Posts by Don

This is a little of track but I had to share this while I was poking around:

CHANCE (τύχη), FATE (εἱµαρµένη), 'WHATDEPENDS ON US' (τὸ ἐφ' ἡµῖν) AND PROVIDENCE (πρόνοια) IN PLUTARCH'S QUAESTIONES CONVIVALES

ABSTRACT One of the many philosophical issues discussed throughout Plutarch's Quaestiones...

www.scielo.br

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When, during a discussion on the use of flowers during the symposium, it is argued that their only natural purpose is to produce visual and olfactory pleasure, it is not implied the Epicurean doctrine of ἡδονή as τέλος.17 According to Erato (a friend of Plutarch), flowers produce pleasure only because they were created with that particular purpose:

[...] ἕν γὰρ αὐτὸ δοκεῖ τοὐναντίον, εἰ µηδὲν ἡ φύσις, ὡς ὑµεῖς φατε, µάτην πεποίηκε, ταῦτα τῆς ἡδονῆς πεποιῆσθαι χάριν, ἃ µηδὲν ἄλλο χρήσιµον ἔχοντα µόνον εὐφραίνειν πέφυκεν. (646C3-5)

[...] for I think, on the contrary, that if nature has made nothing in vain (as you claim, I believe), it is for pleasure’s sake that she has made what by their nature only serve to delight us and possess no other useful quality.

That is a VERY narrow view of the natural world from Plutarch.

Quote from Godfrey

At first I was thinking that hekousion and akiusion might have become what the Stoics call giving assent and not giving assent (I can't remember if those are the exact terms) but, reading on, maybe not. Any thoughts on that?

Excellent observation. I think both your initial thought and subsequent rethinking are on the right track. I'll admit that I was unfamiliar with Stoic "assent." I think there is something in Stoicism similar to voluntary/involuntary but assent doesn't seem to be it. I found the excerpt from Stanford below helpful on assent.

Stoic assent appears to be connected with accepting sense impressions or not (from my 15 minutes poking around the Internet!). Voluntary/involuntary would seem more about taking responsibility - or being held responsible - for our actions. Virtue - in Aristotle - seems like it will be bound up with this idea.

And thanks for reading my notes, Godfrey !!

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Though a person may have no choice about whether she has a particular rational impression, there is another power of the commanding faculty which the Stoics call ‘assent’ and whether one assents to a rational impression is a matter of volition. To assent to an impression is to take its content as true. To withhold assent is to suspend judgement about whether it is true. Because both impression and assent are part of one and the same commanding faculty, there can be no conflict between separate and distinct rational and nonrational elements within oneself – a fight which reason might lose. Compare this situation with Plato’s description of the conflict between the inferior soul within us which is taken in by sensory illusions and the calculating part which is not (Rep. X, 602e). There is no reason to think that the calculating part can always win the epistemological civil war which Plato imagines to take place within us. But because the impression and assent are both aspects of one and the same commanding faculty according to the Stoics, they think that we can always avoid falling into error if only our reason is sufficiently disciplined. In a similar fashion, impulses or desires are movements of the soul toward something. In a rational creature, these are exercises of the rational faculty which do not arise without assent. Thus, a movement of the soul toward X is not automatically consequent upon the impression that X is desirable. This is what the Stoics’ opponents, the Academic Skeptics, argue against them is possible (Plutarch, 69A.) The Stoics, however, claim that there will be no impulse toward X – much less an action – unless one assents to the impression (Plutarch, 53S). The upshot of this is that all desires are not only (at least potentially) under the control of reason, they are acts of reason. Thus there could be no gap between forming the decisive judgement that one ought to do X and an effective impulse to do X.

Commentary for Part 1 of Book 3 is now available:

I found some of Aristotle's observations interesting in this section, but still aggravated about his being obstinate with respect to the role of pleasure in decision-making. I don't expect that to change.

You already have your Filebase/Library here:

Filebase - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

for PDFs.

Are you/we looking to expand that? Make it more "accessible"? Promote it other places? Include that link in pamphlets?

Quote from Cassius

As to Goodreads perhaps we create an Epicurean section?

I'll admit I'm still a novice Goodreads user, but if you create an account (using a general Epicurean Friends email?) you can create lists. Not sure how helpful that would be, but throwing it out there.

Quote from Godfrey

Haven't listened to the podcast yet but I just finished binge watching The Rings of Power. I enjoyed it immensely even though I'm not a serious Tolkien fan: particularly enjoyed all of the design work that went into it. And I kept thinking of the Tolkien fans here!

I certainly won't hijack this thread, but just wanted to say, in response to Godfrey , that I, too, have watched the first season of Rings of Power and, let's say.... I have... thoughts.

If anyone wants to start a private conversation, I'd be happy to share my pains and pleasures watching the show & would be curious to read others'.

I have to give a shout out to Joshua 's Tolkien reference in his final comments

Could we use GoodReads somehow?

I'm also torn on whether we could have a library of PDF papers we downloaded from Academia.edu or if we'd have to link to them and let people download them from there.

Quote from Martin

Nate's library of electronic files is a good idea if we make sure that no copyrights are violated.

Ditto. My thoughts exactly.

Thread

Thoughts and Criticism of Chapter 1

This is my second reading through DeWitt, but, admittedly, the first was several years ago and I did not have a firm recollection. I'm currently through Chapter 2 on this reading.

It is valuable that DeWitt has undertaken a comprehensive look at Epicureanism, both in synopsis and in detail. Additionally, his scholarship is obviously deep, and he taught in a number of schools in North America. I also find it interesting that he uses the terms Epicureanism and Epicurean philosophy somewhat…

Don

April 13, 2020 at 1:09 AM

Blast from the past (2020) and my initial takes on chapter 1

In the US, we call those "bookcases" Little Free Libraries:

Take a Book. Share a Book. - Little Free Library

Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization with a mission to build community, inspire readers, and expand book access for all through a global network of…

littlefreelibrary.org

That might be a place to leave pamphlets/booklets, too.

Google Scholar

Citations and links to some of DeWitt's papers

The discussion of virtue dovetails nicely with my reading of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics.

Book 2 starts his investigation of what virtue (Αρήτη "excellence, virtue") is. For all his words, I don't know if he really ever defines what virtue is. He dances around it and entertains some notions but never nails down s hard and fast rule.

I'll let anyone interested read my commentary to see my thoughts on Aristotle's attempts at defining it.

Quote from Cassius

Therefore if you have any trouble logging in from any device, let us know and we can arrange to remove you from that list, and that should fix any problem anyone has.

Logistical question: If we get a 404 Error and can't access the site, how do we contact you to tell you we can't access the site?

Nah, it's all good. Just wondered what happened to Garden!

Yep. Happened to me

Quote from Lucretius

Don't you see Nature requires no more than the body free from pain, that she may enjoy the mind easy and cheerful, removed from care and fear?

That seems to me a good description of katastematic pleasure as defined above.

My take on lines like this in the texts is that, if we have that - IF for some reason (medical, etc) that pleasure was all we had left to us - we could still have eudaimonia/happiness/ well-being. That does NOT mean that we LIMIT ourselves to that! When we are able, we have the entire spectrum of pleasure open to us.

This description of kinetic and katastematic from The Faith of Epicurus by Benjamin Farrington (1967) is spot on from my perspective:

I need to read this book. Only recently became aware of it. Does anyone else have a review?

The key takeaway of Epicurus's and Metrodorus's mentioning of kinetic and katastematic pleasure is to drive home the all-encompassing spectrum of hedone, inadequately pinned merely to one English word "pleasure." Hedone encompasses the joy experienced through physical activities we engage in with the world and other people like eating, drinking, conversing, dancing, sex, singing, viewing theater performances, viewing beautiful natural vistas and artwork, and so on. But it also encompasses pleasure experienced from inside ourselves like contemplating philosophy, recollecting past pleasurable memories, anticipating future pleasure, experiencing tranquility of mind and freedom from anxiety. That's the significance of embracing both katastematic and kinetic pleasure. Yes, there are different kinds of pleasure, but it's important to allow both in your life for a maximum pleasurable existence. The Cyrenaics didn't admit katastemstic pleasure into their definition. Epicurus embraced all pleasure in his philosophy. That said, we have much more control over katastematic pleasure and so can be more assured of its continuance as a source of pleasure. It's not A OR B it's A AND B with an understanding that one is always available even when the other might not be. That's why Epicurus could say he was experiencing pleasure even in the midst of pain nearing death. He had ready access to katastematic pleasure from within himself even if his pain prevented him from partaking in physical activities that would bring him joy.

I will continue to soapbox the fact that katastematic and kinetic come directly from Epicurus in On Choices and Avoidances:

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The words of Epicurus in his work On Choice are : "Peace of mind and freedom from pain are pleasures which imply a state of rest ; joy and delight are seen to consist in motion and activity."

ὁ δ᾽ Ἐπίκουρος ἐν τῷ Περὶ αἱρέσεων οὕτω λέγει: "ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἀταραξία καὶ ἀπονία καταστηματικαί εἰσιν ἡδοναί: ἡ δὲ χαρὰ καὶ ἡ εὐφροσύνη κατὰ κίνησιν ἐνεργείᾳ βλέπονται."

I will continue to soapbox that Metrodorus stated there were pleasures of activity and those of "rest/states/stability":

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"Metrodorus, in his book On the Source of Happiness in Ourselves being greater than that which arises from Objects, says: 'What else is the good of the soul but the sound state of the flesh, and the sure hope of its continuance?'"

Metrodorus in his Timocrates, whose actual words are : "Thus pleasure being conceived both as that species which consists in motion and that which is a state of rest."

Metrodorus's quote is: νοουμένης δὲ ἡδονῆς τῆς τε κατὰ κίνησιν καὶ τῆς καταστηματικῆς. Right there, again, is κίνησιν (kinēsin) and καταστηματικῆς (katastēmatikēs).

This, to me, points to the "source" - "the sound state of the flesh" (to sarkos eustathes *katastema*) - being a more confident source -- according to Metrodorus himself -- of pleasure than "objects" (kinetic pleasure) outside of ourselves. It does NOT say the source "in ourselves" is "better (more value)" just that we can be more "sure" of its continuance because we have control over it.

It's not change vs "non-change".

It's pleasure taken in activity from outside ourselves and pleasure taken in states which originate only in our minds through recollection, contemplation, introspection, etc.

I have to agree with Gray that Aristotle "often loses himself in little trifleing Distinctions & verbal Niceties, & what is worse leaves you to extricate yourself as you can."

I expected to be overwhelmed and intimidated by Nichomachean Ethics, but I've just been disappointed. Aristotle has been this all-powerful bugaboo of Western Civilization, I expected to be in awe or something. I'm not getting that vibe. It's just a slog sometimes to work through his verbage.

Oh, and Socrates is still a jerk in my opinion. Just saying.