Posts by Don

Fair enough.

That said, I'm happy to leave the refutations to those inclined that direction.

ADMIN NOTE BY CASSIUS: We have set up this category for general observations on the merits and demerits of the "logic-based" arguments. All of them share fundamental erroneous presumptions about proof and evidence, and we can explore those commonalities here. There will be separate threads for the major named arguments so that people who want to ask "what about....?" can address the individual twists and turns of specific arguments.

To be honest, I find these kinds of "proofs" of God to be tiresome, overly complicated wordplay. I couldn't even get through the Wikipedia summary without rolling my eyes. The whole "ontological argument" (of which this appears to be an early variety) strikes me as ...I don't know... too clever by half? A speciously intellectual facade masquerading as deep? The fact that other Muslims found Ibn Sina's Proof unsatisfactory, and other Christians found Anselm's thought experiment lacking, I find outsiders like Epicureans taking the time to refute or counter these a waste of valuable time.

Ontological argument - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Quote from Eikadistes

(I caution anyone from directly translating kósmos as either "world" or "universe". These are ancient concepts that do not directly correspond to our own, technical definitions.)

Amen.

I think we're understandably butting up against a Greek vs English issue here.

Granted αρετη is translated as "excellence" in English; however, it's not an adjective like "excellent" as in "Our friendship is excellent."

αρετη can be variously translated into English: goodness, excellence, of any kind, in Hom. esp. of manly qualities; as well as goodness, excellence; manliness, prowess, rank, valour; (not countable): virtue; (countable): a virtue, the virtues

It's like trying to shoehorn "eudaimonia" into "happiness."

Think of "arete" as the "full realization of potential or inherent function."

My take on this, from looking at various sources, is that - if we're taking the manuscript at face value - Epicurus saw friendship as one of the most important instrumental virtues leading to a happy life. I may even go so far as to his using the similarity of αρετη (virtue/excellence) and αιρετη (choiceworthy) as part of his wordplay that I find so endearing about some of his writing. Friendship is "choiceworthy" exactly because it is a key component of living to one's full potential, of achieving "arete."

For a way deeper dive than any of us want likely, here's an open access book: Arete in Plato and Aristotle: Selected Essays from the 6th Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Hellenic Heritage of Sicily and Southern Italy

The word in question in the manuscript is this above.

To my eye, it is clearly αρετη with a soft breathing mark at the α and an accent over the η at the end with a punctuation mark following.

πᾶσα φιλία διʼ ἑαυτὴν ἀρετή· ἀρχὴν δὲ εἴληφεν ἀπὸ τῆς ὠφελείας.

Every friendship is an excellence (virtue) in itself, even though it begins in mutual advantage.

The scholars want “Every friendship is
choiceworthy in itself; for it has its origins in benefit” (πᾶσα φιλία δι᾽ ἑαυτὴν αἱρετή· ἀρχὴν δὲ εἴληφε ἀπὸ τῆς ὠφελείας).

I'm still convinced the manuscript reading should be kept.

I discovered a great article on JSTOR that addresses this exact issue:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1215547

Epicurus on the Value of Friendship ("Sententia Vaticana" 23) by Eric Brown: Classical Philology, Vol. 97, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 68-80 (13 pages)

The author does a thorough job in laying out an arguments for and against the manuscript reading and the scholarly emendation. From those, I continue to prefer the reading transmitted in the manuscript itself. I recommend reading the paper.

Two short excerpts:

NOTE: One sticking point for the scholars' emendation is that their "correction" requires a rough breathing mark curved one way, the manuscript has a soft breathing mark curved the opposite way. So it's not just that the scribe forgot to copy an iota after the initial alpha. To be honest, I'll have to dig back into the manuscript to make sure they make that distinction, but just looking at this line, I wanted to mention it for future reference.

Quote from Cassius

I have tremendous respect for the effort that Eikadistes has put into Epicurean philosophy over the years.

Ditto! Eikadisteshas definitely earned ΚΥΔΟΣ ! Additionally Cassius has also earned respect for creating this little virtual Garden on the Internet without which I guarantee I would not have stuck with Epicurean philosophy as long as I have.

That said...

Cassius , I'm going to take a slight tangent but eventually keep AI in the mix.

From my reading of your posts in this thread, you are ready to use whatever tools are at your disposal to evangelize the Good News of Epicurus' Philosophy to a world that is in desperate need of it. You see AI as one of those tools, and you refuse to cede the field to those who would use AI to advance idealism, Platonism, et al.

If you like to use AI to enhance your writing or to provide visuals to your work, so be it. I've shared my personal feelings about AI and its use.

However, if you want to "strike a blow for Epicurus" or to challenge the prevailing dominance of idealism, Platonism, Skepticism, Stoicism, AI is a very small arrow in your quiver.

Breaking through to a larger audience is not going to happen by posting better articles on this forum or on Substack, no matter how enhanced by AI they are.

You have 34 subscribers on Substack. Granted, here on the form, the "Most Active Threads Of The Last Year " had from 10K to 20K views; but that's not near "going viral." Posting better articles on the forum or Substack are not going to strike that decisive blow you want to strike. We all do good work here, outstanding work, but this doesn't put a dent in increasing awareness of Epicurus to the wider world.

Emily Austin's book - arguably the best, most accessible intro to the philosophy - on Amazon has only 140 reviews and is #79 in Ancient Greek & Roman Philosophy and #135 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality. Ryan Holiday's most recent Stoic book from 2025, Wisdom Takes Work: Learn. Apply. Repeat. (The Stoic Virtues Series), is #8 in Ancient Greek & Roman Philosophy and has 659 reviews. The 20 of the top 25 books on Amazon in Ancient Greek & Roman Philosophy are ALL Stoic! Not an Epicurean book until #48!!

For whatever the definition of "winning" is, the Stoics are winning in the wider modern world. Epicureans are a small fish in a VERY large pond, with most people not having any idea we exist... and those who do know, likely having an erroneous view. Ryan Holiday was just on Hasan Minhaj's YouTube show, and Holiday talks BRIEFLY about Epicureans just to say they advocated staying out of politics and "retreating to their Garden."

Even if you used generative AI to create bots to post a constant stream of content to social media platforms, the algorithm would likely bury them all under all the slop sloshing around and I doubt it would get the engagement we all want it to. Plus, if it's just one-off posts with no comments or reaction, it definitely dies on the vine.

So, what's my strategy for striking that blow?? I have no magic wand. The podcast is great, and I'm glad its on multiple platforms. But how many views does it get? Having a presence on Substack is fine if people find your articles randomly on a search of the platform or Google.

To really get the message out, there needs to be a movement, heck - a celebrity endorsement would be nice. There was a flurry of podcast appearances when Dr. Austin's book came out, but it wasn't sustained. There needs to be a constant drumbeat of new books, new interviews, new widely published content, engagement with Stoics on their platforms (That's why i would LOVE to see you go head to head with Pigliucci! but you didn't even have comments enabled on your Substack article/response about his article)

There's even a little rivalry (friendly?!) among the Epicurean communities and little to no organization or collaboration or coordination or mutual support. The Society of Epicurus goes its way. The Greek Epicurean groups go their ways. This forum is a bastion of fine work and enthusiasm. But The Stoics continue to outpace our school with books, interview appearances, regular Stoic Week events, merchandise that's widely available from notebooks to calendars to shirts to .... you name it.

Generative AI is a drop in the bucket and is really the least helpful of the tools in the toolbox.

How does our School make a dent in the popular Zeitgeist? How do we get talked about in the same circles - as a REAL alternative - to the Stoics??

I think we are ONLY on the very early curve of making a dent in this area but thinking AI is going to get us a statistically significant way down the road is a pipe dream.

ALL this would take time, energy, money, coordination, etc. I'm not saying this to be pessimistic, I'm not. I'm trying to take this conversation in a constructive direction, and this thread on AI seemed like it was getting bogged down. I may have more to say later, but it's getting late, I have to get up for my regular job tomorrow (well, later "today" now). I agree with you that striking a blow for Epicurus is a truly worthy goal, but there are only so many minutes in the day and so many days in one's life.

I leave this here as food for thought and responses.

Quote from Cassius

Suppose a human in 1965 who is creative but not a musician decides that he can use AI to produce a song that is as beautiful and catchy as anything produced by the Beatles, and also specifically brings to the listeners' attention genuine Epicurean arguments as to no life after death and no supernatural gods. It would make Epicurus's name and genuine teaching as famous as any name used as the title of any famous love song.

Your scenario is still just positing an imitation of a Beatles song, and the "musician" didn't create it. The algorithm did, admittedly using a training data set of Epicurean texts, I suppose. Is it really Epicurus' "genuine teaching" if it's an algorithmic summary? We've seen that gone awry in tests on this forum.

Quote from Cassius

if I could "change the world" overnight and bring consciousness of Epicurean ideas to millions of real humans at essentially no cost."

Could you really change the world overnight? That seems like AI hype and hyperbole. Again, what does the AI tool bring that seeking out a partnership with an actual musician and working with them to write a catchy song doesn't? Is it harder and more expensive to work with a human being and working on rhymes and rhythms with them than plugging in a prompt to ChatGPT? Of course! But the end is a human creative work with REAL meaning and intentionality behind the words. If you want a song, work to create a song.

There IS a real cost to using AI: socially, creatively, economically, environmentally. "At essentially no cost" is a figment of the collective imagination surrounding AI. I'm curious if you'd be as enthusiastic about generative AI if everyone had to pay what it actually cost to run the queries and prompts. It would not be cheap, and right now the hyperscalers and generative AI companies subsidize the technology to shoehorn it into everything. They want to get people hooked, like a drug dealer giving the first hit or two for free.

Quote from Cassius

if indeed we use generative AI to actually and in fact reach people with genuine Epicurean presentations that would not otherwise be available to them,

Okay, so with that context, what's the selling point of generative AI over just creating content the "old fashioned" way and putting it out there?

Using your articles specifically, what did the generative AI application give you that you couldn't have brought to the work by composing them without the AI tool?

What does a generative AI tool do to "reach people" that is not available without that tool?

Quote from Cassius

And would that necessarily be a bad thing? Once again the considerations of PD10 apply - if there are methods by which we actually succeed in establishing and preserving an actual community of living Epicureans.

And therein lies the rub. In my scenario of bots posting and responding algorithmically, there is no "actual community of living Epicureans." There may be unlimited "Epicurean" content online in this scenario, but there is no community, no real Epicureans, just AI bots posting, responding, commenting. One person could program a bot or bots to do all this. A community can't be one person sitting in a Garden with a laptop.

If one wants an "actual community of living Epicureans," you need actual living humans interacting with each other, online and in-person. Increasing content posted everywhere created by generative AI doesn't get humans to have meaningful interactions with other humans.

Quote from Cassius

the hypothetical of the "experience machine" and the issues involved in PD10.

LOL That's a whole other kettle of fish for (yet) another thread. Come at me, bro! I'll throw down on PD10, dude! (I'm doing my best to channel some trash-talking WWE wrestler here. I'll take my Oscar now )

Quote from Cassius

it doesn't "remove" the human element - it's a tool. And as for practicality, the forces arrayed against "us" - meaning against those who support living according to Epicurean philosophy - are too great to unilaterally disarm and give up this tool, which at the moment I see likely to become necessary forself-preservation.

Sure, I'll concede generative AI is a tool. And I'm consciously using generative AI to get away from using "AI" as some generic acronym. Tools are great. The Internet is a tool. A wrench is a tool. One can use the Internet to post misinformation and harassment. One can use a wrench to change your car battery or to bludgeon someone. If one uses an AI application to analyze a huge dataset to help research cancer cures, that's a great use of a tool. If an AI application is used to model weather data to predict severe weather and to save lives, . If someone uses generative AI to create computer code and something goes wrong, you can't ask the coder "Why did you write this line this way instead of that way?" Software engineers can be asked. Generative AI has no idea, that was just the prediction of what came next in their LLM modeling data. I use this same analogy about articles. If an AI-generated article has a turn of phrase or a point is made, and someone asks "That's clever. Could you tell me where that came from? Could you expand on that point?" there's no there there. Generative AI is a black box. If a human writes an article, we can ask the human to expand on a point. We can disagree with a human. We can have a discussion with a human. There is NO opportunity to "have a discussion" with an AI bot. There's the verisimilitude of a conversation, but conversations happen between people.

So, how we use any tool - or use the right tool for the right job - needs to be a conscious human decision. Does the tool enhance human abilities or does it replace uniquely human abilities.

Hmmm...

I understand the context of this AI component now a little better after reading this in the other article's thread:

Post

RE: Revisiting Issues of The Use of AI in Epicurean Philosophy

Thank you Dave let me be clear as to the organization of the articles and address what some no doubt are wondering:

In these two articles I have taken my draft outline as well as prior articles I've written on these topics and input the mix to AI to help structure the organization and presentation. After I get a second draft I have then edited all phrasing to be sure that I can personally stand by the wording 100%.

I see this as similar to the AI art that I've included with each article. There…

Cassius

March 31, 2026 at 3:20 PM

This revelation on the use of AI to compose these articles does evoke feelings in me. I'm some ways, I feel cheated? Tricked? Fooled or made a fool of? Let's leave it at feeling uneasy for now.

If an AI application was used simply to fine tune syntax, grammar, and phrasing (like a "super" Clippy from 1990s Microsoft) I suppose I can see utility in that. If Cassius loaded in an outline, albeit a detailed outline, and prompted the AI to compose the article, I'm more uneasy with that. If, on the other other hand, the text used to train the AI was only Epicurean texts, only this forum, or only Cassius 's other writings and podcast transcripts, maybe that ameliorates my uneasy feelings. If I now understand that the eloquence in the article that I respected didn't come from a human mind but is a simulation of what Cassius might have written, I feel that eloquence is a facade, a masquerade, and that I was suckered in by a machine. I would like to understand how much is Cassius and how much is an AI application in those texts.

If the goal is Epicurean evangelism and the argument is that those ends justify any means, that path leads down eventually (and admittedly hyperbolically) to Epicurean-prompted bots posting endlessly to FB, X, Instagram, etc., and replying algorithmically to human generated questions and comments, just to get the message out.

From my perspective, Epicurean philosophy is a human-centered philosophy based in human senses and human feelings and human reason in response to the natural, material world as humans experience it. Generative AI removes the human element from creative work, and the human element is what gives authenticity to what's expressed in those creations.

That summarizes my feelings. No AI was used in the composition of this post (unless you count spell-check and using a swipe keyboard on my phone).

Got it.

For anyone curious as to what we're going on about, here's the end of the manuscript where the title is ...

ΦΙΛΟΔΗΜΟΥ

ΠΡΟCΤΟΥC

(end of papyrus torn off)

Idiomatically then, all we have extant is:

By Philodemus

Against The/Pertaining to the/According to the...

Προς is a preposition, Τους is the masculine accusative plural definite article ("the"). NO ONE has ANY definitive idea of what came after that "the" and προς has many shades of meaning when followed by an accusative noun.

Here's the Wiktionary entry for προς with the accusative. I've italicized some possible interpretation of Philodemus' title. It becomes almost a Rorschach Test as to what translators want the title to convey:

ΠΡΟΣ (note: the C is the Hellenistic sigma - Σ = C = Latin S, so "pros")

(with accusative, expressing motion or direction) towards

(with verbs implying motion) upon, against

(expressing addition) over and above

(with verbs of seeing) towards, facing sth., to, against (the wind), in the light of, in (e.g. open day)

(in hostile or discursive sense) against, in reply to, in accusation

(for various kinds of intercourse or reciprocal action) with, (have certain feelings) towards, at the hands of, of, inspired by

before (a gremium, witness etc.), in the eyes of (a God etc.) (of legal or other business contracted)

towards (the evening etc.), at, about (of time)

relating to, in reference to, in respect of, touching (some matter); in consequence of, in view of (some fact); according to (a certain document, habitude etc.)

(music) accompanied by (an instrument)

(in various adverbial phrases) with, under (e.g. compulsion), by means of, in (e.g. due proportion)

Quote from Kalosyni

Thank you for your work on the Philodemus text! I see over at your link (the Twentiers website), there is this symbol used in the text:

[...]

...which is used when parts of the text are missing. Does the source text give any indication of how many words or lines are missing at each of these points?

DCLP/Trismegistos 62437 = LDAB 3610

You can look at the engravings for each page at the link.

Quote from Eikadistes

To the Comrades by Philódēmos

What made you decide on "Comrades"? My understanding is that there is no noun in the title, just ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΥΣ...

I see you don't allow comments on Substack. That's a shame. I'd really be curious to see Pigliucci's response to your response. I did see someone posted your link to his comments.

Well done!!

Oddly enough, this came up on my Substack feed before I saw it here, and I started reading. Really enjoyed it. Kept thinking, I have to share this on the forum. Got to the end, and at that point realized it was Cassius's!

Great response to Pigliucci, although I didn't read nor do I now plan to read his article.

Engagingly written! Overall excellent job.

Here's Luke Rainieri singing the epitaph in four historical pronunciations:

One of the things I find fascinating about the epitaph is that the musical notation is intact. Not notes per se, but the tune is recoverable.

Quote from Pacatus

As I read through this, I had to remind myself that Cassius is using the word “dogmatic” in the sense that the Hellenistic philosophers such as Epicurus did – not the sense of “characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts.” [Merriam-Webster] I think his comments about contemporary legal standards of proof are illustrative.

FWIW...

Quote from Cassius

if someone thinks that "I can't have any pleasure, or any happiness, at all so long as I am experiencing any pain," then they have set themselves up for failure.

Well put.

Along those lines, Epicurus himself was experiencing severe pain in his last days but could also call that time blissful (μακαρίαν "blessed" aka like a god) and could experience the pleasure of the "gladness of mind" (χαῖρον a kinetic pleasure). That seems to me a perfect embodiment of what Epicurean eudaimonia encompasses.

Before your explanation, Cornelius Peripateticus , I thought you just liked walking and hiking

From Wiktionary:

From Latin peripatēticus, from Ancient Greek περίπατος (perípatos, “strolling, covered walk, conversation while walking”), from περιπατέω (peripatéō, “I walk around”), from περί (perí, “around”) + πατέω (patéō, “I walk”). Aristotle’s school was sometimes called the περιπατητικοί (peripatētikoí) "those who are prone to walking" or οἱ ἐκ τοῦ περιπάτου (hoi ek toû peripátou, “those from the walk”) in reference either to his supposed habit of teaching while traversing the περίπατοι (perípatoi, “walkways”) of the Lyceum or simply to the walkways themselves with which the school became associated.

From LSJ:

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, περιπα^τ-ητικός

Just coming back to this. GREAT JOB finding the English translation option. I'll have to check some of these out. Some of those presentation titles are interesting

... and others are "interesting" (said with a quizzical rising tone): Gilgamesh: The Epicurean Human at the Dawn of History? (Maybe Enkidu? Not sure about Gilgamesh... I'll have to give them the benefit of doubt until I listen); The Physics of Epicurean Philosophy: Connections with Modern Physics (This kind of thing always gives me pause).

Welcome aboard!