures of which the concept of Pleasure is composed.

Just to add this as a note for future thought and discussion, what we talk about in this podcast plays into our recent discussion of the sorites / heap question and how that is related both to the waterfall / bathing in the same river questions. And both of those play into the issue of seeing pleasure as both the composite ultimate good while also consisting of individual feelings of pleasure.

When Epicurus asked how he should recognize the good if not for the pleasures of sex, food, etc, that is essentially the same question as "how should he recognize a waterfall or a river if not for the drops of water that compose it?"

The point would not be that we should consider any individual drops of water to make up the whole waterfall, or any individual pleasures to make up the whole of good, but that the parts and the whole are both real and inseparably connected.

Our natural faculties allow us to assemble the notion of a "waterfall" or a "river" from the perceptions of the individual drops of which the waterfall or river is composed. Likewise, our natural faculties (perceptions and minds) allow us to assemble "the good" from the individual pleasures of which the notion of "the good" is composed. There is no conflict between saying that both individual drops and waterfalls exist and are real to us. Likewise it is proper to say that both individual pleasures and the overall concept of the good as pleasure exist and are real to us.

And just like a waterfall or a river or a heap exists through the movement of the particles that compose it, at least one type of living being could he held to exist indefinitely, analogous to a river or waterfall, if it could find a way to constantly replenish the movement of the particles that compose it.

But for the ethics question, which concerns more people today than the god question does, the point would be that the abstract good of pleasure can be said to exist only because it is a composite of all the constantly moving and changing particular pleasures that compose it. Were we to try to separate out all the individual physical and mental pleasures that compose it (such as sex, food, drink, calmness, delight, tranquility, etc) we would have nothing left by which to recognize the good. The concept of Pleasure as the good does not exist as a Platonic ideal, it exists and is recognized only by our perception of "Pleasure" as a composite many particular pleasures, in the same way that we perceive "heaps" or "waterfalls" or "rivers" as composites of many grains of sand or drops of water.

Quote from Julia

What gives you your certainty that this was not the case?

I may misunderstand your question (as to what "this" refers to), but my point of view is that while gosh knows a consensus of scholars over hundreds if not thousands of years can be wrong about major things, in this case there are few if any others who have held that Lucretius was anything but sincere in his admiration for Epicurus and his intent to convey Epicurus' philosophy faithfully. I am not aware of any significant writer who has ever taken any other position.

Further, in this case it's not just a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with what Lucretius is saying. Most scholars don't agree with Lucretius, but here the issue is not agreeing or disagreeing with doctrine, but interpreting Lucretius' "tone." Yes Lucretius uses a satirical tone in criticizing the opponents of Epicurus, but he's never disrespectful of Epicurean views.

It's almost always possible to argue many sides of the same question, so I am preferring a charitable interpretation of THM's argument. Yes Lucretius uses satire, but the purpose of the book is not to conform to a literary genre of satire, but to convey Epicurean philosophy using the poetic form.

Maybe THM ends up that way in his book, but if his book goes in the same direction as certain commens in the video, I doubt I will spend the time to read the book. No doubt it contains some good nuggets of information, but if the ultimate point is that "Lucretius was not sincere in his attempt to teach Epicurean philosophy faithfully" then I think THM picked an insurmountable mountain to try to climb.

I understand we have two significant birthdays today! Happy birthday Joshua and...

Happy Birthday to Joshua! Learn more about Joshua and say happy birthday on Joshua's timeline: Joshua

Ok I've watched the full video. Here's my commentary:

The main thrust of the video with which I can completely agree seems to be that "satire" is used in Lucretius. Clearly Lucretius does "make fun" of opposing schools in a number of passages in the book.

However the title of the book "Laughing Atoms, Laughing Matters" and several comments in the video indicate that THM is making an argument that the entire poem should be taken less than seriously, and that it's more of a literary "satire" in the mode of Horace or similar, where it's maybe a side point to "make the world a better place" but the main point is more something like that of displaying the writer's literary talents.

Obviously I don't agree with that last point, but I can't tell how deeply the book goes into specifically arguing that Lucretius was in fact not a devoted Epicurean attempting to teach Epicurean philosophy, and that instead he was merely a poet following his muse to create a work of art.

If you're the kind of person who finds that kind of literary argument interesting, then you'll probably find the video interesting. If you're not, then you won't.

I do want to state that I was pleased to see that THM did include reference to his article on the size of the sun, and what he said was I thought "spot on" with his article: To say, as Epicurus' opponents did, that Epicurus thought the actual size of the sun was no greater than a "foot" or a basketball is absurd. Epicurus is quoted as saying that the sun is "the size that it appears to be" and this can easily be argued to be consistent with Epicurus always calling attention to the senses, and that the senses have to be used and processed properly, much as we have to process what a tower looks like up close to understand why it looks different at a distance.

I'll find a link to that article and link it here, with my recommendations that it's well worth reading.

Thread

"Lucretius on the Size of the Sun", by T.H.M. Gellar-Goad

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epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/2793/

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I've just received this collection of essays, published in February, with an excellent paper concerning the size of the sun by one T.H.M. Gellar-Goad.

I may attempt an outline; in the meantime, here's a good bit toward the end;

[…]

aporia; doubt, or a difficulty in resolving the available data into established truth.

The author is thoroughly familiar with Epicurean…

Joshua

June 9, 2022 at 6:04 PM

Thanks Julia for pointing out this video, as I had not seen it.

Always keeping in mind here that his article on Epicurean views of the size of the sun is excellent.

To the extent he is arguing that Lucretius employs satire in his argument I have no problem with what I am hearing. To the extent he is arguing that Lucretius is not a devoted Epicurean and considers Epicurean philosophy cynically and as a laughing matter, I just respectfully think he is flat wrong.

But I am only 20 minutes in

Thanks for posting that - we have heard of and discussed Professor Gellat-Goad before, but I am not aware of this video. Will review and comment further later!

Eikadistes you are considerably younger than I am. Are the implications of "feeling no pain" changing among younger people? Would very young people today jump to the same association that "feeling no pain" still means "stoned" or "under the influence of some drug"?

Info from Joshua:

Julius Caesar | Act 4, Scene 2

If you do a control F search for 'Portia' it will take you to the part of the scene where Brutus first informs Cassius of his wife's death, and subsequently pretends not to know of it when a messenger brings news.

I was listening to an old song earlier this week, and one set of lyrics struck me as worthy of discussion here:

Quote from Harry Chapin: Sequel

You see, ten years ago it was the front seat
Drivin' stoned and feelin' no pain
Now here I am straight and sittin' in the back
Hitting Sixteen Parkside Lane

I think those lyrics are now so ingrained in me that I will never be able to disassociate use of the term "feeling no pain" in conversation from "feeling stoned." And I associate "stoned" as meaning "on drugs."

I expect that a lot of readers here will understand this association, but maybe this terminology has passed out of common usage and younger people don't feel the same association.

So this is a question to which I'd appreciate feedback. I expect different answers from different people, but I don't know exactly how those differences will break down.

I expect at some point this association won't be so automatic, and with the passing of boomers and subsequent generations the old association will break down. But I don't know how to test this other than ask.

The question is: To what extent does hearing someone say that they are "feeling no pain" automatically invoke an association that what they mean is that they are "stoned?"

Great catch! You don't see that in the duplicates but it adds to the piercing serious effect.

Thanks for replying Shier! Happy to have you here and look forward to hearing more from you.

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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.

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