Posts by Lee

Quote from Cassius

The point that I think is important to realize is that "Bondage, Liberty, Riches, Poverty, War, Concord, or the like," are not any less real to us because they are not properties of the atoms themselves. It's at the "body/combination" level that we experience life, which is what us ultimately important to us, and it should not be a problem for us to understand how the two levels interrelate. The reason I think it IS a problem for most of us is our corruption through religion that we have become acclimated to believe that nothing is really important unless it has some kind of stamp of "divine eternal god-given existence" which is a totally false and nonsensical frame of analysis:

Hello Cassius. I see the point and agree with you that I carry a bias from years of education (religious and otherwise) which taught the existence of an eternal and immaterial world of ideas. I am beginning to see how emergent properties of atomic combinations and preconceptions could account for our experience and provide a more familiar and plausible description of our cognitive experience.

The intellectual journey I am traveling is such a surprise. I started at the state university as a student of modern empirical science and a staunch materialist. Then I attended a liberal arts college which emphasized philosophy and the tradition of immaterial ideas about which I then became convinced. Now I am circling back around and reconsidering the merits of the materialist argument.

I appreciate that you took the time to include the passages from Lucretius. Although I have read his work a couple of times over the last 25 years, I didn’t fully grasp the complexity and sufficiently of those passages until you pointed them out to read more carefully.

I see now that the passing of time or the existence of the Trojan war can be considered “events of body” without the need for them to exist in an eternal and immaterial plane.

Here’s another question that has been nagging me: how can The Swerve account for our volition? If all of reality is atoms and void it is difficult to understand how I seem to be able to change my mind at will? If my thinking is subject to the swerve of the atoms, how is it that I seem to be controlling my choices? Is this an illusion of choice? Am I somehow controlling the movement of atoms when I choose?

Thank you for taking the time to provide such a thoughtful and clear answer to my questions about universals Cassius. I will definitely listen to the Jackson Barwis dialogue and study the principles page you created about anticipations. I am impressed and immensely appreciative that you take the time to share your considerable knowledge with me and others.

I suspected the answer to my question would center on anticipations because when I read that chapter in De Witt, it seemed to encompass general concepts- especially the treatment of justice. I found the argument about the importance of social relations and justice to be compelling. If bees can cooperate so exquisitely in the hive it seems that nature can cause us to engage in even more complex social behavior or rules by anticipations.

I also find it quite plausible that a material mechanism could account for how we are born with a recognition of such things. It reminds me of the amazing experience of watching my newborn son search out his mother’s breast and begin to nurse only minutes after being born. I remember thinking how astonishing it was that nature had clearly endowed him with knowledge before he had even seen the world beyond the womb!

Quote from Cassius

...and if on such an appeal, we could not feel within the sentiment of benevolence, and the peculiar pleasure attending it; and that of malevolence and its concomitant pain, not all the reasoning in the world could ever make us sensible of them, or enable us to understand their nature.

...And whatever this faculty or mechanism is, it is at least partly mental, and I don't think it is active only in the area of pleasure and pain.

I am beginning to see the wisdom in the Epicurean teachings included in your quote above. I was always a bit uncomfortable with the apparent circularity in Aristotle’s arguments that what appears good is that which we desire and that we naturally desire what is good. Pleasure and pain seem to be the essential natural guides (or telos) that provide the way to really determine the ultimate good.

I have a further question about anticipations that is a continuation of my original question. I find myself understanding these anticipatory “concepts” or “ideas” as having some sort of real existence- even if only in the mind. I continue to wonder if they are immaterial. Maybe this is just the prejudice of my Platonic and Aristotelian education but it is difficult for me to understand how we can predicate the same anticipatory “concept” of many things and for it to have a common meaning unless the concept itself (like justice) has some sort of real existence. I may be over thinking this but I have spent years studying to make sense of the intellectual world and struggle to understand what kind of existence these things have in Epicureanism materialism. Can you explain this existence any further?

Appreciatively,

Lee (JLR)

The most pressing question I have is how Epicureanism accounts for the universal concepts of similitude which we formulate in the mind based on our sense experience. I am referring to ideas like horse, tree, or person. How can these only be material?

I believe Plato says we recall ideas after having sense experience because they are already present as innate ideas in our soul.

I recall that Aristotle updated the Platonic theory by saying the intellect abstracts the universal forms that exist in each particular sensible thing after repeated experience.

I find both accounts difficult to accept and yet it seems incontrovertible that we recognize the sameness of things. Otherwise, the world would appear to be filled with only particular things which we perceive through sense.

This ability to categorize particular things as the “same thing” (horse, human, etc.) seems to point to universal concepts that are difficult to account for as strictly material (atomic) in origin.

Are universal concepts real? If not, why/how do we all use them? If they are real, how can they be only material yet exist as the same in each thing and in our minds?

I hope I have formulated the question clearly.

Cassius,

I am on chapter 13 of Epicurus and His Philosophy by De Witt and thoroughly enjoying this impressive book. Thank your for taking the initiative to direct me.

In addition to learning much more about Epicurus and Epicureanism, I have also benefited from De Witt’s perspective on the relationships among the competing Greek philosophy schools.

I have several questions that I am saving until I have finished the book and more carefully read through the the copious amount of information you have posted.

What you and others are doing here at Epicurean Friends is impressive, inspiring and important. I am delighted to see philosophy flourish in a practical form in our time and independent of the technical and self-serving work done in most modern universities.

Wishing you the fullness of life’s pleasure.
JLR

I have read the first chapter of Dewitt’s book and have the complete copy on order. I am enjoying it very much and appreciate your guidance.

I found it interesting (and reassuring) that Dewitt saw overlap between The Nicomachean Ethics and Epicurean teachings. I have studied Aristotle a good amount and think he got many thing correct even if he overstated the role of politics and underemphasized the importance of pleasure and tranquility.

Cassius and Martin,

I am a neophyte with use of a forum and may have already committed a faux pas by posting a question to Cassius on his timeline. Please feel free to correct me on proper use of the forum and I will spend some time looking for guidelines in the forum section to become a competent user.

Thank you for the suggestions Cassius. I will acquire and read Norman Dewitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy" and I have already downloaded Gosling and Taylor’s “The Greeks on Pleasure” to begin reading today.

I much appreciate your assistance and friendly welcome from you and Martin.

Hello Cassius and thank you for welcoming me to the community. I found the forum originally by searching online and also secondarily through http://societyofepicurus.com/ and Hiram Crespo.

I am a graduate of the Great Books curriculum of Thomas Aquinas College in California which I attended after earning a completely unrelated degree at the U. Of Missouri, Columbia back in 1992. I was an atheist until studying philosophy and have considered myself a theist for the last 25 years.

I am a long time student of the Western philosophical tradition with an emphasis on Aristotle’s Ethics and the concept of Eudaemonia. I become particularly interested in ethics after reading Mortimer Adler’s The Time of Our Lives. I wrote a simple yet comprehensive ethics book that was completed in 2015 called Understanding Happiness, How to think about living well. I took this book out of print and plan to begin a new project to release a second addition that is better written with the help of a competent editor.

After completing the book, I was faced with some challenges in life that created anxiety and anguish. To help cope with negative thoughts, I became acquainted with eastern meditation and consequently wanted to learn more about exposure of Greek philosophy to Indian thought that was transferred during Alexander the Great’s invasion of India. Knowing the pluralism of the Greeks, I was sure that the pursuit of tranquility was something they had examined and that had been under-emphasized in my studies because of a focus on Plato and Aristotle. I consequently became acquainted with the concept of ataraxia and set out to learn which Greeks had focused on this idea.

The study of ataraxia lead me to Epicurus. I was astonished to realize I had overlooked this great thinker by relegating him to the category of base hedonism. I had thought he was one who was content to be the pig satisfied rather than Socrates dissatisfied. Once I learned of his measured pursuit of pleasure and focus on ataraxia, I was hooked!

I still have some hesitation to abandon ideas such as the eudaemonia as a measure of the best life. However, I think I have the greatest overall affinity for Epicurean thought. I agree with him that the purpose of studying philosophy is to banish fear and superstition and to acquire ataraxia to live in peace and pleasure.

I look forward to you and other members of the group sharing insights on this point.

Thanks for your suggested readings. I clearly have some work to do. Thus far, I have read:

- Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

-The Biography of Epicurus By Diogenes Laertius (Chapter 10). This includes all Epicurus' letters and the Authorized Doctrines. Supplement with the Vatican list of Sayings.

- Epicureanism by William Wallace

Best Regards,

JLR