Posts by Godfrey

Would a note-taking app do the trick? I've been using Zettel Notes, but there must be dozens of them.

Thanks for posting these Don ! I've been meaning to read this for quite some time as well, but still haven't got around to it.

One minor detail (correct me if I'm wrong): looking at the dates it appears that Aristotle died after Epicurus was born. Aristotle still would have been an aging (and soon, dead) superstar in relation to the young Epicurus however.

Apparently, then, PD30 is more specific than PD26 in that it's saying that even natural desires can get out of hand, but that this can't be blamed on the fact that they're natural. If you put a lot of effort into something that you can be perfectly happy without, that's vanity whether the desire is a natural one or not.

Since PD30 and PD26 seem so similar other than the inclusion of natural or bodily desires in PD30, I'm curious if anyone ( Don ) has a fresh take on the Greek? (But only if the gratification outweighs the effort!)

PD26

τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν ὅσαι μὴ ἐπʼ ἀλγοῦν ἐπανάγουσιν ἐὰν μὴ συμπληρῶσιν, οὐκ εἰσιν ἀναγκαῖαι, ἀλλʼ εὐδιάχυτον τὴν ὄρεξιν ἔχουσιν, ὅταν δυσπορίστων ἤ βλάβης ἀπεργαστικαὶ δόξωσιν εἶναι.

PD30

ἐν αἷς τῶν φυσικῶν ἐπιθμιῶν μὴ ἐπʼ ἀλγοῦν δὲ ἐπαναγουσῶν ἐὰν μὴ συντελεσθῶσιν, ὑπάρχει ἡ σπουδὴ σύντονος, παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν αὗται γίνονται, καὶ οὐ παρὰ τὴν ἑαυτῶν φύσιν οὐ διαχέονται ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κενοδοξίαν.

Here are three versions of PD30:

PD30 “Among natural desires, those that do not bring pain when unfulfilled and that require intense exertion arise from groundless opinion; and such desires fail to be stamped out not by nature but because of the groundless opinions of humankind.” St.-Andre (2008)

PD30 "Those natural desires which create no pain when unfulfilled, though pursued with an intense effort, are also due to groundless opinion; and if they are not dispelled, it is not because of their own nature, but because of human vanity." Epicurus Wiki

PD30 “When those natural desires, which do not lead to pain if they are not satisfied, are violent and insistent, it is a proof that there is an admixture of vain opinion in them; for then energy does not arise from their own nature, but from the vain opinions of men.” Yonge (1853)

In outline:

Those natural (or bodily, in some translations) desires which

1. don't bring pain when unfulfilled (another of Epicurus' double negatives)

2. AND

- require intense exertion

- (or) are pursued with intense effort

- (or) are violent and insistent desires

3. are driven by vanity, not by their own nature

This seems like catnip for someone with an ascetic point of view. However, in plain, modern English, at least by my paraphrasing:

PD30 "Say you have a natural desire, and that if you don't fulfill it, it's not a big deal to you. If you do pursue it, it's going to require a lot of effort and potential pain. Do you think that this desire is worth pursuing? It would seem that your potential gratification would be outweighed by your potential suffering. Might it be wiser to spend your limited time pursuing something that's a bigger deal to you?" Godfrey (2022)

Put this way, is this really ascetic or is it just common sense? PD26 seems to confirm this view:

PD26 “The desires that do not bring pain when they go unfulfilled are not necessary; indeed they are easy to reject if they are hard to achieve or if they seem to produce harm.” St.-Andre (2008)

"By convention [or, “custom”], sweet; by convention, bitter; by convention, hot; by convention, cold; by convention, color; but in reality, atoms and void.64 (Democritus DK 68B9)"

This is in Philosophy Before Socrates Second Edition by Richard D. McKirahan.

"DK" refers to "H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th ed., Berlin, 1951 and later editions. The standard edition of the Presocratic Philosophers. Each Presocratic is assigned a number. The fragments of each Presocratic are also assigned numbers preceded by the letter “B.” Thus, the number for Heraclitus is 22, and Heraclitus’s fragment 101 is referred to as DK 22B101. Testimonia are likewise identified by numbers preceded by the letter “A.” The DK references are used widely in books and articles on the Presocratics."

So this quote above would appear to be a fragment directly from Democritus. This particular version has nothing that conflicts with Epicurus as far as I can tell.

Didn't the ancients discuss "the most pleasant life" rather than happiness?

From The Aesthetics of Joy blog:

"One of the first things I learned in my research was that happiness and joy are different things. I know I’m a broken record about this, but it’s such an important distinction that I want to take a moment to pull them apart. Happiness is a broad evaluation of how we feel about our lives over time. It’s made up of a range of factors: how we feel about our health and our work, whether have a sense of meaning and purpose in life, how connected we feel to other people. This explains why sometimes we can’t easily answer the question — happiness is a big concept, and it can be hard to encapsulate the complexity of our lives in one answer.

"Joy, on the other hand, is much simpler and more immediate. Psychologists define joy as an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion. Joy can be measured through direct physical expressions, like smiling, laughter, or a feeling of wanting to jump up and down. It’s about how good we feel right now, in the moment. It’s the opposite of vague — when we feel a moment of joy, there’s no doubt.

"With this distinction clear, I realized that happiness is often a red herring. Thinking about whether I’m happy takes me out of the flow of my life and prompts me to evaluate and compare. Am I happier than I was a year ago? Am I as happy as my friends? That smiling influencer I follow on social media sure looks happy. If I’m not that happy, am I really happy at all? Without a clear benchmark, I find I’m often measuring against some imagined ideal of happiness, and it’s easy for my everyday life to fall short.

"But as I began to focus more and more on moments of joy, I noticed that I stopped thinking so much about happiness."

5 ways my work has changed my life - The Aesthetics of Joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee

What can the science of joy teach us about living well? In this post, find five ways you can harness joy to build a life you love.

aestheticsofjoy.com

I'm not exactly sure where pleasure fits in to this view... Seems like it would encompass both happiness and joy, and all that's in between the two?

Well done, yet again!

I particularly enjoyed Joshua 's comments about the inscription being a bit weird, and wondering how his contemporaries reacted to it. It also strikes me as being rather "idiosyncratic": who is the person that took it upon himself to do this, and what did the locals make of it? Regardless, it's a great resource.

It's also interesting to me that it was constructed as late as it was, I just assumed that by that time it EP had been Latinized. Also interesting that it's in Ionia, the heart of so much materialist thought.

Off the top of my head, might aponia and ataraxia relate to pain and suffering? Where pain has a physical cause and suffering is a mental reaction to said cause? Both pain and suffering are reactions, or pathe as I understand what Don has often said. I'm just putting this out as an initial response: I'm not at all sure that this is on the right track.

Well stated Don !

As I understand it, mindfulness practice begins with building your concentration, typically through sitting quietly and focusing on an object (typically your breath). The thing to figure out before anything else is how you can sit most comfortably, preferably with an upright but relaxed spine. As for what you do once you're settled, everybody uses the word "curiosity", which drives me nuts due to its overuse. What I find happening when I do this meditation is that, in order to keep my mind from wandering and to not go crazy, I need to find something interesting to observe about my breathing while I'm sitting there. For instance what part of my breath am I consciously controlling and what part is unconscious, or maybe what is happening at specific places in my body.

Further, this practice isn't necessarily tranquil: all sorts of mental and physical stuff can happen while you're sitting there. This is part of the point however, because often this is stuff that needs to be sorted out in order to make positive choices and avoidances for leading your most pleasant life. As your concentration improves and you can focus on what's coming up, you eventually can arrive at useful insights about these things.

I have found, however, that I do often come away with the pleasures of feeling more relaxed, yet energetic, after I "have a sit" for 20 minutes. Tranquility is a pleasant, potential byproduct of mindfulness but it's not the goal, it's not the process and, depending on the situation it's not always possible. But I'm finding that the practice can be useful for Epicurean living.

Quote from Kalosyni

To be tranquil or not to be tranquil - perhaps we have to move beyond the "either/or"....

Exactly!

Another explanation to add to my post 14 above:

5) Since the purpose of the inscription was evangelism, saying that we've excised and minimized pains is much more appealing to the average passersby than saying we've excised and minimized desires. Working with desires is a way that pain can be minimized, but that detail can come later.

Quote from Kalosyni

The word "desires" has a sound of adding in something. Where as "removing pains" is getting rid of something.... And we may have differences in which direction we tend to go in (removing pain/adding in pleasure).

Kalosyni could you elaborate on this? Are you saying that desires add in pleasures? Or that desires equate to pleasures? Or desires are additional to pleasures and pains? I'm not clear as to what you're thinking here.

I'm joining late as I've had post-booster brain fog for most of the day.

Quote

These medicines we have put [fully] to the test; for we have dispelled the fears [that grip] us without justification, and, as for pains, those that are groundless we have completely excised, while those that are natural we have reduced to an absolute minimum, making their magnitude minute.

The way that I read Epicurus, as a Feeling a pain can never be groundless, nor can a pleasure. All pains and pleasures are natural and are true. Only what leads to a pain or a pleasure can be groundless. Also, if some desires are to be considered pains, some must also be considered pleasures. But to do that invites Ciceronian obfuscation and should be avoided.

So, using multiple explanations, since I'm not very familiar with Diogenes: 1) Don has probably the best explanation in the previous post. 2) Diogenes seems like an enthusiastic student and not a teacher, so his terminology may be looser than we're accustomed to from the other extant texts. 3) It could be that Joshua is correct and desires are pains. To some extent this is correct, but with all due respect I don't see this as being what Epicurus was saying. 4) It could also be that by the time of Diogenes, EP had evolved to include desires as pains.

Until we have more evidence, my guess is that the wording comes partly from the translator and partly from the use by Diogenes of less specific word choices.

Thanks, Cassius, and everyone else who has participated in these. Great work!

Cassius has said much of what I've been thinking. I'd just add as a synopsis to what he has written above that Epicurean philosophy meets people where they are, and gives a clear statement of how to live. The confusion comes from the fact that the statement isn't a strict formula, but one that each individual can adapt to their circumstances. (Of course the confusion also comes from the multitude of misrepresentations of the philosophy.)

1. The goal is pleasure. Pleasure is a Feeling, not a destination.

2. Understand desire, and act accordingly. There's nothing wrong with desire! You just have to balance the pursuit of desires with the goal of pleasure. A tool to use for this is the categories of desires: this is a tool for deciding for oneself which of one's desires might be fruitful to pursue, and which ones are likely to divert one from the goal. It's also helpful to think of the goal as the fullness of pleasure when evaluating desires.

Quote from Kalosyni

So what do you think that means for us moving forward? Does it seem that the word "Epicurean" in some sense is already taken to mean something different. Even if we say "Epicurean Philosophy" the common person will think "Food Philosophy"?

One option that comes to mind is to use "Lucretian" rather than "Epicurean". As far as I know, that hasn't been co-opted yet. But I agree with Cassius that a new term shouldn't be introduced. Probably best is to use "Epicurus" rather than "Epicurean" as in the previous post.

Quote from Don

Well put again! I would add - from my perspective - one of the goals is to increase those "segments of time" to be both longer and more frequent. And - again from my perspective - that's why cultivating "tranquility" and "peace of mind" is important: it allows us to have a "tranquil" baseline and to be less easily perturbed/disturbed. We will experience the bites of anger, annoyance, etc., but we won't be swept away by them.

Practically speaking, I completely agree with this. "Cultivating tranquility" is both mental and physical as well: it only makes sense since the mental is actually based in the physical. There's nothing mystical about this and such cultivation might include things like studying natural science, contemplating philosophy, doing deep breathing exercises, taking a hot bath, spending time in a hammock with a cold drink while feeling a breeze and observing the scenery. Or watching the stars and night. Or fully concentrating on a simple task... &c.