Alright so here is what I wrote years back about Philodemus' scroll on music:

http://societyofepicurus.com/reasonings-on-philodemus-on-music/

Here, he says that the origins of dance were unthinking, uncontrolled, as if by nature:

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It is not true that the men of yore exercised in dance … with the purpose not only of seeing their bodies gain utility and to reach the dispositions of good people … but also to carry in their soul equally the good performance that they saw manifesting throughout their bodies, and to try to keep their soul constantly beautiful for the rest of their lives.

In fact, neither of these reasons was the origin of humanity’s first impulse to dance, or of its transmission by those who received it … It was, on the contrary, their ignorance of nature and exultation that brought them to form, in a manner that was instinctive and unthinking, as if forced, a circle in order to produce with their hands, their feet, and other parts of the bodies the organized movements …

This, again, is consistent with the tendency in Epicurus and Lucretius to assign the origin of many cultural forms to nature ORIGINALLY, which then AND ONLY AFTER was refined, perfected, and developed rationally by culture.

Concerning our questions about the therapeutic use of music, he argues that people who can't sing or dance are able to be virtuous, so he rejects the idea that ONLY the irrational aspect of music is therapeutic (he words it like this: "provides harmony to the soul").

He also argues that ONLY reason "softens our souls and would deprive us of our savagery". He juxtaposes reason and UNREASON for comparison, accusing unreason of inventing things that are 1. not "produced by nature", and 2. have no importance.

These are the direct Philodemus quote that I lifted from the scroll:

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If they say that only these irrational realities provide harmony to the soul, then their error is double: it means those who can’t sing or dance, or who are unfamiliar with music, can’t be virtuous.

... And those that say that we are sweetened by music because she softens our souls and would deprive them of their savagery, one may consider them perfect imbeciles. In fact, it is only reason–because she teaches that none of the strange things that unreason invents has been produced by nature and that, furthermore, nothing of what she produces has any importance–that can perfectly reach this result, once it has attained its perfection, and while she is still on the path to perfection, it can alleviate in proportion.

… The Epicureans do not underestimate music for lack of culture; to them, only philosophy counts.

Cassius you have the scroll in French. You can put it through google translate and use online dictionaries.

Mousikos I suppose there are different things that are meant by “therapeutic”. Philodemus said that as far as philosophy, it heals through words, and I think I remember seeing the word logos. I take great pleasure in music, but it seems like the benefits of different kinds of music do not correlate with the benefits of memorizing the healing words of philosophy. These are specifically meant to treat concrete, specific false beliefs like fear of death and of gods, or unlimited desires. The benefits of music do not correlate to this and are non-philosophical. They are different.

Quote from Cassius

So it seems most likely to me that they were not campaigning against music itself, but against the idea that music can embody something (ideal forms) that don't exist. Probably this kind of view also describes what Epicurus was saying about poetry.

What Philodemus said was that PHILOSOPHY HEALS THROUGH WORDS, Logos heals the soul.

While reason (and words) is not in the canon, it has a therapeutic / healing role in the practice of philosophy itself.

The idea is that we can reason with our unlimited desires to bring them under control, and in this form of cognitive therapy I have to cite Principal Doctrine 20

https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2017/03/31/dio…al-doctrine-20/

So it's not just about being anti idealism, there's a specific therapeutic utility that was being discussed in the Philodeman scroll with regards to music, and he was arguing that music could only heal the soul (through the practices of repetition and memorization, etc.) IF it contained the words of healing philosophy, which were the ones that had the potency to heal.

Also, this ties to Polystratus' claim that the noble and the vile and pleasure / aversion are REAL natural phenomena even if subjective, and that they exist as relational properties of bodies.

I say this because watching a documentary about primate evolution, I learned that the universally REPULSIVE reaction humans have to the sound of FINGER NAILS ON CHALKBOARD has been traced back to the sound of certain monkeys who warn each other of danger. Like other triggers for fight-or-flight instinct, this sound immediately awakens all the tribe members in some monkey troops and is used to warn of predators.

So the theory is that our repulsion to this is due to a VERY ANCIENT inherited ancestral memory from our remote past as early primates.

And if so, this means that at least CERTAIN sound vibrations, tones or rhythms have this property and other properties that are NATURAL, not cultural, and then via culture we have rationally and consciously built on these initial natural drives to develop musical expressions, among other behaviors.

On the relationship between pleasure and rhythm / anticipation of sounds and repetition, we have of course Marian Diamond's study on chanting and its slowing the heart rate and blood pressure.

Interesting discussion.

I'm curious to know what others think (since Lucretius in DRN often acts as an anthropologist and looks at primitive humans, anticipating that their behavior initiated as a natural response to the environment and then evolved via culture / rational management by people) about an observation I've made for many years:

In nature documentaries, when monkeys and other species engage in musical expressions (calls and call and response behavior), it's typically TERRITORIAL, or for protection from dangers (also in a way an expression of social and territorial instinct) and to this day a lot of music in our species is also territorial or patriotic or enhances a sense of tribal identity. Singing together is the ultimate "cultural machine" to create a collective psyche. People sometimes go to churches / temples just for the music, and this gives them a sense of community.

And so it has always seemed to me that music has always played a role in consolidating social units, and appeals to the social / tribal instinct.

This does not exclude romantic / pair-bonding and other uses of music.

I don't remember if Lucretius mentions music and how it originated, but I do know that he mentions music / dancing in his portion on neural pathways where he talks about habituation

https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/hap…e-rerum-natura/

my full reply

https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2019/05/28/epi…-is-a-humanism/

Joshua you'll likely be interested in the blog series that explore the connections between those writings and Epicurean philosophy:

http://societyofepicurus.com/epicurean-reas…he-lotus-sutra/

http://societyofepicurus.com/the-taoist-hedonism-of-yang-chu/

http://societyofepicurus.com/contemplations-on-the-tao-series/

Is virtue ethics making a comeback, 2,400 years after Aristotle?

Unthinkable: We must find ‘middle way’, says Ireland’s new young philosopher of the year

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/is-vir…3mlXwi2Hmr3wwiY

http://societyofepicurus.com/fun-epicurean-willy-wonka-memes/

Okay. This will give you access to all the Herculaneum scrolls without the interpretation by Nussbaum or others you find suspicious, so you will finally get a taste of many of these writings, including some of Epicurus' books On Nature. If you get stuck on any particular word / translation of a term, let me know. French was my major in college. Also, do read the commentary and explanations in the book. They are very professional and thorough and good to provide context and clarification.

Quote from michelepinto

I agree everything but this:

It sems not corrent neither epicurean. Look at point 12.

I think this is what is called "archetypes of the collective unconscious" in Jungian psychology.

Jung cited the example of newborn tiny birds from Galapagos that exhibited panic when a large plane flew over them … but there are no birds of prey that eat that species of tiny birds. Which means they must have inherited this panic instinct from ancestors from South America, who WERE eaten by Condors.

Scanning it won't help you paste it into google translate. I assumed you knew a little French. You can enter words you don't understand to make sense of it slowly, word for word.

Cassius did you get the Les Epicureens book in French? The scrolls of Philodemus are all there with commentary.

I believe this author is the one referred to in the Cyrenaic book by Lampe:

https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/cyr…aic-philosophy/

I like Nietzsche enough that I've written a full series of essays with CRITICAL Epicurean content about Nietzsche, both praising and criticizing his ideas

http://societyofepicurus.com/essays-about-n…-will-to-power/

I mainly criticize his idea about truth as an expression of will versus truth as an expression of nature (which is the Epicurean concept of truth), his aristocratic ideals, and while his genealogy of morals is interesting and useful we have to be mindful not to dismiss all community and friendship and the values that sustain them as "slave morality". Just like Marx gives a great critique of capitalism but fails to PREDICT future capitalist relations and fails to create a useful utopian ideal, similarly Nietzsche gives a good methodology to critique and study morality, but fails to produce a useful alternative.

Here is how they look from the side and from the bottom where they can be adjusted for the size of the fingers.

I’ll have to take another pic when I get home from work

So the sources say that ancient Epicureans had votive busts and specifically mentions that they also wore RINGS with the likeness of Epicurus. Here is a sample I got of what an Epicurus ring would look like, as a possible product for my business thetwentiers.com. It's a small ring, but it expands, and the face of Epicurus does not fit entirely into it but it still looks like Epicurus. Do others think there is a market for this?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tithe

Thanks to both of you.

Also, will erase original post in the hopes that The Humanist might be interested in the essay and require that it be not previously published anywhere.

I'd love to get feedback on the first draft of this upcoming essay:

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