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I totally agree: once one gets a proper understanding of the philosophy it makes the idealist viewpoint look silly.
Have to point out though that one needn't be young and healthy and vibrant to benefit!
Which leads me to the rumination that perhaps EP is a particularly nice fit for one who is older. Not only does life experience provide additional verification, but there's a certain joy in aging well which meshes nicely with EP. And as the end gets nearer it's nice to have your facts straight.
Just finished listening. This one was a particularly good discussion. Thanks to all involved!
Exactly.
If I'm not mistaken I originally found this essay on Peter Saint-Andres Monadnock page and therefore expected it to be in agreement with Epicurus/Lucretius (it's no longer there, not sure why). Imagine my surprise as I worked my way through it!
I lump this essay with 1) Plato's Philebus and 2) the various statements condemning atomism as impossible and ridiculous. These belong to a group that is so obviously biased and mistaken that the only value in reading them is to strengthen, by contrast, one's conviction regarding feeling and science. Otherwise it's a waste of time (although Philebus does have value to the extent that it prompted a response from Epicurus).
Yesterday I gave George Santayana's Lucretius essay a quick read. (http://monadnock.net/santayana/lucretius.html)
It had a few good observations, but was quite hostile toward Epicurus. It occurs to me that it's a great example of the conclusions one might reach if considering EP to be "tranquilism". Maybe the most pertinent quote is:
"Epicurus had been a pure and tender moralist, but pusillanimous. He was so afraid of hurting and of being hurt, so afraid of running risks or tempting fortune, that he wished to prove that human life was a brief business, not subject to any great transformations, nor capable of any great achievements".
The essay is full of similar drivel. Reading the essay makes me suspect that Santayana hadn't the courage to live in the world which Epicurus so aptly described. But I know nothing more of Santayana.
You're welcome! After reading that wiki page, I'm thinking that I might watch it again. This time for any philosophical tidbits in addition to the oddball black humor.
A more pleasant practice, aside from Josh's, is semi-regular viewing of the movie Harold and Maude. I haven't watched it in a long, long time though so I'm not aware of where it falls on the philosophical spectrum.
A more pleasant practice, aside from Josh's, is semi-regular viewing of the movie Harold and Maude. I haven't watched it in a long, long time though so I'm not aware of where it falls on the philosophical spectrum.
This may be a bit of a detour, but the attached article on the invocation of Venus in Lucretius is a brief discussion of religion among the early Epicureans. This is the only thing that I've read on the subject other than what's in DeWitt; my main takeaway (as someone with minimal knowledge of early Greek and Roman religion) is the importance of understanding context in interpreting ancient doctrines. DeWitt's book is very good at addressing the philosophical context of Epicurus, but this points to a different subject of context.
It also touches on early practices and might have some relevance to other threads involving practice.
The article doesn't address blessedness or imperishability, but does perhaps offer some additional context to the discussion.
There's a doctrine by doctrine commentary starting here:
http://wiki.epicurism.info/Principal_Doctrine_1/
And from there you can navigate to other texts.
Also this page links to translations:
https://duckduckgo.com/?sites=monadno…picurus+&ia=web
It includes notes on translation but not commentary.
And in this forum there are subforums for the doctrines and other texts, but the amount of commentary varies. That's a great place for discussion though.
This is an intriguing topic.... I personally discovered Epicurus while pursuing Stoicism, and for quite some time was searching for Epicurean "spiritual exercises" along the lines of some of the Stoic practices. I also spent a number of years sitting with my neighborhood Zen group, which encouraged formal practice.
Currently I've abandoned all of these. I'm finding much more pleasure and fulfillment in studying nature, science, some philosophy, some history.... The joy of this, for me, is in learning more about the world and my place in it. And interestingly, it all started through studying Epicurus: how his philosophy relates to other philosophies, to science, to history. Epicurus mentioned in the letter to Herodotus that he got great pleasure from his study of natural philosophy (I paraphrase) and I'm finding that to be true for me.
Regarding death, I'm finding that there's no fear there. It's a fact of life; the more I see the bigger scientific and historical picture, the less there is to fear in death. Not that I'm looking forward to it!
But Eugenios your post is intriguing. It would be interesting to know more about various Epicurean practices. I think many of them probably pertained to life in the garden, while those of us today don't have such a community and have (I imagine) a wide variety of life and work circumstances in which we study and practice. People have posted in other threads about types of daily practices they follow; I'm not aware of anyone following a mindfulness of death practice however.
Lately I've been thinking that "we have a pleasure attraction/ pain aversion guidance system" might be less confusing than "pleasure is the goal" in the culture we currently inhabit.
As you (and Epicurus) frequently emphasize, Cassius, the details must be seen in the context of the overall philosophy. Wording similar to what I'm suggesting might help to remind one of that context.
Hiram, I find this DL quote interesting for a couple of reasons:
1) It states that tranquility (not cheerfulness) is the goal and opposes that to pleasure
2) By implication of this contrast and Democritus' exposure to the east, it potentially contrasts pleasure with Buddhism or similar philosophies.
However there's a lot to sort out, and this particular topic is new to me. Can you recommend any sources where I could pursue this further?
I've been following her blog for a few months. Her main focus is joy in terms of environment and design, but whether she's aware of it or not a lot of her research seems to parallel Epicurus.
A blog post of some pertinence, it would seem:
https://www.aestheticsofjoy.com/2020/02/7-emot…re-joyful-life/
Particular sections of note to me are "Emotion versus reason is a fiction" and "The body leads" which I found to be nice takes on the subservience of reason and a first person description of the Canon, respectively. Written by a non-Epicurean as far as I know.
Exactly. That's why this quote seems to me to be a useful counterpoint to the Epicurean position. Epicurus would say "the goal is pleasure, which is not identical to tranquility, as some have mistakenly understood it to be." And proceed from there to replace Democritus' description of tranquility with his own description of pleasure as we often discuss it.
That quote was from the Hicks translation; here's the same quote from the Pamela Mensch version:
The goal is tranquillity, which is not identical to pleasure, as some have mistakenly understood it to be, but a state in which the soul proceeds calmly and steadily, untroubled by any fear or superstition or any other emotion. This he calls well-being and gives it many other names.
This touches on the problems of fragments, context and translation. This is all there is on this subject in DL. Judging by these two versions "any other emotion" is the intent, not just painful emotions. But it's not much to go on.
In the same section DL says Democritus, in his travels, may have associated with the Gymnosophists in India (an ascetic sect). I'm wildly speculating here, but could it be that Demo developed an affinity for Eastern philosophies of the time, which Epicurus was equally responding against? I've read the occasional article on the cross-fertilization of Greek and India but have no idea as to the validity of any of this.
In Diogenes Laertius section on Democritus, one of Democritus' opinions is stated as:
The end of action is tranquillity, which is not identical with pleasure, as some by a false interpretation have understood, but a state in which the soul continues calm and strong, undisturbed by any fear or superstition or any other emotion. This he calls well-being and many other names.
Epicurus taught the reverse. Is there anything in the literature that posits that Epicurus was reacting against this particular doctrine of Democritus? Regardless, this seems like a good statement of what Epicurean pleasure is not.
Cassius, I was thinking after I posted that you might make points such as these 
, and I agree with what you're saying. I read the book as an Epicurean, and for me it provides an interesting basis from which to go back and review Lucretius and the letters of Epicurus. I expect to have a richer understanding afterwards.
A committed Christian, Muslim, spiritualist or the like might find a "god of the gaps" in there, although Gleiser does explicitly reject that position as anti-scientific. The reason I like this book is that it gives a pretty clear description of the various theories over time: the thinking that went into them and the experimental verification. As for his conclusion (which I probably don't present very well), I think he's just describing the state of science today. I read the book to find out just that, so on that level it was just what I was looking for. I gather from the two books that one physicist today may say "the Big Bang means that everything came from nothing" where another (Stenger, for one) may say "not at all, the Big Bang was the result of a quantum tunnel from another universe." Gleiser actually gives a nice presentation of one recent physicist's desire to prove an eternal, unchanging universe and how that was discounted by the expansion of the universe. But it wasn't entirely discounted, which leaves open various possibilities.... In other words, there's a ton of nuance in the physics, and getting some understanding of that is what I enjoyed.
But I ramble. I'm with you in hoping that somebody who has seriously studied this subject unpacks this at some point!
Excellent question. Basically his point in the book is that we don't know, but that there are various mathematical models which fall into a limited number of categories. To the question of "is there a beginning" he provides the following five categories:
1) Yes. Creation from something.
2) Yes. Creation from nothing.
3) Yes. Order out of chaos.
4) No. Eternal existence.
5) No. Rhythmic universe.
From the book's final chapter, "Beginnings:"
"Two of the open 'origins' questions that are particularly interesting to me are the origin of matter, that is, where did the matter we and everything else are made of come from, and the origin of the Universe as a whole. Although these are two 'origins' questions, they are quite different. While we can try to answer the question of the origin of all matter using well-established (well, almost well-established) ideas in physics, the question of the origin of the Universe as a whole is much more complicated. Even though it is possible to use general relativity and quantum mechanics to build mathematical models that exhibit a self-consistent picture of a possible beginning, models are simply not enough to understand the question of the origin of the Universe. Since all these models assume the laws of physics to be valid as a tool to forge a possible beginning, they cannot possibly explain where the laws of physics themselves came from. If we simply say that the laws of physics were created with the Universe, we fall into an endless regression.
"...it is the question of the origin of the laws of physics that truly deals with 'the Beginning.' And the answer to this question is beyond the scope of physical theories, at least as they are formulated at present."
My dissatisfaction with Stenger stating that the universe is eternal is that it read to me as an opinion, albeit one formed through a life of study (I emphasize that I only have read his book on atomism and not his other books which may deal more directly with this). What I found so compelling about Gleiser's book is that he doesn't provide an answer but provides tools (other than equations) with which to think about the issue.
Although he doesn't say "Epicurus was right!" (Stenger basically does), after reading this book I've come away with more respect for Epicurus. Understanding how he laid the foundation for so much that followed makes his achievement even more impressive. And his assertion that nothing comes from nothing hasn't been proven wrong.
