Posts by Godfrey

Life and the world suddenly make sense when freed from religious faith. This freedom allows the great pleasure of personal agency and responsibility.

A proper understanding of Epicurus doesn't just fall off the page: it takes time, and work, but ultimately is very rewarding.

As noted, there isn't much remaining from Epicurus himself, and many of the ancient sources are hostile. As is much of the modern and contemporary scholarship.

My process began with reading as much I could find, often haphazardly, and trying to make sense of it. Then I discovered this forum; at that time writing and developing personal outlines of the philosophy was being emphasized. I found writing and getting feedback on an outline was very helpful, a bit intimidating, and just a beginning.

A key part of my process has been to try to put to use what I've read and to see if it is useful in my daily life. This has been very helpful, as it has allowed me to shed some unhelpful ideas while continuing to pursue those which I find fruitful.

Continuing with reading: modern, non-Epicurean authors such as Victor Stenger, Lisa Feldman Barrett and many others have proven to be quite relevant for me. Plus some (but not much, I find it painful!) reading of Plato and Aristotle has been really good for providing context. Even a book or two on the pre-Socratics has been quite interesting, to show the early development of Greek thought.

In short, for me at least, Epicurus has proven to be a gateway to all sorts of study and understanding. So much of his thinking is being built upon even today, mostly without acknowledgement. He wrote that he got great pleasure from the study of natural philosophy, and I'm finding something similar. The interesting thing is that so much divergent reading can lead to a better understanding of what Epicurus was saying so long ago.

The Stoics are famous for their "spiritual exercises"; this continuing study is an important Epicurean exercise. As is always testing what you read through your direct experience.

Hopefully this rambling post is of some relevance to your question ThinkingCat !

I'd like to attend.

Somewhat related, this video plots humanity in relation to the age of the universe using a 4 mile long model in the desert.

Thanks Kalosyni ! Lots of useful information in a short and concise video.

Isn't "perfect" more along the lines of a Platonic ideal than an actionable concept? What is the most perfect iteration of any given thing? If you're comparing several things you can determine one to be the most perfect based on the criteria you select. Beyond that, anything can always be more perfect. But how would you define "Perfect"? It's much like "Quality" in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

As a practical matter, "perfect" can be used as a label. But that varies from person to person, from life stage to life stage, from context to context.

(I haven't read any of the above attachments, so apologies if I'm just repeating something said elsewhere.)

Comparing #12 to #21, I would describe (poorly, I admit) #12 as having almost "pugilistic" features compared to Epicurus' typical portrayal. That's a bad word choice, but the one that comes immediately to mind. Look at #12's broad, short nose, compared with Epicurus' relatively long, thin nose. #12's head shape seems thicker, Epicurus' longer.

Put another way, I picture (rightly or wrongly) Epicurus as an ectomorph body type based on his typical portrayal, whereas I picture #12 as more of an endomorph type.

Now that it's not so early, the book cover doesn't look like Epicurus. As for #12, the shape of the head seems wrong and he's way too stern to accord with the images of Epicurus that I'm used to seeing.

A large part of the problem could be that different artists had different interpretations. Or different levels of skill. How many statues of contemporary athletes have you seen that look nothing like the athlete?

BTW there's a YouTube video of James Corden showing David Beckham a goofy version of his statue before the unveiling, which is a great send up of the modern athlete statue.

On the book cover his right shoulder is much higher so they are would appear to be different sculptures. However after examining #12 above and then looking at the book cover, the book cover looks more like Epicurus

But it's early here, and I'm looking on my phone, so there's much squinting involved.

Interesting that the PDs are referred to as "sentences." In the Saint-Andre translation I quickly counted only 5 as having more than one sentence. This may help to explain, at least to a degree, how they were divided into the current 40 PDs: the original groupings may have simply been separated into sentences.

Somewhere I read, although I can't remember where, that the authorship of the PDs was in question. Wherever I read it, I think a footnote connected the idea to an Italian source. Tantalizing, but not much help!

To me, Epicurus has a slightly thinner face with slightly more pronounced cheekbones than the figure in #5 and #12; I would not say that that is Epicurus. Looks much more stern than Epicurus as well. But if the image is labeled "Epicurus," that could explain how it ended up on the Guyau book cover.

Cassius do you use LibreOffice Draw for your highlighted and underlined text clips that you post? For your other posted graphics? I use other aspects of LibreOffice but haven't tried Draw.

If you zoom in on the images in my original post, you can see tiny numbers beneath the sculptures. Descriptions of these are in the text to the left of the two Epicurus images.

Yes. Sorry for the poor image quality!

Today I was in an out-of-town bookstore with my family and ran across this book, which is the catalog from the exhibit at the Getty in Malibu a few years ago:

Buried by Vesuvius: The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum - Google Books

It may be of interest in itself, but what I noticed while quickly browsing through it was a few images in particular. Pardon my poor photo quality; the store was one of those great rabbit-warrens of books and lighting wasn't a prime concern in the design....

(L-R, top to bottom: Epicurus, Epicurus, Hermarchus and Demosthenes)

Here's an image of the pig. In case it's not legible, the dimension given is the height, which is 40cm (15.75") including the base.

And the prosciutto. The height is 11.3cm to which the ring adds 2.5cm; the width is 7.8cm.

Not to repeat myself, but this also relates to my comment elsewhere:

Post

RE: PD01 - Gratitude and Weakness (Especially In Relation to the Gods)

This brings to mind pleasure ethics v duty ethics: if you consider it to be your duty to do a particular thing then you're likely to pursue it regardless of the pain involved. Compare this to pleasure ethics, where minimizing pain is a concern: you may achieve the same thing, but often much more pleasurably for all involved. Or you may choose to flee from the particular thing if you judge it to be a corrosive desire.

Godfrey

May 14, 2023 at 7:27 PM

This brings to mind pleasure ethics v duty ethics: if you consider it to be your duty to do a particular thing then you're likely to pursue it regardless of the pain involved. Compare this to pleasure ethics, where minimizing pain is a concern: you may achieve the same thing, but often much more pleasurably for all involved. Or you may choose to flee from the particular thing if you judge it to be a corrosive desire.

I'm just hoping that one isn't required to know Latin to participate Not being a scholar, and all.

It does sound like it would have a lot of overlap with the podcast and the forum.

What exactly is a "text-in-translation" reading group? Is that a specific way of saying that they'll be reading it in English?

Quote from Cassius

Can you summarize his view of the difference?

To add to what Pacatus just said....

The book is part of a reworking of a dissertation that Guyau wrote, which was a critique of utilitarianism. He considered Epicurus to be the first utilitarian philosopher. In Book 4 of this book he looks at 17th and 18th century utilitarian/Epicurean thinkers. Since I'm not well versed in utilitarianism, or in the other philosophers he discusses, I can't comment very intelligently (assuming that I ever comment intelligently ) on those subjects.

I agree that we can critically personalize our approach in the context that Pacatus describes, subject to continual verification. We on this forum don't always agree on everything and we rarely agree with the academics: this necessitates that we form our own opinions. And of course philosophizing is thinking, not copying. This book is a useful vehicle for stimulating thinking and for examining Epicurus in a historical context which begins with Epicurus and ends with Guyau.

So, to answer your question Cassius , I was referring specifically to the subject of pleasure. The way that I read Guyau, he thinks that Epicurus tends toward tranquilism. But he thinks that tranquilism is incomplete and he embraces an inclusive view of pleasure, much as we do. So we can disagree with his interpretation of this, while at the same time agreeing with his conclusion.