Posts by Don

Along those lines, I offer my commentary on dogmatic vs skeptic:

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With those two options available, being a dogmatist or being a skeptic, it seems to me that the significance is that one path leads to declaring that knowledge can be known, that it is possible to "take a stand" on what can be known about reality. The other path leaves one "puzzled," "in want of knowledge.," or simply letting problems remain without resolving them or at least proposing solutions. The second path implies that we can't really know anything. Epicurus was opposed to this idea wholeheartedly.

Welcome (back) aboard!

Can't vouch for the quality of the translations, but FWIW (link to several volumes in English translation on Internet Archive):

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

Ulfilas Welcome aboard!

If you haven't read it yet, my personal (and others') recommendation these days is Emily Austin's Living for Pleasure: https://nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/livin…bookbite/38534/

Your journey mirrors a number of us who found our way here. Look forward to your contributions to our discussions!

Quote from Cassius

Now again - not everyone is bothered by the claims of philosophical skepticism or sees the immediate relevance to them. If they are not so bothered, then more power to them, but we likely would not have Epicurean philosophy to talk about in the first place if Epicurus and Metrodorus and Hermarchus and Lucretius and Diogenes of Oinoanda and Philodemus had not been bothered by them.

In light of this excerpt above and others' reactions to my post, I feel I need to define my position a little more.

Do I feel that having a strong argument against radical skepticism (and superstition and religion and other anti-Epicurean positions) is important? Absolutely! This is one of the through-lines from the establishment of Epicurus' school down to the present day. Epicurus didn't wall himself away from the world. He vigorously engaged with the ideas circulating in his day, and modern Epicureans are called to the same.

Religion, skepticism, superstition, et. al. do a terrible amount of damage, both to individuals and to society in general. Am I bothered that many of the hoi polloi are in the grip of superstition, ignorance of natural science, etc.? Of course!!

And this little corner of the Internet - Our little boat of the SS EpicureanFriends - is one way to make authoritative material available "out there" in the market of ideas and to welcome passengers aboard.

What I don't want to get uptight about are the details of 2,000+ year old physics.

Is Epicurus onto something with his Canonics, his Theory of Knowledge? Absolutely! Otherwise, I wouldn't be on this forum or be thinking of myself as an "Epicurean." Is it necessary to have confidence in the truth of a REAL existing physical world with which we can interact in a meaningful way and not believe it is some pale reflection of a Realm of Ideal Forms or the "proving ground" for an after-death existence or some other lesser-than existence? Absolutely! And Epicurus' grounding the truth of our reality - our existence - in the use of our natural physical and mental senses/sensations and feelings provides a bedrock, fundamental ground on which to stand. There IS an external physical universe with which we interact. There are a number of modern philosophies dressed up as science that need to be counteracted today, including "we live in a simulation" "we are constantly hallucinating" etc. As modern Epicureans, I firmly believe we need to understand the workings of the mind to be able to counteract these philosophies. Do I have a good grasp of their arguments? No, no I do not. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to read everything I want to read and do everything i want to do. But should I get anxious and frustrated and be in pain? Nope. I'll do what I can do. That's one reason I like the accessible style of Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett's popular books and those of others.

Epicurus was brilliant in his devising possible causes for vision, for memory, for hearing, for constructing mental pictures in our minds, for applications of "atomic" theory, but he was a human being living 2,000+ years ago with a brilliant mind but limited access to information. Understanding HIS arguments against radical skepticism and superstition should fully inform the style of our own arguments and inspire modern Epicureans to combat ignorance and superstition and religious dogmatism in our own day as he did in his.

Quote from Rolf

Actually, could somebody take a crack at explaining fundamentally what prolepsis is? Is it innate knowledge that we’re born it? I’m more confused than I thought!

The HUGE problem is that there are not a lot of surviving texts that speak specifically to prolepsis. That's one reason Bryan 's compiling uses of the word and related words is so helpful, seeing the word/s in context.

The are a VARIED number of interpretations of prolepsis, starting as far back as Cicero! I don't know whether we'll ever have the concept from an Epicurean perspective definitively described.

That said, with due respect to Cassius and others bringing in Meno and the theory of knowledge, I **personally** see prolepsis, ancient concepts of memory formation, the workings of the psykhē (mind/soul), to be of tangential importance to applying Epicurus' philosophy in the modern world to my way of living. I find the investigations that the ancients dealt in and how they arrived at their findings of fascinating intellectual curiosity. But eidola do not grind grooves into my psykhē to make subsequent similar eidola easier to intercept. Brains don't work that way.

What Epicurus does give me is a firm commitment to finding physical causes completely devoid of woo-woo. It might not be eidola and psykhē, but it is a physical, natural, material cause to my memories, thought, and other mental processes. The Letter to Pythocles is a testament to finding material, physical causes to phenomena.

So, I don't get hung up on the specific details taught in the ancient school; but I think there are principles that are directly applicable from then to now.

There's also the prolepsis of justice which doesn't physically exist but "we know it when we *see* it." That one, I've taken to be akin to the innate sense of fairness exhibited by various animals, ex.

Quote from Kalosyni

There actually isn't anything physically painful about the idea "it takes too much time"...it is just a mental judgment that it doesn't seem worth the effort.

Ah! But I would posit that there is mental pain in considering all that time in the car, having to stop along the way, how much gas it might take, etc.

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Don

Sure, the motivation for the effort of learning a new skill or achieving a goal one wants is potentially pleasurable, but the effort experienced is painful in the form of repetitive exercises or practice. Frustration sets in that must be overcome. Feelings of inadequacy.

This comes very close, or is at least analogous, to the question of whether all "desire" should be seen to be painful.

My personal view is that not all desire is painful, and neither is all effort. And in the case of either desire or effort, even in those times where the desire or effort is painful, the ultimate question remains whether the resulting total pleasure is worth the total cost in pain.

I should have used "desire" instead of "motivation." And, using that, I suppose the desire is pleasurable to think of. I'm going to maintain that effort - expending energy for a given purpose - has pain associated with it. That's not too say you can't have "a good kind of tired" after expending it. But energy expenditure has some element of pain... Unless we're going to start talking about the "runner's high" and "being in the zone/going with the flow." Then, maybe?

Quote from Kalosyni

Is effort always painful? (I don't think so myself).

Depends on the definition of pain and/or effort being used.

Any effort seems to me to be use of force or energy against some impediment or towards some goal which someone is trying overcome or to arrive at.

Sure, the motivation for the effort of learning a new skill or achieving a goal one wants is potentially pleasurable, but the effort experienced is painful in the form of repetitive exercises or practice. Frustration sets in that must be overcome. Feelings of inadequacy.

I don't think "effort" is the right way to think about it.

The pleasure of aponia connotes both "without toil or trouble, effortless" and "painless; free from pain."

A more productive way to think about pursuing pleasure is to get out of its way, to recognize the pleasure that's already present in our lives and to which we stubbornly refuse to admit into our lives.

Start small, recognize the beauty of a sunset, the lack of pain in a spot in your body, the company of loved ones. Don't just acknowledge it. Feel it. Appreciate it. Value it.

By struggling in an effortful way, one is adding an unnecessary level of pain. Sure, we choose pain sometimes for greater pleasure. My go to example is always exercise, but there are much more serious examples: ex., leaving an abusive relationship in which the oppressed partner has a "sunk cost" ("they can change. I can change them.)

A start is just to get out of pleasure's way. Let it in.

I'm not saying it's easy after years of conditioning. But sometimes we ourselves are our own worst impediment to feeling pleasure.

FWIW Since we're bringing up John Brown, within the past few days I came across John Brown's final court speech as presented by actor David Strathairn:

I had never heard of this before, but powerful oration.

FYI

ARES - Greek God of War & Battlelust

Ares was the ancient Greek god of war, battlelust, courage and civil order. In art he was depicted as either a mature, bearded warrior armed for battle, or a…

www.theoi.com

You can't have Venus without Mars. Old things must be destroyed, must die, for new things to be created. Otherwise, nothing would change; everything would be static.

With the most minimum of facts to back that up

Quote from Cassius

Do we have any indication whatever to your knowledge as to the size of the garden in terms of acres?

It's in my article

I think I would place his house slightly to the NW of the Agora. I've thought of it on the edge of the Inner Keramikos but still within Melite.

ToposText

Quote from Kalosyni

When he says "hear things far more sweet than the Phaeacians' land... possibly he was refering to Lucretius De Rerum Natura ...(especially the opening which speaks of Venus and Nature)...just a thought.

The Phaeacians refers to Odysseus's stay in their land, and, if I remember, was used by Epicurus or another early Epicurean as support for the school's position on pleasure from Homer (THE authority in ancient Greece) since other schools used Homer as well.

A quick note on Βρομίου χιογενῆ (Bromiou chiogenē): the Bromiou refers to another name for Bacchus and hence "wine" so something like "the drink of Bacchus"; chiogene literally means "made in Chios" (prized for its wine) or "the drink of Bacchus" having its "genesis" (-genē) in Chios (chio-)

LOL "Best" is a loaded question. Most literal? Most readable? Prose adaptation or poetic translation? There are a lot of good translations online. My suggestion would be to explore those first.

As an aside, my first full read through was Stallings, but that can be a polarizing translation.

Warning: mention of suicide in this post.

Cassius brings up VS47, attributed to Metrodorus, and the "exiting the stage" as an out for those in severe pain. While Atticus may have stopped eating and other Epicureans took measures to not prolong life, I didn't see this as an endorsement of suicide.

We've discussed VS47 in the post, including:

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RE: If Death Is Nothing To Us, Then Life Is Everything to Us

Good catch, Joshua...

[…]

I'd offer the following: The key phrase in that translation isn't the spitting on life, it's the "when it is time for us to go." I don't think VS47 has anything to do with having the option to "exit the stage" if we're in pain as above where Cassius implies (and states that outright).

VS47 is attributed to Metrodorus:

https://archive.org/details/metrod…ge/561/mode/1up

And the Epicurus Wiki does a really nice job parsing the Greek:

…

Don

October 7, 2023 at 7:37 AM

I continue to see VS47 as urging people to not take extraordinary measures to prolong suffering and pain when death is inevitable, as it will eventually be for everyone. Atticus decision to not eat was a decision to not fight against his incurable condition. His Wikipedia article actually does a decent job in going that way (emphasis added):

Just after his 77th birthday he fell ill, and at first his ailment appeared minor. But after three months his health suddenly deteriorated. Deciding to accelerate the inevitable, he abstained from ingesting any nourishment, starving himself to death, and dying on the fifth day of such fasting, "which was the 31st March, in the consulship of Cn. Domitius and C. Sosius", that is in the year 32 BC.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I see a difference in not fighting one's inevitable mortality when death is assured and saying exiting the stage when the hope of pleasure isn't possible as two very different perspectives. I fully endorse the former and hope, when my time comes (LOL at least three decades+ from now!) that I can go with a song on my lips or in my mind.