Posts by Godfrey

Cassius I was thinking of the PROCESS of dying, a la Epicurus. Absolutely there's nothing to enjoy once we're dead! As far as thinking about death goes, to me that would only apply to thinking about a good death... I can't imagine finding pleasure in visualizing being eaten by a tiger. That's why I clarified that I think the first version of the exercise that I proposed is more appropriate than the second version.

Quote from Don

the practice of living well/nobly/beautifully (καλώς) and (the practice of) dying well/nobly/beautifully (καλώς) are the same.

Yes Don this is exactly what I had in mind; good cite!

Don thanks for adding that link! It's nice to have related discussions close at hand.

After some further thought I think that the first version of this exercise, visualizing dying well, is both the most useful and the most Epicurean (as is often the case). At least for me, it reinforces the understanding that if we can find pleasure even in death, we can certainly find pleasure in each moment of living.

This may belong in another thread, but it's also pertinent here:

The evolutionary origin of near-death experiences

Quote

PD2: Death is nothing to us; for what has disintegrated lacks awareness, and what lacks awareness is nothing to us. (Peter Saint-Andre translation)

Exercise: visualize your death in detail: physical feelings, surroundings, smells, sounds, mental state, thoughts. Make it personal, not abstract.

Notes: Two ways of doing this are:

- to visualize dying well

- to visualize random ways in which you might die.

Either way, be aware of the feelings this stimulates in you as to how you should live your life and how you define pleasure for yourself in this context.

NB: Do NOT do this exercise if you are feeling any symptoms of depression.

Not knowing Greek, I'm focused on "but only for his correction." A related sentiment might be:

VS74: "In a scholarly debate, he who loses gains more because he has learned something."

There has been some discussion lately as to “practice,” “therapy” or “exercises” in Epicurean philosophy, and this topic comes up regularly. My guess is that, in antiquity, this was accomplished through personal instruction and daily interaction in the garden. Lacking such a framework today, I’m posting this as a first pass at an alternative use of the Principle Doctrines as a series of practical or therapeutic exercises, not theoretical exercises, starting with PD1.

Quote

PD1: The blessed and incorruptible being has no troubles itself nor causes trouble for others; therefore it is not affected by anger or favor, for such things signify weakness. (my rendition)

Exercise: during the day, think about and emulate these paragons of Epicurean pleasure and visualize how you would live as a god among men. Specifically, be mindful of times when you are being affected by anger or favor. Experience these conditions, reflect without judgment, and carry on.

Notes: The original intent of this PD, to my understanding, was to describe and dispel the fear of the gods. This exercise is for those who are already cured of this malady, and is simply to practice the “idealist” conception of the gods. The “realist” conception of the gods is valid and important but, to me, is in the “theoretical” realm.

There is a discussion here about the words “blessed and incorruptible,” which are often translated as blessed and “immortal” or “imperishable.”

This exercise sounds like it was written by Captain Obvious, but I’m noticing that I’m affected much more than I expected and particularly relating to minor annoyances. Also the anger and favors sometimes are aroused from others, sometimes from within me.

Does this exercise eventually lead toward a state of pleasant equanimity from which to experience further varieties of pleasure?

Excellent episode

Marco something that I would add is to be sensitive to the context of your conversations with friends. Are they complaining to you, or are you watching them struggle and they are not asking for advice, or are they asking for advice, or are you having a philosophical discussion? I personally would try to listen well and to keep my comments very specific to the situation. Also my conversations with them probably would be quite different depending on their familiarity with, interest in, and agreement with Epicurean philosophy.

Not that I'm a great example of this but often I think it's most effective to do your best to "live like a god among men"; then you will provide an example for your friends to respond to as they choose. Hopefully to the benefit of you all!

Didn't he consider all sensations to be movements of atoms? And his descriptions of vision, dreams and knowledge of the gods are as images formed of groups of atoms. Both of these would seem to me to make him a nominalist.

As for knowledge, as I recall there was a discussion a while back debating what the Epicurean theory of memory was. Didn't memory, too, involve accessing images (composed of atoms) in some way?

So as far as I can tell he went to great lengths to explain everything in terms of atoms and void, which I interpret as nominalism. However I'm not familiar with the finer points of nominalism so I could easily be missing something!

My impression from the podcast was that Plato was saying that we're only just to avoid negative consequences and that injustice is more advantageous. The purpose of the ring (the ring of Gyges) is to avoid detection, to which PD35 seems to me to be a direct response:

It is impossible to be confident that you will escape detection when secretly doing something contrary to an agreement to not harm one another or be harmed, even if currently you do so countless times; for until your death you will be uncertain that you have escaped detection. PD35

PD34 and PD17 are also related to this, but PD35 seems directly tied to the ring problem.

PD34: Injustice is not bad in itself, but only because of the fear caused by a suspicion that you will not avoid those who are appointed to punish wrongdoing.

PD17: One who acts aright is utterly steady and serene, whereas one who goes astray is full of trouble and confusion.

This afternoon I was listening to a podcast in which the Plato scholar Jacob Howland was being interviewed. At one point he brought up the ring myth from Plato's Republic. The basic idea is, as I got it, is that people are such that if any of us had an invisibility ring and hence could do whatever we wanted without being caught, we would commit numerous injustices. Although of course it wasn't mentioned in the podcast, it immediately brought to mind this principal doctrine as yet another answer to Plato.

At another point Howland mentioned that all-knowing gods were invented to solve this problem, and part of the rationale behind the totalitarian regime of the Republic is to create a society with no privacy in order to eliminate injustices committed in this way. Howland, to his credit, immediately pointed out the irony of that! He also pointed out that many totalitarians throughout history have referred to the Republic as a working manual. Further, the thinking was (and still is!) that if somebody is not afraid of, or does not believe in, all-knowing gods, then they will commit injustice.

This serves as yet another illustration of the stakes of the conflict between Epicurus and the Platonists. It's also an illustration of the optimism of Epicurus, although many see materialist philosophy as leading to nihilism and hopelessness!

It is impossible to be confident that you will escape detection when secretly doing something contrary to an agreement to not harm one another or be harmed, even if currently you do so countless times; for until your death you will be uncertain that you have escaped detection.

(Peter Saint-Andre translation)

Epicurus appears to have had a very advanced sense of fashion.

My guess is that the Stoics would maybe say "fate" instead of "the future," implying something pre-determined instead of something open to chance. So in some ways the response could be the same, but the world views are completely different.

It's bittersweet how we all get busy with our lives and lose track of people and places that we were once so close to. Sometimes due to moving to new places, demanding jobs, raising a family, caregiving, all of these or many more. And it's not just people and places: at some point we can look at who we, ourselves, used to be and wonder where we went.

I keep seeing articles and podcasts about this, sadly it seems to be pretty common these days. Epicurean friendship and prudence are invaluable in this regard; I wish that I'd discovered these tools long ago! Although the stability of the garden is long gone, the knowledge and understanding that remain can still help us in the sometimes difficult work of living.

Odd feelings and reflective moods, pleasures and pains: our guides, for as long as we listen.

It's one of the gateway drugs to Epicurus

This paper just showed up in my feed, and I haven't yet read it. It may be of interest as it discusses evidence of De Rerum Natura being read in the Middle Ages.

Cassius you're absolutely right about Epicurus responding to Plato (also to Aristotle) and about the other passages in LM; I'm just having a go at it from another angle to see if there's any more clarity. But it's not like I'm the first to do that, so there's probably a limited payoff, particularly in parsing passages!

Don thanks for compiling those quotes! My bad with the zafu example, you make an excellent point. To put it more clearly, I was attempting to illustrate that absence of pain can be active and is not necessarily passive. But of course meditation is quite active, so point taken.

Quote from Don

548. **Happiness** and bliss# are produced not by great riches nor vast possessions nor exalted occupations nor positions of power, but rather by peace of mind, freedom from pain, and a disposition of the soul that sets its limits in accordance with nature.

Ruminating some more... regarding the "Rorschach test" I think the phrase "a disposition of the soul that sets its limits in accordance with nature" sums up part of it quite well. Is nature governed by a logos and ideal forms or is it atoms and void doing what they do? Are there gods that affect our lives? When we die, is that it for us? Does a person fully accepts Epicurean physics and its implications? Even if they do, the extant texts can be confusing.

Quote from Don

Therefore, you *must* study and meditate on those things which produce **eudaimonia!** For if that is present, we truly have everything; but if that is not present, we will do everything to have it.

I guess that, to me, the problem we face is elevating absence of pain to "the goal," and the problem is twofold. First, it can lead to asceticism. Second, reacting against this can lead to minimizing absence of pain in relation to pleasure as part of the toolkit for choices and avoidances. Understanding both the positive and negative attributes of pleasure can lead to a deeper, fuller and more pleasurable life.

And sometimes the practice of sitting on a zafu can aid in this understanding, particularly by revealing pathe of which one wasn't even aware

Quote

"...and of the necessary [desires], some are necessary for happiness and some for freeing the body from troubles and some for life itself." Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 127

I was surprised to find this quote which exactly expressed my thoughts concerning the relatively ascetic existence during the pandemic restrictions and fulfilled my curiosity as to what Epicurus might have to say about it. Thinking of asceticism inevitably led me as well to thoughts of the absence of pain.

Firstly, it seems that the “absence of pain” proponents are ignoring the first desire in this quote and focusing on the last two. I can see how this might lead one to asceticism. But the desires that are necessary for happiness are what Epicurus places in the position of importance in this quote. Personally, I had either missed this or forgotten it and so was quite pleasantly surprised to read it! (For clarity, I wasn’t thinking of becoming an ascetic )

Thinking further on the practicalities of the absence of pain, hopefully without provoking any rants:

The fears that Epicurus addresses in LM and in the PDs are “macro” fears, those of death and the gods. But there are and always have been “micro” fears that I don't recall reading about in the surviving literature. To me, for Epicurus to posit a complete therapeutic philosophy he would need to address these “micro” fears, and I assume that he did so through frank speech in the garden, one person at a time or perhaps in small groups. These micro, everyday fears are more personal fears, specific to everyday situations, although there are common threads to them. And I’m mentioning them partly because they don’t lead to asceticism but to immediate pleasures of the non-fancy type. Nothing mystical here! (Is mystical related to “mystified?”)

An example that comes to mind is from my early childhood, learning to swim. After I had become proficient at swimming and at diving off the diving board, my teacher tried to get me to jump off of the high dive. I was scared out of my wits! I stood up there, looking down and trembling… climbed down off the board, climbed back up… it took quite a long time and lots of encouragement, but finally I went up and jumped off. It was so exhilarating that I spent the rest of the afternoon repeatedly experiencing the sheer joy of climbing up and jumping off: the removal of pain (fear) was definitely pleasure!

Another example might be of a mythical land surveyor working in alligator country. He might be terrified of alligators as evil spirit animals, or afraid of being attacked. Either of these could be addressed through reason: thinking through the implications of a material universe for the first, learning about proper safety protocols in alligator country for the second. Removing the pain of fear in these ways would allow for the pleasure of doing his job and enjoying being out in nature; it wouldn’t lead him to avoid his work and sit in his room on a zafu cushion.

Could/should the pain/pleasure dichotomy be used in this way as an Epicurean “exercise” or "practice" to maximize one’s pleasure? At the very least, to me, thinking in this way is a useful and direct tool for understanding the relationship between pleasure and the absence of pain.

Actually I never go to the home page; I've set the forum to open in "unread posts" on all of my devices. Guess I should look around more! This is good to know though for quick and easy posting.