Posts by Don

Quote from Joshua

THE Thomas Gray!?

Thomas Gray Archive : Texts : Letters : Letter ID letters.0139

Quote

for my Part I read Aristotle; his Poeticks, Politicks, and Morals, tho' I don't well know, wch is which. in the first Place he is the hardest Author by far I ever meddled with. then he has a dry Conciseness, that makes one imagine one is perusing a Table of Contents rather than a Book: it tasts for all the World like chop'd Hay, or rather like chop'd Logick; for he has a violent Affection to that Art, being in some Sort his own Invention; so that he often loses himself in little trifleing Distinctions & verbal Niceties, & what is worse leaves you to extricate yourself as you can. thirdly he has suffer'd vastly by the Transcribblers, as all Authors of great Brevity necessarily must.

Quote from Cassius

There is some well known characterization I which readinf Aristotle is like eating straw, right

"Reading Aristotle is a bit like eating dried hay."

Thomas Gray (1716 – 1771)

At least you could lie down in a pile of hay and take a nap.

Okay, I've finished up my take on Book 2:

I had to break it up into 2 parts (Part 1 and Part 2). There's a lot going on, but, as you'll see I've come away thinking "I'm not seeing much more than obfuscation and some nice-looking word salad made up mostly of celery and lettuce and not much nutrition."

I'm still finding it interesting, especially Aristotle tying himself up in knots trying to talk trash about pleasure.

Enjoy.

Martin 's post is spot on. I especially like:

Quote from Martin

The truth Plato and probably most ancient philosophers had in mind concerning the world does not exist or is unavailable.

The only edit I would suggest (and I could just be misinterpreting what he wrote) is when he writes:

Quote from Martin

What we can get from observations are tentative facts by using logic as a tool.

I would suggest: What we can get from observations are tentative facts which can be expanded on and refined by using logic as a tool.

Which seems to me about what Cassius is getting at.

When Cassius uses what I interpret as "scare quotes" around

Quote from Cassius

"science" and "logic"

Or modifies science and logic as

Quote from Cassius

true science and true logic .

is superfluous and sets up the wrong dichotomy. The divisions aren't "true" science or "science." There's science and theoretical science (like string theory) which may or may not be verified in the future but is currently untestable. There's science and pseudoscience (like creation science or flat-earthers) which is just making stuff up or wildly misinterpreting actual findings and ignoring data that don't support your position. Then there's science and just misinformation and propaganda that twist scientific findings out of all proportion for political or nefarious end.

We don't follow science. Scientific discovery arrived at through the scientific method can be either accepted or rejected based on the validity of the research, the soundness of observations, the credentials of the researcher, etc. Science backed up by research, observation, etc. is just science.

For example, I had the opportunity this week to view Saturn and Titan as well as Jupiter and its 4 Galilean moons through telescopes set up for an astronomy event. I find it breathtaking to literally see those celestial bodies for myself. BUT I need science to help me understand what I'm seeing, what I'm observing. Epicurus himself advocated understanding the natural world as contributing "more than anything else to the tranquillity and happiness of life."

Same with logic. You have to define your terms before you can talk about "logic" or "true" logic. Epicurus engaged in formal logical arguments. You just have to know what logic is being used, if sound propositions are being used, etc.

For anyone interested:

https://worldcat.org/en/title/859253192

Quote from Kalosyni

Quote from Don:

Quote

Starting around 1095b, Aristotle appears to stake his flag against pleasure as the Good:

“The common run of people and the most vulgar identify [the highest good] with pleasure, and for that reason are satisfied with a life of enjoyment…a life suitable to cattle.”

LOL! Oh, a life of enjoyment! Perish the thought!

He goes on to say that there are really three notable kinds of life:

• The life of enjoyment/pleasure
• The political life (remember, life in service to the polis)
• The contemplative life

Could we correctly say that Epicureanism actually combines:

a) a life of enjoyment/pleasure

-AND-

c) the contemplative life (contemplating the nature of things)

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The thought that comes to mind is: is it our responsibility to convert or to simply evangelize. I don't think those are the same thing. Epicurus seemed to hold a dim view in some regards of the hoi polloi. He made his philosophy available but he wasn't handing out leaflets and screaming on the street corner.

Quote from Cassius

except by rejecting life itself.

Which is basically what Christianity does: this life only counts for what your afterlife - you're "going home" life - is like. Bah! Carpe *this* diem.

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:

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“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)