Posts by Eikadistes

I've been wondering lately if there might be an innate correspondence between the three qualities and the atomic motions, being falling, recoiling (10.44), and swerving. Epíkouros writes to Hēródotos that the βάρους (bárous) "burden" (so I'm translating to avoid any modern ideas) justifies why any one particle falls (10.61). I don't find it being directly expressed, but I imagine that the μεγέθους (megéthous) "magnitude" partially determines the manner in which any two particular rebound off of each other, as the case when particles of different, atomic sizes collide.

I've never been conceptually satisfied with my own model of "the swerving", but I toy with the idea that the particular σχήματος (skhēmatos) "scheme" of a particle results in a swerve ... I personally imagine the schemes as being like the different shapes in Tetris and the rotating blocks skipping spaces when you turn them as being a crude example of a kind of lateral swerve.

That may be totally off, but it's also a concept for which we have the least, thorough documentation. just to note those instances, so far as I know, we've got Philódēmos' On Signs (36.12-13), Cicero's On Ends of Good and Evil (where a character dismisses the swerve as an "arbitrary fiction"), Diogénēs of Oìnóanda's inscription in refuting Dēmókritos (fr. 54, col. 3, no. 6), and Lucretius (Book II). So, anyway ... I've been thinking "Tetris" lately with regards to the unpredictable wiggle.

Quote from wbernys

Quote from Eikadistes

Someday, I would like to fatten-up The Hedonicon with the works of Philódēmos

Certainly would be awesome. I mainly want Torquatus (And Velleius) speech included and some of the english to be more clear and a little less archaic (PD6 in hedonicon is a example where i struggled to understand it). Got the best of Epicurus by classic caves. Like that the most.

That's really perceptive, and I appreciate you noting that one, in particular, because of all of the Doctrines, I find 6 to be unquestionably the most mis-translated, due to the language. You're right, it does need an update, though I caution that other translators are making compromises.

(This might warranty another thread, but...)

Compared against any other doctrine, Six has been translated with more difference than any. You'll find the most differences with each translators treatment of 6. I found that each translator makes some compromise at some point in negotiating with (what seems to me to be) unique phrasing, so, the awkward phrasing that you notice is definitely intentional with that one at this point.

Of all available translators, I personally find Makridis (2005) to have rendered a translation of Doxa 6 that seems to reflect the semantics most authentically, so I used that more as a model:

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“This <human ability to lead a good life> originally became possible by nature and for the sake of imparting courage in human beings <who were then living in a pre-social condition.> And this is the natural origin and principle on which all authority—be it even kingship—is based. And it is from the same <natural propensities> that a human being is able also to arrange a good and pleasant life.”

I like him because he adds some commentary, particularly noting "kingship" as being a translators addition, not authentic vocabulary. The rest seem content to invoke modern political language:

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“As for the assurance of safety from the attacks of men, by virtue of the nature of political dominion and kingly power this is a good thing, no matter by whose aid one is able to procure it." - De Witt, Epicurus and His Philosophy 79 (1954)

“Political rule and kingly power being what they are, it is a good thing to feel secure in human relations no matter through whose agency one is able to attain this." - De Witt, St. Paul and Epicurus 187 (1954)

“The natural good of public offce and kingship is for the sake of getting confdence from [other] men, [at least] from those from whom one is able to provide this.” - Inwood & Gerson (1994)

“That natural beneft of kingship and high offce is (and only is) the degree to which they provide security from other men.”- Anderson (2004)

“It is a natural beneft of leadership and kingship to take courage from other men (or at least from the sort of men who can give one courage.” - Saint-Andre (2008)

“In order that men might not fear one another, there was a natural beneft to be had from government and kingship, provided that they are able to bring about this result.” - Mensch (2018)

“There was some natural good in leadership and kingship for the purpose of establishing mutual confdence among people, any time someone is thereby able to do so.” - White (2021)

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There's this trend you'll notice them doing where they present two, parallel, sociopolitical words ("political rule and kingly power", "public office and kingship", "kingship and high office", "leadership and kingship", "leadership and kingship"), but those words are not in the original text. Instead, we find a few "to be's" a few infinitives, and frustratingly ambivalent pronouns.

This is a great one to dive into the language for personal study.

To mention a point that Don always champions, the Doctrines should be taken as a whole. While KD6 seems awkward on its own, it makes a lot more sense when you contextualize it against KD5 (you've gotta be peaceful and practical about pleasure), and KD7 (fame usually isn't practical).

That said, thanks again, and I'll definitely review for the sake of fluidity.

Quote from m.dango

I have a lot of reading to do! 😅

Great call on Living for Pleasure! Professor Austin pops in here every now and then. The crew here with LucretiusToday podcast interviewed her about the book. You can find it here.

Someday, I would like to fatten-up The Hedonicon with the works of Philódēmos, which comprises a large volume of existing Epicurean literature, but, in the meantime, you can find those works in the library at TWENTIERS.COM, along with some attempts at rescuing fragments.

Welcome! Here, you will do well to tarry ... and all that.

Quote from ReiWolfWoman

Would it be extraneous to friendship and community and pleasure, and therefore a search for an unnecessary (and natural or unnatural) goal?

Not at all.

I also don't mean to imply that any of the Greeks (besides Pýrrhōn), or Descartes, Spinoza, Berkeley or Kant were inspired by Indian philosophies; they just provide interesting parallels. Maybe some were of which I am not aware, but primarily Pýrrhōn, the neoplatonists, and transcendentalists.

Quote from Cassius

They are arranged in chronological order?

Yeah, I think I got their birth year right, more-or-less.

These are by no means precise, just a general overview of some relevant comparisons:

Again, just a rough sketch, mixed with some loose parallels with Indian philosophy.

Note that some of those thinkers did not (and would not) use the words I provided for their own philosophies. (Fichte in particular wouldn't like the words I used for him, but he can deal with it). The Indian philosophies are pure approximations. I only mention them because the Transcendentalists were heavily influenced by the recently-translated Upanishads and Gita. (Perhaps mistranslations in some cases, but translations, nonetheless).

If a lot of it sound similar, it's because it is. The German Transcendentalists were directly inspired by the same branches of Indian philosophy that inspired Roman Neoplatonists. They also provide an example of a continuation of a Greek re-branding of Indian ideas (as with Pýrrhōn).

Quote from Cassius

George Berkeley is relevant to this discussion

I think in a survey of the history of philosophy, Berkeley is one of the best examples of an Idealist. Whereas, for Plátōn, the world of matter that traps souls in cages in not made of mind.

Quote from Eikadistes

the monistic Idealism of Advaita Vedanta, and of George Berkeley (e.g. "If a tree falls in a forest...") suggests that the stuff of existence is literally composed of mind. Both traditions entertained the idea that we are but ideas in the mind of God. Plátōn would have disagreed with this kind of "Idealism", as did Kant. Something else is real besides just thinking.

To my knowledge, Kant isn't arguing for either. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it again, Kant's notion of "noumena" (which is typically I typically correlate with "Idealism") may actually be closer to the particles of Demokritos, both of whom suggest that either the material particles, or Kant's "thing-in-itself" are outside of the domain of human knowledge to completely understand.

So, in this regard, though he's part of a trend of "German Transcendental Idealists" insofar as viewing the "true" nature of reality as being something transcendental to the human intellect and more fundamental than the observations that are being reviewed, "Idealist" may not be a good label for Kant, unlike his contemporaries and those whom he influenced.

In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant identifies "material Idealism" as the opponent to his "transcendental idealism". Of the "material idealists", he refutes both the "problematic idealism" of Descartes (whom history typically calls a "dualist") and the "dogmatical idealism" of Berkeley (whom history typically calls a "monist"). The varieties of Vedanta provides analogues for these two ideas. In describing and refuting these two forms of Idealism, Kant writes:

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Idealism—I mean material idealism—is the theory which declares the existence of objects in space without us to be either (1) doubtful and indemonstrable, or (2) false and impossible. The first is the problematical idealism of Descartes, who admits the undoubted certainty of only one empirical assertion (assertio), to wit, “I am.” The second is the dogmatical idealism of Berkeley, who maintains that space, together with all the objects of which it is the inseparable condition, is a thing which is in itself impossible, and that consequently the objects in space are mere products of the imagination. The dogmatical theory of idealism is unavoidable, if we regard space as a property of things in themselves; for in that case it is, with all to which it serves as condition, a nonentity. But the foundation for this kind of idealism we have already destroyed in the transcendental æsthetic. Problematical idealism, which makes no such assertion, but only alleges our incapacity to prove the existence of anything besides ourselves by means of immediate experience, is a theory rational and evidencing a thorough and philosophical mode of thinking, for it observes the rule not to form a decisive judgement before sufficient proof be shown. The desired proof must therefore demonstrate that we have experience of external things, and not mere fancies. For this purpose, we must prove, that our internal and, to Descartes, indubitable experience is itself possible only under the previous assumption of external experience.

He then affirms of his philosophy that: "This doctrine I call Transcendental Idealism." However, he adds that it is "realist in the transcendental sense". I understand that to mean that Kant definitely believed in an objective reality that exists beyond sense perception. He adds the nuance that the purely empirical description of the world fails because concepts like "matter" and "space" and "time" are themselves mental constructs that are different that reality-by-itself.

This ^^^^ is why I want to suggest that it might be helpful to contrast his propositions against Dēmókritos, with the except of particle physics. It might be fair to say that Dēmókritos believed the that the particles were like the "thing-in-itself", unknowable, separate from propositions in the mind of people. Kant, I think, would say that "particles" are also constructs in the mind. (Now that I'm thinking about it, this presents an interesting parallel with a Buddhist doctrine).

So, I think, even thought Kant refers to his philosophy as a flavor of "Idealism", he criticizes the other idealists of his era much more dismissively (I think) than the empiricists.

Quote from Cassius

ReiWolfWoman tells us:

My background in Epicurus is that I was first exposed to him in an undergrad philosophy class

I'm curious about others' experience with undergraduate Philosophy programs.

The program at Florida Gulf Coast University was built around Aristotle. One professor called him "the smartest person who ever lived". The senior thesis class at the college was inspired by Alasdair MacIntyre, a virtue ethicist and modern Aristotelian. Besides this, they offered supplemental surveys of existentialist and post-structuralist thinkers, and a section on Socratic rhetoric.

My last day before dropping out was funny. I'll never forget it: that last class featured a discussion about Georges Bataille (existentialist) masturbating in front of his mother's corpse. I don't remember how much that class cost per credit hour, but however much it was, it was too much.

The Garden was not mentioned once at any point in my formal education. I didn't receive a direction, or find anything that couldn't have been found in a public library or a bookstore. ... meanwhile, extended cousins in Rome shared with me that Epicuro was part of their childhood curriculum. I'm curious about others' experiences with Epicurean Philosophy in the education system.

Our friend Leonidas from the Garden of Athens has taken the time to translate the Timeline of Epicurean Philosophy hosted at Twentiers into Greek! You can find his translation ΟΙ ΕΠΙΚΟΥΡΕΙΟΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΤΗΤΑ ("THE EPICUREANS IN ANTIQUITY") here.

I'm hoping to keep an open dialogue about future opportunities to collaborate.

My eyes are melting so I added a dark mode plugin (bottom-right corner).

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Also, my bad (upon reflection) for demonstrating my point with mythic narratives.

Read the citation Cassius shared for a proper, Epicurean defense.

Quote from LAMAR__44

Why then wouldn’t this be me living again?

The future animal that looks like you will have different friends.

To be the same, you'd also need the same context, the same culture, the same language, the same fashion, the same laws, the same relationships, the same experience that guarantees an identical existence. As animals, we're defined by our development, not a permanent prototype.

I'm thinkin' ... maybe, like, Toy Story? Sure, millions of toy cowboys named Woody were produced, but Andy only loves one Woody, and there's only one Woody who loves Andy. In the words of the great Randy Newman, "Some other folks might be a little bit smarter than I am, maybe stronger to. But none of them will ever love you the way I do. Just me and you, boy. And as the years go by, our friendship will never die. You've gotta see it's our destiny. You've got a friend in me."

Hmm ... maybe that's it. Love. (Of course, "friend" and "love" are the same word in Greek.) Friendship doesn't die with friends, so your memories are another crucial piece of you.

I'm also thinking of Annihilation with Natalie Portman in it. I'm not going to spoil if any readers haven't seen it (go see it!), but, in a nutshell ... a thing that looks like you in every way is not you. Or ... at least so my personal viewership gathered from that eery narrative.

Also, quick thought experiment. I'm thinking Rick & Morty here (adult cartoon). So, we have a mad scientist. He wants to trick your family. He makes a bunch of indistinguishable robot clones that (to others) are like you in every way. It lives with your family for years, and begins evolving functional relationships that allow for improvisation and development. The mad scientist, hoping not to alert your family, switches you in the night, and induces selective amnesia in you. You awaken. Your family notices that you have gestures, habits, and a vocabulary that reflects you at a younger age, not the version of you that has developed and grown with them. So ... who are you? I have to think that you are the victim of the mad scientist, not the form of you that can be reproduced. Even if everyone externally recognizes the robot clone as you, the robot clone is other than the scientist's victim.

Quote from LAMAR__44

Essentially, it argues that the universe could not be eternal

This point is consistent with Epicurean physics, which teaches that each kósmos is temporary.

In the Epistle to Herodótos, Epíkouros describes the creation of a kósmos: "concerning the intercepting of the amalgamations out of [the] beginning of these [cosmic cycles] during the generation of a kósmou" (10.77). Likewise, each kósmos has an inevitable end.

Lucretius elaborates on the life cycle of a kósmos. He writes that "the chiefest members and parts of the world are destroyed and begotten anew, I may be sure that for heaven and earth as well there has been a time of beginning and there will be a time of destruction. " (5.245)

However, "the All is not destined to be destroyed into non-being".

We can further flesh out what constitutes a kósmos and what constitutes "the All" beyond our own kósmos. Epíkouros defines this for Pythoklēs: "[The] kósmos is a slice of heaven, encompassing both glowers [stars], [the] earth, and all [observable] phenomena, [and] containing [a] partition away from the infinite". Generally, that definition covers (at least) anything the JWST can measure. "The All", then, is everything in addition to the aforementioned. He further writes in the case of "intercosmic [space] — I mean the [spatial] distance between [each] of the kósmōn, within permeable space, and not [as] in large, sterile, and empty [space]" (10.88-89).

(I caution anyone from directly translating kósmos as either "world" or "universe". These are ancient concepts that do not directly correspond to our own, technical definitions.)

Quote from LAMAR__44

we can’t have an infinite past, because this would require an actual infinite set to be constructed through successive addition of finite elements, since the past is just previously present moments added onto each other. And in the same way you can’t count and reach infinity, only keep counting infinitely, you can’t have an infinite past.

I may not understand this correctly, so I apologize in advance. I'm speaking personally here, but I disagree with this on the premise of Karl Popper's delineation between verification versus falsifiability. Verification says that we have to experimentally verify things for statements to be true. Karl Popper says this is limited. Let's use the proposition that all swans are white. You don't need to capture and record every single swan. You just need to find one black swan.

We don't need to map infinity (which would be logistically impossible, as it keeps stretching every way), all we need to do is find a point where "the All" begins. When you find that, please let us know. I guarantee that you will be awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics.

In a fashion, the above process is loosely related to how Epíkouros argues. Here is a familiar approach to his reasoning. 'I observe A to be the case. If A were not the case, then B would be the case. Since we do not observe B, then A is the case'. In this regard, Epíkouros might argue that "If 'the All' has a beginning, then we'll find a beginning. Or, perhaps we'll find an end. Thus far, no compounds have ever popped into existence in front of our eyes without a preceding cause, and, likewise, reality has never collapsed into pure nothingness while we were in it, so the notion that the intercosmic void (in which kósmoi develop) has a hard beginning, or a hard end has not been observed, and would contradict the fact that every compound anyone has ever observed comes from something else.

Quote from LAMAR__44

Another way to reframe the argument is that for you to reach the present moment, you’d have to first wait for an infinite number of past moments to occur, which is analogous to waiting for an infinite time to pass, or walking an infinite distance and eventually getting to the end.

This strikes as a sort of modern analogue to the Eleatic argument by Zeno and others that we receive as the old "Tortoise and the Hare" story. (I just realize that Cassius mentioned this above, so I know apologize for the redundancy). The Eleatics set out to prove that motion was impossible through the concept of infinite divisibility. So they argue, to get from A [start] to Z [finish] you have to pass through B [mid point]. To then get from B from Z, you have to get to C, ad infinitum. Thus, to get to Z [finish], you have to pass through an endless series of mid-points, and you can't.

We Epicureans disqualify this entire argument by simply walking to Z. You can.

Likewise, skeptical speculation aside, we know we exist because we feel things, so we have to assume that our existence, which is real, comes from a previous state, because, observably, things have never popped into existence like in I Dream of Jeanie. If compounds could randomly pop into existence without a preceding cause, then we might have observed it by now.

I'm about to talk out of my league ( Martin), but just writing from a philosophical perspective, even if contemporary particles are modeled as 0-dimensional points that condensed from a hot soup of early universe, or some kind of intersection between energetic fields, or that space is a continuum of entangled particles, or that cosmology eventually finds a sort of Moment Zero, the way humans study nature, as soon as we identify Moment Zero, we'll start looking for Moment -1.

Like I said though, if anyone finds some kind of Moment Zero to "the All" itself, please let us know! Epicureans take observational evidence very, very seriously. But, here again, it might be better not to use ancient categories to organize the concepts we derive from modern observations.

I have yet to find Xenophanes in the extent works of Epíkouros, Metródōros, Hermarkhos, Polyainos, Polystratos, Karneiskos, Dēmētrios of Lakonia, Zēnon, Philódēmos, or either Diogénēs.

Lucretius does allude to Xenophanes (but not by name) somewhere around Book 1 Line 715 in describing the philosopher who supposed the world to be composed of "earth with water" (as opposed to particles, or water like Thales, or fire like Herakleitos, etc.).

I personally love Xenophanes' notion that gods look like believers in the mind of believers. Epicureans would loosely agree with Xenophanes here. As Philódēmos writes, through a process of ὑπερβάσεως (hyperbáseōs) “transposition” (On Piety, Col. 12.9, 324-5), transposed formations have been ἀποτετελεσμένωι (ápotetelesménōi) “rendered” to human souls in human forms. Just like centaurs (in being horse + human) a god is (blessedness + human), and that suggests to me that a rational being on another planet would perceive a god to be a blessed example of their species.

It's a loose connection, and I think the Epicureans were making an inference from the fact that the human form contains a rational intellect, and that is a pre-requisite for a blessed being (because anything irrational is going to have a painful life), so I do not believe that Epicureans would agree that a conceptual triangle, or a cow could, in any way, actually qualify as a god. Plus, realistically, and practically, Xenophanes mixes the notion of human happiness with a triangle, so....

It definitely holds for the comment about different human cultures, such as Ethiopians and Thracians. I maintain that part of Epíkouros' theology is an anthropology of religion triggered by Alexander's expansion to India, so the knowledge that Indians, and Persians (etc.) have god-like concepts supports part of Xenophanes' statement about Africans and Europeans.

Quote from LAMAR__44

I think it makes sense to evaluate before starting a friendship or romantic relationship whether there will be net pleasure or pain, but doing this inside of relationships seems to make them feel shallow and transactional, at least for me.

This is a solid observation, and Epíkouros addresses those exact points. In a nutshell, the Garden observes all friendships starting with two individuals providing each other with mutual utility. In the beginning, you're totally right. Friendship can be described as being "transactional".

But I think you already nailed the bigger picture in your thesis, which is that "doing this inside of relationships" lowers the value of the relationship. It really can, and its not acceptable, and Epíkouros provides assurance that we cannot betray our friends out of convenience. I think I can provide a few, practical example of this when it comes to sex, death, and betrayal.

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Each friendship [is worthwhile], by virtue of itself, but is taken at first for the sake of advantage. (VS 23)

I do like the word "transactional" in the beginning. Regardless, though, a huge goal of friendship is beyond the satisfaction of temporary needs is the cultivation of long-term, loving relationships. To obtain the latter, we have to begin with the former, starting with "I scratch your back...". There's a huge difference between helping each other have an orgasm, versus making a family. Both of those things are happening, but the long-lasting, worthwhile motivation is the latter. (I don't necessarily mean having kids ... that's not for everyone and statistics are divided about that choice. I'll leave that to each person to decide if they're ever ready for that experience).

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[F]riendship [arises] according to the needs; Nevertheless it will always be beneficial to offer friendship just as [as it is] for us to plant seeds in the earth, thus [friendship] itself cultivates those communities that [work together to] perfect the pleasures. (10.120)

The otherwise transactional nature of relationships develops into something more valuable. In this regard, practicing vulnerability and forgiveness and holding dialogue to resolve issues is key.

But, you're right, we should do our best to practice choice and avoidance with new personalities. It would be absurd to invite someone hostile into a safe space, and wreck your peace.

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Neither should we accept the overeager for friendship, nor the reluctant... (VS28)

Hopefully, we can maintain friendly discourse with as many people as possible who are neither hostile to our interests, nor eager to take advantage of our kindness. Still, we are encouraged to distinguish one from the other, which is tricky, and requires trial-and-error:

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The one who exudes no confidence from the outside is best to bring together a fellowship of friends and consequently befriends the most possible members of one’s own kind; and when impossible at least do not vilify as not of one’s own species; and so long as that was not possible, avoiding contact with them was possible, expelling them from thought so long as the latter of these practices proves to be useful. (Key Doctrine 39)

Though, to speak to your initial concern, I think that we have to practice vulnerability for the greatest gift of friendship, even if vulnerability means that we occasionally get our hearts broken, or get betrayed. The immortal good of friendship is worth taking a reasonable risk.

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...but still one must take risks for the sake of friendship. (VS28)

Indeed, the wise person will "never abandon a friend" (10.120). The end result of cultivating friendship is so meaningful, so blessed, that it justifies taking personal risks for its sake. Since our love of friends survives death, trying to make friends is always worthwhile.

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...in defense of loved ones will at some time be ready to die (10.120)

This is the big one that reassures me that the Epicurean approach to ethics disqualifies gross selfishness and manipulation for the sake of strictly personal gain:

We enjoy no pleasure in being dead. There is no future satisfaction in a dead-state that can motivate an Epicurean to die. A person might be tempted to lie, cheat, or steal for an object, money, or power, but there can no, personal motivation for being dead, because nothing can be acquired that would motivate someone to act. There can only be motivation for dying if it directly saves a loved one. Even if dying is awful, and even if the only pleasure received is just a fleeting hope that they'll survive, it's still worth it. The pleasure for which we strive in that moment is the shared pleasure of another who will carry the torch of your friendship after you are gone.

Granted, there's simultaneously personal avoidance of being emotionally wrecked. The person who betrays a friend condemns themself to permanent misery. Dying prevents this.

But it also prevents everything else (besides the survivors), so unless death means "paradise", we're not exchanging mutual utility with a friend. What we are doing, in those last moments, is giving them everything we've got, without the expectation that we will ever receive anything ever again. There's nothing lesser about this, and Epíkouros firmly approves of this choice.

Just to quickly address two of your other comments:

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Quote from LAMAR__44

... they only have value in so that they’re instrumental to my pleasure,

Not with regards to choosing to die for a friend, but that's also a rare situation, so I don't mean to over-use that example. Consider this: you are so loved by another person, that you have become instrumental to their own complete happiness. In that regard, we gain pleasure from knowing that we give pleasure to others ("...better to give than receive", so they say). While it's still self-motivated, I am comfortable describing it as a higher purpose.

Quote from LAMAR__44

in doing this, I lower my experience of pleasure within these relationships.

I wouldn't say "lower" at all, unless you're straight-up objectifying a friend.

Sex is a good example, here. When it's good, both people are providing each other with the same satisfaction. When it's really good, it's that first condition, plus deep love, or the immortal good of friendship, or emotional security from that gift. When it's bad, one person is gaining more satisfaction from the other. When it's really bad, both people are using each other and not even trying to cultivate what could become a beautiful friendship. When it's brutal, one person is explicitly harming the other for their fleeting pleasure.

We definitely lower our experience of pleasure if we treat people like objects. But so long as we see them as fellow subjects, then our mutual transaction becomes something that is infinitely (literally, infinitely, because it survives the death of your friend) more valuable.

This is important, though, because people do change, and sometimes for the worst. No matter how much you love your partner, and no matter how much you've each sacrificed for the other, and no matter how many hours you've spent in couples therapy, any relationship that features domestic abuse has to stop. The health of the subject is more important than their relationship with someone who has become hostile, or has become violent.

Granted, if it's good in the first place, I doubt it will devolve into domestic abuse.

Still, anything's possible. Life is complicated, and families and relationships are everything, everything good, and everything bad. When things get bad, really bad, irrevocably bad, it's important to preserve one's own peace and leave a bad situation. Divorce is important. Without getting disrespectful or too graphic, we had a situation in our extended family where severe, very severe abuse happened from someone who needed to be jailed. Here, the Epicurean insistence of keeping yourself healthy is really, really important. (As it turns out, again, sorry to my family for even bringing it up, but it was religion that kept it going).

But if you've cultivated true love, it's a moot point. Sometimes you gain pleasure from not obtaining things for yourself, but giving them to others. Maybe someday, we'll die to give someone else a future, knowing that we are surrendering every happy thing that we could ever hope to experience again. A Tale of Two Cities comes to mind.

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In his introduction to Critique of Pure Reason, Kant writes:

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“The light dove, cleaving the air of her free flight, and fleeing its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space. It was thus that Plato left the world of the senses, as setting too narrow limits to understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of the pure understanding.”

I think he agreed that the world of senses, by itself, is "too narrow", but at the same time, Kant heavily criticizes Plátōn for the same reasons that he criticizes the pure rationalism of Descartes. This is important, because as far as "Idealism" goes, Kant is distinguished.

... well, honestly, they're all unique, but, by comparison, Kant is especially analytical.

There are a number of types of Idealisms, and they are each a little different. Plátōn's "Idealism" sometimes reminds me of Descartes (who is not, so far as I know, considered an "idealist" by historians of philosophy) in that both thinkers privileged the substance of mind, but neither concluded that the observable world is literally composed of mind. Typically, we use the word "dualist" with Descartes, and use the word "idealist" with Plátōn, however, some scholars consider Plátōn to be a "Realist", in that his Worlds of Forms does objectively exist, and a world of gross matter is actually trapping our immortal souls in a tricky cage of flesh.

By contrast, the monistic Idealism of Advaita Vedanta, and of George Berkeley (e.g. "If a tree falls in a forest...") suggests that the stuff of existence is literally composed of mind. Both traditions entertained the idea that we are but ideas in the mind of God. Plátōn would have disagreed with this kind of "Idealism", as did Kant. Something else is real besides just thinking.

Kant's "Idealism" (if that's what we want to call it, and I'm not sure if we do) is significantly more analytical than his German peers, each of whom were much, much more influenced by the recently-translated (at the time) copies of the ancient Indian Upanishads and Gita, which heavily support a form of monistic Idealism that bleeds into 18th-century German philosophy (e.g. we're just bubbles in an ocean of consciousness and life is but a dream). Kant doesn't suggest anything (so far as I know) like this, and only his peers embrace a mystical kind of Idealism. Even the American Transcendentalists, entranced by Nature privileged (as Emerson wrote) an "invisible eye". This kind of "bubbles-in-an-ocean-of-consciousness" neither accurately describes Plátōn nor Kant.

Quote from Martin

The rejection of both plain rationalism and plain empiricism is an overlap between Epicurus and Kant.

I think this is the main thing. Both philosophers demand an 'observe-and-consider' approach to understanding reality. While I personally think that Kant's inclusion of "noumena" might qualify him as a kind of Idealist, that's just historical taxonomy. I'm comfortable being wrong on that point. If "Idealism" means "everything is mind", then neither Plátōn nor Kant are Idealists. (I see them both as Idealists, but, again, I think it's just historical taxonomy to an extent).

Outside of this historical significance though, Epíkouros and Kant would argue. Kant wouldn't steal a loaf of bread for a starving child. Epíkouros would have died rather than betray a loved one. They fundamentally disagreed on the question of the divisibility of space, and I think you'd have a tough time convincing Epíkouros that a "thing-it-itself" is any thing at all. Still, Kant is a unique enough thinker that we'll find some parallels and some points of tension with anyone.

This discussion brings a few quotes to mind that provide some nuance.

We're certainly cautioned against explicit proselytization as a matter of practicality:

- "Never did I reach to please the masses, for truly what pleases them, I did not understand, but what I understood was far away from their perception." (Usener fragment 187)

And any actions fueled by the motivation of personal advancement are risky:

- "They will not make flowery speeches [...] They will make plans to gain public approval only so far as to avoid being treated with contempt [...] They will establish a school, but not in order to lead a mob; and they will gain notoriety in public, but not enthusiastically." (Laértios 10.120)

Loukianós provides some nuance in terms of an Epicurean's first intention in discourse:

- "My object, dear friend, in" writing the book Alexander the False Prophet "has been twofold. [1] First, I was willing to oblige a friend and comrade who is for me the pattern of wisdom, sincerity, good humour, justice, tranquillity, and geniality."

Epíkouros says the same thing in his Epistle to Herodótos, in terms of a personalized outline:

- "[For] you, oh, Hēródotos, these summaries have been epitomized on account of the whole of the nature [that] exists." (10.82).

It seems that, first and foremost, we're trying to help our immediate friends. Yet that's now all those two authors say. Loukianós adds this in Alexander the False Prophet:

- "[2] But secondly I was still more concerned [...] to strike a blow for Epicurus [...] I think casual readers too may find my essay not unserviceable, since it is not only destructive but, for men of sense, constructive also." (61)

Epíkouros also explains to Herodótos that the "memory of doctrines" are also intended "so that for each of the [critical] times [students] are able to help themselves in the most important [matters]" (10.35), so there is a dual purpose. The voice is intended for one reader (Epíkouros changes his tone in each letter for comprehension), but the concepts are meant for us all.

So "striking a blow for Epicurus" is contrasted against helping a single friend. Here, we have a much more cosmopolitan attitude that, as far as I understand, is championed by Diogénēs:

- The man of Oìnóanda writes that in "I wanted at this moment to help men of sense [...] I would do all in my power [...] to give them the best advice. But since, as I have asserted, the great majority are all in common [...] and their numbers are growing even bigger [...] and since it is right that I should help also those who will come after me [...] as well as being a kindly act to give assistance to the strangers living amongst us; since then the assistance from my work concerns a greater number I wished by making use of this colonnade to set forth in public the remedies which bring salvation" (The Stone Inscription, frag. 2; trans. Chilton)

Here, his words express to me a kind of social altruism or civic philanthropy, especially with regard to providing "assistance to the strangers living amongst us." This proposition of empathy toward strangers sounds ... downright Judeo-Christians? (Lev. 19:33-34 Ex. 23:9, Detu. 10:18-19, 27:19, Matt. 25) ... well, at least those verses. I can't defend the entire chronicle.

Along these lines, Lucretius also writes, first and foremost, to his friend Memmius, with a secondary intention of writing a masterpiece for the ages, foreigners and strangers, alike:

- "... this doctrine seems generally somewhat bitter to those by whom it has not been handled [... so I] have resolved to set forth to you our doctrine in sweet-toned Pierian verse and overlay it as it were with the pleasant honey of the muses" (Book 1.943-947).

Considering all of this, I'm not sure exactly where I fit in terms of my personal motivations to spread the word. On one hand, I bring up our tradition in casual conversations with friends to help explain concepts. In terms of inviting them to Eikas (etc.) ... I sort of leave an open invitation, but I also don't remind everyone, and I want to make sure I'm not pressuring anyone. I hate it when anyone does that to me, so I want to avoid making anyone feel like I'm trying to make a sale or convert them.

In the meantime, I'm going to leave cryptic message in public places and pique curiosity.

I deleted my LinkedIn account a few weeks ago.

(Quick side-note, AI killed my industry a few month ago, so I'm trying to get into technical writing).

The last activity I registered on LinkedIn was a comment thread about the ethics of using AI in self-published authors' works. The comment section was active, mostly with (per their profiles) employed professionals who made livings producing all kinds of literature. The author published the post as a question: "What % of your book can ethically be written by AI?"

My response of "0%" was met with unanimous hostility.

... specifics aside, they're all professionals, and none of them expressed commitment to functionally writing all of their own, well, writings. Each one of them was defending the position that an author's job boils down to, "One, solid thesis statement. THAT'S the real brilliance." Seriously, the thing they thought made them "skilled writers" was their capacity to write a solid thesis statement, not brainstorming, not research, not education, not outlining, not production, not editing, the editing, the editing, the editing, the editing, the endless editing that can fall to infinity.

Regardless of whether or not a ghost writer is made of silicon, the ghost writer is the real writer of a piece of literature, not the superficial name attached to the cover. That goes for everything.

They're not putting the same effort into their professional tasks that you two, Cassius and Don are here, as is also Bryan and Joshuaand many, many others on this forum who dedicate extensive study to a pursuit (and doing so without a financial incentive).

It's frustrating, and I have a lot of criticism about it ... but, as of now, it's also the case. I think I have to let go of the hot ball of spite I've been clutching, because I can't stop this. We can't put the lid back on this box. We'll just have to deal with it, and, if recent experience is any indicator, we're going to go through a period where ... let's just say I'm really hoping that our species won't split, and everyone connected to AI will become Eloi and the rest of us will become Morlocks.

I've seen great uses of AI, and I've seen abominable uses for it. I think we're all still working all of this out. Every new tool throughout human society has always been disruptive. It always allows new people make new fortunes while threatening the stability of those who have already prospered. It eliminates old lifestyles and presents new options. We'll each have to figure out what to do with it, and, eventually, we'll collectively form opinions about the desirability of it to continue.

In the meantime, I'm no longer using spellcheck.

It's slippery, and I avoid using it altogether.

I've heard pretentious scientists use "metaphysics" as a slur to belittle the discipline of philosophy, and I've heard academics use "metaphysics" as a badge of honor to belittle physical science. Barnes & Noble uses the word to advertise something closer to "magic" or "alchemy".

Within an Epicurean context, the idea of anything "after-physics" seems unhelpful. After all, the Garden "supposes the study of nature provides the proper space for the voices of the facts."