Posts by Joshua

Letter to Herodotus

Wherefore since the method I have described is valuable to all those who are accustomed to the investigation of nature, I who urge upon others the constant occupation in the investigation of nature, and find my own peace chiefly in a life so occupied, have composed for you another epitome on these lines, summing up the first principles of the whole doctrine.

First of all, Herodotus, we must grasp the ideas attached to words, in order that we may be able to refer to them and so to judge the inferences of opinion or problems of investigation or reflection, so that we may not either leave everything uncertain and go on explaining to infinity or use words devoid of meaning.

For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded, and that there should be no need of explanation, if we are really to have a standard to which to refer a problem of investigation or reflection or a mental inference. (translated by Cyril Bailey)

Thank you Marco!

Determinism makes shipwreck of "choice and avoidance", for one thing. And I agree with Cassius on the moral question; there are no "moral people", by any reasonable definition of morality. Actions can be moral or immoral, according to convention; people are just people.

"Then why punish them?"

I don't think we should punish perceived immorality--I think the law should intervene in case of harm, defined broadly enough to mean harm done to persons, property, institutions and governments. Fringe cases to include harm to one's self, harm to reputation, harm where consent is not considered to be possible...etc.

With all of the above to be determined, in Epicurus' view, by human convention.

Is this solution perfect? Naturally not. No thing human ever is!

The kernel of this idea is so pervasive even today, that it remains an argumentative ploy for the supernatural. How many best-selling books have been trafficked under the paradigm?

"I was dead---" sometimes the word clinically or medically appears here, sometimes the word literally "---for 11 minutes and I went to heaven"---sometimes saw my past/future lives, or experienced the whole of being or some such. Generally the 'experience' is culturally and religiously dependant.

Clinical death is misleading, precisely because it is not necessarily death. If you've come back to tell me what happened while you were dead, you weren't dead. Your brain yet lived.

Interestingly, the brain was sometimes dealt with in a rather cavalier fashion in antiquity, not just in the Mediterranean but all around the world--in a procedure called trepanation, holes were drilled through the skull to relieve pressure or headaches, to release evil spirits, or to repair damage to the skull itself. Surprisingly, people actually sometimes survived!

Then there is the story of the birth of Athena, clanking around in Zeus' head in a full suit of armor until he (Zeus) asked for it to be cracked open like an egg. Make of that what you will!

Ironically, Don, John Mulaney cited meditation as being helpful in his rehab efforts. So I didn't tell the full story there

In recent news, Thich Naht Hanh has died this weekend at the age of 95. I've listened to a great many of his talks and read a few of his books. I'm hesitant to suggest that what he has to say will easily integrate with what we're trying to do here, but if this is something that interests people I can easily recommend his works, as well as those by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

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His idea, that the Sun is as big as it seems (—> DeWitt), is very naive...

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...even in the ancient world.

I might agree with the first part, but not as much with the second.

It's important to consider the whole proposition. Epicurus thought that the sun was;

1. Wholly material

2. In constant but not uniform motion

3. In a centerless cosmos

4. Governed by the same laws as things on Earth

5. Arose out of matter, and has a finite period of existence

5a. But its matter will recombine into other things

6. About as big as it seems.

Compare Aristotle's sun;

1. Made of aether, an element that didn't exist on earth

2. In constant and uniform motion (because aetherial)

2a. Set in motion by unmoved mover (god)

3. Orbiting a stationary earth that was the center of everything

4. Governed by different laws than Earth (the laws of the aether)

5. Exists in perpetuity (because aetherial)

6. Size uncertain (not mentioned, as far as I can tell)

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In view of the above, I think Epicurus came out alright.

That's a lot to get through in an hour!

This anecdote seems suggestive!

But Wittgenstein was by all accounts deeply troubled. He was a tortured, misunderstood genius. 3 of his 4 elder brothers died by suicide, so you've got profound misery in circulation there.

He wrote expressly that he was not happy--that unhappiness was one of the great problems of his life. He had need of Epicurus:

"Vain are the words of that philosopher that do not relieve any human suffering."

Don, I quite like that.

Except for the One Ring. That belongs in a museum the fiery chasms of Orodruin!

Great stuff, Bryan! When I was invested in Buddhism I had a meditation altar as the centerpiece of my living room. A seated statue of the Kamakura Buddha held pride of place, and the altar was adorned with candles, dried leaves, pine cones, and stones that bore memories of my travels.

On the first shelf down from this six foot long altar was the assorted tea service, and below that were the various books of Eastern religion and philosophy. Sitting on the floor just below the bottom shelf were the tea tray with folding legs, and the zafu and the zabuton for seated meditation.

At some indeterminate point after a handful of years, all that went---and the new centerpiece of my living room was a large curvaceous wood hammock stand modified for use of a Brazilian-style hammock. And so flourished my Epicureanism!

I know people who have had great success (pre-Covid) finding friends with similar interests on Meetup. This hasn't worked well for Epicurean groups, but can be good for whatever else you do. The groups I hear about are for "outdoorsy" types (which I no longer am!), but I'm sure someone could find groups for writing, groups for knitting, groups for table-top gaming, groups for quilting, groups for working on cars, etc.

I haven't tried any of this myself!

We did a good job for once of sticking to the details of the text, so I don't have much to add this week.

Show Notes:

That elusive Cicero quote;

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If I am mistaken in my opinion that the human soul is immortal, I willingly err; nor would I have this pleasant error extorted from me; and if, as some minute philosophers suppose, death should deprive me of my being, I need not fear the raillery of those pretended philosophers when they are no more.

This quotation might be spurious--I at least cannot find any citation. It was attributed to Cicero as early as the 1850's. Mea Culpa!

Sydney Morganbesser; scroll down for several humorous anecdotes.

The Brazen Bull of Phalaris

On the Nature of the Gods, also by Cicero.

John Mulaney; Being in the moment

Mindfulness; Is it Overhyped?

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I was somewhat critical of the 'mindfulness movement' that's been raging for the last decade and a half. But in this, as in all things, I take an Epicurean view of choice and avoidance. If mindfulness brings pleasure or removes or avoids pain, then pursue it! What I reject is specifically the idea that mindfulness is inherently good, or absent-mindedness bad.

A collection of diverse quotes on wisdom and the like from other philosophers. Plucked haphazardly from wikiquote.

Plato:

"And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us."

"I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed … from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty."

Aristotle:

"The wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him."

"The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow."

Aristippus, the Cyrenaic:

On one occasion he was asked in what respect a wise man is superior to one who is not wise; and his answer was:

"Send them both naked among strangers, and you will find out."

Diogenes, the Cynic:

"Everything belongs to the gods; the wise are friends of the gods; friends hold all things in common; ergo, everything belongs to the wise."

"The noblest people are those despising wealth, learning, pleasure and life; esteeming above them poverty, ignorance, hardship and death."

Zeno, the Stoic:

"If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?"

"No one entrusts a secret to a drunken man; but one will entrust a secret to a good man; therefore, the good man will not get drunk."

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Both Joshua in this episode and DeWitt in his book say that Epicurus was definitely not a complete empiricist. I'm curious why that is.

Well, of course I'm influenced by DeWitt in arriving at this conclusion, but I think it's a good one.

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a person who supports the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses.

Sensation, in my view, is the body's (and by extension, the mind's) system for the passive collection of environmental data. Like a Mars rover, the human body has "instrumentation" that gathers information about it's surroundings--unlike a Mars rover, these instruments are biological.

I use the word passive advisedly; the ancient Epicureans used the classic example of a 'square tower seen from far away' to demonstrate that the sensations were always accurate (another term chosen with care); the fact that a square tower looks round from far away is not, to the Epicureans, a case of failed sensation. "The eye is reporting accurately what a square tower looks like from far away".

This appears at first glance to be a kind of fudging--an end-run around the Skeptics' objection to the reliability of sensation. But the job of the senses is merely to report data. The senses do not have a role in analyzing that data. Analyzing sensory input is a higher-level function, and therefore not directly epistemic.

A strict empiricist gets that far, and stops. Sensation is the only direct source of knowledge. An Epicurean isn't done yet, though. It's true that sensation is a direct source of knowledge, but that gives us just one leg of the canon.

If the canon is to be understood as a valid theory of epistemology, then the other two legs must not rely on sensation for their source of knowledge. They must be direct sources of knowledge in their own right.

So when we look at pathe and prolepsis, we must begin to understand these as co-equal with sensations and not contingent upon them. A mind deprived of sensory organs would not experience sensations, which are oriented toward the external world, but it would still experience pathe, 'feelings', because the feelings are oriented toward perceiving the internal world of the mind itself. This is a difficult concept to get hold of! If Epicurus had not allowed for mental pleasure and mental pain, his epistemology would fall apart here.

Prolepsis is an even more difficult concept to get hold of, and I really continue to struggle with it; from my understanding, this involves conceiving of things one has not sensed or felt. You might have sensed a horse with your eyes, and likewise a man; but your "experience" of a centaur is a mental preconception of something you have not sensed. I am VERY open to being corrected on this point!

Each leg of the canon is a refutation of the ideas of other schools. The Skeptics thought knowledge was impossible because the senses were flawed. Epicurus' treatment of sensation is meant to answer this objection.

Plato had argued that teaching someone something they didn't already know was impossible, because unless they had an idea of the thing they could not begin to understand what was being described to them. The Prolepsis answered this quandary by proposing that new images could arise in the mind out of the mingling of previously-imprinted felt or sensory images.

And the inclusion of the feelings meant that the 'good' could be yanked down from Plato's unsubstantiated 'universal form of the good', that it could be known directly and understood by every human of average capacity, and that this good could be pursued by all as pleasure.

To a first-order approximation, I think it's fair to use the word empiricism--with caution!--to describe Epicurus' approach to understanding things in nature. But when we analyze the canon in the fullness of its utility for the student of philosophy, the word 'empiricism' comes up short.

We're a fairly hodge-podge operation right now

We record through Skype with a combination of cell service and internet, and I'm currently recording in a car for lack of a better alternative. Improvements can certainly be made!

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I *know* Socrates will NOT abide those statements and will engage in word games and goal-post moving, and I expect the reading of Philebus will be an exercise in aggravation and frustration. But I know it'll need necessary at some point. Arrggh. Where's the honey on the rim of this cup of wormwood?

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Cassius in my notes on Gosling and Taylor I skipped over the Plato and Aristotle sections .

I have the rare feeling (for me) of being the only kid in class who did my homework! Though I must admit that Godfrey was one of the people whose discussion led me to actually read it.

Cassius, those passages from Jowett's commentary (if we can confirm that it is Jowett's commentary) do indeed seem very promising.

"Too much weight is given to measure and number as the sole principle of good."

Thank you especially for that one, Jowett!

I'm getting on a plane Wednesday morning, so this probably won't be top of my list Tuesday night, unfortunately.

The hardest part is remembering what we talked about 45 minutes before-hand.

But happy birthday to the podcast! At 1 a week for 52 weeks in a year, episode 104 is the two-year mark. Thanks to all involved---including the listeners! The 7th of January sounds like a good day to celebrate that, right? 🙃

I was sufficiently impressed by the line-by-line reading of Lucretius. Here's to the coming year!

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Don so what do you conclude to be the closest modern calendar equivalent?

I don't know that he'll walk right into that one

One question we often get asked is, 'What are some Epicurean practices I can use in everyday life?'

Part of the reason this is difficult to answer is that I don't know what the pursuit of a life of pleasure looks like to you.

Probably, we find different things pleasureable! I could point to the latest research, or to some scrap of an ancient text; I could offer some healthful lifestyle tips, or I could tell you about things that have seemed pleasurable to me but which have brought more pain or trouble in the end; but I cannot tell you what brings you pleasure.

If you're at square one, as we all are in a sense, here are a few things you can try: I say try, because they might fail!

1. Keep a journal. O, how I wish I was the kind of person who kept a journal! Traveling to Europe on aes alia, another's coin, was exceedingly pleasureable---but that was over a decade ago. And then the bill came due; and as I gradually paid the debt, the memories gradually faded. If you want to remember happy things, pleasureable things--write them down. Epicurus thought that pleasures remembered were pleasures still experienced, and stored away for future use. But you'll forget them, so write things down! The people you encounter are talking about you---talk to yourself about them.

2. Go for a walk. The community I live in has a Facebook page, and there are rumors circulating about a sinister hooded figure walking around alone by night. Maybe I should get a dog. But the point is, nobody seems to ambulate anymore! Breathe the free air, look at the trees and the flowers and the running water! They'll gossip, but I don't think they'll arrest you for it!

3. Stargaze. The lunatic who walks around in my neighborhood has even been noticed ducking into the woods, staring anxiously at a bird, or---ye gods forfend!---gazing up at the night sky! Is he a madman? Is he a drunk? No! He's an Epicurean! The closest star system (alpha centauri) is just over four light years away; while I was having lunch with an old friend at an Indian restaurant in western Iowa in two-thousand-seventeen, the photons I see tonight began their long pointless journey toward Florida. Go catch some of them.

4. Have lunch with an old friend. Pleasure is the good of life, and friendship the very best of that good. Tell them about that bird you were staring at the other day. If I'm lucky, it might even make the Facebook page!

5. Read a book. Half of Epicurus' Principle Doctrines were direct contradictions of Plato. Are you sure you want to take Epicurus' word for it? Maybe it's time to brush up on your Plato.

Drink some tea, pet a goat, listen to a thought-provoking podcast, play a thought-provoking video game---there's a pleasure-filled life of joy at your finger tips. I don't know what's in that life, but I hope you find it.

Everything you see and everything you are is made of atoms that were forged out of smaller particles in the heart of dying stars. It's a wondrous universe--go out (or stay in) and enjoy it! You and I are very, very lucky to have this chance. Sink every root you have deep into the experiences of this world, and the branches that flourish from that will be lovely--a fit abode even for my friend the bird.

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The Heron

O Heron wan in water wading!

Thou opus of untailored fashion—

Sure-footed on the shoreline's footing—

A tulle train, dawnlight's glisten,

Gowns thy form in matchless morning!

Heron! Ready in verdure reedy—

Agéd angler, weedmidst waiting,

Patient, still in silence stolen

From the olden deep unending

'Til the wide world's wild breaking—

Hunter haunting on the march and

interstice of world and world;

Sea and sky, blade of beak

Azure upon azure rending—

Virtue of a vise unyielding.

What crooked timber frames thy neck?

Methinks that it is not so stiff.

Whence the whittling of thy wing?

What the aurum of thine eye?

Where, thy heartblood's ceaseless spring?

Are thou Plato's man-of-gold,

Who rules a tribe of bronzéd fins?

Or yet a hermit cynical,

Who tossed aside his needless dish?

Is this thy sandy portico?

Nay, for thou art too like me:

We bear the stamp of origins.

Fatherless thou wert so feathered,

Motherless milked on thy sweet streams,

And here, alone, we stand together—

No more! Aye, fly! Fly to thine pleasure

Great noble bird, sun-midst sailing,

Prow a-gleaming, southward seeking;

Seek thee still a sweeter shore

And I, a sweet philosophy.

Yet I will linger here a time

Tasting of the morning's fruits—

'Ere long the yawning sea shall call:

The tide shall fail, and then the light,

And we shall mingle, you and I

Void with void, and mote with mote

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