Posts by Joshua

As we are finally getting into the Letters of Epicurus himself, I want to take this opportunity to plug Don 's Translation and Commentary on the Letter to Menoikeus, which work I have cited in this recording, and which, if you have not looked into it, is well worth your time.

Show Notes:

On Epitomes

• We talked quite a lot about the practice of epitomes, summaries and outlines, for more information on which it will be useful to review Epicurus and his Philosophy by Norman DeWitt.

• For contrast, one may look at the Enchiridion, or Handbook, of the sayings of Epictetus. The Stoic handbooks of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius deal quite extensively with practical advice for day to day living, but do not spare much time for metaphysics. In contrast, Epicurus was quite happy to devote an entire epitome to an overview of the physics, which he discussed at length in his Magnum Opus "On Nature". DeWitt suggests (as does the first paragraph of this Letter) that there were really two epitomes, and that this is the 'little epitome'.

David Allan Coe

• David Allan Coe is, apparently, an American Singer-Songwriter. If I had known who he was, perhaps I could have corrected Cassius sooner, but alas!

David Allen

• David Allen is an American consultant on efficiency in life and business, whose wildly popular book Getting Things Done has become a standard for organization and time management using checklists, outlines, notebooks and a master calendar or diary.

Since a major theme of our conversation today was on effective and useful outlines and summaries, we invite you to consider making your Personal Outline of Epicurean Philosophy, on the model of Epicurus himself as well as Thomas Jefferson.

And not just summing the hedons and the dolors, but submitting the decision to the test of 7 other variables!

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To be included in this calculation are several variables (or vectors), which Bentham called "circumstances". These are:

• Intensity: How strong is the pleasure?

• Duration: How long will the pleasure last?

• Certainty or uncertainty: How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur?

• Propinquity or remoteness: How soon will the pleasure occur?

• Fecundity: The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind.

• Purity: The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite kind.

• Extent: How many people will be affected?

Interesting question, Godfrey! Here are a few of the many potential answers I can think of;

"The poorest person in the world is the person with the..."

1. Lowest net worth in U.S. dollars.
2. Lowest net worth and worst prospects for future wealth.
3. Largest negative cash flow relative to purchasing power.
4. Lowest net worth, living in a country with the worst score on the Human Development Index.
5. Least remaining time, and with the most troubles and the least blessings.
6. Most disagreeable personality, and who has spurned all friends, family, and loved ones.
7. Darkest secrets, and the most to fear from being found out.
8. The greatest degree imaginable of human suffering.

The pecuniary answers are the most obvious, but for many may turn out to be the least important.

I immediately thought of Shakespeare:

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Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York son of Neocles!

They drilled in the same cohort for the requisite two (I think?) years of military training! Menander is the author of one of the epigrams in the Greek anthology;

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Hail, ye twin-born sons of Neocles, of whom the

one saved his country from slavery the other from folly.

The former was Themistocles, and the latter was Epicurus.

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But I would check out "The Sculpted Word"...

I've just looked at Frischer, nothing helpful there I'm afraid.

I don't think we lingered long on the "peace and safety" bit, and I can't remember making any strong claims about it. The context of that passing reference was in the relationship between friendship and security--and security is certainly peppered all over the key texts.

If there are no other takers, I will suggest that this section at the end was perhaps the most passionate and intense portion of my reading of the whole text.

I was, however, rather running out of breath after a long recording session. So if necessary, I can probably record these passages again separately, and hopefully will better quality!

Today, February 17th, is the anniversary of Giordano Bruno's burning at the stake in the Campo de Fiori in Rome.

The following is an excerpt from The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt.

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During his stay in England, Bruno wrote and published a flood of strange works. The extraordinary daring of these works may be gauged by taking in the implications of a single passage from one of them, The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, printed in 1584. The passage—quoted here in Ingrid D. Rowland’s fine translation—is long, but its length is very much part of the point. Mercury, the herald of the gods, is recounting to Sofia all the things Jove has assigned him to bring about.

"He has ordered that today at noon two of the melons in Father Franzino’s melon patch will be perfectly ripe, but that they won’t be picked until three days from now, when they will no longer be considered good to eat. He requests that at the same moment, on the jujube tree at the base of Monte Cicala in the house of Giovanni Bruno, thirty perfect jujubes will be picked, and he says that several shall fall to earth still green, and that fifteen shall be eaten by worms. That Vasta, wife of Albenzio Savolino, when she means to curl the hair at her temples, shall burn fifty-seven hairs for having let the curling iron get too hot, but she won’t burn her scalp and hence shall not swear when she smells the stench, but shall endure it patiently. That from the dung of her ox two hundred and fifty-two dung beetles shall be born, of which fourteen shall be trampled and killed by Albenzio’s foot, twenty-six shall die upside down, twenty-two shall live in a hole, eighty shall make a pilgrim’s progress around the yard, forty-two shall retire to live under the stone by the door, sixteen shall roll their ball of dung wherever they please, and the rest shall scurry around at random."

This is by no means all that Mercury has to arrange.

"Laurenza, when she combs her hair, shall lose seventeen hairs and break thirteen, and of these, ten shall grow back within three days and seven shall never grow back at all. Antonio Savolino’s bitch shall conceive five puppies, of which three shall live out their natural lifespan and two shall be thrown away, and of these three the first shall resemble its mother, the second shall be mongrel, and the third shall partly resemble the father and partly resemble Polidoro’s dog. In that moment a cuckoo shall be heard from La Starza, cuckooing twelve times, no more and no fewer, whereupon it shall leave and fly to the ruins of Castle Cicala for eleven minutes, and then shall fly off to Scarvaita, and as for what happens next, we’ll see to it later."

Mercury’s work in this one tiny corner of a tiny corner of the Campagna is still not done.

"That the skirt Mastro Danese is cutting on his board shall come out crooked. That twelve bedbugs shall leave the slats of Costantino’s bed and head toward the pillow: seven large ones, four small, and one middlesized, and as for the one who shall survive until this evening’s candlelight, we’ll see to it. That fifteen minutes thereafter, because of the movement of her tongue, which she has passed over her palate four times, the old lady of Fiurulo shall lose the third right molar in her lower jaw, and it shall fall without blood and without pain, because that molar has been loose for seventeen months. That Ambrogio on the one hundred twelfth thrust shall finally have driven home his business with his wife, but shall not impregnate her this time, but rather another, using the sperm into which the cooked leek that he has just eaten with millet and wine sauce shall have been converted. Martinello’s son is beginning to grow hair on his chest, and his voice is beginning to crack. That Paulino, when he bends over to pick up a broken needle, shall snap the red drawstring of his underpants…."

Conjuring up in hallucinatory detail the hamlet where he was born, Bruno staged a philosophical farce, designed to show that divine providence, at least as popularly understood, is rubbish. The details were all deliberately trivial but the stakes were extremely high: to mock Jesus’ claim that the hairs on one’s head are all numbered risked provoking an unpleasant visit from the thought police. Religion was not a laughing matter, at least for the officials assigned to enforce orthodoxy. They did not treat even trivial jokes lightly. In France, a villager named Isambard was arrested for having exclaimed, when a friar announced after mass that he would say a few words about God, “The fewer the better.” In Spain, a tailor named Garcia Lopez, coming out of church just after the priest had announced the long schedule of services for the coming week, quipped that “When we were Jews, we were bored stiff by one Passover each year, and now each day seems to be a Passover and feast-day.” Garcia Lopez was denounced to the Inquisition.

But Bruno was in England. Despite the vigorous efforts that Thomas More made, during his time as chancellor, to establish one, England had no Inquisition. Though it was still quite possible to get into serious trouble for unguarded speech, Bruno may have felt more at liberty to speak his mind, or, in this case, to indulge in raucous, wildly subversive laughter. That laughter had a philosophical point: once you take seriously the claim that God’s providence extends to the fall of a sparrow and the number of hairs on your head, there is virtually no limit, from the agitated dust motes in a beam of sunlight to the planetary conjunctions that are occurring in the heavens above. “O Mercury,” Sofia says pityingly. “You have a lot to do.

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I don't often listen to these (I was there, after all!), but I wanted to listen to this episode because of the importance of the subject matter.

First (and I am aware that I say it myself...)---this is a good one! I can see this being good reference material on skepticism.

Second, I think this is the kind of episode that demonstrates why this text is so valuable. Cicero's Epicurean material was deliberately 'off my radar' for a long time, but I really have to credit him with doing justice to our school. I am continually impressed with how rich and thorough this stuff is.

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Ep.1p.11U. (pl.), al.

This looks to me like a citation to Usener's Epicurea, no?

As I flip through the pages, I notice that toward the middle of the book we start getting into hefty blocks of Greek text (although there are passages of Greek throughout). So I'm happy to see that there will be a 'flavor' of Philodemus' writing here, at least.

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The Philodemus one looks interesting. I have to ask: Which Sedley book did you get? Look forward to seeing some reviews if you get the chance. Happy reading!

Ask, and you shall receive!

The Sedley book is Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom, which you might have brought to my attention. At any rate I was very impressed with him when we were finishing up the last few episodes of Lucretius on the plague.

Introduction:

It's high time I got my nose in to the Philodemus material--and what better subject for me to begin with than poetry!

I do not have (and am not likely to read) Philodemus' five books On Poetry themselves--the difficulties with the Herculaneum papyri are quite staggering, and that work (under the heading of the Philodemus Translation Series) is still being published in several expensive volumes--but I am delighted to be going through Dr. Michael McOsker's recently-published and expanded dissertation on the same subject. His advisor in this work was Dr. Richard Janko, one translator of those books by Philodemus I mentioned a moment ago.

As Don has done us good service in his chapter-by-chapter review of "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt, I decided to follow the same formula.

Notes:

-There is a short preface; the author notes that On Poetry is one of the two most studied works in Herculaneum, alongside Epicurus' On Nature. He mentions the love of classicists for poetry, and the prejudice among academics toward Epicureanism as two of the reasons for this. Interestingly, he suggest that this prejudice is 'largely abandoned'.

-Describes Philodemus as epigonos, a disciple or follower of Epicurus.

-Two goals in this work; first, to look into Philodemus' poetics. In 'far second place', to consider his poetics in light of Epicurean philosophy.

Now onto the introduction itself. I will try to refrain from writing an outline, and stick instead to the features of interest...

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The aesthetic works [on poetry, music, and rhetoric] are not technical manuals, but are about beliefs and attitudes toward their topics.

This appears to me to be consonant with the approach of the early Epicureans, and may go to shed some light on a few of Epicurus' fragmentary quotations. Of particular interest is the question of how we got from Epicurus' style imitating Euclid, to Lucretius' style imitating Empedocles (wait your turn, Sedley!)

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[Philodemus] first summarized the views of an opponent...then refuted them.

Philodemus' attitude here is polemical; and we may see this same method at work in Lucretius, where he summarized other philosophers' explanation of natural phenomena and then tears down those explanations one by one. We may infer from the titles of the lost works of the early Epicureans that this polemical style was there from the beginning.

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Nowhere is there a trace of the modern "principle of charity" [when interpreting what his opponents meant], except in discussions of earlier Epicureans, who could write no wrong.

The question has come up on the forum whether Philodemus' books should be considered canon. McOsker appears to find him far too deferential to his predecessors, which may be of note. This is immediately followed by a brief excursion into the prolepsis, which McOskar sees as central to one of Philodemus' polemical methods. In other words, if the opponent does not even know what they mean by their words, which we must interpret with our "first understanding", we can reject the opponent as confused.

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[on the structure of the books] A movement from small to large, or most detailed to most global, is easily discernible.

If I read this aright, it is in contrast to what DeWitt identifies as Epicurus' synoptic approach, where the broad strokes of the topic are laid out and the details are filled in later.

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...it is somewhat mystifying that Philodemus does not discuss Plato at all and that Stoics get so little attention. I will suggest later that Philodemus is mopping up opinions that were not handled by other members of the school, i.e. Metrodorus, Zeno of Sidon, or Demetrius Laco.

An interesting idea, which I look forward to hearing more about!

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...Philodemus' opinion that poetry is an inappropriate medium for teaching because of its lack of clarity.

One of the reasons we must compare translations when reading Lucretius. It has been proposed that Lucretius substituted Iphianassa for Iphigenia to fit the meter of the poem. There are many other examples of this, where he coins words or uses archaic forms in order to get around a poetic problem.

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It is a little unusual to have a section in one's introduction about the conclusions of the work...

Not for an Epicurean! This is the synoptic view at work in McOskar's own book.

However, I will not review his conclusions here, apart from one; let us come to them in good time!

That one is this;

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...Philodemus did have an account of poetry and its workings...and he probably took it over from an earlier Epicurean (Metrodorus, as I suggest [later])

A tantalizing prospect! in getting to know Philodemus' views On Poetry, it is possible we are catching a glimpse of a lost work by Metrodorus. A good enough reason to proceed, if we had no other!

...But that's enough for now. There is more to the Introduction, including a long bit on Canonics which will be worth reviewing---next time!

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Compassion tends to make people try to help.

I hope, Scott and Kalosyni, that Diogenes of Oenoanda will allay your concerns on that point!

I have not brought Lucretius into the discussion, and probably there are other omissions as well. But, Alas! I have just received in the mail two books; one by David Sedley, and the other by Michael McOsker; so I'll be turning this evening's attention in that direction!

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Am I forgetting any passage that would justify exactly calling friendship "the greatest pleasure"?

Your suggestion is quite right, Cassius; the formulation I used above is 'stuck in my head', as it were, and I would not be able to cite a source for it. Perhaps the answer lies in translation, or modern commentary, or my own internal phrasing. Pleasure is the good, full stop!

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As we go through the above citations, it will become important to consider exactly what is meant by the term friendship. I have no opinion on that just now, but it is something to think about. On that note, we turn next to Diogenes of Oenoanda!

Please bear in mind that the inscription (translated by Martin Ferguson Smith) is very fragmentary; Even when whole, the inscription was more "arranged" than written. Many of the passages were quotations in whole or in part from early Epicurean works. A few come from Epicurus' surviving letters; a few from Diogenes' own letters, for he was evidently active in a 'community' of Epicureans, or so it seems from the text. A great many more that appear to be quotations come from Epicurean books or maxims that have otherwise been lost to history.

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In this way, [citizens], even though I am not engaging in public affairs, I say these things through the inscription just as if I were taking action, and in an endeavour to prove that what benefits our nature, namely freedom from disturbance, is identical for one and all.

And so, having described the second reason for the inscription, I now go on to mention my mission and to explain its character and nature.

Having already reached the sunset of my life (being almost on the verge of departure from the world on account of old age), I wanted, before being overtaken by death, to compose a [fine] anthem [to celebrate the] fullness [of pleasure] and so to help now those who are well-constituted.

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So (to reiterate what I was saying) observing that these people are in this predicament, I bewailed their behaviour and wept over the wasting of their lives, and I considered it the responsibility of a good man to give [benevolent] assistance, to the utmost of one's ability, to those of them who are well-constituted. [This] is the first reason [for the inscription].

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[There are many who] pursue philosophy for the sake of [wealth and fame], with the aim of procuring these either from private individuals or from kings, by whom philosophy is deemed to be some great and precious possession.

Well, it is not in order to gain any of the above-mentioned objectives that we have embarked upon the same undertaking, but so that we may enjoy happiness through attainment of the goal craved by nature.

The identity of this goal and how neither wealth can furnish it, nor political fame, nor royal office, nor a life of luxury and sumptuous banquets, nor pleasures of choice love-affairs, nor anything else, while philosophy [alone can secure it], we [shall now explain after setting the whole question before you. For we have had this writing inscribed in public] not [for ourselves,] but [for you, citizens, so that we might render it available to all of you in an easily accessible form without oral instruction.] And ... you ...

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and we contrived this in order that, even while [sitting at] home, [we might be able to exhibit] the goods of philosophy, not to all people here [indeed], but to those of them who are civil-spoken; and not least we did [this] for those who are called «foreigners,» though they are not really so. For, while the various segments of the earth give different people a different country, the whole compass of this world gives all people a single country, the entire earth, and a single home, the world

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I say both now and always, shouting out loudly to all Greeks and non-Greeks, that pleasure is the end of the best mode of life, while the virtues, which are inopportunely messed about by these people (being transferred from the place of the means to that of the end), are in no way an end, but the means to the end.

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[So we shall not achieve wisdom universally], since not all are capable of it. But if we assume it to be possible, then truly the life of the gods will pass to men. For everything will be full of justice and mutual love, and there will come to be no need of fortifications or laws and all the things which we contrive on account of one another. As for the necessities derived from agriculture, since we shall have no slaves at that time (for indeed [we ourselves shall plough] and dig and tend [the plants] and [divert] rivers and watch over [the crops), we shall] ... such things as ... not ... time ..., and such activities, [in accordance with what is] needful, will interrupt the continuity of the [shared] study of philosophy; for [the] farming operations [will provide what our] nature wants.

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... [all] men [are able to save] themselves, [with the help from us and to effect a complete dispersal of misfortunes affecting the soul (?) and to do away with disturbing emotions and fears].

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It is not nature, which is the same for all, that makes people noble or ignoble, but their actions and dispositions.

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[I am confident, as I address the inscription to you,] my friends, [that many will become healthy in soul. Why do I say this]? What in the world are [the remedies]? The [inscription], dearest friends, [will afford help both] to us [ourselves] and [to others; for I produced it for the benefit of my fellow-citizens; and] I produced [it] above all [from a desire to help our descendants], in case [they should walk up and down this stoa, as well as showing myself benevolent towards those strangers among us [who are well constituted]. And being perfectly aware that it is through knowledge of matters, concerning both physics and the emotions, which I explained in the places below, that [tranquillity of mind comes about, I know well that I have advertised the remedies that bring salvation].

I have underlined the salient passages; key words that it might be useful to know the Greek translations of I have put into red. It might be worth mentioning in passing that Epicurus' name in Greek means helper or ally.

Empathy and Sympathy are Greek words originally. Don will be of more assistance on that point!

I thought I remembered you reading Eusebius, Don! A passage of his came up in the podcast recording this morning, perhaps you'll have some insight on that.

In a recent book discussion on Frances Wright's A Few Days in Athens, Scott was quite right to bring up the question as to whether 'compassion' was truly evident in Epicurus' teachings in the classical texts. Kalosyni had likewise raised the question in a forum post in the thread for the discussion. My purpose here is twofold; first, to thank both of you for raising the question (thank you!); and second, to reopen the discussion here with a handful of preliminary citations.

It is quite easy to demonstrate that Epicurus was motivated at least in part by concern for his fellow man; and clear, too, that he extended his concern beyond the pale of the professional philosopher. His introduction to the letter to Pythocles states his intent:

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Therefore, as I have finished all my other writings I now intend to accomplish your request, feeling that these arguments will be of value to many other persons as well, and especially to those who have but recently tasted the genuine inquiry into nature, and also to those who are involved too deeply in the business of some regular occupation.

The letter to Menoeceus expands on this further;

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LET no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul. And the man who says that the age for philosophy has either not yet come or has gone by is like the man who says that the age for happiness is not yet come to him, or has passed away. Wherefore both when young and old a man must study philosophy, that as he grows old he may be young in blessings through the grateful recollection of what has been, and that in youth he may be old as well, since he will know no fear of what is to come.

So much for the letters. This is perhaps not the full-throated endorsement of compassion we would like to see, but the idea of the thing is beginning to take shape; Epicurus believed that in sharing his philosophy, he was helping to bring good health to the souls of all who would listen. He did not seek to convince only those in traditional philosophical circles, but to bring this 'true health' even to the commoners; scholars and working folk, young and old.

Proceeding in good order, we turn next to the Principle Doctrines:

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27. Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.

28. The same conviction which inspires confidence that nothing we have to fear is eternal or even of long duration, also enables us to see that even in our limited conditions of life nothing enhances our security so much as friendship.

There is friendship, then; the greatest pleasure, and surest path to happiness.

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31. Natural justice is a symbol or expression of usefullness, to prevent one person from harming or being harmed by another.

And a sense of justice, too; predicated not on morality, or Natural Law, or divine intervention--all such suppositions being either false or arbitrary--but on harm. This is the kind of justice that is blind--that protects all people, not merely the pious or the powerful.

And in the Vatican Sayings;

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29. 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.

Here we begin to see a glimpse of a missionary attitude--the philosophy can bring help to anyone.

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52. Friendship dances around the world bidding us all to awaken to the recognition of happiness.

66. We show our feeling for our friends' suffering, not with laments, but with thoughtful concern.

78. The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter an immortal one.

79. He who is calm disturbs neither himself nor another.

And we may hope that the great blessings of friendship may be available to all.

Next, we take the testimony of others; it is fitting that we start with Menander, as he and Epicurus were 'classmates'.

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

And Diogenes Laertius;

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[Epicurus] has abundance of witnesses to attest his unsurpassed goodwill to all men--his native land, which honoured him with statues in bronze ; his friends, so many in number that they could hardly be counted by whole cities, and indeed all who knew him [...] the School itself which, while nearly all the others have died out, continues for ever without interruption through numberless reigns of one scholarch after another; his gratitude to his parents, his generosity to his brothers, his gentleness to his servants, as evidenced by the terms of his will and by the fact that they were members of the School, the most eminent of them being the aforesaid Mys ; and in general, his benevolence to all mankind.

Lucian;

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But secondly I was still more concerned (a preference which you will be very far from resenting) to strike a blow for Epicurus, that great man whose holiness and divinity of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him.

I'll expand on some of this tomorrow---my phone armed with more battery-life!

Chapter 2 Outline (slightly out of order with the text)

I. In the house of Epicurus, Theon meets three Scholars and two Problems

A. Sofron

1. Too eager to please (or too eager to trust?)

A. First to greet Theon

B. "premature affection"

C. "I hope [Theon] will judge all things, and all people, with his own understanding, and not with that of Epicurus"

B. Metrodorus

1. Too zealous to condemn (and too hesitant to forgive?)

A. "there are vices, different from those he saved me from, which, if not more unworthy, are perhaps more unpardonable, because committed with less temptation"

B. "Are we not prone,” said the sage, “to extenuate our foibles, even while condemning them? And does it not flatter our self-love, to weigh our own vices against those of more erring neighbors?"

C. Leontion

1. Appropriate; her bearing and conduct is in harmony with philosophy

A. "But I would not particularize Theophrastus for sometimes forgetting this, as I have never known but one who always remembers it." [on arguing with care and modesty]

B. "Such grace! such majesty! More than all such intellect! And this — this was the Leontium Timocrates had called a prostitute without shame or measure!"

II. Epicurus answers the two philosophical problems

A. Problem; “I know not,” resumed Leontium, “that I should this evening have so frequently thought Theophrastus wrong, if he had not made me so continually feel that he thought himself right. Must I seek the cause of this in the writer’s or the reader’s vanity?”

1. “Perhaps,” said the master, smiling, ” you will find that it lies in both.”

2. "The mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener, as the truth itself."

B. Problem: “Whether the vicious were more justly objects of indignation or of contempt: Metrodorus argued for the first, and I for the latter. Let the master decide.”

1. “He will give his opinion certainly; but that is not decision.”

2. "Had I regarded the vicious with indignation, I had never gained one to virtue. Had I viewed them with contempt, I had never sought to gain one.”

III. Zeno's Virtue and the lies of Timocrates

A. Theon: "I have long owned the power of virtue, but surely till this night I never felt its persuasion.”

B. Epicurus, on Timocrates; “And so I do. I answer him in my life. The only way in which a philosopher should ever answer a fool, or, as in this case, a knave.”

C. Epicurus on Zeno; "Don’t you know that who quarrels with your doctrine, must always quarrel with your practice? Nothing is so provoking as that a man should preach viciously and act virtuously.”