Posts by Joshua

I think the linked article is quite good. I haven't read the whole series, but it's a promising start, heavy on quotations to the relevant source texts.

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Before we start exploring this conception of divinity and how it leads to the Epicurean ideal of friendship, we should clarify a few things: the object of this article is not to defend the existence of the Epicurean gods, for which there is obviously no evidence, nor point out any potential inconsistencies in their arguments concerning the gods.[4] In order to move forward, we can simply think of these gods as part of an ethical thought experiment that will lead to practical results on how we think about and experience our lives and our relationships.[5]

We start with a tentatively idealist approach to the question of the gods, which I think is more than fair. I know, for example, that a marble bust of Epicurus is of course not Epicurus himself, but it is nevertheless useful as a stimulant to thought and introspection. I'm happy to engage with the gods on this ground, and happy also to acknowledge that this is, for me, as far as it goes. The Iliad is a penetrating and insightful epic, resplendent with pride and pathos, even if every word of it is fiction; and I would be a beggarly wretch indeed if robbed of this and other literary majesties.

After some further comment, we get on to the bit about deconstructing our previous conceptions of the divine--and here I think there is a fork in the road. People are not all the same, and what works for one may be of little use to another; I think I am that kind of person for whom theory is more elemental, and even more real and tangible, than practice. This is paradox, of course, but I can summon to my defense in this case no other than the renowned Anglican apologist C. S. Lewis:

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I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.

-On the Incarnation

As it happens, every word of this, right down to my former use of the tobacco pipe, is true to my experience.

Now I do not say that this is the best way to deconstruct one's former faith, but it is the one that works best for me. What we really need is an increased appreciation for the fact that people suffer and heal differently, stress and thrive differently, and that in the matter of a living philosophy one outline or summary or presentation rarely fits all.

All that being said, I think the article and the exercises are both good. (Again, I haven't read past the first linked page in the 5-part series.)

This is a long passage from Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, in which Ingrid D. Rowland's translation of Giordano Bruno takes to task the claim of divine providence by elevating it to the level of the absurd. It is very long, and I hope the 'spoiler' effect shortens it. In any case, it goes a long way toward deconstructing one of the central misconceptions of the gods, and the last paragraph is excellent.

Very cool! There are some good articles in that book, I'm happy to see it accessible to a wider audience!

I think this is a very interesting question, and any attempt at an answer will probably be frustrated by the lack of surviving evidence. It's true that the Greeks were a very sporting people; so much so that they quite literally set their clocks by it. The four year Olympiad, coupled with other lesser Panhellenic games, gave structure to their reckoning of years in much the same way that the Romans used Consulships, the English used reigns, and we use decades.

Tertullian, in his contemptible joy and relish upon imagining the fate of the damned in hell, derides various mainstays of Classical culture;

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How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? what my derision? Which sight gives me joy? which rouses me to exultation?--as I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was publicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exultation; governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ. What world's wise men besides, the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God had no concern in ought that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them! Poets also, trembling not before the judgment-seat of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but of the unexpected Christ! I shall have a better opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; of viewing the [comic] play-actors, much more "dissolute" in the dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows; unless even then I shall not care to attend to such ministers of sin, in my eager wish rather to fix a gaze insatiable on those whose fury vented itself against the Lord. (De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX)

This from the group that claims to have 'built Western civilization'.

Among the classes of people condemned by Tertullian, there were, of course, people who took to more than one discipline. Cleanthes, successor to Zeno, was a wrestler before he turned philosopher. Socrates, in an often paraphrased quotation from Xenophon's Memorabilia, had this to say;

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It is a base thing for a man to wax old in careless self-neglect before he has lifted up his eyes and seen what manner of man he was made to be, in the full perfection of bodily strength and beauty. But these glories are withheld from him who is guilty of self-neglect, for they are not wont to blaze forth unbidden.

Lucretius does have Epicurus 'lifting up his eyes', but to a different purpose;

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Humana ante oculos foede cum vita iaceret
in terris oppressa gravi sub religione,
quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat
65horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans,
primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra
est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra;
quem neque fama deum nec fulmina nec minitanti
murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acrem
70inritat animi virtutem, effringere ut arta
naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret.

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When human life, all too conspicuous,
Lay foully groveling on earth, weighed down
By grim Religion looming from the skies,
Horribly threatening mortal men, a man,
A Greek, first raised his mortal eyes
Bravely against this menace. No report
Of gods, no lightning-flash, no thunder-peal
Made this man cower, but drove him all the more
With passionate manliness of mind and will
To be the first to spring the tight-barred gates
Of Nature’s hold asunder.

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I should rather, if I accuse anyone, accuse them of self-neglect who have been inattentive about sharpening their minds, the stakes are so much higher.

Epicurus may have been in ill health for a good part of his life, a sure sign of moral corruption to those who misconstrued man's relationship with nature.

Lucretius does mention bodily strength several times, most notably in Book 5 in his discussion of primitive humans, but there gain he comes back around to the faculty he deems more important;

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Kings began to build cities and to found citadels, to be for themselves a stronghold and a refuge; and they parceled out and gave flocks and fields to each man for his beauty or his strength or understanding; for beauty was then of much avail, and strength stood high. Thereafter property was invented and gold found, which easily robbed the strong and beautiful of honor; for, for the most part, however strong men are born, however beautiful their body, they follow the lead of the richer man. Yet if a man would steer his life by true reasoning, it is great riches to a man to live thriftily with calm mind; for never can he lack for a little.

The other side of the story is that people in Lucretius' day were likely far more active than most of us in developed countries today. I have no doubt than many an old bread-kneading and water-carrying granny could put my forearms to shame.

Some day I'll stop quoting Thoreau, but it is not this day;

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“If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumbbells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him!”

Your mileage may vary.

I felt I should bump this thread in honor of Albert Einstein's 145th birthday! See @Nate's post above for the English text of Enistein's introduction to a German edition of Lucretius.

This is an interesting document. The whole document seems to turn on the question of just and honorable authority. First, there is the connection between the names Timocrates and Timarchus.

τιμή- "Honor"

-κρατία "Power, Rule"

-ἀρχός "Ruler, leader, Prince"

In the story, Leontion shuns Epicurus for Timarchus, 'honorable ruler'. Timocrates, 'honorable power', comes to their defense. Epicurus, by contrast, is called Atreus, a king from a cursed royal House descended from the damned king Tantalus and reaching its climax in the aftermath of the Trojan war with Agamemnon, his wife Clytemnestra, and their children; among whom were Orestes and Iphiginia.

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The House of Atreus begins with Tantalus. Tantalus, the son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto, enjoyed cordial relations with the gods until he decided to slay his son Pelops and feed him to the gods as a test of their omniscience.

Tantalus' crime was partly murder, but also partly impiety. His punishment was to be vexed forever by terrible hunger and thirst.

Leontion calls upon Demeter to give her over to Timarchus. She chose the right goddess for the job, as Demeter, distracted as she was by the kidnapping of her daughter by Hades, was the only one at the table to consume a part of Pelops.

Atreus himself then repeats the evil deed;

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Atreus then learned of Thyestes' and Aerope's adultery and plotted revenge. He killed Thyestes' sons and cooked them, save their hands and feet. He tricked Thyestes into eating the flesh of his own sons and then taunted him with their hands and feet.

So Epicurus is a stand-in for a bad ruler, from a cursed lineage of rulers, and a rival to Timarchus, 'honorable ruler', who has as she says the "juster claim".

And then we have the comparison of Epicurus and Pythocles to Socrates and Alcibiades;

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Plato presents Alcibiades as a youthful student and lover of Socrates who would, in time to come, be the ruin of Athens through his change of allegiance in war.[6] Because of the high level of esteem for the community in ancient Greece, Alcibiades’ betrayal of his fellow soldiers ensures that he is looked down upon in all of Plato’s writings.

In summary, Epicurus is an immoral and hedonistic ruler from a foul and accursed lineage, a lice-ridden and itchy lecher and pederast, a tyrant with his pupils, a threat as well as a laughingstock to the people of Athens, and a dotard who speaks neither like a citizen nor like a philosopher, but like a clown.

He is, in short, all bad things to all people. As satire goes this is a job well done, and Alciphron has been compared with Lucian on that front.

Since the letter is fictional and satirical, we can dismiss without evidence what has been asserted without evidence.

There might be something to this "no partisan politics" rule after all! It's a pity that the surviving correspondence between Atticus and Cicero is entirely one-sided, his viewpoint would be invaluable. We're also missing William Short's letters to Thomas Jefferson in which he declares himself to be an Epicurean.

Joshua created a new event:

Event

Death of Titus Pomponius Atticus, 32 BC

The death of Titus Pomponius Atticus;

[…]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Pomponius_Atticus

Sun, Mar 31st 2024

Joshua

March 3, 2024 at 11:16 AM

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The death of Titus Pomponius Atticus;

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Atticus lived out the remainder of his life in Rome. Just after his 77th birthday he fell ill, and at first his ailment appeared minor. But after three months his health suddenly deteriorated. Deciding to accelerate the inevitable, he abstained from ingesting any nourishment, starving himself to death, and dying on the fifth day of such fasting, "which was the 31st March, in the consulship of Cn. Domitius and C. Sosius", that is in the year 32 BC. He was buried at the family tomb located at the Fifth Mile of the Appian Way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Pomponius_Atticus

Ha! Funny story about that word; when J. R. R. Tolkien was giving names to the towns in the Shire, he wanted to call a small hamlet 'Michel Delving', 'little digging'. He later learned that the word Michel (or Old English Micel) actually meant great and not little, so he made Michel Delving (Great Digging) the largest town in the Shire, and the seat of the hobbits' government, such as it was. Michel passed into modern English as mickle, which is how it came to be used by William Shakespeare.

If a philologist is getting these words mixed up, you know you've found your way to an odd part of the dictionary.

Is the desire to live virtuously--and I take that to mean, to live morally--necessary? It is not necessary for the continuance of life, but it might be necessary for happiness; is that the meaning of PD05?

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PD05. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.

Set that to one side. What about the other part; is it natural? If it's necessary, it must be natural. If it's unnecessary, it could be natural. I suppose that it is quite natural, even if I'm not sure whether it's necessary.

Then, is the desire to be perfectly virtuous necessary? Let's test that theory;

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PD30. Those natural desires which entail no pain when not gratified, though their objects are vehemently pursued, are also due to illusory opinion; and when they are not got rid of, it is not because of their own nature, but because of the person's illusory opinion.

If one fails in their desire to live with perfect virtue, does their failure entail pain? Disappointment, perhaps, but surely not pain. So it is unnecessary; it might be natural, but it is certainly unnecessary.

My personal opinion; the desire for the perfection of virtue is both unnatural and unnecessary. It is in the same class as the desires for power, fame, luxurious riches, and eternal life. These desires are empty; we pursue them in the false belief that they will provide a position of security in which to enjoy pleasure, but they not only fail in providing this security, they actively thwart our attempt to obtain it.

Don't worry, I'm just chained to my lounge chair reading Cicero at the rate of one sentence per week!

Edit to add;

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Some say that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. I find that an awkward principle because, in my view, allowing good men to do nothing is the purpose of civilization.

-David Mitchell, Unruly; A History of England's Kings and Queens

Lucretius, Book III

“Why is your distress so great, you mortal,
that you indulge in sorrowful laments
to such excess? Why do you moan and weep
at death? For if the life you had before,
which is now over, was pleasing to you,
and all its good things have not leaked away, 1300
as if stored in containers full of holes,
and disappeared without delighting you,
why do you not take your leave like a guest
well satisfied with life, you foolish man,
and with your mind at ease accept a rest
which will not be disturbed? But if all things
which you enjoyed have been frittered away [940]
and come to nothing and life offends you,
why seek to add on more which, once again,
may all be squandered foolishly and leave 1310
without providing pleasure? Instead of that,
why do you not end your life and troubles?
For if I can discover or invent
nothing more to please you, then everything
always is the same. And if your body
is not yet shrivelled up with years, your limbs
not yet worn out and torpid, still all things
will stay the same, even if you keep going
and outlast all living races, or even more,
if you should never die.”

DL: Injuries are done by men either through hate or through envy or through contempt, all of which the wise man overcomes by reasoning.

VS16: No one when he sees evil deliberately chooses it, but is enticed by it as being good in comparison with a greater evil and so pursues it.

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DL: Sexual intercourse, they say, has never done a man good, and he is lucky if it has not harmed him.

Epicurus, On the Telos: I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.

(edit; this quote from DL also appears in Vatican Saying 51 as part of a longer text)

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DL: He will be careful of his reputation in so far as to prevent himself from being despised.

VS29: To speak frankly as I study nature I would prefer to speak in oracles that which is of advantage to all men even though it be understood by none, rather than to conform to popular opinion and thus gain the constant praise that comes from the many.

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I don't mean to suggest that any of these should be taken as conclusive either way, but it is clear to me that Diogenes Laertius' summarizing merits a skeptical reading. Add to that the wide divergence among translators on very basic questions (will the wise man marry, or won't he?) and the picture grows rather muddled. I should be extremely hesitant to hang any given claim solely off what is written there. Usener in his Epicurea went even further than this in calling Laertius a 'complete ass'. Which is a touch uncharitable to my taste, but there you have it.

Charles Darwin’s complete library has been reassembled for the first time | CNN

amp.cnn.com

Since Darwin's recompiled Library is in the news,it's a good time to reconsider the question.

Let me quote first from prof. Ian Johnston's lecture on Lucretius;

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The poem’s influence, according to Stuart Gillespie and Donald Mackenzie, can be linked to a range of twentieth-century poets and philosophers. So pervasive is its presence in the intellectual climate that for one critic at least (Stuart Gillespie) Charles Darwin’s claim that he had not read Lucretius is rather like Milton’s claiming that he had not read Genesis.

I believe he is referencing the Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, and as Stuart Gillespie's quote makes clear, whether Darwin even read the early atomists is far from certain. The catalogue of his reconstructed library contains over seven thousand titles, and only six of these titles relate to materialism. Lucretius' poem is absent, but one of the texts (in good DeWittean style) is an address contrasting the systems of Epicureanism and Christianity;

Thompson, Joseph Parrish. 1875. "Lucretius or Paul: materialism and theism tested by the nature and needs of man" . Berlin: A. Asher and Co.

Since this address was published 16 years after The Origin of Species, it cannot be construed to establish even an interest in Epicureanism on Darwin's part; it's possibly he picked this volume up just to see what all of the chatter was about after he had been more or less accused of plagiarism.

And as I've said before, if Epicurus was right about nature, if the universe was, in fact, a well ordered cosmos, if the laws governing both mundane and celestial mechanics were predictable in their operations, then there is no obstacle for a Darwin to rediscover what a Greek thinker or Roman poet had already learned.

Well you have certainly educated me!

I forgot to mention that Emily Austin's Living for Pleasure was published by OUP within the last year or so. Dr. Austin sets a different tone than Sedley's more academic offering, and she has been very kind to us here!

David Sedley's Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom uses the eponymous Roman poet's work, largely intact, to reconstruct the lost writings of Epicurus (most importantly for Lucretius, Epicurus' thirty seven scrolls On Nature). But that's Cambridge University Press.

I believe there was discussion of epibolai in one of the Glidden papers, but I'm at work right now so cannot easily check.

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It is interesting that this is out of Brigham Young University and most of the good recent translations of Philodemus have been from the Society of Biblical Literature.

Hmm. I wonder if the link is papyrology; the scholars working on the Dead Sea Scrolls and those working on Herculaneum and other fragmentary texts sharing tools, technology, and insights.

The citations from the letters of Cicero to Cassius Longinus were very appropriate to this discussion, so thank you Cassius !