Posts by Don

Quote from Cassius

13. 13 Epicurus was particularly hypocritcal in disdaining the discussion or study of music and poetry, since he himself said that the wise man will love the music of public events.

It seems to me, the epicureans could take pleasure in the performance and not need to listen to critical analysis or music theory. The Epicureans right from Epicurus took pleasure in the festivals, including music and drama as I remember. Plutarch seems to be saying it's more pleasurable to critique and analyze? Hmmm, I don't think I agree with that.

On a separate note: In Against Colotes, Plutarch writes

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And they write in express terms: ‘We are to treat how a man may best keep and preserve the end of Nature, and how he may from the very beginning avoid entering of his own free will and voluntarily upon offices of magistracy, and government over the people.’ And yet again, these other words are theirs: ‘There is no need at all that a man should tire out his mind and body to preserve the Greeks, and to obtain from them a crown of wisdom; but to eat and drink well, O Timocrates, without prejudicing, but rather pleasing the flesh.’

This goes to the lathe biosas issue, but putting here for further comment later so I don't lose it.

Welcome aboard!!

Just curious: Assuming you're a fan of the Hubble Space Telescope and not necessarily the astronomer Edwin Humble?

Cassius really has done a great service in this outline. Kudos to you.

I also think it's important to put Plutarch into context temporally:

• Epicurus 341-270 BCE
• Colotes c. 320 – after 268 BCE
• Cicero (for additional context): 106 - 43 BCE
  • Cicero was writing his philosophical works around 150 years before Plutarch.
• Plutarch c. 40 - c. 120s CE

Plutarch is complaining about a work written by someone (Colotes) who lived around 350 years before him!! Don't forget in all this Colotes has been dead a loooong time before Plutarch started whining about his work. This also shows the stature in which Colotes work was obviously held, likely among the Epicurean school, for it to have survived intact for Plutarch to complain about it. Colotes' work was probably composed around the 270s BCE. Plutarch was writing around the 100 CE.

Quote from Cassius

There are 31 sections in this text, and to help organize the discussion here is a single sentence condensing each one. Links are to the Perseus edition:

1. 1 Colotes has written a book "That It Is Impossible To Live According to the Tenets of The Other Philosophers" and this will be in response.

2. 2 The speakers will respond to the Epicureans' name-calling against the other philosophers, and prove that it impossible to live pleasantly according to the philosophy of Epicurus.

I decided to go over to Plutarch's Against Colotes and see what Colotes actually said (well, said according to Plutarch) and what were some of his responses. I find it amusing that Plutarch says that (Impossible 2) he will show that "it is impossible to live a pleasurable life according to their tenets," but Colotes evidently contended that it was impossible to live, no qualifiers, according to the other philosophers. Colotes was saying one couldn't live one's life. In Against Colotes, Plutarch says "And our parents indeed have, with the assistance of the Gods, given us our life; but to live well comes to us from reason, which we have learned from the philosophers, which favors law and justice, and restrains our concupiscence. Now to live well is to live sociably, friendly, temperately, and justly; of all which conditions they leave us not one, who cry out that man's sovereign good lies in his belly, and that they would not purchase all the virtues together at the expense of a cracked farthing, if pleasure were totally and on every side removed from them."

I don't think Epicurus or Colotes would deny that living pleasurably entails law, justice, sociability, friendliness, temperance, and acting justly. Heck. One of the PDs says this outright. Plutarch (and Cicero) have to set up a straw man to "take down" Epicurus.

In Against Colotes (AC, from here on out), Plutarch says "the Epicureans reproach the other philosophers, that by their wisdom they bereave man of his life; whilst the others on the contrary accuse them of teaching men to live degenerately and like beasts." Again, straw man.

Colotes appears to be going hard against the Skeptics. Plutarch quotes him as saying ‘These deny that there is a man, a horse, a wall; but say that they themselves (as it were) become walls, horses, men,’ or ‘are impressed with the images of walls, horses, or men.’ Colotes is striking hard at those who say a man, a horse, a wall don't exist. If they take that position, they literally can't live.

Quote from Cassius

3. 3 The Epicureans base their claim to pleasure in the body, a "poor, rotten, and unsure" thing that experiences more pains than pleasures, both in terms of intensity and duration, and yet Epicurus has made "the removal of all that pains the common definition of pleasure."

4. 4 Epicurus' emphasis on mental pleasure is of no avail to him, because when he talks about mental pleasures he focuses on memory of bodily pleasures, and these are only an empty shadow - a dream - a fume - of the body's pleasure.

5. 5 Mental pleasures cannot rid us of bodily pains, as we see from the fact that the Epicureans themselves suffered diseases such as strangury, gripes, consumptions and dropsies; and life in this condition cannot really be pleasant, as they claim.

No Epicurean ever said mental pleasures rid one of bodily pains. The strangury etc are obvious jabs against Epicurus. Epicurus never said his pain went away. He said he could do battle with it with his memories of, basically, a life well-lived. His memories gave him joy in the midst of pain. Plutarch's being a jerk.

Quote from Cassius

6. 6 Just like the Epicureans claim that the unjust man lives in fear of punishment, they too must live in fear of bodily pain.

7. 7 It is ridiculous for the Epicureans to argue that when all pain is driven out there is no further room for pleasure, and that to be without pain makes them equal to the gods -even the brute animals sing and fly about after they have satisfied their longings, and Epicurus would deny us even that!

Epicurus doesn't deny us anything. While we need to make prudent choices of what to pursue and from what to flee (and I use 'flee' on purpose just to poke Cassiusa little ), pleasure is good and Epicurus doesn't deny variations in pleasure.

Quote from Cassius

8. 8 Those things that we require for life do not deserve the name of good, nor even the name of pleasure, any more than does a rogue's freedom from being in jail, and even brute animals are free from the worries of hell or gods - and yet Epicurus praises such freedom so highly!

9. 9 The bodily pleasures and memories of them are but slight, and have nothing in them that is great and considerable like that which comes from the contemplative and active and heroic aspects of life.

10. 10 The pleasures of the body, or memories of our dead friends, are nothing in comparison with the pleasures of the mind that come from contemplating Homer or Xenophon.

LOL!! "And who could take greater satisfaction either in eating when a-hungry or drinking when a-dry amongst the Phaeacians, than in going over Ulysses's relation of his own voyage and rambles? And what man could be better pleased with the embraces of the most exquisite beauty, than with sitting up all night to read over what Xenophon hath written of Panthea, or Aristobulus of Timoclea, or Theopompus of Thebe?" Personally, I'd take eating and drinking among the Phaeacians and the embraces of beauty... unless one is in the mood for Ulysses or Xenophon. Epicurus doesn't lay down dictates on this kind of choice. Whichever would lead to more pleasure.

Quote from Cassius

11. 11 The Epicureans chase away the pleasures of mathematics and history and geometry and music and the like, and these are far more pleasurable than the pleasures of the body.

"The bare contemplating and comprehending of these now engender in the learners both unspeakable delights and a marvellous height of spirit." Plutarch, my man, you're describing taking pleasure in something! LOL "comparing with these the fulsome debauchees of victualling-houses and stews" Straw man alert!!

Quote from Cassius

12. 12 Epicurus bids us to set sail and fly from these greater pleasures of liberal arts, mathematics, poets, and especially history, which was derided by Metrodorus, in favor of grosser pleasures of the body.

Plutarch quotes Metrodorus: "Wherefore let it never disturb you, if you know not either what side Hector was of, or the first verses in Homer's Poem, or again what is in its middle." If one knows or doesn't know what's in the Iliad, it need not disturb them... Don't worry about a cadre of snooty elite philosophers who want to look down their nose at you for not knowing it.

That's enough for now. I'll come back and put some notes in for the other sections possibly later. I'm just getting a bunch of sour grapes from Plutarch and his ilk, setting up straw men and knocking them down.

Inwood and Gerson are solid translations.

Wow! Well and passionately said! Are you sure you even need me for the Plutarch episode? I feel like we could just wind you up and let you go.

In 7, Plutarch goes on about Epicurus' quote (and it is a quote) that "The very essence of good arises from the escaping of bad, and a man's recollecting, considering, and rejoicing within himself that this hath befallen him. For what occasions transcending joy (he saith) is some great impending evil escaped; and in this lies the very nature and essence of good, if a man attain unto it aright, and contain himself when he hath done, and not ramble and prate idly about it." [ U423, source: This section of Plutarch ]

An alternative translation:

Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 7, p. 1091A: Not only is the basis that they assume for the pleasurable life untrustworthy and insecure, it is quite trivial and paltry as well, inasmuch as their "thing delighted" – their good – is an escape from ills, and they say that they can conceive of no other, and indeed that our nature has no place at all in which to put its good except the place left when its evil is expelled. … Epicurus too makes a similar statement to the effect that the good is a thing that arises out of your very escape from evil and from your memory and reflection and gratitude that this has happened to you. His words are these: "That which produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about {a jibe at the Peripatetics}, prating meaninglessly about the good."

Ibid., 8, p. 1091E: Thus Epicurus, and Metrodorus too, suppose {that the middle is the summit and the end} when they take the position that escape from ill is the reality and upper limit of the good.

Plutarch whines about this "escape from evil" and the memory of this being the Epicureans' "highest good" and then turns around in other sections (13) to castigate the Epicureans for taking joy in festivals (but not in engaging in critical arguments about music and poetry):

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Epicurus saith, when he pronounceth in his book called his Doubts that his wise man ought to be a lover of public spectacles and to delight above any other man in the music and shows of the Bacchanals (ἀκροάμασι καὶ θεάμασι Διονυσιακοῖς); and yet he will not admit of music problems or of the critical enquiries of [p. 177] philologists, no, not so much as at a compotation. Yea, he advises such princes as are lovers of the Muses rather to entertain themselves at their feasts either with some narration of military adventures or with the importune scurrilities of drolls and buffoons, than to engage in disputes about music or in questions of poetry. For this very thing he had the face to write in his treatise of Monarchy, as if he were writing to Sardanapalus, or to Nanarus satrap of Babylon. For neither would a Hiero nor an Attalus nor an Archelaus be persuaded to make a Euripides, a Simonides, a Melanippides, a Crates, or a Diodotus rise up from their tables, and to place such scaramuchios in their rooms as a Cardax, an Agrias, or a Callias, or fellows like Thrasonides and Thrasyleon, to make people disorder the house with hollowing and clapping.

Plutarch is all over the place, in Section 16-17 he rails against Metrodorus:

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And are not Metrodorus's words something like to these when he writes to his brother thus: It is none of our business to preserve the Greeks, or to get them to bestow garlands upon us for our wit, but to eat well and drink good wine, Timocrates, so as not to offend but pleasure our stomachs. And he saith again, in some other place in the same epistles: How gay and how assured was I, when I had once learned of Epicurus the true way of gratifying my stomach; for, believe me, philosopher Timocrates, our prime good lies at the stomach. In brief, these men draw out the dimensions of their pleasures like a circle, about the stomach as a centre. And the truth is, it is impossible for those men ever to participate of generous and princely joy, such as enkindles a height of spirit in us and sends forth to all mankind an unmade hilarity and calm serenity, that have taken up a sort of life that is confined, unsocial, inhuman, and uninspired [p. 184] towards the esteem of the world and the love of mankind.

You can't have it both ways, and both Plutarch and Cicero seem to ascribe both debauchery and ascetism to the Epicurean school. It can't be both, and so it comes across as stereotyping, hyperbole, or caricature.

Great outline, Cassius . This will be VERY helpful.

Quote from Patrikios

But a review of that book by DeWitt may be a discussion in another thread.

Epicurus And His Philosophy - Norman DeWitt

I've made a number of posts here:

Epicurus and His Philosophy - Chapter Specific Threads

Quote from Eikadistes

I'd like to get one and experiment, but it's not in my cards at the moment.

Try your local public library. They'll often have them in their maker spaces and print files for patrons.

Quote from DaveT

First, not too many people are going to read this book. On Amazon, it has 27 reader reviews, and it’s been out since last January.

Good perspective... albeit still aggravating they get away with it. Discussing in a wider forum could just call more attention to it.

Quote from Rolf

it’s a shame because it represents the vast majority of discourse around Epicurus.

Agreed.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, φεύγω

This is the word the Epicureans used, including Epicurus:

φεύγω • (pheúgō)

(intransitive) to flee, run off, go a certain direction with haste (often with prepositions)

(transitive) to flee, escape, avoid, get away from (danger or trouble)

(transitive or intransitive) to leave the country, go into exile

(intransitive) to be exiled, banished, driven out of the country [with ὑπό (hupó, + genitive) ‘by someone’]

(intransitive, present and imperfect) to be in exile, live in banishment

(perfect) to have escaped, be safe from

(law, chiefly present and imperfect) to be accused of a crime; often with δίκην (díkēn) and genitive of the crime

Usage notes

The present and imperfect often have a conative reading: to try to get away, intend to leave.

Quote from Cassius

It's not reason that is to be distrusted, but Stoicism.

I would even say that it's not even "but Stoicism" it is" but reliance on reason alone separate from the physical material world experienced by your senses."

Quote from Cassius

Just FLEE from pain with as much speed and abandon as you can!

Well, they're word choice is correct but in the wrong place. The old "choice and avoidance" is better translated as "choose and flee" but we aren't encouraged to flee from pain. We're instructed to choose the path that leads to the most pleasure, and sometimes that means experiencing some pain.

The whole chapter is a trainwreck from beginning to end.

As is my usual practice, I reference Dr. Austin's article:

If you go to the Google link, you can click the link in the table of contents to the Epicurean section. The "living like an Epicurean" is teeth-clenchingly bad

Beyond Stoicism: A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers
By Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, Meredith Alexander Kunz · 2025

(Preview)

Beyond Stoicism

books.google.com

Same old, same old regurgitated nonsense regarding the Garden. "Beautiful obscurity"

It seems to me that "universals" is simply a high falutin' way of recognizing patterns across disparate individual entities, physical or abstract. To me, that sounds like the faculty of prolepsis and not some complicated philosophical construct. The fact that I can see a red barn and a red tractor and then a red leaf in Fall doesn't in any way make me believe in some universal "red-ness." It's my physical senses interacting with the physical world eliciting a response in my mind. That's extrapolating to other patterns across innumerable sensations and experiences.

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Pacatus

(Bertrand Russell notwithstanding).

Pacatus what are you referring to there? I know Russell is a major figure but I am not familiar with the details of his works.

The problems of philosophy : Russell, Bertrand, 1872-1970 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Includes bibliographical references and index

archive.org

Disclaimer: I know very little about Russell's philosophy. I'm googling around, the work linked above was cited as a source for his views on universals, specifically chapter X (and it looks like chapter IX).

Quote from Cassius

Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus 45 (Bailey)

These brief sayings, if all these points are borne in mind, afford a sufficient outline for our understanding of the nature of existing things. Furthermore, there are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number, as was proved already, are borne on far out into space. For those atoms, which are of such nature that a world could be created out of them or made by them, have not been used up either on one world or on a limited number of worlds, nor again on all the worlds which are alike, or on those which are different from these. So that there nowhere exists an obstacle to the infinite number of the worlds.

[45 My own translation/emendation of Hicks | Perseus Project] "The repetition at such length of all that we are now recalling to mind furnishes an adequate outline for our conception of the nature of things.

"Moreover, there is an infinite number of cosmoi (κόσμοι ἄπειροί "infinite kosmoi"), some like this one, others unlike it. For the atoms (being infinite in number (ἄτομοι ἄπειροι οὖσαι "atoms are infinite"), as has just been proved, are borne ever further in their course. For the atoms out of which a cosmos might arise or by which a world might be formed (ἐξ ὧν ἂν γένοιτο κόσμος ἢ ὑφ᾽ ὧν ἂν ποιηθείη) have not all been expended on one or a finite number whether like or unlike this one. Hence there will be nothing to hinder an infinity of cosmoi ( ὥστε οὐδὲν τὸ ἐμποδοστατῆσόν ἐστι πρὸς τὴν ἀπειρίαν τῶν κόσμων.).

κόσμος = "order; an ordered pocket of the universe (The All). The All is that in which these cosmoi which Epicurus posits exist without end.

One of the definitions in LSJ of κόσμος is : Herm. ap. Stob.1.49.44; of the sphere whose centre is the earth's centre and radius the straight line joining earth and sun, Archim.Aren.4; of the sphere containing the fixed stars"

ἄπειρος = translated "infinite"; From ἀ- (a-, “not”) +‎ πεῖραρ (peîrar), πέρας (péras, “end, limit”). so, "with no limit; with no end"

I am the broken record when I emphasize when translators use "world" for Greek kosmos or Latin mundus (a calque of Ancient Greek κόσμος), we need to see that not as talking about Earth or Mars or any of the 5,972 confirmed exoplanets discovered by NASA. The conception of the cosmos that Epicurus was working under was the sphere containing Earth at its center with the fixed and wandering stars (what we call "planets" now) circling around it. Epicurus is positing an unlimited number of world-systems like the one we inhabit. You would have to travel through the metakosmos "the between-world-systems" (more familiar as the Latin translation intermundia "between the mundī) to get to another cosmos.

I agree wholeheartedly with Joshua 's sentiments that Cicero, of all people, had Peri Telos sitting on his desk to read in full!

In his letter to Idomeneus, Epicurus calls his last day "blessed" (makarion). And "But the cheerfulness (χαῖρον khairon) of my mind, which arises from the recollection of all our philosophical contemplations, counterbalances all these afflictions." (Yonge's translation with amending "our" instead of "my philosopical...") khairon is a form of the word used for the kinetic pleasure of "joy" khara. And Epicurus doesn't say the "joy" outweighs or conquers the pain of his condition. The word used is Ἀντιπαρατάσσομαι (antiparatassomai) which conveys "holding one's ground against, and in drawing up troops in battle order, side by side, ready to do battle against an enemy." He can do battle with the physical pain with the kinetic "joy" he can experience.

I just wanted to emphasize that the pain never goes away. Epicurus experiences every bit of the pain, but he can do battle with it by recollections of the good times he had and the satisfaction of how he lived his life.