Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from Don

Good question. How do you parse his calling "practical wisdom" as the "greatest good" in light of this thread so far?

At this point, I can summarize my position as follows:

"It's all good."

Where do we fit the following phrase from Ep. Men. into this discussion?

"...TO MEΓIΣTON AΓAΘON ΦPONHΣIΣ..."

Epicurus then compares ΦPONHΣIΣ against the "other virtues", therein linking the concepts of AΓAΘON with APETAI.

I found a number of descriptive, albeit conflicting accounts of the "highest good". In Epicureanism (2009), author Tim O'Keefe titles his eleventh chapter "Pleasure, the highest good". He explains, "For almost all Greek philosophers of the time, the fundamental questions of ethics were (i) what is the highest good and (ii) how do you attain it, with the highest good being what is desirable for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else. Epicurus declares pleasure to be the highest good" (107). He goes on, "Epicurus' ethics operates within the framework articulated by Aristotle, a framework that systematizes the ethical thinking of Aristotle's predecessors and was accepted by almost all later Greek philosophers. The central question of ethics is: what is the highest good? The good of something is its telos, its goal or purpose. This teleological analysis of the good extends quite widely; we can ask what the good is, not only of human life, but also of actions, artefacts, crafts such as medicine and so on. And in each case, we discover the item's good by discovering its goal or purpose" (111).

Sharples makes an interesting observation in Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics (1996) in proposing that "virtue will still, however, derive its value from pleasure, which is the sole good, rather than constituting an independent good" (93). Later, he observes, "The second of these views can be understood in terms of pleasure as the sole good [...] if the claim that friends come to be loved for their own sake rather than for advantage is interpreted simply as asserting that friendship ceases to be purely an instrumental good and becomes pleasant in itself" (119). So, here we have an author who supposes that pleasure is the only good, rather than being the greatest among many.

The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism (2009) makes that claim that it is indeed the "highest good". "The good is the end to which all other things are means, and never itself a means to an end (Fin. I.9). To discover what this end is, we ought to look at what creatures actually do pursue as the ultimate end of all of their actions, and this is to attain pleasure and avoid pain (Fin. I.30). [...] When Epicurus explain why pleasure is to be regarded as the highest good (Ep. Men. 129), he appeals to 'feeling' (pathos) as the yardstick for decision about what to choose. [...] Similarly, Epicurus calls pleasure the 'first and congenital' good (Ep. Men. 129)" (174).

The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy (2020) notes that "any experience of freedom from pain coincides with the highest good: 'pleasure exists everywhere, and for the entire time it lasts, there is no suffering either of body or of mind or both'" (KD3). Citing De Fin. 1.3 he quotes, "As soon as each animal is born, it seeks pleasure and rejoices in it as the highest good, and reject pain as the greatest bad thing, driving it away from itself as effectively as it can; and it does this while it is still not corrupted, while the judgment of nature herself is unperverted and sound." Later, they write, "Epicureans had in mind in identifying aponia and ataraxia as the highest good" and "Like almost all ancient ethicists, Epicurus is a eudaimonist, holding that the highest good is eudaimonia, or happiness. He is also a hedonist, because he identifies the happy life with the pleasant life: only pleasure is intrinsically good, and only pain is intrinsically bad".

I think it's important to recognize that our suspicion is toward "the form of the good", but not "goodness". (I'm going to avoid relying on an upper-case letter to distinguish these concepts because ancient Greek lacked this device).

The phrase H TOY AΓAΘOY I∆EA or "the form of the good" was used by Plato in The Republic, and enthusiastically adopted by Plotinus, the Neo-Platonists, and, much later, the Gnostics. The concept is at the heart of Platonism, so it is fair for anti-Platonists to view any discussion of "good" with (at least) a hint of healthy suspicion.

Of course, AΓAΘOΣ can be found in pre-Socratic literature, so the Platonists by no means own "good".

"Agathos" is an important ancient Greek concept in general (like "telos", "ataraxia", and "eudaimonia"), and not a Platonic concept in particular. Epicurus would have augmented the meaning of "the good" for his own purposes. Personally, in terms of basic, intellectual impressions from words, when I think of "telos", I tend to think of Aristotle's "Final Cause". The same is true of "eudaimonia", which makes me think more of Aristotle's privileging of "functionality" and "excellence". Similarly, when I read "the good", I tend think of Plato, regardless of the context.

But, again, no one owns any of these words. They are all common words with meanings that were constantly being augmented to fit the purposes of their employers. Since Plato and Aristotle won the hearts of the philosophers and theologians of the post-Classical period, the languages we inherited champion Platonic and Peripatetic definitions.

As Don found in the Epistle to Menoikeus, and as I found in the Kuriai Doxai, inflections of AΓAΘOΣ are used frequently, much moreso, even, than a key vocabulary word like "ataraxia", which Epicurus rarely uses. Not once does Epicurus use a form of "aponia" in his Doxai, but he does use an inflection of "agathos" half a dozen times. This includes at least one use of "good" being preceded by the definite article "the", indicating, explicitly "the good".

Is there a good that is equal to or greater than pleasure? If we cannot identify a good that is at least equal to pleasure, then I think we can safely say that pleasure is not just a good, but rather the good, the "greatest" good.

Essentially, are we arguing that Seneca's use of "Summum Bonum" (or "highest good") as opposed to another phrase, perhaps the available "Maximum bonum" (or "greatest good") is an indication that Seneca misunderstood a nuanced, yet crucial distinction between "high" and "great"? What leads us to believe that Epicurus recognized such a distinction?

I personally think "Summum" might be a better rendering than "Maximum": the ancient Greek word Epicurus employed to describe the fullness of pure pleasure in KD4 was AKPON, meaning "extreme", "acutest", "intense", "sharpest", "end", with the added connotation of "peak", "highest", and "mountain top". He chose to describe the limit of pleasure, not only in terms of a general magnitude, but, specifically, within the figurative context of "altitude" (i.e. "highest").

That being said, Epicurus is not specific to a single term. There are multiple words in ancient Greek he employed that describe a "magnitude" of pleasure. He uses MEΓEΘOYΣ (KD3) meaning “great”, “loudness”, “quantitative limit”, “maximum”, “upper limit”, “total power”, the “full measurement of greatness”, ΠOΛΛAΣ (KD4) meaning “much”, “many”, “often”, “might”, “great”, “strong”, EIΛIKPINEΣTATH (KD14) meaning "great", "abundant", "bountiful", KYPIOTATA (KD16) meaning “essential”, “principal”, “dominant, “most important”, “primary”, as in the Kuriai, MEΓIΣTA (KD16) meaning "greatest", ΠΛEIΣTHΣ (KD17) meaning "most", "greatest", "largest" ... that's just a quick sample of the magnitude-expressing words Epicurus uses. Given this, is there really that big of a different between "Summum" and "Maximum"?

If Seneca used "Maximo Bonum" (or "loudest pleasure") it could still carry the same meaning of 100%. Epicurus was willing to describe good, full pleasure with MEΓEΘOYΣ, which can connotate the magnitude of audible volume, instead of AKPON, the magnitude of altitude, as well as the general concept of the greatest measurement of a thing.

OR, is it our suggestion that any adjective implying "greatest" is inappropriate to link to the noun meaning "good"?

Quote from smoothiekiwi

Quote

When life is the highest good- why does Epicurus then allow suicide? Why isn’t the goal of Epicureanism then to prolong life to the maximum? Why do we then even pursue pleasure, when the highest good is tp simply stay alive?

Epicurus resolutely rejects suicide under any circumstances:

"Even if the wise man should lose his eyesight, he will not end his whole life ...." (Wise Man Saying 17)

"He is a little man in all respects who has many good reasons for quitting life." (Vatican Saying 38)

Philodemus does argue that the length of the wise person's life should be maximized:

"And therefore the greatest good has been grasped by the person who has become wise and lived through a certain amount of time. Once his journey has achieved balance and consistency, it would be fitting to prolong it for an unlimited time, if such were possible; but should his life be limited, this will not be the deprivation of what has already been, but [sc. merely] a prevention of its continued presence." (Philodemus, On Death).

While De Witt is one of our greatest resources in modern scholarship, he takes liberties where he sees fit. His suggestion that Life (not Pleasure) is the Greatest Good does not align with my reading of Epicurus' original texts. Nowhere that I have found does Epicurus suggest that agathon ("the good") is biou or bion ("life", "living"). A life devoid of pleasure is not Good. I would argue to De Witt that a thing is only Good when Pleasure is present.

This is one of few places (to me) that De Witt's scholarship seems tinged by his own reading.

Quote from Cassius

Lacking that, they all reduce - to me - to nothing more than "too much" "just right" and "too little" - isn't that a nursery story of some kind about some bears? https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stor…the-three-bears

"And then she went to the porridge of the Little Wee Bear, and tasted it, and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right, and she liked it so well that she ate it all up, every bit!"

I've been thinking of Goldilocks this entire time, Cassius.

Epicurus recognized pleasure as including both katastematic ("static", "stable") pleasures as well as kinetic ("active") pleasures. Aristotle (as did most other ancient philosophers) saw pleasure as an excited state that deviates from a preferable state of "balance". Within this context, Epicurus partially saw pleasure as the preferable state of "balance".

For Epicurus, virtue is an instrument to achieve the good. For Aristotle, virtue is the good. The good in Epicurean philosophy is not a balance between two excesses, but rather, pleasure, total absence of all forms of pain.

In Book II of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies a number of virtues by name: "[Virtue] is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defects [...] With regard to feelings of fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the people who exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many of the states have no name), while the man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward. With regard to pleasures and pains [...] the mean is temperance, the excess self-indulgence. [...] With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is liberality, the excess and the defect prodigality and meanness. [...] With regard to honour and dishonour the mean is proper pride, the excess is known as a sort of 'empty vanity', and the deficiency is undue humility [...] With regard to anger also there is an excess, a deficiency, and a mean [...] let us call the mean good temper; [...] With regard to truth, then, the intermediate is a truthful sort of person and the mean may be called truthfulness [...] With regard to pleasantness in the giving of amusement the intermediate person is ready-witted and the disposition ready wit [...] With regard to the remaining kind of pleasantness, that which is exhibited in life in general, the man who is pleasant in the right way is friendly and the mean is friendliness [...] he who falls short or is not ashamed of anything at all is shameless, and the intermediate person is modest. Righteous indignation is a mean between envy and spite" (1107a - 1108b)

Temperance, Liberality, Proper Pride, Good Temper, Truthfulness, Ready Wit, Friendliness, and Righteous Indignation are always virtues for Aristotle, even if adherence to those virtues leads to evil consequences.

In general, Aristotle's Golden Mean privileges the space between the "extremes" of pleasure and pain.

Epicurus privileges pleasure.

Epicurus' pursuit of pleasure is distinguished from Aristotle's pursuit of excellence. Aristotle thought that an excellent person would necessarily enjoy happiness, whereas Epicurus recognized that an excellent person is only "happy" when enjoying the fruits of their excellence. Excellence, itself, is not the motivating goal. Pleasure is the goal.

The "Epicurean Golden Mean" (to use Aristotle's vocabulary) is always pleasure, not courage, or temperance, but pleasure.

Now, that's not to devalue the profitability of practicing moral virtue, it's simply a recognition that the Golden Mean is not really what motivates us, and that Aristotle is wrong in de-prioritizing pleasure. Both philosophers agreed on the importance of living moderately and avoiding excess. The issue of pleasure is where they disagree on ethics.

I'm also partially splitting hairs, in that sym- (Gk.) and com- (Lat.) mean nearly the same thing, and -pathos (Gk.) and passion (Lat.) are directly related. However, the -pathos (in "sympathy") links directed to a word that Epicurus, himself employed to refer to one of the three criteria of knowledge. Whereas, hundreds of years later in Italy, the idea of "passion", linguistically, was developing parallel to the Christian myth, which lead to a different historical connotation.

Noting the slight different between feeling as judgments of pleasure versus pain as opposed to passion as an undesirable emotional disturbance helps highlight what I propose to be the Epicurean rejection of the idea of unconditional pity. It also helps illuminate the idea of an "untroubled being" (KD1) and its incompatibility with kharisi (or "care"). A being that is not weak will not weaken itself; it will empower those around it to achieve a similar state of robust security.

I tend to avoid the word "compassion" altogether. It's etymology is sticky. The word is rooted in ecclesiastical Latin, and specifically alludes to the "co-suffering" of the Christ with the rest of humanity. Additionally, since "compassion" (or "co-suffering") necessarily includes the idea of "suffering", I think the word is antithetical to the Epicurean goal. A wise person would not contribute to their own suffering by accepting the same punishment as someone else; rather, a wise person would direct their efforts toward trying to remedy the situation, or risk their life to rescue a friend in need. I think our interests would be better served by employing "sympathy" or "empathy" instead of "compassion".

I think we can adequately demonstrate that Epicurean philosophy contrasts sharply with the ancient Indian philosophy of Ajñāna, and, by extension, with the metaphysically reserved philosophy of Buddhism.

"The wise man will take care of his property, and provide for the future." (Epicurus, Wise Man Saying 21)

From the 2022 Epicurus vs Buddhism Compare and Contrast Thread, a chart I created:

I read most of the book and definitely have some observations.

He proposes that Epicurean philosophy not only influenced the development of early Christianity, but may even a primary influence on the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. His thesis relies on several assumptions that I think are difficult to prove, that the Gospel of Thomas is an authentic representation of early Christianity, that the life of the Jesus of the Gospels can be adequately reconstructed, and that the Jesus of the Gospels was an Epicurean wise man.

He heavily relies on personal speculation to further his propositions.

Chronologically, the Gospel of Thomas was written sometime after Mark, Matthew, Luke, and the hypothesized "Q" Gospel from which Matthew and Luke both drew. Most scholars date Thomas closer to John (if not explicitly after it), sometime at the beginning of the 2nd-century along with other, apocryphal writings of Gnostics. Given this chronology, the Gnostic tone, and the later rejection of this gospel of Biblical canon, it seems unlikely that the Gospel of Thomas is a useful historical text from which to reconstruct a sketch of the allegedly historical figure called Jesus.

Hannah spends a significant chapter exploring "the paranormal" and speculates that Jesus may have been connected to ancient paranormal activity. He catalogues various accounts of "inexplicable" phenomena reported throughout the modern era to help substantiate his claim and further speculates that the "miracles" of Jesus were actual instances of extraordinary phenomena controlled by a wise man connected with "the paranormal". This chapter is a good example of Hannah's general approach, hand-picked evidence, a lack of peer review, and personal speculations.

The rest of the book is a commentary on each Jesus Saying in The Gospel of Thomas. The connections drawn between most of the sayings and Epicurean philosophy are tenuous (much like our recent discussions about Buddhism). While Hannah does find several interesting connections, the lack of an ability to definitively demonstrate Thomas as an Epicurean document, and Jesus as an Epicurean philosopher neutralizes the speculation.

I think De Witt makes the best argument for a connection between Epicurean philosophy and Christianity based on the historical tensions documented in the Pauline Epistles and Paul's appropriation of Epicurean vocabulary and techniques to evangelize a non-Christian, Greek audience. Beyond Paul, I don't think we'll find any Epicurean connections with the character of Jesus from the Gospels. There are obvious connections with Philo's Neo-Platonic Judaism, with the eschatological John the Baptist and the community of the Essenes, with the anti-imperialism of the Zealots, and, most of all given the likely historical context, as one (of many) 1st-century Jewish Messiah-claimants.

Personally, I believe that any investigation of "the historical figure of Jesus" needs to begin with an honest attempt to authenticate his historicity as a verifiable individual, and not just the amalgamation of similar stories of Jewish guys named "Josh" who claimed to be the Messiah and were executed by the Roman empire. Besides several very brief anecdotes from Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny, we lack the evidence to authenticate his identity. It seems odd to me that someone writing from an Epicurean perspective would jump straight to the claim that "Not only did Jesus exist ... but also he harnessed psychic energy to heal people with Epicurean magic."

I think Hannah set out to try to prove a highly imaginative fiction. He paints a colorful picture that would be the perfect topic for late night on the History Channel, but not something constructive to our study as Epicureans.

Here's another way to approach this discussion that I think can be fruitful. Let's ask:

"Why are peoples in the modern world so drawn to ancient Idealism?"

My short answer is that they feel like the modern world (which they relate to particle physics) is missing a heart, an substantive, meaningful context for a person within a rapidly changing world of symbols and technology. Epicurus' moral take on atomism, I think, provides a bridge between particle physics over what many perceive (ironically) as nihilism.

We predominantly find Therevada and Mahayana forms of Buddhism within the cultures in which they developed. Removed from this context (for me in America), "Buddhism" becomes a sort of "Eclectic, Pseudo-Religious, Psycho-therapeutic, mental compliment to the de-contextualized physical analogue of Hindu Yoga".

What I think we'll find is that the measurably beneficial practices that have developed within the Buddhist tradition are compatible with Epicurean ethics, in general. Any scientific findings from competing traditions that have a physiological basis and a measurably-positive impact are coherent with atomism, materialism, and the pleasure principle.

Therein, the parts of "Buddhism" that a lot of Americans like are really just secular practices, in the same way that Yoga has become a secular practice for non-Yogis. And a lot of American "Buddhists" are just non-religious.