Posts by Godfrey

My mother in her later years used to stretch her birthday celebration over a couple of weeks: with family on the day, but lunches and such with friends as could be arranged. It's the celebrating that counts

Haven't we discussed previously that Epicurus argued against ranking pleasures? Or was he just arguing against pleasure being unlimited? Either way, he must have been familiar with the Platonic/Aristotlean exercise of ranking pleasures.

PDs 9, 10 and 11 look to me to be similar to PDs 19, 20 and 21 in that they could have been originally written as a single paragraph. As one works through the paragraph, one gets a view of EP which begins with pleasure and leads back to astronomical phenomena and death. This "clump" of PDs then is a very concise overview!

Also, it's possible that the convoluted if-then wording is a jab at Platonic dialogue: rather than leading the reader down a primrose path as Plato does, he makes us work to think through what he's saying. Plato poses questions and answers them for us, assuming that we will accept his answers. If we don't accept his answers (as most of us on this forum don't) then his arguments fall apart. The structure of 9-10-11 might be designed to prompt us to reason things out for ourselves.

Finally, if the PDs were intended to be memorized, it would probably take more mental engagement to memorize a statement in this form as opposed to something more rote like "pleasures are different but can't be ranked". Although this in particular doesn't seem very convincing.

Quote from Cassius

Yes those other translations are a reminder that there is *something* in addition to time that Epicurus is considering, bit it does not jump out at me with clarity what that something is. It's almost like he is talking about how much of the body and mind is engaged in that pleasure as it is occurring.

That sounds right. Makridis calls it "space and duration". The word "accumulation" makes more sense to me than "condensed" but I can't comment on the correct Greek. So he seems to be saying that IF for example the pleasure in your belly could accumulate to fill your entire body and mind, or the pleasure of learning could accumulate to fill your entire body and mind, and IF each of these would last for the same amount of time, then there would be no difference between the two. But as Hicks points out, this is not the case.

Is this a convoluted way of saying that pleasures differ from one another, but that you can't rank them? PD 9, 10 and 11 are all structured similarly in setting up "if-then" scenarios, and each one implies that the "if" scenario is not the way things are.

Quote

19.4.27 Ataraxia is achieved by the removal of superstitious fear and false beliefs, the constant memory of the truth, and attention to present experience and perception. Now the mind is free of disturbance and so memory and expectation operate without anxiety. Similarly when physical pain is removed the body operates without pain and that will mean that always some pleasurable and painless perception is occurring, a condition of good cheer.

It's been quite a while since I read TGOP; this is the closest thing I can find in my notes (TGOP is one of those rare books in which I actually took notes; I can't recall if this is a quote or a paraphrase). But, to me, this reinforces the idea that understanding the physics, the canonic, the worldview, becomes something of a pleasure engine.

Having ataraxia in the quote is interesting: is it too "out there" to describe ataraxia as a pleasure engine? That never even occurred to me until reviewing this.

Two thumbs up!

It pleased me greatly to hear the repeated statements that in order to fully understand the philosophy you need to understand the nature of the universe.

Joshua your pleasure engine idea sounds like a fruitful one to pursue! As I recall, Gosling and Taylor came to a similar idea in The Greeks on Pleasure, although it wasn't nearly as concise and illustrative as your framing of it.

Excellent work, as always!

Quote from smoothiekiwi

Asking this „why“ is scary, and I personally am only at the very start of it. But I also think that it‘s the only way to a happy lief.

It IS scary! Especially when you start with the Physics and understand Epicurus' atomism and cosmology and their implications. But then studying and understanding the Canon provides a solid grounding in the here and now. And, at least for me, it's only at this point that the Ethics really makes sense.

Quote from smoothiekiwi

It's such a strange philosophy, completely alien to us- yet it's the most logically coherent one (looking at you, Stoicism!), and probably the one which will bring the most happiness and pleasure in the long run. Well, at least I hope that

You're right, it is logically coherent. It's a complete worldview, and also one that is highly consistent with modern science. And I too think it will bring the most happiness and pleasure, the best life. The more you study, the more you'll find that it’s much less strange and alien than it now seems: in fact you may find that it’s perfectly obvious. The sad thing is that so many of the texts have been lost, and the philosophy has been maligned and misrepresented by so many rivals over the millennia, that we all have to go through this process of piecing it together for ourselves.

For a basic reference on Greek architectural orders:

Greek architectural orders – Smarthistory

Welcome smoothiekiwi!

I too became aware of Epicurus, and convinced of his importance, through reading Cicero. And Tending the Epicurean Garden was one of the first books I read after that. I, too, felt like I wasn't really getting the philosophy at that point so I'd like to share a couple of thoughts from my journey.

Hiram as I recall was trying to find commonalities between Epicurus and other traditions, and was trying to lay out ideas for a hedonic regimen. As I've studied further I've largely rejected both projects.

I've rejected the commonalities project because, for me, it added a layer of confusion to understanding Epicurus: he needs to be understood on his own terms and in his own context. As I've studied a lot more and become more comfortable in understanding the philosophy I've become peripherally interested in his predecessors and how Epicurus was influenced by and responding to their ideas. That, however, is about following development of thought where I think Hiram was trying to incorporate practices from other traditions. Giving up on the latter allowed me to focus on Epicurus, and that's when Epicurus started to make sense!

As to the hedonic regimen, I interpret that as too structured for leading a pleasurable life due to my feeling that I need variety to prevent pleasures from becoming stale. Maybe a hedonic menu is more appropriate. But more important, I think, is understanding the Canon and the original context if you're trying to get a grasp of the philosophy. To me, that's the focus: my understanding, accepting and practicing the philosophy has grown from there.

This is the link to the podcast I listened to if anyone wants the short version before deciding to read the book:

The Next Big Idea - DOPAMINE NATION: Why the Modern World Puts Us All at Risk for Addiction

In “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” Dr. Anna Lembke says today’s superabundance of pleasurable stimuli makes us all vulnerable to…

podcasts.google.com

I've listened to a podcast with her as well and found it worth pursuing. Just haven't got to it yet! Thanks for the post Don.

Preparing an outline and incorporating the resulting feedback was extremely helpful for me, and provided some good guidance in how to proceed with grasping the philosophy. I confess it was intimidating at first, as I'm quite new to studying philosophy. But the exercise was well worth it.

(I should probably take another look at mine and see how my understanding has evolved since then....)

Don your new layout works quite well and the verse links in the text are great! I was able to find verse 131 and the maza recipe very quickly.

This quote from the maza article seems to have some relevance to Epicurus' dietary habits:

"The Ancient Greeks prided themselves on a simple, hearty diet, believing it the source of their strength and, to some degree, their superiority. The varied cuisines of other peoples like the Persians were looked down upon as decadent, diet seen as evidence of moral character (“you are what you eat”). Maza has few ingredients, does not require much preparation, and is quite filling: thus, it checks off all the criteria of an ideal Greek staple."

At least according to this, the references that Epicurus makes to diet seem to be much less to do with radical asceticism and more to do with mainstream Greek culture. Another strike against interpreting him as a minimalist

And thanks for all you do to keep this going, Cassius!

Don't worry Cassius, the space-time continuum has been warped since March 2020. That would explain any lapses of memory.

Happy New Year, all!

This reminds me of VS11:

For most people, to be quiet is to be numb and to be active is to be frenzied.

I'm not aware of the specific source of this, but it does seem to reinforce Don's post above.

Cassius you've already mentioned this but The Greeks on Pleasure by Gosling and Taylor goes into quite a bit of detail on the discussion of pleasure in Plato and/or Aristotle (I can't remember if it's one or the other or both) as well as Epicurus' take on it. I'm just mentioning this to point out that the comparison of Platonic with Epicurean pleasure is a well developed line of research, although seldom mentioned elsewhere.

As I interpret the argument, the theory was that if something is perfect then why would it increase? Sort of like adding an extra note or phrase to a musical composition can ruin the "perfect" composition. Hence the limit of pleasure as specified by Epicurus.

It might be better to set it up by sources (Pads, letters, DRN &c) instead of months, at least for the collecting of quotations. Then once there are 365 or more they could be sorted into months. This should make it easier to avoid duplicates.

Also, would this need to be older sources that are out of copyright? Newer translations might be more relatable as long as using them doesn't create copyright issues.

Quote from camotero

So, it would seem as if pleasure exists as a function of pain.

This is incorrect. Pleasure and pain are more accurately thought of as dichotomous or binary; perhaps better still as part of an affective circumplex as discussed elsewhere on the forum. Most importantly though, they are the two components of the faculty of Feelings, and this faculty serves as a guiding function. As Cassius points out, PD3 is a response to the argument of rival philosophers that pleasure can't be the telos because it has no limit. Epicurus in PD3 gives that limit. The mistake that people make is to interpret this philosophical argument (which it is) as practical advice (which it isn't).

Quote from camotero

...it could be smart to learn what pains are they eliminating, for us to gain more control and understanding over our experience. Going psychological here, if there's a pleasure I constantly seek and indulge in (which is, as accepted before, eliminating some pain) but that overall ends up producing me more pain afterwards (think addiction), it would make sense go try and find what is that non evident pain (most likely mental distress) or the vain desire that I'm eliminating with the pleasure, thus becoming capable of eliminating the vicious cycle in a reasonable manner consistent with the philosophy, rather than brute-forcing yourself out of it without addressing the root cause. What do you think?

I think that what you're describing here is important as it is one aspect of the guiding function (noting that I've struck out some of the quote and added a bit). But you must also be aware of pleasures which are giving you positive guidance, and the niggling unnoticed pains that are by themselves giving negative guidance, as well as vain desires that are contributing to your pain. Following pleasure generally leads toward health and growth, following pain generally leads toward disease and atrophy. But the above edited quote is a good example of the fact that while all pleasures are "good", not all are to be chosen as per the Letter to Menoikeus. And also that ignoring pain is ignoring the guidance of the Feelings. For me, a big part of living this philosophy is being aware, as often as I'm able, of my feelings of pleasure and pain and listening to and evaluating the guidance that they're giving me. But I can't by any means claim to have mastered this!

Maybe they're in Volume 2