Posts by Joshua

Welcome, Novem!

That was a really interesting and informative introduction!

The fact is that we all took different roads that led to our interest in Epicurean Philosophy, and your grounding in utilitarianism is probably an advantage that a lot of us don't have.

I'm glad to see that you enjoyed Emily Austin's book, our interview with her was a lot of fun.

As for Epicurus' views on the gods and other controversial issues, we don't hold people to much of a litmus test (other than the no-politics rule, and no proselytizing). We have frequent discussions about all of these things, and nobody is asked to leave their brain at the door--people are more than capable of arguing in good faith!

Welcome to the forum!

Cicero is just willfully obtuse on this point, as we've been discovering. Pleasure refers to a wider range of feelings than he is willing to acknowledge. Even Socrates in Philebus is prepared to recognize that Aphrodite, though having one name, signifies a number different varieties of pleasure.

Epicurus' common greeting in his letters uses the the phrase Ἐπίκουρος Μενοικεῖ χαίρειν--"Epicurus to Menoikeus, joyful greetings".

χαίρειν is closely related to χᾰρᾱ́ mentioned above.

Two more October dates; today, Oct. 30 is the anniversary of the death of Poggio Bracciolini in 1459. Tomorrow, October 31st, is the anniversary of the opening of the Leiden University Library in 1587. Poggio was the first to bring Lucretius back in to circulation, but the two most important 9th century medieval manuscripts--the Quadratus and the Oblongus--are housed in the Library at Leiden.

• Oct. 15th to 31st
  • 15th; T. Lucretius Carus death
  • 19th; Marsilio Ficino born (started writing a commentary on Lucretius but burned it out of fear)
  • 21st; Hermann Usener death
  • 23rd;Hermann Usener born
  • 24th; Vesuvius Eruption preserves Villa of the Papyri
  • 29th; H. A. J. Munro born
  • 30th; Poggio Bracciolini born
  • 31st; Opening of the Leiden University Library

The idealized garb of philosophers among the Greeks was taken from the symbols of Cynicism: a cloak to keep off the elements, a bag or purse to hold all of one's worldly possessions, and a staff for walking. The staff and purse are shown on the Boscoreale treasure's philosophy cup. No cloak was necessary here--all of the figures on the cup are skeletons, underlining the link between philosophy and death.

But Epicurus was not a Cynic. He also didn't hold forth publicly in the regimented world of the gymnasiarchs. Presumably he wore what was handy, some of it purchased and some, perhaps, gifted.

Plato's Academy mosaic - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

This mosaic from Herculaneum is thought to depict Greek philosophers as Romans would have imagined them.

A lot of it was fairly impressive for it's time. Compare, for instance, the atomism of Epicurus and Democritus with the cosmos of Aristotle's elements or essences;

It just occurred to me that that might be a reference to the Palladium;

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The Trojan Palladium was said to be a wooden image of Pallas (whom the Greeks identified with Athena and the Romans with Minerva) and to have fallen from heaven in answer to the prayer of Ilus, the founder of Troy.

Thank you all!

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But I suspect he would have disagreed with Pericles.

Interestingly, there is an epigraph in the Greek Anthology attributed to Menander;

"Hail, you twin born sons of Neocles, the one of whom saved his country from slavery, the other from folly."

The first was Themistocles and the second was Epicurus. Both were Athenian citizens, both had fathers named Neocles, both chose the Ceramicus--part cemetary, part potter's quarter--as their public haunt, and both appealed to the lower classes who had been left behind by the aristocracy (in the case of Themistocles) and their state-sponsored male-only Gymnasia (in the case of Epicurus).

Menander was born within a year of Epicurus, and pre-deceased him by twenty years, but it is anyone's guess as to whether the epigraph is genuine.

I listened to part of this episode on my lunch break and will listen to the whole thing again this evening, but my preliminary response is very positive! Dr. Boeri is a very engaging speaker, and it's a topic we haven't given a whole lot of time to in the past.

Thank you Onenski for your help in organizing and participating!

Plutarch, Moralia, Adversus Colotes

Plutarch - Adversus Colotem

Desiderius Erasmus, The Epicure

The Epicure

Head of Aphrodite with Cross Incised on Forehead and Eyes Gouged Out

Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Matthew Stewart, Nature's God

Göttingen Archaeological Museum

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For often

our body is ill—we see that clearly—

yet we feel pleasure in some other part 150

hidden within. Often the reverse takes place,

as well, when, by contrast, a man whose mind

is sad feel pleasure in his whole body.

In the same way, if a man’s foot pains him, [110]

perhaps at the same time his head may feel

no pain at all.

-Lucretius Book III, tr. Ian Johnstone

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SOCRATES: Then let us begin with the goddess herself, of whom Philebus says that she is called Aphrodite, but that her real name is Pleasure.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: The awe which I always feel, Protarchus, about the names of the gods is more than human—it exceeds all other fears. And now I would not sin against Aphrodite by naming her amiss; let her be called what she pleases. But Pleasure I know to be manifold, and with her, as I was just now saying, we must begin, and consider what her nature is. She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one; and yet surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance,—that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these opposite pleasures are severally alike!

PROTARCHUS: Why, Socrates, they are opposed in so far as they spring from opposite sources, but they are not in themselves opposite. For must not pleasure be of all things most absolutely like pleasure,—that is, like itself?

SOCRATES: Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour;—in so far as colours are colours, there is no difference between them; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white: or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under one class; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar opposition among pleasures.

PROTARCHUS: Very likely; but how will this invalidate the argument?

SOCRATES: Why, I shall reply, that dissimilar as they are, you apply to them a new predicate, for you say that all pleasant things are good; now although no one can argue that pleasure is not pleasure, he may argue, as we are doing, that pleasures are oftener bad than good; but you call them all good, and at the same time are compelled, if you are pressed, to acknowledge that they are unlike. And so you must tell us what is the identical quality existing alike in good and bad pleasures, which makes you designate all of them as good.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, Socrates? Do you think that any one who asserts pleasure to be the good, will tolerate the notion that some pleasures are good and others bad?

SOCRATES: And yet you will acknowledge that they are different from one another, and sometimes opposed?

PROTARCHUS: Not in so far as they are pleasures.

-Plato, Philebus

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And in case anyone is curious about the other inscription in Jonson's copy, it is also from Ovid;

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explicat ut causas rapidi Lucretius ignis,

casurumque triplex vaticinatur opus,

[...] though Lucretius explains the cause of impetuous fire,

and predicts the triple death of earth, water, air [...]

In addition to Jonson's copy, we also have surviving copies belonging to Niccolo Niccoli, Machiavelli, Michel de Montaigne, Thomas Jefferson, and more.

Photo: English Poet Ben Jonson's Copy of Lucretius with Acid Stain

Today is the anniversary of the traditional date of the death of Lucretius, which, according to the 4th century grammarian Aelius Donatus, occurred on the same day that Virgil assumed the Toga Virilis on his 17th birthday.

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas

Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari

Happy is he who is able to know the causes of things,

And who has trampled beneath his feet all fear,

Inexorable fate, and the din of the devouring underworld

-Publius Vergilius Maro

carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti,

exitio terras cum dabit una dies

Then shall perish the verses of sublime Lucretius,

When that day shall consign the world to destruction

-Publius Ovidius Naso

I'm not sure you can say that 6 is a logical deduction of 1 and 2 absent a definition of 'experience', and an explanation of how that word relates to 'feeling'.

If 6 held that "Any non-painful feeling is a pleasure" it would be a deductive conclusion of 1 and 2.

That feelings are discrete does not necessarily mean that experiences are; they could be composites of multiple feelings. I just think the word experience is over-broad for this kind of thing.

"How was your week in Paris?"

"Oh, it was a wonderful experience!"

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I just hope if this technology takes off, the texts actually make it out into the wild.

Yes to this. I'm ashamed to say that it's far too easy to overlook Philodemus relative to the other sources, and I'm pointing my finger squarely at myself here.

Oh, Bill Bryson references John McPhee's work several times, I will definitely look those two up. Thank you!

Welcome! Former Land Surveyor here (crew chief, not licensed). I'm now using CAD and scanning software in a dental lab for 3D printing, which keeps me out of the elements.

Let me know if you have any interesting book recommendations from your field!

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That sounds to me like an echo of the Stoic "if you're not 100% virtuous all the time, you're crap." I seem to remember they say you can still drown an inch below the surface of the water. Maybe people are mapping a Stoic perspective on an Epicurean idea?

This claim about Stoicism comes from Cicero; I didn't look very hard, but I didn't find the same claim in other Stoic texts from the ancient world.

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“For just as a drowning man is no more able to breathe if he be not far from the surface of the water, so that he might at any moment emerge, than if he were actually at the bottom already … similarly a man that has made some progress towards the state of virtue is none the less in misery than he that has made no progress at all.” (De Finibus, IV.48)

I've finally managed to reach a truce with the Evangelical in my life. We just don't discuss it. I'd say there are now fewer than 14 days in a year where I have to hear about this stuff.

Moving back north helped a lot.