Posts by Don

Update: About half way through Book 2's commentary. I didn't say I was going through it quickly

My favorite discovery so far in this book:

Quote

“An index of our dispositions is afforded by the pleasure or pain that accompanies our actions. A man is temperate (σώφρων “sophron”) if he abstains from bodily pleasures and finds this abstinence itself enjoyable (χαίρω “khairo”), profligate if he feels it irksome; he is brave if he faces danger with pleasure or at all events without pain, cowardly if he does so with pain.”

By Zeus!! Even in his annoyance with pleasure he says that the temperate person “finds this abstinence itself enjoyable”!! Finding something enjoyable IS PLEASURE, Aristotle!! In fact, the “enjoyable” part in that translation is, in fact, the word khairon which is directly related to one of the “kinetic pleasures” (khara) noted by Epicurus as a pleasure deriving from “κίνησιν ἐνεργείᾳ” “moving activity” (notice energeia!)!! Sorry, Aristotle, but you can’t have it both ways. Pleasure is a danger, but you can take pleasure in temperance?? Go on…

It makes my exploration of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics all the more interesting!

Quote from Sedley

The inseparability of virtue from pleasure, on which Epicurus insisted, lies rather in

the fact that the virtues, properly understood, are the skills of pleasure management, both short term and long term. Crucially, present pleasure can be derived from one's confident expectations about future pleasure. Thus if courage, justice and the other virtues are outlooks which exclude all fear of future pain and free you to look forward confidently to future pleasure, their very possession becomes pleasurable. Could the Cyrenaics be interpreted as holding the mistaken view which Diogenes

opposes to the Epicurean one, namely that virtue is merely the antecedent cause of pleasure, analogous to accepting painful surgery now for the sake of future pleasure? I am confident that they could,...

Quote from Sedley

Epicurus insists strongly on the simultaneity and inseparability of virtue and pleasure. As the Epicurean doxography at DL10.138 puts it, 'Epicurus also says that virtue alone is inseparable from pleasure, while other things, such as food, do get separated from it.'

Ah, I see what you're referring to, Cassius . I'm going to have to dig into the paper.

There's a lot of context we appear to be missing, but this struck me:

Quote from Diogenes

Examples of causes that precede are cautery and surgery saving life: in these cases extreme pain must be borne, and it is after this that pleasure quickly follows.

Examples of coincident causes are [solid] and liquid nourishment and, in addition to these, [sexual acts:] we do not eat [food] and experience pleasure afterwards, nor do we drink wine and experience pleasure afterwards, nor do we emit semen and experience pleasure afterwards; rather the action brings about these pleasures for us immediately, without awaiting the future

It seems to my reading that Diogenes is conflating cause/effect and pleasure/pain. Maybe it was a big deal at the time between schools about when pleasure and pain would initiate or motivate action. Surgery without anaesthesia would indeed be accompanied by extreme pain, then if you survive you'll feel pleasure. But is pain a "cause" of the pleasure of recovery? That seems to be where Diogenes is going.

Quote from Godfrey

This was by Baldwin Lee, shot in c1983.

How Baldwin Lee Saw Ageless Beauty in ’80s-Era Black America

When Lee found himself teaching in Tennessee, he began creating a group of photographs still teeming with life and humanity four decades later.

www.thedailybeast.com

Baldwin Lee - Wikipedia

I'd definitely recommend the Sedley paper linked in the other thread unfound:

In Book VIII of Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae the Cynic Cynulcus concludes a disquisition on Aristotle's zoological works with these words : 1 3 Although I've still plenty to say about the Druggist's foolish words, I'll stop - although I know that even Epicurus, that great devotee of truth, says this of him in the Letter on Occupations, that having squandered his family property he joined the army, and that, doing badly in it, he took up the drug-trade ; then, he says, since Plato's school had opened, he entered it and attended the lectures, being not ungifted, and gradually attained the character14 for which he is known. I know that Epicurus is the only person to have accused him of this, and that neither Eubulides nor even Cephisodorus dared make such an accusation against the Stagirite, although they even published works against him. And in the same letter Epicurus also says that the sophist Protagoras, having been a porter and a wood-carrier, first became Democritus' secretary. He impressed Democritus by some special way he had of tying up logs, and through this start he was taken under his wing. He also became a schoolteacher in some village. And it was from these activities that he embarked on the business of sophistry. And I too, fellow diners, from this long speech shall now embark on the business of gluttony.

Check out this thread too

Post

RE: Epicurus' Favorite Insults

Okay, done! That was fun! I didn't do Plato since @Joshua did a good job above.

Enjoy!

Nausiphanes:

‘The mollusk,’ πλεύμονά (pleumona "lung-fish, jellyfish"> related etymologically to English "pleurisy")

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…ry%3Dpleu%2Fmwn

Hicks note: Cf. Sext. Emp. Adv. math. i. 3 νῦν πλεύμον α καλῶν τὸν Ναυσιφ άνην ὡς ἀναίσθ ητον; Plato, Phil. 21 c ζῆν δὲ οὐκ ἀνθρώπο υ βίον ἀλλά τινος…

Don

May 28, 2022 at 7:55 AM

LOL! I didn't even know what "calumny" was! Oh, "false and misleading statements meant to slander"! As far as Epicurus's nicknames for people and groups, I don't think he felt they were "false and misleading." I think he thought those were accurate descriptions of their teaching and character! Maybe not their permanent character, but certainly his experience of them. I also think some of them were purposeful hyperbole and sarcasm or satire.

That's my initial take.

Quote from Godfrey

It could easily lead to thinking that an urge or thought comes from the void, which opens the door to the supernatural

Oh, no, no, no, no. I didn't mean to imply there was anything coming *from* the void. It would only be by analogy.

I'm wrestling with the idea of "why only two main categories of desires?" This led to atoms and void especially since Epicurus used the same exact word to describe the empty space in which atoms move to also describe desires that have no ground. They don't come *from* the void in some woo-woo way, but they do share the *characteristic* of being *empty* of any reason to follow them.

There's also the dichotomy of pleasure and pain. Walking down this path a little further and stream-of-consciousnessing it, the desires with a physical basis typically lead to pleasure; empty desires typically lead to pain. Still working this out.

Quote from Godfrey

all sorts of people latching on to the idea that various things come from the void. Well, I don't even have to envision it as all sorts of people already think that various things (gods, angels and all types of woo-woo) come from the void!

LOL! For me, The tendencies of the hoi polloi aren't a reason to not explore a possibility of getting behind Epicurus's ideas. The more I think about it, the more I have to think Epicurus deliberately described desires as κενός AND used the same exact word to describe the empty space in which the atoms moved THEN limited main categories of desires to two.

PD29 Τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν αἱ μέν εἰσι φυσικαὶ <καὶ ἀναγκαῖαι· αἱ δὲ φυσικαὶ> καὶ οὐκ ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ οὔτε φυσικαὶ οὔτε ἀναγκαῖαι ἀλλὰ παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν γινόμεναι.

Of the desires/cravings, first there are those that are physical/natural and required to live, then there are those that are physical/natural but not required, and, finally, there are those that are neither physical/natural nor required which come to be along with empty beliefs (beliefs devoid of merit).(Ancient scholia/commentary: Epicurus regards as physical/natural and necessary, desires which bring relief from pain, as e.g. drink when we are thirsty ; while by physical/natural and not necessary he means those which merely diversify the pleasure without removing the pain, such as costly foods; by the neither natural nor necessary (i.e., empty) he means desires for crowns and the erection of statues in one's honor.)

Quote from Godfrey

Referring to desires or thoughts as "empty" is completely different from relating them to the void, despite any linguistic similarity.

I'm still not so certain, albeit with the caveats I've laid out here.

You might be interested in some of the threads here:

Agency / Free Will

I wonder if those three categories of physical and necessary desires have any correspondence to Aristotle's three categories of goods:

He says goods are divided into three classes:

1. External goods τῶν ἐκτὸς (ektos)

2. Goods of the soul τῶν δὲ περὶ ψυχὴν (psykhe)

3. Goods of the body καὶ σῶμα (soma)

For your consideration:

"on the one hand, there are the desires arising from our physical, material existence; on the other, the 'empty, fruitless, or vain ones.' And of the desires arising from our physical, material existence , on the one hand, are the necessary ones; on the other, the ones which merely arise from our physical, material existence; then, of the necessary ones: on the one hand, those necessary for eudaimonia; then, those necessary for the freedom from disturbance for the body; then those necessary for life itself."

As always, Eikadistes , a pleasure to read your insightful commentary!

Your post got me thinking again.

The two main categories of desires are:

φυσικοι "natural/physical"

κεναι "empty/vain/groundless/void"

I am going to assume that natural was chosen by many translators because of its nice alliteration with "necessary": natural AND necessary.

However, I got an inclination that this somewhat skews an English-reading audience to think it's "natural" as in "It's natural to have those desires" as in:

Definition of NATURAL

based on an inherent sense of right and wrong; being in accordance with or determined by nature; having or constituting a classification based on features…

www.merriam-webster.com

1 : based on an inherent sense of right and wrong

instead of more like

5 : implanted or being as if implanted by nature : seemingly inborn

It sets up a "natural" vs "unnatural" as in acceptable vs deviant.

In thinking about "physical/material" Ι'm considering what it would mean if we looked at those desires as "physical and necessary" and "physical and unnecessary" in the sense of φυσκιος's meaning of "physical, having to do with the study of the material world."

These are desires arising from our being part of the material world, having a physical existence.

As opposed to those desires that are empty or *void.*

This would set up a categorization of *desires* that mirrors or complements the basis of our material existence:

atoms (which are the material basis of our existence) paired with physical desires

void (which is empty space) paired with "void" desires

I don't have this fleshed out entirely, but I wanted to get it down for reaction before I forgot it!

Quote from Kalosyni

Seems like they should put them behind glass protectors, or they need to more securely mount them.

They have SO MUCH loot gathered from so many centuries they were probably like, "Oh, could somebody pick that up?"

I realize that's not entirely fair, and we do have them to "thank" for the Vatican Sayings I suppose.

Quote from Godfrey

One minor detail (correct me if I'm wrong): looking at the dates it appears that Aristotle died after Epicurus was born. Aristotle still would have been an aging (and soon, dead) superstar in relation to the young Epicurus however

Egads! Thank you!!! I always mess up the BCE's negative numbers!! I'll get that fixed!

I wish we'd just do away with that and use... I don't know ... Kurzgesagt's "Human Era" (HE) reckoning and just count forward!

12,023 Human Era Calendar

Available only for a short time: the 12,023 Human Era Calendar is here! This year you can join us on a journey through the hidden worlds of the microcosm.11" x…

shop-us.kurzgesagt.org

They, only somewhat tongue in cheek, say we should just start arbitrarily reckoning dates from the beginning of settled agriculture 10,000 years BCE and count forward! So, we're living in 12,022 HE.

In which case, Epicurus would have been born in 9,659 HE and Aristotle died in 9,678 HE! Well, look at that 9678 is after 9659! How easy was that!

It also makes it much easier to see at a glance how long ago it was from us when we're talking about something that happened in "BCE" dates.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm starting an Epicuruean study of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. Instead of posting my 11-pages of notes here on the forum, I decided to just use a sub-page of my current website (see above). The opening page is a short intro with a link to my notes on Book 1.

I do not plan to apply myself to this project in any kind of speedy manner. This is a curiosity project, a chance to engage with a text or at least ideas that Epicurus himself no doubt had access to and with which he probably wrestled when devising his own philosophy. I hope - at some point - to maybe put in more links to resources, etc., but that's a maybe. Please think of these notes - if you think of them at all - as first thoughts, reactions, etc. to a text I've been meaning to get around to for years! Enjoy the ride if you stop by the site!

Quote from Kalosyni

The "Epicurus in Lycia" source says three different versions of KD's !!!

It seems to me the three are more editions of the same text rather than thinking of them as three different "versions." Not saying it's not important to see the differences among the editions but I don't think we're seeing completely divergent texts.

Quote from Cassius

My thoughts are definitely parallel with those of Usener

My thoughts parallel Diskin Clay's in that excerpt in thinking Epicurus himself formulated and distributed a work forming the basis of the KD that may have been added to and edited after his death