Posts by Godfrey

Don 's posts here have inspired me to finally delve into the NE, and I'm finding it quite fascinating. I'm working my way through Book 1, where Aristotle at great length dissects various meanings of good in an attempt to determine the good. Even though I don't expect to come to the conclusion that he does, going through his process (which to my limited knowledge is considered the gold standard for this subject) is a good exercise to refine my own Epicurean ideas.

Along the way, various phrases pop out which Epicurus must have latched onto either to agree with or to refute. For me, the most prominent so far is the idea early in Book 1 that the greatest good must relate to the polis (politics) as that encompasses so many other endeavors. Of course Epicurus is often said to counsel against getting caught up in politics: this then becomes fundamental to his critique of Aristotle’s analysis of the good. It would appear that rather than requiring his followers to avoid politics, he's telling them how to think about the good.

At first I was thinking that hekousion and akiusion might have become what the Stoics call giving assent and not giving assent (I can't remember if those are the exact terms) but, reading on, maybe not. Any thoughts on that?

Haven't listened to the podcast yet but I just finished binge watching The Rings of Power. I enjoyed it immensely even though I'm not a serious Tolkien fan: particularly enjoyed all of the design work that went into it. And I kept thinking of the Tolkien fans here!

Quote from Don

I need to read this book. Only recently became aware of it. Does anyone else have a review?

Definitely a good read with lots of good information, particularly concerning Epicurus' reworking of Aristotle as I recall. The major negative, for me, was that Farrington considers Epicurus to be a popularizer and an evangelist rather than an original thinker. Also, because of the title I was expecting the book to be about the Epicurean gods, but that's not the case.

I highlighted a lot in the book, but haven't gotten around to digesting the ideas yet.

Thanks Don , interesting reading!

I really appreciate having your distillation of the material: I intend to read at least this much Aristotle someday, but somehow that someday keeps slipping further into the future. Obviously, the perfect time to read it will be at that time when the present is the mean between the past and the future, weighted toward the future because there is the potential for more people to live in the future than have lived in the past, and therefore the median in time of the combined intellect of the human race will likewise be weighted toward the future. Hmmm, some quick mental calculations indicate that that median point will be well after I'm dead! Maybe I shouldn't weight it! I'll have to find an Aristotelian to help me figure out what to do!

This was by Baldwin Lee, shot in c1983.

This classic photo showed up in a blog post the other day.

Regarding thinking along the lines of atoms and void for the desires, I too was starting to go in that direction but I don't think that it's fruitful. It could easily lead to thinking that an urge or thought comes from the void, which opens the door to the supernatural.

I'm pretty certain that none of us are thinking of anything coming from the void: we all agree (right?) that everything, including desires and thoughts, are ultimately material. But I can envision all sorts of people latching on to the idea that various things come from the void. Well, I don't even have to envision it as all sorts of people already think that various things (gods, angels and all types of woo-woo) come from the void!

Referring to desires or thoughts as "empty" is completely different from relating them to the void, despite any linguistic similarity. At least as far as I can tell.

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.