Posts by Joshua

The book is Anabasis, and it really is a fun yarn. An exemplary story of the Greek spirit and character.

Welcome! I suppose your name signifies Darius the Great? I only ask because the story of the sons of Darius II related by Xenophon is perhaps my favorite story from the ancient world.

Analogies are always flawed. It is certainly the Epicurean position that there are a finite number of kinds of atoms, but an infinite quantity of each kind.

The idea of an infinite alphabet is one I can't really wrap my head around. And of course, for an alphabet and a language to carry meaning implies a subject capable of interpreting meaning. Atoms and their compounded objects don't require a subject.

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I think that, if we look back to Dr. Greenblatt's "the swerve", he states, I forget the page (anyone?) that Christian scholars did make an attempt to "reconcile" the philosophy of Lucretius (namely, Epicureanism) but couldn't because the Epicurean view that the soul dies with us, since it is dispersed into its constituent atoms when we die, is antithetical to Christian theology.

Greenblatt cites several examples. I don't have page numbers, but I can recall a few names.

Marsilio Ficino—Fifteenth century Florentine humanist. Wrote a commentary on Lucretius; but, seeing where it was leading him, he burned it. He devoted the rest of his life to translating Plato into Latin, and reconciling his philosophy with Christianity.

Thomas More—16th century cleric of the English Renaissance. After reading The New World by Amerigo Vespucci—a book that described the natives as "Epicureans", who "live according to Nature", and whose lives "are completely devoted to pleasure"—More used the conceit to explore an enlightened society beyond the edge of the map that was free of the social ills plaguing England at the time. And yet even in Utopia, one is barred from honor, office, and social status for two crimes; first, to believe that the soul likewise perishes with the body. And second, to believe that the Universe is the random sport of chance.

To paraphrase Greenblatt; More systematically builds up a more enlightened and Epicurean society, and then proceeds to carve its heart out.

There are also the obvious examples of Bruno and Gassendi.

Regarding "The God of the Gaps", Neil Degrasse Tyson expresses it well;

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If that's how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on.

And to put Elayne's point more concretely, we can look to an argument made in DRN. Lucretius makes explicit the analogy that compounds of atoms are a kind of coded information, just as latin letters come together to form words. But in order for this to work out, there must be a finite library or alphabet of atomic 'letters'. If they could be infinitely divided, no such set would be possible. In this instance, infinity really does lead to zero.

A feature of interest in the discussion is the idea that atoms were not only thought to be physically indivisible: atoms were also thought to be conceptually indivisible.

Yes, it's very tantalizing! If I had known about this 2 years ago I could have certainly made it through.

I didn't see Darwin's grave when I was in London, but there's a fine statue of him at the head of the staircase in the Museum of Natural History.

Great project, Oscar; and great to see you here again. Your sig line is ever-welcoming, and ever-welcome!

Your 'pilgrimage' reminds me; there's a grave in the States that I am hoping to see one day. Frances Wright is interred in—of all places!—Cincinnati, OH.

Journaling is an excellent use of time. One of my favorites kept a journal for over 20 years, that ran to 2 million words before he died; a treasure trove of thought and literature. He had much to say for it, but here's the passage I like best;

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Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable. No day will have been wholly misspent, if one sincere, thoughtful page has been written. Let the daily tide leave some deposit on these pages, as it leaves sand and shells on the shore…this may be a calendar of the ebbs and flows of the soul; and on these sheets as a beach, the waves may cast up pearls and seaweed.” Henry Thoreau (journal entry, July 6, 1840)

I'm envious, Elayne!

The odd thing is that religiosity in my family grows more serious and overt as time goes on. I mostly stopped going to Mass in high school/college, which wasn't ever a big deal. There was another atheist in the family; now he's an evangelical christian. My own cynical suspicion is that this gradual resurgence of faith is at least partially a function of political clustering in a polarizing media climate—a way of policing the boundaries between the 'us' and the 'them'. Perhaps it isn't so odd after all.

Any road, I didn't go today, and casually mentioned that I won't be there Christmas Eve either.

As we come into the important holiday week of the Jewish and Christian calendars, this may be an issue for some of us in the coming days. I've recently planted myself nearer to family, and so for me, the problem of prayer has been a daily fly in the ointment. Tomorrow is a Mass day, which puts an exceptionally fine point on the problem.

Catholics these days get "Confirmed" in their faith at about the age of 16. I had no faith at the age of 16, but this was no obstacle. I would have called myself an agnostic at the time, and the path of least resistance was to show up, let the bishop put his hand on my forehead, and say the meaningless words.

Sometime years later, but still many years ago, I stopped taking the Eucharist. I haven't taken it since. If by chance I were asked, I could offer a citation from the Catechism—which I alone of my family have ever bothered to actually read—that would satisfy Catholic Canon Law and possibly silence a few wagging tongues.

But the truth, of course, is that neither the Catechism nor Canon Law mean a jot to me. I have always thought that there was something to be said for tact. From an Epicurean point of view, there is still more to be said for candor. Well, I realized today that what I needed was a very brief précis that avoided certain conversational landmines—atheism, as an example—and also promised mild pedantry, so as to disinvite further inquiry. Since I'm new to the area, and I haven't been so close to family since college, the time to save my Sundays is now.

And in the end it's rather simple; you may choose Athens, or you may choose Jerusalem. But you must choose.

Happy 20th!

I moved to the Emerald Coast of Florida last Wednesday, and I've been rather busy as a full time land-survey rodman, and part-time volunteer farm-hand. Haven't had time for even a line of Lucretius, since the plane out of Sheridan!

Looking forward to a lazy rainy weekend.

Very thorough, Hiram. Thank you!

Stott (a painter who until now was completely obscure to me) has another work of interest. His "Venus Born of the Sea Foam" begs comparison to "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli. In Botticelli's scene the erotic energy of Venus is tempered by Classical order; the demurring and discrete goddess doted upon by the personifications of nature on the shore of a calm sea.

In Stott's vision, Venus emerges from restless, turbulent waters with a naked, wild and celtic air. As described by Lucretius, a "bird of the air" is first to proclaim her. Almost the only nod to Classical order in this painting is the empty shell of a chambered nautilus covering her breast in reflection, and lying nearly out of scene.

Two more excellent finds, Charles. I thought the dialogue was new to me, but I found that the first portion was familiar. I don't know where I might have encountered it.

Having now read the whole of it, I found it a trifle frivolous; but there are passages in it of a higher calibre.

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By indifference to all who are indifferent to us; by taking joyfully the benefit that comes spontaneously; by wishing no more intensely for what is a hair’s-breadth beyond our reach than for a draught of water from the Ganges; and by fearing nothing in another life.

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There is no easy path leading out of life, and few are the easy ones that lie within it. I would adorn and smoothen the declivity, and make my residence as commodious as its situation and dimensions may allow; but principally I would cast under-foot the empty fear of death.

Excellent topic, Nate! He is of course using "cult" as a Classicist here, free of its modern sinister connotations.

To my mind there are two questions here. Could the Epicurean system of thought have developed independent of Epicurus? I should think the answer to that—at least in broad strokes—would be, "Of course!" Already in Greece, prior to Epicurus, there was atomism (Democritus), indeterminism (Aristotle), hedonism (Aristippus), and cosmic pluralism (Anaximander). There's no "secret sauce"; most of what Epicurus taught is self-evident, or else arrived at through very simple argumentation. He was merely, as DeWitt writes elsewhere, "the first to survey the whole field"; and to synthesize from it a universal world-philosophy.

And, is there any value for the student of a system in giving honor to the founder? Again I should answer "yes"; indeed that is Epicurus' own position, given in the Vatican Sayings;

"Honoring a sage is itself a great good to the one who honors." VS 32

But I think that position is another we could have arrived at without him. There is pleasure in the honest emotion of gratitude, if nothing else; and there is fellowship in belonging to a "school". With the Epicureans in particular, we are told that they called him Soter (saviour), carved him in statuary, and bore his likeness on signet rings. If Lucretius and Diogenes had not felt this kind of devotion, the fragments surviving from the Epicurean tradition would be paltry indeed.

This begins to look like two interconnected paths to the same summit; analytical thinkers like Polyaenus and Thomas Jefferson would be happy to throw themselves into the work of studying the system. Passionate missionaries like Diogenes of Oenoanda and Frances Wright, into studying the man who wrought it. And in Lucretius, the two streams blend into something like perfection.

But here's an important point; with a religion like Christianity, devotion is the main thing and good practice is insufficient. In the system devised by Epicurus, practice is the essential key. Devotion is useful primarily for sustaining interest and emotional engagement in the practice.

Regarding the wellness of Primitive versus Civilized Man, the relevant passage in Lucretius is V:988-1010. He contrasts the two using three specific examples. To summarize:

1. Primitive humans were on balance more likely to die by predation or festering wounds. Civilized humans are seldom devoured by beasts, but often die in droves at sea or on the battlefield.

2. Primitive humans suffered from a lack of food. Civilized humans, from overabundance ("penuria" vs "copia"). What the disease is that results from rerum copia is not specified; gout has long been thought of as a 'rich man's disease'.

3. Primitive humans unwittingly poisoned themselves. Civilized humans kill themselves [and, it is implied, each other] with deliberate skill.

There's no question that civilized humans today are much healthier than their primitive ancestors. But for a 1st century Roman the arithmetic was quite different. There's an amusing story in Caesar's De Bello Gallico about a Gallic chief who forbade the import of goods, especially wine, from Rome. He didn't want his hardy frontier tribe to succumb to the ills of Roman culture and civilization.

Desiderius Erasmus; "The Epicurean"; 1545; Dialogue by the famous Dutch Christian Humanist, arguing that Christianity is the only way to a life of real pleasure.

Robert Burns; "Contented wi' Little and Cantie wi' Mair"; 1795; Poem in Scottish dialect blending Epicurean and Stoic themes.

Robert Frost; "Lucretius Versus the Lake Poets"; 1947; A poem on the meaning of the word nature, contrasting Lucretius with the British Romantics

Rome is a crime scene.

This is the feeling that was building in me by degrees, as I was led from one crumbling monument to another. To the Forum, laid in ruins; to the Colloseum, quarried for stone or stripped of marble to make lime; to the Pantheon, where the bronze ceiling of the portico was pillaged to be melted down for cannon by a warlike imperialist pope. And in the Sistine Chapel, where a guide explained that a fervor over nudity arising from the Council of Trent resulted in a commission for the painter Daniele da Volterra, who in 1565 scraped away the work of Michelangelo and painted loincloths where there had been genitals.

I have not been to Rome in years; but I thought of da Volterra again today, as I was reading a dialogue by the Dutch Humanist Erasmus called "The Epicurean".

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[...] If they are Epicureans that live pleasantly, none are more truly Epicureans, than those that live holily and religiously. And if we are taken with Names, no Body more deserves the Name of an Epicurean, than that adorable Prince of Christian Philosophers; for Ἐπίκουρος in Greek signifies as much as an Helper. Therefor when the Law of Nature was almost erased by Vice; and the Law of Moses rather incited than than cured Lusts, when the Tyrant Satan ruled without Controul in the World, he alone afforded present Help to perishing Mankind. So that they are mightily mistaken that foolishly represent Christ, as by Nature, to be a rigid melancholick Person, and that he invited us to an unpleasant Life; when he alone show'd the Way to the most comfortable Life in the World [...].

You can almost hear the paint-scraper as you read. It is Epicurean philosophy neutered of its physics. Gouged of its decisive rejection of religion and fear of death. Excised, and painted over again with an implausible and alien veneer of "Natural Law" and ridiculous, childish fable.

And yet for all that, Erasmus and the learned men like him were essential to the birth of modernity. He argued against the death penalty for heretics. He subtly questioned many Catholic traditions that had no basis in scripture. He and his fellow Humanists were scholars of the antiquities, and provided a crucial link in the chain of textual preservation and criticism that allowed these books to survive.

In our ongoing project of fostering an authentic Epicurean tradition, we're going to continue to encounter these scholars. I don't have any feelings about them that aren't mixed; all I can do is remain wary of the paint-scraper.

I hadn't seen this post when I wrote that, Cassius, so I didn't realize you had already delved into the etymology.

I wouldn't have recognized the Greek term in the first place if Greenblatt had not discussed it in the Getty lecture, at the 15:00 mark in this video. So that's a good place to start.

I notice from your post that it was used in that sense in the book of Ecclesiastes. That's earlier than I would have supposed.

Very good! George Santayana put it this way;

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This double experience of mutation and recurrence, an experience at once sentimental and scientific, soon brought with it a very great thought, perhaps the greatest thought that mankind has ever hit upon, and which was the chief inspiration of Lucretius. It is that all we observe about us, and ourselves also, may be so many passing forms of a permanent substance.

"The greatest thought mankind has ever hit upon."

It can be difficult to appreciate from this distance what a revolution in human thought this was.

http://monadnock.net/santayana/lucretius.html