Posts by Joshua

For the "beginning student" those are excellent choices. For a curious but less committed person, I might start them on Frances Wright. If they bite, they'll be well-primed for the real stuff. If not, they can console themselves with having enjoyed a pleasant novel meanwhile.

DeWitt we must always regard as essential. I sometimes wonder if he has family alive who knew him, and whether they know how grateful many of us are for his work.

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In addition to acknowledging that quote, we must dispel the fear that we will not accomplish what we have wanted prior to dying.

I like the echo of Montaigne here;

"I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still less of my unfinished garden."

Montaigne was a brilliant Latinist (it was his first language, due to an unusual education prepared for him by his father), and was an early Renaissance figure to not only read Lucretius but praise him highly, and quote him liberally in his own essays.

Very nice, Charles! It'll be great to have your perspective here. I especially love your mention of Hume. It is worth remembering that the celebrated and notorious Scottish agnostic was born in Edinburgh just 14 years after the last British heretic was executed in the same city (Thomas Aikenhead; a lad of 20 and a student at the university, hanged for blasphemy). We owe them a great deal, and others like them.

I'm a northwest Iowa boy myself.

Hiram had posted a good research paper on Epicurean theory of mind contrasted with Cartesian dualism. I only mention it because we so rarely see Epicurus portrayed faithfully in research papers around here

Michele also posted updates on the festival they recently celebrated. Attendance was rather impressive!

Other than that, thanks to Cassius and the mods for enduring these tech hiccups and keeping things running!

Rome is a strange city to visit. One feels that every important historical structure was either a.) Destroyed piecemeal so the stones could be reused in churches, or b.) Preserved by being made into a church.

The Colloseum saw both sides of this. It had been pillaged for centuries for stone when a scholarly cleric (and by all accounts a good man) titled Pope Benedict XIV declared it a sacred site of martyrdom.

As for Elayne's post; well, I sighed with comfort just reading it! The kind of sigh that comes from walking into a light, airy and well-ordered room.

My friend is section hiking the Superior Hiking Trail in Minnesota. He'll be tackling the AT one of these years, I have no doubt. Me...well, I'll stick to reading Bill Bryson for now!

A Christian once defined his religion to me thus;

Salvation;

By Grace alone,

Through Faith alone,

In Christ alone.

Brevity invites problems, as we well know. But were I to aim for that level of terseness it would go something like this:

Happiness;

In just one natural life--

In one uncreated, everlasting

And endless cosmos--

Through pleasure, friendship,

And fearless inquiry

Into the nature of things.

This one will be hit or miss for me, as I am at a receiving dock right now; but I'll download Skype just in case. In any event I hope we're all having a pleasant time! (A rainy morning here in east central Ohio for me).

-joshua

Huh.

Either I seriously misunderstand 'desire' in Epicurean philosophy, or this author is totally misapplying the concept.

Here's what I mean. When we talk about desire with regards to it being natural and necessary, surely what we mean is that the experience of a desire is natural (or not), while the satisfaction of a desire is necessary (or not). [Am I wrong here!?]

Is enjoying food natural? The question doesn't really make sense. The desire to eat is natural. The satisfaction of that desire is necessary. But the enjoyment of the food itself is just a feeling of pleasure. That's the confusion this paper continually suffers.

Is it natural to desire to HAVE children? I could make a case either way. But the pleasure of loving those children if you DO have them is, 1.) An involuntary feeling, like all pleasures; and 2.) always a good in itself.

What a bizarre paper to read! "Should I love my children?"

This is really good stuff, guys! Thank you.

So regardless which translation one favors, there are said to be occasions when it is proper for the wise to marry, and occasions when it is proper for the wise not to marry. As I said above, I personally think the caution is against marriage and child-rearing in general.

Here's a few reasons why that might be the case--that is, why marriage and child-rearing might threaten the hedonic calculus.

It Changes Friendship from a Virtue to an Obligation

Friendship is great! The more we share it, the better it becomes. It's a hedonist's force multiplier, and you can't really have too much of it. Marriage, on the other hand, is structurally disposed toward jealousy and possessiveness. Not all marriages will succumb! But by laying claim to a person, we instantly invite suspicion towards others who share their time. Moreover, a marriage entails responsibilities that friendships don't have. Sure, marriages are enriched by joys like sex, financial stability and domestic teamwork in compensation, but by complicating the friendship in these ways we invite a huge liability exposure. Their debt is your debt. Their sickness is yours to tend. Their mistakes are yours to correct.

Grief was the Historical Norm

Nowadays children are likely to outlive their parents. This is as it should be! But historically this has not been so reliable. How many Greek sons did Alexander the Great send to their graves? How many orphans did he make? How many widows? How many plagues, shipwrecks, murders, arsons, etc. did 4th Century BC Athens endure? It was Tennyson, in his great elegy for a deceased friend, who concluded that "t'was better to have loved and lost/ then never to have loved at all". But this could not stop his long-protracted grief.

Greek Inheritance Law Caused a lot of Problems

The Greeks were a liberal (in the classical sense) and forward-thinking society. Unlike Medieval Europe, where primogeniture was the order of the day, and the first son inherited the title and estate, the Greeks divided their inheritance among all their children. Unfortunately they did this literally; the land was parceled out into smaller units generation after generation. The same problem is currently plaguing America's Native American Reservations, where the parcels become too small to use and exacerbate existing poverty.

The Greeks took a novel approach to this problem; every so often, the city-state would buy out the peasants and ship them off to a distant coastline. This they ambitiously called Colonization. The family of Neocles were of such a kind; their ancestors bundled up and sent from Athens to Samos. Sometime later (while Epicurus served his mandatory military duty) they were bundled up again and sent to Lampsacus. A family man had a much harder time of it.

When Marriage Goes Bad, it Goes Really Bad

I've seen one sibling through a divorce. Another is going through one now. Their gender and personality are very different, but it has affected both of them the same. It's been awful. The constant stress, the uncertainty, the sense of loss, shame, depression, and failure...it all really piles on. They both lost weight to an unhealthy degree. They had no stomach for food--for weeks, and months! They lost friends. They struggled to keep the plates wobbling at work. It's an ugly, painful process.

But Sometimes it's Great!

My parents are still together after 30+ years. They are still each the others' best friend, and most reliable support system.

Conclusion

What it really comes down to for the Epicurean sage is this; "Do not spoil what you have by yearning for what you have not." I already know that I'm capable of living a happy, blessed life while single. Marriage...well, it's a huge risk. I'm not saying don't take it! But walk in with eyes wide open.

At my brother's wedding and after my sister was already engaged, my father asked me if the occasion was "giving me any ideas". After witnessing two nasty divorces, the philosopher in me is getting closer to an answer.

Good evening! I read your post earlier in the day, but had not the time to respond properly.

First, to begin with the Greek. The translations seem not to disagree, really, but the lack of clarity comes from the original language (which is highly unusual; Greek is an excellent language for drawing clear distinctions, and derives subtlety from a massive lexicon, which is why Lucretius laments the poverty of Latin.)

But in this passage, the Greek problem of conjunctions is a real stumbling-block. Here's the relevant clause (no accent marks);

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και μηδε και γαμησειν και τεκνοποιησειν τον σοφον...

The words και and μηδε are conjunctions. If you're counting, that's half of the words! here's the problem; Ancient Greek uses και indiscriminately. It can mean and, but, nor, or, either, or neither. Which variation is meant depends on context.

In this case, we have three important context clues. First is the word μηδε; it provides the negative. So the words και μηδε here mean something like and nor. Following this reading, the second και most sensibly means either. The third και then means or. So a literal word for word transliteration would run something like this;

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And | nor | either | will marry | or | will bear children | the | sage

The second clue is the preceding paragraph, where Diogenes is listing other things a wise man shouldn't do. This item is clearly meant to add to that list.

The third context clue is the sentence that follows. This is the sentence that mentions 'occasional circumstances' when marriage might be advisable. This sentence qualifies the clause we've been looking at, and it lacks a negative. Which is good, because the sentence it qualifies already has a negative!

My (amateur) conclusion is that the Hicks translation in the Loeb edition is accurate;

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Nor, again, will the wise man marry and rear a family...Occasionally he may marry owing to special circumstances in his life.

Thanks to the Perseus Project for that bit of pencil-work. My own reply to follow...

I'm somewhat disappointed there's no audiobook for Blanning's biography, I was hoping to have a listen!

Frederick the Great figured prominently in some of the European History courses I took, but I had no idea of this side of him.

It is a very large subject, Cassius! There's enough here for a lifetime of close reading. My little Latin pocket Dictionary needs an upgrade, though

I've been going through Lucretius line by line in Latin. (Latin Per Diem on YouTube is an excellent resource for this if you're curious.) I noticed an interesting pattern in the early lines;

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Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas,

alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signa

quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis

concelebras...

The verb concelebras clearly acts on mare and terras as the objects. But the word also seems to echo aurally (to my ear at least) the earlier phrase, caeli subter labentia signa. (Under the sliding signs of heaven [i.e. the stars]). I spent four years studying poetry, and it's possible I'm reading too much into this; but it seems to me that the poet is attempting to draw a connection between these two elements in the text. Note the significant consonants.

Caeli subter LaBentia Signa

ConceLeBraS

If there is a connection, it's a fascinating one. Concelebras means "cause to teem" or "cause to be filled with", here in reference to Venus filling the sea and land with life. But the subtle echo with "the sliding stars of heaven" might stretch the verb here, to include the indirect object. Thus, under my new interpretation, he is hinting that Venus (meaning generative passion) also "caused to teem" with life the other worlds!

As a side note; I've tried to "crack" Latin in a number of different ways over the years, but I've never studied it with so much pleasure as when I study Lucretius. My process here is to

1. Memorize sections of text

2. Learn to "read" each sentence in Latin for understanding, in Latin.

3. Work through the passage throughout the day (like when I'm driving), saying each word slowly and really "seeing" it in my mind. So when I read mare navigerum, I "see" the sea laden with ships instead of thinking "sea laden with ships" in English in my head.

And even if I never learn enough Latin to read Cicero, I will in compensation always have a little Lucretius wherever I go. It's been great fun!

-josh

Cassius Here's that¹

Godfrey I have taken the easy way out, haven't I.

The place to begin here is in separating the content of the claim from the sensation of the claimant. I am far from denying the mystical experience as a sensation. If you experienced something incredible while you were on acid, my explanation will be simple; that's the sensation the brain experiences while on acid. The sensation is genuine. But the "vision", far from imparting something intelligible, merely reveals the physical nature of the mind (or 'soul', if we prefer). Consciousness emerges from the neurochemistry of the brain. All we had to do to alter the mind, was to alter the neurochemistry.

When neurologists scan the brains of accomplished Buddhist monks in meditation, they see interesting things. Unusual patterns of activity, suggesting that these practitioners are able to exploit neuroplasticity² so that compassion is their native response rather than fear, contempt, ego, etc.

This is good news for the practice of philosophy as a contemplative tradition, But it isn't evidence in support of other Buddhist claims, like karma and rebirth, the six realms, or nirvana.

I hope that clarifies my position somewhat. I have to go work now!

-josh

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¹https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0167

²https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive…passion/397706/

I'm not quite sure how to proceed here. The trouble with any 'theory of mysticism' is that mysticism seems to take over at precisely the moment where language falls apart.

I left the threshold of Buddhism because Buddhists can't bring themselves to speak clearly about rebirth and reincarnation. I have a great deal of sympathy for Thomas Jefferson here;

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.

On the other hand I've read deeply in mystical literature, and I am far from regretful of it. I have found by experience that Thoreau is as far as I can go in that direction while keeping on the right side of "bullshit".

I can be elevated, even comforted, by the metaphor of the poet; but talk of miracles, and I fall promptly on my face.

"Our least deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity."

"We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them."

-thoreau

It's been a pleasure, Oscar! College is an incredible privilege, and one that I mostly squandered; be bold in friendship and daring in happiness, and keep your nose to the wind for every fresh prospect!

I'm certain I needn't tell you to keep studying philosophy.

-josh

Happy belated 20th! I've been rather busy with family things since I've been 'home' (at a friends house). I attended a Catholic Mass for the first time in a decade. I was an altar boy once, but I discovered that I have forgotten nearly everything!

That's the importance of having a 'practice'. If we study a bit more each day, intoning the words and internalizing their meanings, and really realizing those teachings in our lives, we will by degrees achieve that which is the object of our school.

I hoped to have something recorded this week, but we'll have to be patient a bit longer I hit the road again tomorrow.

Immortal blessings!

-josh

I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek at the mention of 'duty'

I'll be the first to admit that my reading of Stoic texts is somewhat dated. Meditations was actually the first philosophy book I ever read, some 12 or 13 years ago, and was the nearest thing to my 'handbook' as I transitioned from High School to College. I had a list of Benjamin Franklin's 12 virtues from his Autobiography tacked on to the corkboard in my dormitory. And when I went to Rome after Sophomore year I made a point of paying my respects to Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill, as well as visiting his Column.

There are things I'm happy to have "grown out of", as it were; and pessimism is one of them. It will be argued that Stoicism is not actually pessimistic; that it is not dour, but the shortest --if steepest--path to joy. Buddhists will say the same of their monks.

But if pleasure is the end, let us make pleasure the path. Not the straight and narrow way to the monastic mountaintop, difficult to trod--

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where Stoics speak only to Cynics, and Cynics speak only to God--¹

but the low and easy sun-dappled lane through fair country. Do you doubt the way? Let Epicurus be your guide.²

Welcome to the forum!

-josh

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¹Tongue once again firmly in cheek

²Frances Wright, A Few Days in Athens