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Pleasure could be defined as what anyone chooses.
The same could be said about desire. I find it to be extremely reductive and almost gimmicky to reduce a lot of other ways of life and decisions on the grounds of "Oh you were still pursuing pleasure or acting on your desires; you just didn't know it." Because if that were truly the case, then the affected person would simply keep to their ways and would stay unswayed.
I've been searching for ways to strengthen the infant argument for some time now. I think you're correct in casting scrutiny upon its value in instructing others. One of the largest hurdles of speaking to others about the philosophy is trying to get someone to recognize the value of pleasure and why it shouldn't be shunned.
We may very well take to pointing to nature as "proof" but to someone unconvinced or highly skeptical, we're pointing to infantile bodily reactions and processes, something not wholly convincing in itself.
A pretty decent article if a bit biased, but at least those biases are plainly visible. However, you'd think a libertarian would be keen to hammer down the notion of justice and the social contract. The two philosophies in that regard have considerable overlap with each other.
On a more serious note, and something I suspect that even the Epicureans of the Garden in Athens had to deal with was the balance of free and open admission and that of secure, closed circles of members. The problem with the Discord was that its population was majority Stoic by an overwhelming margin. Some were platonist, or Nietzscheans, or Christian, atheist, etc. yet the Stoics were by far the most populous, and it seems that they have flooded a good chunk of the public "intellectual avenues" online, to the point, that most of the server partnerships became inextricably linked with Stoic-aligned groups and servers.
While their mere presence alone was not perfect, the issue came with random users speaking to others in the open general chat. Those random users claimed to represent or claimed to be able to speak with some matter of authority or clarity on the matter of the philosophy. As such, the ad nauseum dichotomy between gluttonous hedonist and ascetic was constantly repeated, there were too few Epicureans to rebuff the constant claims.
Unlike the forums here there were no set tiers and no confidentiality beyond myself and my staff members, as everything would be sent via private messages on Discord itself. Meaning that, even if there were a significant number of Epicureans on the Epicurean Discord (a crazy idea it seems), there was hardly the infrastructure to maintain and keep them in close communication.
So, my advice is to keep well protected safeguards around your community.
Lessons to be learned from my old Discord server: don't let 95% of your Epicurean community consist of non-Epicureans.
Welcome @Faunus!
Welcome @TaasEart!
I can make it tonight starting from 7pm EST.
Writing this at work so consider this my rough draft.
It is safe to say that a good chunk of us on the forums are introverts. Any diverse group or community will have them; however, I'm intending this thread for those who consider themselves hermits, recluses, or extreme introverts, especially the unregistered lurkers on here. I'm also writing from personal experience, as aside from a tiny, select handful, such as immediate family and my romantic partner, I do not feel the need to speak to anyone else unless it's for the sake of my pleasure. My own absences from the community here can be explained by this behavior.
Epicurean Philosophy is simultaneously well-disposed towards both extroverts and introverts. To the regulars that is no surprise, but more often than not casual explication of the philosophy emphasizes emotional, social conduct if not from Epicurus' Garden, then the Principal Doctrines that talk of friendship. Meanwhile what little is mentioned of a solitary life, is typically on the ascetic side: why engage in the public hustle if removing pain and becoming tranquil is you goal? Why not sit alone with your bread and water? As is usual, the popular and public approach is a gross oversimplification of the options an Epicurean has for themselves.
In his Biography of Epicurus, Diogenes Laertius references Epicurus as writing to Pythocles: "Hoist all sail, my dear boy, and steer clear of all culture." This is the same Pythocles that Laertius copies the letter to near the end of Book 10, and the contents of said letter imply that the two had numerous or frequent correspondence with each other. The letter's intent is not only didactic, but it seemed that Epicurus would hope that it would be shared and spread, so it remains a useful piece of advice, particularly to new learners. To me, this is one of the key sources and examples of "living unknown". In terms of Epicurean ethics, living unknown is just as crucial as the desires and their value to pleasure, because it ties into other aspects of the philosophy, namely the epistemology and some of its politics (See: PD's31-40) into consideration and accommodation. Of course, the ethics of the philosophy is perhaps the most important aspect of Epicureanism, it is first and foremost a philosophy of hedonism, justified and integrated through its physics and epistemology.
But what exactly does "live unknown" mean?
Quite simply it means to remove yourself from the vagaries of public life: whether that be government and the political system, the military, prevailing educational institutions, the church and its associated traditions, including religion as a whole, and even the gossip and collective opinion of the general public (ie the mob), or anything of a similar nature involving society at large. To become obsessed and completely engrossed in these fields will do little to stymie fears about life and death, and more often than not bring more pain and stress to the point of perhaps overwhelming any sense of achievement. These institutions are dependent on the current thoughts and mindset of the collective at large.
Just as in Epicurus' time, it is all too regrettable that pleasure is shunned and quickly equated with gluttony and depraved license. Epicurus himself had personally experienced the animosity towards his ideas, causing him to travel to different islands before ultimately settling in Athens, but it was an issue that has persisted across all of history and even today. In a better world, we could hope for the general public to be Epicurean or at least hedonistic. They would then have little reason to judge us and provoke the necessity for living unknown.
For I would certainly prefer, as I study Nature, to announce frankly what is beneficial to all people, even if none agrees with me, rather than to compromise with common opinions, and thus reap the frequent praise of the many.
We must free ourselves from the prison of public education and politics.
“I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.”
In short, in order to live pleasantly, particularly if you wish to be Epicurean, you must not heap attention onto yourself in the eyes of the public whilst still believing in that death is nothing, pleasure is the highest good, there is no divine will, etc. However, there is additional nuance that is quietly and subtly acknowledged by Epicureans but is otherwise glossed over by popular interpretations and readings of Epicurus if not outright rejected. The most common of which is the abstention from political activity and education. Yet there are numerous sources from Epicurus' own life and the wise man sayings by Laertius. I'll cross post a comment I made on the nature of isolation versus being aware of your surroundings to quickly dispel this objection again.
An Epicurean society is political in the sense of caring for the well-being and health of their country. Its citizens would not be ignorant or secluded from the world around them, on the contrary, they would have knowledge of the various figures and events around them. Epicurus was well read on Plato and his contemporaries; he could not have rejected them and devised the system of the garden had he chosen to completely and utterly withdraw into isolation.
Had Epicurus completely and utterly withdrawn from all public life, he would not have taken to teaching his ideas in Lampsacus, Mytilene, or Athens. He would've been content to live his life and die either taking his ideas with him or leaving them dedicated in a single source such as books he had secretly written, in the manner of the obscure and only posthumously notable Enlightenment thinker Jean Meslier, a priest whose lifetime work was a grand book dedicated to atheism and materialism, the very things his occupation of over 35 years opposed. If Epicurus had taken a similar approach to Meslier, it is not hard to imagine that his ideas would not have survived let alone become so influential. No, Epicurus followed his advice and never strayed from his beliefs. It is much more reasonable to see that, to each person to each their own desires. So too, are the circumstances that necessitate our active involvement with the general public.
Moreover, the wise man will marry and have children, as Epicurus says in the Problems and in the work On Nature. But he will marry according to the circumstances of his life
[...]
He will engage in lawsuits and will leave writings behind him, but will not deliver speeches on public occasions. [...] He will be careful of his reputation in so far as to prevent himself from being despised. He will erect statues of others, but whether he had one himself or not, he would be indifferent. [...] He will pay court to a king, if occasion demands. He will rejoice at another’s misfortunes, but only for his correction. And he will gather together a school, but never so as to become a popular leader. He will give lectures in public, but never unless asked...
Simply withdrawing from public life may work well, but it is more nuanced than that. To truly "live unknown" is to abandon the ensnaring culture and conventions of public life and cultural institutions. For Epicureans, their replacement is either their own solitude perhaps paired by staunch individuality or more commonly the structure of the Garden, be it in person or an online format such as this forum. The garden is nor ever was a commune of common property. Members never pooled their resources or gave up their possessions by coercive tradition, some even lived far across the country, keeping in touch by letters, not by the appearance of their person.
To get back onto the topic of the thread, it is more than possible for an introverted, anti-social Epicurean to live pleasantly and be happy. It would always be prudent to keep a few friends within your network as a safety net and for the occasional impulse of wanting to socialize, no matter how rarely. Yet it is not necessary to engage with the public, as even studying and observing the world around you will suffice. Indeed, even engaging with your fellow Epicureans is by no means required. The garden is a resource, open to all but welcoming to who are sympathetic to pleasure.
Here's the engraver, Guernier, named after his father, another engraver.
An interesting, unrelated sidenote, I read the referenced book by George Vertu on the state of painting and engraving in England in the 18th century, and one of the entries was of Claude de Bosc (mentioned in Guernier's page above). One of his works was a "Cartoon" for other printsellers. Vertu cites this entry at the bottom of a page with:
* One Epiciere and Baron assisted him.
The word Epiciere is interesting, it seems to be from the french épicier which means grocer. épicier itself is derived from the french word épice meaning spice, hence grocer = spice - er. There are various other forms of french words that come from the late latin word speciēs, and while this might seem very off-topic for the thread, and I might move it should this prove a credible finding, I cannot help but notice the similarity between these french words and "Epicure". Perhaps that's another link in the connotation between Epicurus and food, and where the modern culinary definition of Epicurean is derived from.
Edit: Just saw the post you made in the original 1743 thread last month about Guernier. In the meantime, I've just been going down the rabbit hole of the various Creech editions. The 1712 edition of Creech, published by Jacob Tonson, however, is the source of most of the illustrations and engravings of the Browne edition.
Generally speaking, when looking for information on Epicurus and the philosophy, stick to good secondary sources like Greenblatt, Austin, DeWitt, and especially study the various translations like Bailey or Brown. There are far too many eclectics or sympathetic hellenistics who pick and choose small bites from Epicurus' letters and present them as indicative of the philosophy as a whole.
It's a good rule of thumb to take everything from those quote websites with a major grain of salt. People often make or spread small posts with some Greek bust, attach a name and quote and call it a day. We see it all the time with pictures of Epicurus attributed to quotes of Epictetus (one time it was even on a tattoo.)
And also: we need to set up some Zoom meetings for new members to meet one another, maybe once a month.
This is a pretty good idea. The 20th calls and the Lucretius/DeWitt calls are seemingly imposing for a newcomer, and the latter is quite frankly not the best place for someone so new.
For example, Epicurus states that friendship is an immortal good. He obviously thinks friendship is necessary for a pleasurable life. That's objective to me.
Despite recognizing its importance friendship is far less important to me than many of the other things in the philosophy to the point of bordering into subjectivity. Though the specifics of how important desires and pleasures may be kept to personal outlines or to one's own self it's always interesting to hear discussion about the different levels of importance each Epicurean assigns to their values.
I've always maintained that the desires are subjective barring the most basic of essentials of survival. This is something that's often misguiding, and newer learners of the philosophy struggle with, both as a teaching method and for didactic self-application. In order to teach the desires and their categorization examples are given for each category, I think this might be a key culprit in this pattern.
What's necessary for some may not be necessary for others and what is unnatural may be natural to someone else whether by personal preference, health, or even culture.
I used to use Vivaldi for years but stopped because the excess accessibility & customization quickly became bloated and ran as slow as Chrome did, despite still being a Chromium browser. I'll check this out.
I'm reminded of a section in the opening chorus in Handel's Acis & Galatea.
For us the zephyr blows,
For us distills the dew,
For us unfolds the rose,
And flow'rs display their hue.
For us the winters rain,
For us the summers shine,
Spring swells for us the grain,
And autumn bleeds the wine.
