Posts by Elli

Oh, yes, and many of the Nazis were playing guitars, violins, and pianos, but they did not hesitate to spread all the murders and disasters first in Europe, and then in the whole world. And many of the Japanese played instruments and did not hesitate to bombard the Pearl Harbor. And many of the Americans played instruments and they threw atomic bombs to them. Sorry, I do not accept this article for any evidence that the music makes us for finding inner peace, harmony and the like. ELIMINATION OF FEARS does not come from such things. EXPERIENCES in life and prudence do not come from the playing of the guitars. The pleasures of the moment comes from Aristippus the Cyrene. Epicurus in his bed death did not ask for music, he asked for a glass of wine as an analgesic, and as he remembered all the past conversations on philosophy with his friends, and as he cared for the future generations with the children of Metrodorus. There are many musicians in this world that are idealists and living a life in confusion and fears about death and god.

The article that is posted as above is only speculations/opinions. For me it goes to the pseudoscience. It has the bad smell of <<idealism>> and the fantastic, and it has nothing to do with science and epicurean philosophy.

"Meditate therefore by day and by night with the playing of a guitar and upon the violins and pianos that go with these, whether by yourself and in the company of another guitarist like yourself, and never will your soul be in turmoil either sleeping or waking but you will be living like a god among men, for in no wise does a man resemble a mortal creature who lives among the immortal guitars, violins and pianos blessings". - Pseudo-Epicurean.

Plato is not excluding any pleasant reaction to the reception of harmony in one’s soul, but keeps distinct pleasure (hedoné) as what is felt by silly people from the good cheer (euphrosune) which is felt by the intelligent ones.

Plato smashed the pleasure to 1000 pieces, and gave ready food for those that want to fool the masses. Higher pleasures for the soul, lower pleasures for the body. Harmony of the soul, disharmony of the body. Soul separated from the body for going straight on heavens or for reincarnation. Music for the soul, music for the body. Pleasure for the silly ones, euphrosyne (cheerful) for intelligent ones. Do not care at all, the spheres in the Universe play music for the harmony and the care of your soul. Who told that “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Ah, Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist . Bravo Plato and Coelho you are the most "intelligent" men among those that have total ignorance!

(1) What philosophical issues are involved in music?

(2) What positions on those issues were taken by pre-Epicurean / non-Epicurean Greek philosophers?

I found some issues in the following :

Still on this issue of the nature of music, it has to be pointed out that in the passage of the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems to which reference was made above it is admitted that not everything in musical sounds imitates character (ethos), for this applies to the arrangement of higher and lower sounds but not to their mixture (mixis) ; further, consonance (sumphonia) is expressly said to have no moral character. Probably mixture is supposed to contribute to consonance, in any case that the beauty which music presents and the pleasure it procures depends on these aspects. There are thus two dimensions of music, one which has to do with character and the other which has not, but which both possess aesthetic significance. Plato must have been aware of this fact, for, as we have already seen, in Republic IV, in a context in which he talks of music, he is induced to point out that certain qualities, such as gracefulness and gracelessness, are also to be found in the products of painting, of architecture, of weaving, and so forth (cf. 400e ff.). In the case of these disciplines in fact certain formal qualities of beauty, such as symmetry, which have not to do with character, play an important role (as we shall see below, ch. 29), but there must be a point of contact between them and music, which lies precisely in the fact that certain formal qualities of beauty are also to be found in music. It has to be admitted, however, that in the passage I am considering Plato is not relying on any such neat distinction, for he is willing to talk of moral traits, such as the negative ones of evil disposition and illiberality, and of images of evil (eikones kakias) also in the case of the products of those other arts.

Finally, it has to be stressed that the doctrine which is present in the dialogues also finds a significant expression in a passage of the Timaeus in which, after having considered the usefulness of the sense of sight, he considers the usefulness of the sense of hearing and that of voice. The passage deserves to be quoted in full :“For not only was speech (logos) designed for this same purpose, to which it contributes in the largest measure, but also that part of music (mousiké) that is serviceable with respect to the hearing of sound16 is given to us for the sake of harmony. Harmony, having motions akin (sungeneis) to the revolutions of the soul within us, has been given by the Muses to him whose dealings with them is guided by intelligence, not for irrational pleasure (hedone alogos), which appears now to be its utility, but as an ally against the disharmony that has come into the revolution of the soul, to bring it into order and consonance (sumphonia) with itself. Rhythm, again, was given us from the same entities as a help to the same intent, for in most of us our condition is lacking in measure and poor in grace.” (47c6-e2). The parallel he draws here with sight lies in the fact that the observation of the ordered revolutions in the heavens, which are a manifestation of (cosmic) intelligence, is of help in bringing order in the motions of thought inside us (cf. 47b). The idea that there are revolutions in the souls that are similar to those of the celestial bodies was introduced in a former part of the dialogue. It implies that the same harmony is present in the heavens and in our soul, when this reproduces in itself, by imitation (mimoumenoi, 47c3), the order of the heavens. (The same suggestion, in the simplified form that there is an imitation [mimesis] of the divine harmony in mortal movements, comes back in 80b.)

Music is thus seen as an expression of this cosmic attunement and concord. This position is close to Pythagoreanism and goes beyond the idea that harmonies and rhythms are imitations of movements in our soul.(The Pythagoreans notoriously asserted that there is a celestial music - what will be called, anachronistically, the music of the spheres - that is inaudible to most men. Plato was certainly familiar with this view and, though he probably did not take it seriously, it remains significant that he supposed that the world-soul is divided into harmonic intervals and made the celestial movements depend on this ‘musical’ structure, cf. Timaeus, 35b ff., together with the commentary by F.M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, London 1937, pp. 66-72.17) 40

On the other hand, there remains the idea that there is an affinity (sungeneia) between them and those in our soul, for only in this way can music exercise the effect of introducing order in the movements in our soul. This is seen as the aim that is to be pursued by humanly made music. Presumably pleasure is to be rejected as an independent (alternative) aim of music (as of the other beautiful arts) and as ‘irrational’, but not when it arises from an accord between the harmony in the musical sounds and that of the ‘revolutions’ in the soul. In fact, when coming back to this motif, in 80b, Plato is not excluding any pleasant reaction to the reception of harmony in one’s soul, but keeps distinct pleasure (hedoné) as what is felt by silly people from the good cheer (euphrosune) which is felt by the intelligent ones. As to education, this must be meant to realize this sort of accord. (Paideia is not mentioned in the Timaeus in this connection, but later on, in considering vice as ignorance resulting from lack of paideia, cfr. 86d-e, and in presenting paideia itself as the remedy for this situation in 87b. Gymnastics, music and philosophy are clearly taken as parts of paideia in 88c and said to contribute to a condition of harmony and proportion or equilibrium between body and soul.)

source : https://journals.openedition.org/etudesplatoniciennes/997

Cassius you said : When I read a sentence like "The Epicureans do not underestimate music for lack of culture; to them, only philosophy counts", that means nothing to me at all, and I tend think the lack of meaning arises from the mangling of the text rather than from Philodemus.

As I could understand this phrase : "The Epicureans do not underestimate music"... since they do not want to be considered and by themselves and in the societies of men as barbaric, cynics and ascetics i.e. those that have a lack of culture i.e. ethos and habits that unite men in the societies... "but to them, only philosophy counts" here is another issue : Epicureans' teacher Epicurus remarked in his epistle to Meneoceus that prudence (practical reasoning that derives by our experiences) is higher than philosophy, because with prudence we are able for the right hedonic calculus to judge rightly and accordingly on the issue of music and the like (arts) all the hyperboles (extravagances) or dangerous messages (see my example).

Because on the wise man we read also :

-The wise man is the only person who can converse correctly about music and poetry, but he will not himself compose poems. (Epicurus was right the most of the poems have lack of clarity. The only he wanted is clarity in written and oral texts. Lucretiu's poem DRN has clarity, and I am sure that it would be considered by Epicurus as a masterpiece).

-The wise man will find more pleasure than other men in public spectacles. (Public spectacles were the celebrations for gods, and also the theaters that were build all over Greece in which music and dancing were united with roles of actors).

- The wise man will not live like a Cynic, as he says in his second book on Lives, nor become a beggar. Because the wise man will show a regard for his reputation to such an extent as to avoid being despised. (the cynics, the enemies of Hellas, as Epicurus said. Cynics, the ascetics, sociopath-antisocial that were living as beggars without doing anything creative, and when they were encountering people in the Agora, laughing at them, and criticizing ironically the others either for their achievements or wrongdoings).

Music therapy, fragrance therapy, chromo therapy, logos therapy, choir therapy. All these are pseudosciences for our manipulation and making us anthropoids of the masses. Pseudosciences, indeed, are doing a great job for making us more idiots.

However, I do not read in any survival sources that Epicurus used somewhere the word "logos". Logos is a dangerous word that is used first by Heraclitus and meant a philosophical word/logic based on eimarmeni and fate, and then this word was taken gratefully by the stoics and christians to transform it to a god for being crucified and then resurrected to the heavens.

Philodemus did not know what would follow when he used this word.

Epicurus speaks for prudence that is higher than philosophy and teaches us in reality through our experiences past, present and expectation of future, how to set our limits on pleasure and pain for any desire and any issue. Prudence can't be achieved through music therapy, fragrance therapy, chromo therapy, logos therapy, choir therapy and the like. And the stomach can't be fulfilled with air.

Moreover, I do not get any clear evidence from anywhere that the music, choiring and dancing could eliminate humans' fears on death and god. If those means that are still used by all the people in the societies of men, why then this world is not inhabited by angels ?

Music is just a pleasure, but actually, it neither fulfills the stomach from hunger and thirst nor it builds a shelter to not feel cold at winter nights. Music and the like does not lead to pure pleasure and eudaemonia.

Example how the music and lyrics in a union is a dangerous thing that does not lead a society of men for doing the right hedonic calculation :

Music by Mikis Theodorakis, and verses of the poet "sun of justice" by Odysseas Elytis.

Sun of justice perceivable by the mind (it means the absolute justice by Plato and as given by a god)

and you, myrtle glorifying, (myrtle is the virgin Mary)

don't, I beg you (thrice) don't

forget my country! (this means that we the greeks are beggars begging the bigger countries that have more power to not forget us that we live in a country as good christians).

The above song with the music was understood and was sung by the greeks as a revolutionary song. HA HA

What do you don't understand? Idealism keeps well everywhere.

by the same director Sergio Leone there is a movie of 1959 entitled "The last days of Pompeii "that is the city near our known Herculaneum.

Ι just found the WHY, I like this melody !!! This melody is connected with those movies that have guns and shooting.

My epicurean friend George Kaplanis likes the exercise with guns and shooting. I like guns and shooting too, but I did not try to exercise with guns because I'm afraid of the guns... George's fearlessness of the guns makes me to imagine that I can do it too. That sense of his fearlessness makes me to feel pleasure. The fearlessness of Epicurus on the issue of death makes us to not fear too, and any fear when is eliminated it produces pleasure. So, Epicurus or Philodemus on the issue of music he wanted to eliminate the fears that provoked by Plato et.al. Because Plato and his gang had spread around fears that are against our pleasure.

When a composer composes a melody, we feel something of his hedonic calculation among pleasure and pain. This is reinforced when the melody has verses with words.

I do not why it pleases me to hear that melody by Morricone entitled "the ecstasy of gold", and why when I created a video with an article on "epicurean friendship" by G. Kaplanis in the Garden of Thessaloniki, I had put this melody as a background.

Mousikos I'm glad to hear that you were in Thessaloniki for your studies in Theology. If there would be a case to visit again the city of Thessaloniki, I'll be glad to introduce you to the friends of epicurean philosophy in the Garden. But I would like to warn you for something : words as "global", "globalism" or "cosmopolitan", "cosmopolitanism" are not such kind of words that they like too much. They prefer to say words as "ecumenical" or "humanistic" or "international". Let's examine why ?

“Philopatrea ( = the love for one’s country) - an epicurean virtue”, by George Metaxas  

I would like to cause some of your thoughts on the issue of “philopatrea”.  

First, let's do not get into the trouble of definitions.  

If we would apply the Platonic method (method of any systematic philosophy) we have to search for the definition of “country”. Then, for the definition of “friendship”. Then we would be wondered of what concept may this includes into the composite for the definition of "philo-patrea"? We would discuss for many hours, and if we end up somewhere, this would be so general and vague, whether there would be a case to be useful too. Epicurus, does not practice us in systematic fastidiousness. He is not interested for concepts "in themselves", but how these concepts, through the experience, are intervene in our lives. His way is characteristic of how he handles with some other higher concepts (i.e.. dreams, soul, gods, etc.). He is merely says that our knowledge for all these abstracts concepts is "obvious" (This is the triumph of sensations!).  

He gives a rough, always natural materialistic, explanation of their nature and this is enough for him to begin his calculations and measurements. Because his purpose is to dispel the illusions and the phobic prejudices that these abstract ideas are based on. But we said many as a prologue. Let's follow the way of our Teacher and let's go to our main subject.  

Epicurus shows philopatrea as a virtue. The need that is to be satisfied is the sociability, and it’s a physical need. Because, according to Epicurus, and throughout the Hellenic Cosmotheasis, the human is the man who is living in relationship with his social environment. Mysticism, oracles, occult, isolationism, asceticism are foreign in the Greek thought, and the Epicurean teachings. Thus, the satisfaction of the human’s need for living with the likes is the satisfaction of the need to come into contact with familiar people, places, behaviors and the relevant ones. And the satisfaction of this need brings pleasurable feelings indeed. Thus, with the perspective “philopatrea” is worthy as an epicurean virtue and a mean that leads to pleasure.  

But philopatrea presupposes some other things. We read in Lucius Torquatus : “The same account will be found to hold good of Courage. The performance of labors, the undergoing of pains, are not in themselves attractive, nor are endurance, industry, watchfulness, nor yet that much lauded virtue, perseverance, nor even courage; but we aim at these virtues in order to live without anxiety and fear and so far as possible to be free from pain of mind and body. The fear of death plays havoc with the calm and even tenor of life, and to bow the head to pain and bear it abjectly and feebly is a pitiable thing; such weakness has caused many men to betray their parents or their friends, some their country, and very many utterly to ruin themselves. So on the other hand a strong and proud spirit is entirely free from anxiety and sorrow”.  

The first that is "cowardice", is rejected as it brings pain. The latter that is "courage" is desirable, because brings pleasure.  

From all these we can make a conclusion: The Epicurean man is international and humanistic, but he is not without country and a cosmopolitan.  

Over the years the dominant ideologies (of -isms), have attempted to nullify the concept of homeland. Both economical they examine the man, as a unit either the consumer herd or to be in a struggle among classes.  

And both they fought the concept of homeland. "Money has no motherland, one says and the other says that the proletarians have no country. Philopatrea is marked as primitive by the former and petty prejudices of the latter. As it concerns the modern "nation-nihilistic” teachings, that tinned our head, they have shown us their ugly face. The wars that had been spread in the Balkans and in the East, the racial and religious hatred that are cultivated for their economic, exploitative interests, showing the empire of barbarism that build when they propagandize the Globalization.  

Some clarifications: “Philopatris”(patriot) is someone who loves and defends his homeland in a great danger, but without despising and humiliate the homelands of the others. Patriot is one who loves his ancestral habits, the culture of his homeland, but not the monomaniac who does not recognize foreign habits and foreign cultures and the many well worth that are including. And these are self explanatory, if you think that philopatrea as a virtue cannot be in contradiction with other qualities (in this case with the wisdom and justice).  

Before we finish with these thoughts let us answer two questions :  

And where does fit the ecumenical friendship?  

But, obviously, the friendship of people who have fulfill their personality, and are such kind of persons, that are emotionally deprived from the pleasure of friendship from the familiar places, things, people, that in parallel they imply and deepen it, to the friends and from other the countries. Instead, the epicureans extend the friendship to their relatives and the friendship to the homeland, for expanding and multiple their emotions. If you are not familiar with the nearby how would you feel about the distant by? That is to say that the Epicurean philosophy does not come to maim the human being, but making him to be emotionally richer.  

The next question is : What do we do now in Hellas?  

On each occasion, we express our feelings of philopatrea. We are looking to find within the financial crisis its justice. We resist to the insults and threats with bravery and courage. We fight for the laws with prudence. No matter how much effort and as much agitation sometimes this would bring, we are pleased because we focus to the pleasure as described by our friend Lucius Torquatus: "...a strong and proud spirit is entirely free from anxiety and sorrow”.

----------------------------------------------

This speech was in the 4th meeting of the epicurean friends of the Gardens in Athens and Thessaloniki that was held in the event of "Promethea" 2011.

Mousikos Welcome here, and I'm glad to hear that you're a Greek teacher and musician. But the most important that I am glad is that all your intellectual "adventures" led you to the right place for sharing with us Epicuru's philosophy.

Writing in Italian to Michele, I remembered a movie of 1963 that is entitled in Italian "Il Gattopardo", in English is “The Leopard", by director Luchino Visconti, based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel of the same title.

If there is a case for Cassius to watch that movie or if he is already watched it, I would like to have his opinion and comments, and especially if he finds that the protagonist Burt Lancaster is an epicurean personality or not.

Respiro e spero, mio caro amico michelepinto . Ti prego anche tu metti la tua forza per impartisci correttamente la filosofia epicurea. Siamo in un periodo di gestazione dove il nuovo non ha ancora nata.

(Thrice and with capital letters) WARNING : THE VIRUS IS INSIDE OUR SOCIETIES...THE VIRUS IS INSIDE OUR SOCIETIES...THE VIRUS IS INSIDE OUR SOCIETIES...There is the danger of that virus to lead our societies to collapse again from the plague/cancer that are the religions<==> ideologies...and that is because we the doctors i.e. the epicureans did not manage yet to bombard with healthy cells that disgusting VIRUS. Thus, this VIRUS is capable in any time and in any place to inflict with illnesses any healthy body that exist in our societies. Where are those capable doctors-epicureans for spreading the health around ? Where are they ? What do you do not understand ?!

P.S.1. I have an impression that these doctors-epicureans are inside the society of France . My only hope comes from French people that have among them and a Michel Onfray who established and his "popular University" that gives birth to the "yellow jackets"of our days. For me the French are the bravest people in EU that can bombard with healthy cells that disgusting virus. French are the great enlighteners that take actions and in practice… neither italians nor greeks nor germans nor english nor even Americans will start what is going to be here and after. English and Americans have a strange bond that is based on their common same language. A strange relationship of "hate and love" in the same time that does not permit them to see clearly the general picture. English speaking persons are incapable for the time being to change any situation that hurts and theirs and us in our western societies.

Please keep your patience for seeing the second French revolution that will be different from that in 1789, because people have learned to measure differently. France and french people are my great hope for leading our children to healthier societies... and then do not be amazed when the greeks will follow in that revolution, and then do not be amazed that Americans will follow, and then do not be amazed that Russians will put their final signature. In the end that virus will collapse and will not exist anymore. And this probability in the picture, that comes by Diogenis of Oinoanda will be a REAL FACT ! It would be that time when we, the homo-sapiens will evolve to homo-deus. Someone would say that I speak like an idealist...No, I am not an idealist...I am a probabilitist, I count with the usage of the manifold way of the epicurean Canon. The establishment of a new religion will be the human beings themselves. The homo-deus will know the art to live like a god among gods, and not men.

And then, neither French, English, Americans, Russians, Greeks do not exist with these national names anymore… They will exist as home-deus. Who will be the philosopher that will put his final signature ? Nietzsche of course, that his philosophy is based on 90 % to our teacher Epicurus ! The real Nietzsche and Epicurus and not the misunderstood will put their final signature … These two and both of them are the sperm to born the homo-deus and the overman !

“I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment...
Behold, I teach you the overman. The overman is the meaning of the earth.Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go.
Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth...
What is the greatest experience you can have? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour when your happiness, too, arouses your disgust, and even your reason and your virtue.
The hour when you say, 'What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself.'
The hour when you say, 'What matters my reason? Does it crave knowledge as the lion his food? It is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'
The hour when you say, 'What matters my virtue? As yet it has not made me rage. How weary I am of my good and my evil! All that is poverty and filth and wretched contentment.'

"Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman--a rope over an abyss...
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under...

"I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.
Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and blinks.
The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.
'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth...
One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.
No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink...
One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.
'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink."

from Nietzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra, p.3,4,5, Walter Kaufmann transl.

PS. 2 Someone would say that Nietzsche was a German. Yes, Germans are the people that are able to measure differently and properly now, and will be very proud that gave birth to a Nietzsche !

Best regards

Elli XXX

The same as above are going to the Italians. Popes and catholicism is the main core in their life. Italians are sleeping and waking with the same obsession of a dream...waiting their death in anesthesia and apathy for another life after death. Italians do not take any clue what the popes and cardinals are doing inside the Vatican or elsewhere in the world. Italians did not get angry and even when they hear that there is sexual abuse by catholic cardinals to the little children. Any society that does not defend its little children i.e. the great hope of our future, is a society of a great decadence. Italians prefer to count the algorithm on the desires and in the same time, they do not defend any little children, they do not defend their constitution or the worse are incapable to establish a new one. And me, I am waiting that the religion will born again the ideology of fascism of Mussolini that will collaborate with the new fascist Hitler. The fascist Hitler will conquer again the poor Mussolini. And both of them will lead the Europe...and the whole world to a WWIII and disasters. What will be again the result ? A great PAIN. So, the majority of Italians, and greeks do not chose a pain here and now, that is the defend of the little children, and their constitution with such laws for the purpose to lead them to a greater pleasure...they chose the apathy, the indifference and the anesthesia. So, the italians and the greeks put out their eyes with their own hands. What a great "pleasure" is to put out your eyes with your own hands...because VIRTUE is above all. Which Virtue of popes, cardinals and patriarchs that collaborate with the traitors politicians ? Give me a break !!

An example and the evidence : IF THE MAJORITY of the Greeks won't be christians all the traitors will be tarred and feathered in the middle of the square of Syntagma (syntagma means constitution). Christians do not defend any constitution, and are incapable to establish a new one. Because and this old constitution we already have, it starts and has strong bond with "the name of the holy trinity". So, the majority of greeks are waiting in anesthesia and apathy their death, since they believe they will live in happiness to another life after death.

Meanwhile nobody thinks that the algorithm on the desires is synonym with the <<self-sufficiency>>, and nobody thinks that << self-sufficiency>> is synonym with <<freedom>>, and nobody thinks that <<freedom>> is synonym with <<bravery>>, and nobody thinks that <<bravery>> means also <<generosity>> i.e. the art of offering to and taking from the likes in my society. Nobody thinks that the art to offer and taking is synonym with the <<common benefit>> and nobody thinks that the <<common benefit>> makes us <<autonomous>> and nobody thinks that <<autonomy>> means to establish new social contracts if the old ones have such laws that harming us.

Study of Nature <==>self-sufficiency<==>freedom<==>bravery<==>common benefit<==>autonomy<==>social contracts with fair laws<==> PLEASURE for ALL.

If the above have not all these bases for any enlightenment that lead to political actions for making the people living in pleasure and happiness...I wonder, what else could be ?

Imagine, for example, that I give great importance to the algorithm of the desires and succeed pleasure from there, but I give a little importance to the study of Nature. What would be the results?

My cup of life would have holes to permit the entrance of PAIN. Because without the study of Nature the notions that : "a god created the universe" (platonists-stoics-christians) or "the best to promote is the contemplation of god" (Aristotelians-stoics-christians) or "fate and necessity is the endless chain of causation" (platonists-stoics-christians) or "virtue is above all"(platonists-stoics-christians), or "do your duty subordinate, compromised and in apathy" (stoics-christians) or "there is another life after death" (platonists -christians)... while I count the algorithm on the desires, some devious others will do their filthy job in my society, and I will be the responsible to lose and even my natural and necessary. So, while I give great importance on the algorithm of the desires - without studying Nature properly - all of my desires will lose their fixed bond and main core that is pleasure to disappear for making me a good stoic-slave or worse a good buddhist for searching the Nirvana.

And as our epicurean friend George Kaplanis from the Garden in Thesalloniki says: "Epicurean philosophy protects itself with consistency. This is its self-defense. If someone tries to change one piece with another piece from elsewhere, it will end up in nothing. If not something worse than nothing".

"I think every explanation without the core that exist in "Lathe Viosas" it is something just to talk about. Everything in the epicurean philosophy has a fixed bond with pleasure. Lathe Viosas serves the pleasure, and it has the pleasure in its foundation, i.e. inside its core. If you follow the "Lathe Viosas" and you end up compromised and subordinate, then the pleasure is lost and "Lathe Viosas" loses its core and disappears".

Τhe greek epicureans and specially those in the Garden of Thessaloniki insist on the methodology (see the scheme in the attached picture)...

Let's see the picture :

It concerns the Epicurean philosophy.

The more the person is concerned with the study of nature,

the more he succeeds fearlessness,

the more he uses the measurement of pain and pleasure.

These two produce pleasure that belongs to the individual, (because pleasure belongs to the one who feels it, of course).

At the same time, however, the person practices the art of sufficiency

which is improved with the study of nature

and the more one achieves self-sufficiency,

the more freedom he acquires and thus greater the pleasure it provides to the individual.

Let's not insist on completeness of the analysis (which anyway does not exist), but in the method.

It includes the general picture. We can later move to the rest which are the multiple causes of human happiness. We can combine the rest. Then, we are going to see what emerges from the composition of the rest. In a more compound form we will observe the rebound and feedback. The more this process provides pleasure to a person, the greater the desire to study the Nature. The system does not use the law of excluded middle, i.e. pleasure or no pleasure, fearlessness or not fearlessness etc, but uses the Epicurean Multi-valued way where the above causes constantly get different values depending on the decisions and our actions. Imagine, for example, that I give great importance to the fearlessness and succeed pleasure from there, but I give little importance to self-sufficiency. So, depending on the general activity at a certain time, one cause will affect the other continuously taking different values and all the separate data will pulsate and will affect one another until the system settles and **perhaps** I wish that calmness means Katastematic pleasure of the individual. The system is dynamic, it is evolving like the nature and covers the needs of the Epicurean philosophy, which observes things as they proceed and as Diogenes of Oenoanda writes (in response to Peripatetics) this flow, flowing as he says, can be scrolled quickly but not so fast as not to conceive a situation of it.

Sorry, Cassius I do not have this book in my home now. There is in my son's home. It is a greek edition that I do not remember many details. Long time ago I had scanned this photo with the eagle and the snake, because our friend George Kaplanis used it for one of his articles.