Posts by Joshua

This is also the time of the year for many mugs of Cinnamon Apple Spice tea, for port with dinner, and pipe tobacco on a cold walk, and for laying siege to the Latin language during long evenings indoors!

I have had a few personal literary traditions of long standing about this time of year, dating from my high school reading. Some books are inextricably linked in my mind with the mood of December--Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes were usual re-reading for me in this time of year.

New Years Eve I still read Ring out, wild bells from Tennyson's In Memoriam, and January is given over to Robert Burns. This December I have my own apartment again for the first time in ~4 years. Looking forward to that!

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48. Strangury and dysuria are cured by drinking pure wine, and venesection; open the vein on the inside.

--Hippocrates; Aphorisms, Section VII; transl. Francis Adams

The Internet Classics Archive | Aphorisms by Hippocrates

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As Nate has been mentioning lately, didn't the ancient Greeks have access to perhaps even hallucinogenic drugs that might also have been used for pain?

Opium and Cannabis at the very least.

Martin mentioned dysentery, but I was under the impression that it was known to have been strangury caused by kidney stones--in which case a warm bath is very commonly recommended to relieve pain related to swelling. And alcohol being a diuretic, meaning that it increases water loss through urine, might slightly increase the chance of flushing the stone. So not a terrible approach given the barbarous state of medicine at the time!

What Elli is saying here is very much in line with Lucretius' allowance for what we might call metaphorical gods--the grain as Ceres and the wine as Bacchus and so on. But there is a separate question as to whether there are personal gods with limited physical bodies and no involvement in human affairs--and it's clear to me at least that Epicurus accepted those as well. So the question is this--do those gods present themselves to our five senses, or do they not? The answer to that as I see it is no.

If they do exist, and yet do not present to our five senses, how do we know of them? If not sensation, and if not feeling, then the answer must be anticipation. To quote Lucretius;

And, Memmius, unless

From out thy mind thou spewest all of this

And casteth far from thee all thoughts which be

Unworthy gods and alien to their peace,

Then often will the holy majesties

Of the high gods be harmful unto thee,

As by thy thought degraded,- not, indeed,

That essence supreme of gods could be by this

So outraged as in wrath to thirst to seek

Revenges keen; but even because thyself

Thou plaguest with the notion that the gods,

Even they, the Calm Ones in serene repose,

Do roll the mighty waves of wrath on wrath;

Nor wilt thou enter with a serene breast

Shrines of the gods; nor wilt thou able be

In tranquil peace of mind to take and know

Those images which from their holy bodies

Are carried into intellects of men,

As the announcers of their form divine.

-Book VI, Leonard Translation

So it is the images or simulacra of the bodies of these gods that inform our knowledge of them, interfacing directly with our "intellects" and forming our preconceptions.

But soft! Did Lucretius in Book V not just make the point that our preconceptions that interpret and integrate these images can be very, very flawed? He says that a Centaur is what happens in our minds when the image of a horse and the image if a man get jumbled together. But we only think we know that Centaurs aren't real because we actually can use our senses to evaluate the horse, and the man, and because our reason can act on our sensory knowledge of them.

So under those constraints, how do we evaluate our preconceptions of the gods? We have no sensory information, and no means of getting any. We have nothing for reason to act on in assessing the images themselves.

I suspect that Don has translated it correctly, but it is certainly worth reminding ourselves that Epicurus' theology is possibly the most elusive and sinuous part of his philosophy--the preconceptions, the most difficult of his Canon of epistemology.

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If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

And here's the quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson!

One thing we have not yet accounted for is the possibility that Eusebius' account of Lucretius' death, as reported later by Jerome, has a grain of historical truth to it. We simply know too little about Lucretius to have any certainty about how he died.

Edit--ok, clearly Cassius and I are of one mind!

My answer is a hard no.

There is no possible claim about what constitutes the proper end of life that meets a test of falsifiability, in part because of an observation made by David Hume.

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The is–ought problem...is the thesis that, if a reasoner only has access to non-moral and non-evaluative factual premises, the reasoner cannot logically infer the truth of moral statements.

Applying this to the pleasure principle, I might think I'm on solid ground by starting things out this way:

"Every living thing, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and recoils from pain." Starting with that, what would it take for us to get to this? "We ought to live our own lives like this, pursuing pleasure as the goal of our lives and avoiding pain as much as we can."

What we're missing is at least one extra premise; something to go between those two statements to connect them in some logical way. But this doesn't give us an objective truth about the proper end of life--it just gives us another argument from logic. What Epicurus actually does with regard to the two statements above (adapted from the Torquatus material) is to offer a non-logical approach.

Epicurus sets out to show this as follows: Every living thing, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure, and delights in it as its chief good. It also recoils from pain as its chief evil, and avoids pain so far as is possible. Nature’s own unbiased and honest judgment leads every living thing to do this from birth, and it continues to do this as long as it remains uncorrupted. Epicurus refuses to admit any need for discussion to prove that pleasure is to be desired and pain is to be avoided, because these facts, he thinks, are perceived by the senses, in the same way that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey is sweet. None of these things need be proved by elaborate argument — it is enough merely to draw attention to them. For there is a difference, he holds, between a formal logical proof of a thing, and a mere notice or reminder. Logical proofs are the method for discovering abstract and difficult truths, but on the other hand a mere notice is all that is required for indicating facts that are obvious and evident.

[The passage from Lucretius, Book 1 (regarding a chorale performance at Notre Dame, 2017)]

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Stefan Girardet
(referring to Epicurus:)

Therefore the vivid power of his mind prevailed,
and forth he marched far beyond the flaming walls
of the world, as he traversed the immeasurable
universe in thought and imagination; whence
victorious he returns, bearing his prize: the
knowledge of what can come into being and what
cannot: how each thing has its powers limited
and its deep-set boundary mark. Therefore
Superstition is now in turn cast down and
trampled underfoot—a victory that exalts us
to heaven.
—Lucretius, De rerum natura I: 172-75 —after Loeb Classical Library

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Quote Therefore the lively power of his mind prevailed,

and forth he marched far beyond the flaming walls

of the world, as he traversed the immeasurable

universe in thought and imagination;

whence victorious he returns bearing his prize, the

knowledge what can come into being,

what can not, in a word, how each thing has its powers limited

and its deep-set boundary mark. Therefore

Superstition is now in her turn cast down and

trampled underfoot, whilst we by the victory are exalted

high as heaven.

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(The un-amended Loeb text, for comparison)

This passage is one that will come up on next week's podcast, so it's actually good to get a chance to address a few points here. There are three key issues that complicate a simple reading of the text. We know from Thoreau's journal that he read the first hundred lines of Lucretius and then moved on--his only comment on the text or the poet is in reference to this passage, which he cites as a good description of Prometheus. This is probably not obtuseness on his part--it's exactly the kind of layered texture and metaphorical posture--allowing for open interpretation--that poetry is known for, which is presumably why Epicurus has so little time for it. But it's worth mentioning because of what comes next.

After Epicurus seizes a boon for mankind, Lucretius says that with this new knowledge "Superstition" (religio) is "cast down" and "trampled underfoot". The word foot is appropriate, because it is primarily in the footnotes that competing scholars have offered their opinions on that word religio. Superstition? Religion? False religion?

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Lucretius seizes the opportunity of stating that men think things are done by divine power because they do not understand how they happen, whereas he will show how all things are done without the hand of the gods — a bold proposition truly, but one which, translated into modern language, means simply that natural phenomena are subject to definite laws, and are not unintelligible miracles. Lucretius fails to perceive that definite physical laws are consistent with the work of God and the difficulty of reconciling the two ideas, unreal as it seems to us, has been felt by able men even now-a- days, when the conception of divine power is very different from any present to the mind of Lucretius. To most of us the very conception of a law suggests a lawgiver, while he, to prove the existence of laws, thought it necessary to deny the action of beings who could set those laws at nought.

-Fleeming Jenkin, The Atomic Theory of Lucretius, 1868

There is an undercurrent in the western approach to Lucretius to view his rejection of the myths and worship of the pagan gods as containing an important doctrinal Christian truth, but only part of it. In much in the same way, certain Muslim apologists have noticed that the claim "there is no god" is simply the first part of the Shahada.

Then we have the final line: "we by the victory are exalted as high as heaven". This is where the largest shift takes place in the text above. The Notre Dame setting has it: "a victory that exalts us to heaven." Instead of 'as high as heaven', this victory exalts us 'to heaven'.

TL;DR

Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but it would seem to be important to know how these passages can be so easily misread. If 1.) you leave out the preceding passage identifying Epicurus, and if 2.) you say that the problem is merely superstition or false religion, and if 3.) you further suggest that a victory over false religion exalts us "to" heaven, we're suddenly looking at a very different reading of a rather important passage.

Of course, I can have no idea what the actual thought process was at Notre Dame, and I have not listened to the piece itself.

I cannot recall the recent context when this came up, but here is that quote from Confessions of St. Augustine:

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To Thee be praise, glory to Thee, Fountain of mercies. I was becoming more miserable, and Thou nearer. Thy right hand was continually ready to pluck me out of the mire, and to wash me thoroughly, and I knew it not; nor did anything call me back from a yet deeper gulf of carnal pleasures, but the fear of death, and of Thy judgment to come; which amid all my changes, never departed from my breast. And in my disputes with my friends Alypius and Nebridius of the nature of good and evil, I held that Epicurus had in my mind won the palm, had I not believed that after death there remained a life for the soul, and places of requital according to men's deserts, which Epicurus would not believe. And I asked, “were we immortal, and to live in perpetual bodily pleasure, without fear of losing it, why should we not be happy, or what else should we seek?” not knowing that great misery was involved in this very thing, that, being thus sunk and blinded, I could not discern that light of excellence and beauty, to be embraced for its own sake, which the eye of flesh cannot see, and is seen by the inner man. Nor did I, unhappy, consider from what source it sprung, that even on these things, foul as they were, I with pleasure discoursed with my friends, nor could I, even according to the notions I then had of happiness, be happy without friends, amid what abundance soever of carnal pleasures. And yet these friends I loved for themselves only, and I felt that I was beloved of them again for myself only.

O crooked paths! Woe to the audacious soul, which hoped, by forsaking Thee, to gain some better thing! Turned it hath, and turned again, upon back, sides, and belly, yet all was painful; and Thou alone rest. And behold, Thou art at hand, and deliverest us from our wretched wanderings, and placest us in Thy way, and dost comfort us, and say, “Run; I will carry you; yea I will bring you through; there also will I carry you.”

Oh boy.... Cassius, you'll want to move that over to the thread on the subject!

I think we should preface this with some background on how the moral opinions on suicide are shaped by culture. Broadly speaking two major categories have been defined.

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Various sociologists and anthropologists have contrasted cultures of honour with cultures of law. A culture of law has a body of laws which all members of society must obey, with punishments for transgressors. This requires a society with the structures required to enact and enforce laws. A culture of law incorporates a social contract: members of society give up some aspects of their freedom to defend themselves and retaliate for injuries, on the understanding that society will apprehend and punish transgressors.

^Wikipedia page "honour"

Honor cultures would include Japan under the Shogunate, Rome under the republic, the American frontier West, etc. In all of these cases it is customary to hold one's honor dearer than one's life. Dueling, honor killing, and ritual suicide all have some portion in these societies. More anon...

Greek garden - Wikipedia

This page is interesting.

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Archaeologists have not identified planted courtyards within the palaces of Mycenean culture nor in Greek houses of the Classical period. When the editors of a symposium on Roman gardens[10] included a contribution on the expected Greek precursors, Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway's article prompted a reviewer[11] to observe, "For all practical purposes there appear to have been no gardens of any sort in Greek city homes, beyond perhaps a few pots with plants."

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Though Harpalus, Alexander's successor at Babylon, grew some Greek plants in the royal palace and walks,[20] mainland Greece, mother of democracy and Western cultural traditions, was not the mother of European gardens.

This is interesting stuff. It might explain why Greek Historians like Herodotus remarked on the lavish gardens they found in their travels, if the practice was not widespread at home. It also reinforces the power of the pastoral ideal of the Greek countryside, where pasture, vineyard, and grove dominate the poetic landscape.

Here's an image that likely colored my earlier perceptions about Greek life, from a city-building video game my friends and I played extensively in high school.

Euphrates the stoic:

https://alchetron.com/cdn/euphrates-the-stoic-7d4399af-bf1b-41bc-bf86-718f14ad022-resize-750.jpg

Apollonius of Tyana:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQLcwBpVwmTz4Rvc8_viQ47qPQ6UrUAHpgjHA&usqp=CAU

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According to art historian Paul Zanker, the bearded type has long hair from the start, and a relatively long beard (contrasting with the short "classical" beard and hair always given to St Peter, and most other apostles);[39] this depiction is specifically associated with "Charismatic" philosophers like Euphrates the Stoic, Dio of Prusa and Apollonius of Tyana, some of whom were claimed to perform miracles.

-from the Wikipedia article cited by Don above

Yes, Don, that was my response as well. They also show Jesus' hair parting very differently, and long individual strands in place of Epicurus' undifferentiated locks on both head and beard.

But it is interesting to see early portraits of Jesus without a beard. Of the early Emperors, Nero had a beard. This went out of fashion again until Hadrian, who "brought back the beard", you might say. Between Hadrian and the Crisis of the Third Century, the only Emperors portrayed beardless were boys and young men, all murdered by the age of 26.

Under the second heading of Chapter 6, we get an interesting look at the meditative practice of "touring the cosmos" in thought. I've collected several quotations that express the sentiment, and finally a passage from Horace contrasting the limitless ambitions of the mind with the brief span of human life.

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A Greek it was who first opposing dared

Raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand,

Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke

Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky

Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest

His dauntless heart to be the first to rend

The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.

And thus his will and hardy wisdom won;

And forward thus he fared afar, beyond

The flaming ramparts of the world, until

He wandered the unmeasurable All.

-Lucretius, translated by William Ellery Leonard

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Therefore superstition is now in her turn cast down and trampled underfoot, whilst we by the victory are exalted high as heaven.

--Lucretius, from the Loeb Classical Library

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Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

- Ulysses, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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"You who measured the sea, the earth, and the numberless sands,

You, Archytas, are now confined in a small mound of dirt

Near the Matine shore, and what good does it do you that you

Attempted the mansions of the skies and that you traversed

The round celestial vault — you with a soul born to die?"

—Horace, Odes I.28; transl. Peter Saint-Andre

This is the Horace who has abandoned his earlier Epicureanism in favor of a piety more palatable to the new Emperor's of Rome. In Ode 1.34 we catch the repudiation by reference to Lucretius, who in book 6 around line 140 maintained that "Jupiter's" thunder was never heard when the skies were clear.

Horace;

Once I wandered, an expert in crazy wisdom, a scant and infrequent adorer of gods, now I’m forced to set sail and return, to go back to the paths I abandoned. For Jupiter, Father of all of the gods, who generally splits the clouds with his lightning, flashing away, drove thundering horses, and his swift chariot, through the clear sky, till the dull earth, and the wandering rivers, and Styx, and dread Taenarus’ hateful headland, and Atlas’s mountain-summits shook. The god has the power to replace the highest with the lowest, bring down the famous, and raise the obscure to the heights. And greedy Fortune with her shrill whirring, carries away the crown and delights in setting it, there.

--Translated by A. S. Kline

7 Oldest Paintings of Jesus in the World - Oldest.org

Discover the 7 Oldest Paintings of Jesus in the World here. Prepare to be transported into a rich & fascinating history on the oldest jesus paintings that…

www.oldest.org

In Chapter 5 DeWitt notes that many of the earliest images of Jesus portray him beardless, which you can see in some of those in this link. There are others as well which you can find easily by searching. DeWitt then makes the claim that Jesus began to be depicted with a beard at about the time when Epicureanism was declining and Christianity was permeating the culture.

Very good! One of the many reasons I still say that Thoreau is my favorite author, when asked, is because I find in him not an ascetic loneliness, but a solitude of a high aesthetic and intellectual polish. Loneliness is not thrown in greater relief by being alone, but by being in company and feeling yourself apart from it.