This needs a bit more parsing: I don't think that there's always a rational component to desires. I
With your explanations there, I fully agree!
Choosing whether or not to act on a desire is definitely a rational operation,
Yes.
I could see there being "subconscious" desires or ingrained habitual desires.
Edit:
I think I would also include addiction in this category.
Another enjoyable episode!
One thing that stuck out to me was Joshua's passing remark of his reaction to "Greek has different words for love." I couldn't resist providing some context.
The "ancient Greeks have different words for love" is analogous to "the Inuit have hundreds of words for snow." English can express just as many snow conditions as the Inuit just like English can express different conditions of love. However, translations of αγαπώ, φιλώ, etc. that all use English "love" completely mask the meaning of the Greek.
I'm especially aware of this after listening yesterday to an episode of the Data over Dogma podcast (start 38:10). They talked about John 21:15-17 and the different words translated as love in English. A Christian website, Got Questions?, summarizes the importance of the Greek words:
There is also an interesting contrast when you look at the Greek words for “love” used in John 21:15–17. When Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” in John 21:15–16, He used the Greek word agape, which refers to unconditional love. Both times, Peter responded with “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you,” using the Greek word phileo, which refers more to a brotherly/friendship type of love. It seems that Jesus is trying to get Peter to understand that he must love Jesus unconditionally in order to be the leader God is calling him to be. The third time Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” in John 21:17, He uses the word phileo, and Peter again responds with “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you,” again using phileo. The point in the different Greek words for “love” seems to be that Jesus was stretching Peter to move him from phileo love to agape love.
Just another example of how translation can either elucidate or obfuscate.
wouldn't it be logical to have categories of pleasure analogous to those of desires? If this is so, then I'm next suggesting that katastematic pleasures come from natural and necessary desires and that kinetic pleasures come from natural and unnecessary desires . OK, but how is this useful?
I'm intrigued by your idea, but not sure if I'm fully onboard...yet. Let me make sure I understand your suggestion:
Fully agree & acknowledge that Epicurus provides a categorization of desires and a categorization of pleasures.
Your positing that our basic needs (natural and necessary desires) give rise to katastematic pleasure - our "baseline" pleasure (the "ocean" in the water metaphor earlier above?) and this is a result of 20% of actions/choices/avoidances, giving rise to 80% of our pleasure in life. Kinetic pleasure (the "waves" in the metaphor above) arises from 80% of our actions but only contributes 20% of our overall happiness. So we need both the 80% katastematic and 20% kinetic to live fully pleasurable 100% lives. Percentages aside, you're proposing that the bulk of our "baseline" pleasure is going to come from meeting our "natural and necessary" desires, but the kinetic pleasure is ...to make up a new metaphor... the icing that really makes the cake delicious?
Is that summary aligning with your thinking?
If so, the one thing that strikes me as askew is comparing desires with pleasure. Desires to me are one thing; pleasure and pain are another thing. Desires imply cognition and rational decision-making, whereas pleasure and pain are sensations which we can't decide not to feel.
Like I said, I'm intrigued and you may be onto something... just still percolating.
That said, I do like your striving to make things practical and useful and to get off "the primrose path of Ciceronian obfuscation." (A NICE touch of wordsmithing that phrase is!)
NOTE:
Here is a Latin translation of Diogenes Laertius with NO numbers in Kyriai Doxai:
"Principle Doctrines" starts in the middle of the page with:
Quod beatum atque immortale est, neque ipsum negotia habet neque alii praebet, ...
Published Lugduni (London), : Apud Antonium Gryphium., 1592.
Gryphius, Antonius 1527-1599, printer, Traversari, Ambrogio 1386-1439
I have seen printed Latin translation from 1692 WITH numbered lists.
I wondered whether Lucian's text gave an idea if "Accepted Maxims" description would give us an idea of whether it was in discrete, listed items (like we have now) or more summary or epitome.
Lucian's text reads:
εὑρὼν γὰρ τὰς Ἐπικούρου κυρίας δόξας, τὸ κάλλιστον, ὡς οἶσθα, τῶν βιβλίων καὶ κεφαλαιώδη περιέχον τῆς τἀνδρὸς σοφίας τὰ δόγματα,...
I see nothing to suggest Lucian saw it as a list per se but just a summary text. Just to be clear, I'm not maintaining that Kyriai Doxai read beginning to end like a treatise. It was obviously a summary. However, we do a great disservice to the text by seeing the "maxims" as discrete entities. My goal is to connect what needs to be connected, to let stand alone what needs or is intended to stand alone. My primary position is that the numbered list has corrupted our understanding of the text that, according to Lucian, is the most noble of books.
Award for Best Use of Emojis on EpicureanFriends!
(Do we know the historical development of these texts? I had thought not.)
As far as I know, "details" are sketchy at best. There is such a gap between Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius (lived after 200 CE), but I *think* there are other mentions of either the book title Kyriai Doxai or individual quotes from the book in earlier authors. Lucian of Samasota (c. 125 – after 180 CE) mentions them in Alexander the Oracle Monger...
In this connection Alexander once made himself supremely ridiculous. Coming across Epicurus’ Accepted Maxims (Ἐπικούρου κυρίας δόξας, Epikourou kyrias doxas), the most admirable of his books, as you know, with its terse presentment of his wise conclusions, he brought it into the middle of the market-place, there burned it on a fig-wood fire for the sins of its author, and cast its ashes into the sea. He issued an oracle on the occasion: “The dotard’s maxims to the flames be given.” The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon its readers, of the peace, tranquility, and independence of mind it produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and marvels, vain hopes and insubordinate desires, of the judgment and candor that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches and squills and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and frankness.
Edit:
Philodemus (c. 110 – prob. c. 40/35 BCE) mentions Kyriai Doxai as well. He mentions it by title and refers to / quotes KD/PD1 in On Anger, 43:14-41.
We then at least have a trail that leads from Epicurus to Laertius:
Epicurus 341–270 BC
Philodemus (c. 110 – prob. c. 40/35 BCE)
Lucian of Samasota (c. 125 – after 180 CE)
Diogenes Laertius (fl. after 200 CE)
I just wanted to add to the above that I do not think of “frugality” as some kind of idealistic virtue-discipline (ala, say, the Stoics) – but just as the simple practical virtue of “living well within your means” – where the double entendre with that word “well” is deliberate. And living well just means living as pleasurable, painlessly and stresslessly as possible.
Well put! Thanks for sharing that!
From how I read your post, you see frugality as a means to "living well" and not an end in itself like a Stoic would. Frugality is not a capital-V Virtue to be followed in every situation at every time in every place.
You've undertaken quite a sleuthing project Don !
Tell me about it! LOL!
Pondering the data from a current, English-speaking perspective that is ignorant of Greek (mine):
- Interesting that 6 and 7 have a dot between them as they seem to address the same subject. Why a dot there, but not between 5 and 6?
- Why between 11 and 12, but not between 10 and 11 or 12 and 13? I would tend to combine all four.
Your questions are VERY good ones, and may very well come to light with other punctuation, spacing, etc. issues that come later. I generally agree with your assessments btw.
red dots
Oh, the ones I'm looking at are not red. They're the same color as the rest of the ink (at least on the ones scans that are color; grec.1758 is in b&w. The red color was used on the initial letters of the Vatican Sayings. Here's an example of what I'm talking about from grec. 1758...
) at the end of PD3 (συναμφότερον) leading right into PD4 (Οὐ χρονίζει τὸ...).SO, unfortunately, the interpunct symbol could do multiple duties...evidently depending on the whims of the scribe!! So, some of your intuitions, Godfrey, could be correct. My initial post there is literally a blunt force attempt at a start. LOL. Only a start! (Shields eyes from the sun... heads back into the scriptorium)
Okay, after going through three manuscripts:
I have the following VERY preliminary, conservative proposal to make. The only thing this post looks at is where the 3 texts agree in NOT putting an interpunct (dot - signifying a full stop or full breath) between what are usually individual "Principal Doctrines." I purposefully did NOT try to remember what each of the PDs were, so the text didn't sway me on "Is that a dot or not?" All three manuscripts appear to NOT place a dot:
There are other sections worth looking at, but here are those non-dotted PDs listed above for your consideration, using Hicks for the quick-n-dirty translation.
(5 & 6) It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives well and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life. In order to obtain security from other men any means whatsoever of procuring this was a natural good.
(10 & 11) If the objects which are productive of pleasures to profligate persons really freed them from fears of the mind,--the fears, I mean, inspired by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, the fear of pain ; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires, we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they would then be filled with pleasures to overflowing on all sides and would be exempt from all pain, whether of body or mind, that is, from all evil. If we had never been molested by alarms at celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by the misgiving that death somehow affects us, nor by neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, we should have had no need to study natural science.
(12 & 13) It would be impossible to banish fear on matters of the highest importance, if a man did not know the nature of the whole universe, but lived in dread of what the legends tell us. Hence without the study of nature there was no enjoyment of unmixed pleasures. There would be no advantage in providing security against our fellow-men, so long as we were alarmed by occurrences over our heads or beneath the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless universe.
(15 & 16 & 17) Nature's wealth at once has its bounds and is easy to procure ; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite distance. Fortune but seldom interferes with the wise man ; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout the course of his life. The just man enjoys the greatest peace of mind, while the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude.
(18 & 19) Pleasure in the flesh admits no increase when once the pain of want has been removed ; after that it only admits of variation. The limit of pleasure in the mind, however, is reached when we reflect on the things themselves and their congeners which cause the mind the greatest alarms. Unlimited time and limited time afford an equal amount of pleasure, if we measure the limits of that pleasure by reason.
There are other idiosyncracies of the manuscripts that I want to explore, but figured I'd share this since ya'll have been patient. There are also instances where two manuscripts will lack a dot "between" PDs but not the third. There are some gaps, other marks, other things to consider. But those above seem to hang together, done better than others admittedly.
EDIT: And this also doesn't take into consideration different forms of words, missing lines or different phrasing.
In reference to my post 11 above, it is not out of the question in my opinion to consider periodic fasting or intervals of caloric restriction to be well within Epicurean practice. I'm not ready to call for either as a regular lifestyle but could easily see the teachers and students of the Garden periodically taking part in these and comparing results with each other. When you pay attention to your feeling of pleasure, is your meal truly satisfying? When times of famine come (as they most definitely did in ancient Greece!), how much truly satisfies my hunger and removes my pain? What do I *need* as opposed to what do I *want*? Then go about your regular routine until the next experiment. Do I need as much as last time or does less satisfy me? Or do I really need more? What do I *need* to be healthy and happy? Was I fooling myself last time, trying to show off withstanding pain, like a Stoic?
This also has echoes of Epicurus sharing his bean crop in times of famine. He and his students were prepared to know what a reasonable or realistic ration was due to prior experience and experimentation.
This could be an interesting area for experimentation.
Edit/Addendum:
I wanted to add that nowhere do we read that Epicurus experimented in this way with clothing, housing, etc. He didn't experiment with living by begging or staying in a cave. He didn't go out with a flimsy cloak or barefoot in winter (like Socrates did to show how unencumbered by convention he was). He didn't try begging in the streets like Cynic. Epicurus had a modest house in the city, a large private productive Garden literally in the suburbs. Epicurus does write about fancy clothes and extravagant houses being unnecessary for well-being, but these could be enjoyed, just like a banquet, if opportunities presented themselves.
Even with the difficulty (or almost impossibility) of getting modern equivalent values for ancient money, your calculations look at least plausible to me. Nicely done.
The important thing to me seems to be that even experimenting on eating what "less than an as" would buy, Epicurus wasn't starving himself like an ascetic. He wasn't trying to live on a single grain of rice like Siddhartha Gautama during his ascetic phase. Epicurus was experimenting from time to time on how much would actually satisfy his hunger.
Don I'm meaning to experiment with how far I can go live on today's equivalent of 2 asses in my currency. But unlike Epicurus, I don't think I'd have a good reason to gloat or boast.
We have to be careful about phrases like this, because we don't have Epicurus's "well-known" letter that Seneca refers to. The relevant section is Seneca letter 18:8-11 (emphasis added):
Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe stated intervals, during which he satisfied his hunger in meager fashion; he wished to see whether he thereby fell short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount he fell short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort. At any rate, he makes such a statement in the well known letter written to Polyaenus in the archonship of Charinus.[7] Indeed, he boasts that he himself lived on less than an as, but that Metrodorus, whose progress was not yet so great, needed a whole as. 10. Do you think that there can be fulness on such fare? Yes, and there is pleasure also, – not that shifty and fleeting pleasure which needs a fillip now and then, but a pleasure that is steadfast and sure. For though water, barley-meal, and crusts of barley-bread, are not a cheerful diet, yet it is the highest kind of pleasure to be able to derive pleasure from this sort of food, and to have reduced one's needs to that modicum which no unfairness of Fortune can snatch away. 11. Even prison fare is more generous; and those who have been set apart for capital punishment are not so meanly fed by the man who is to execute them. Therefore, what a noble soul must one have, to descend of one's own free will to a diet which even those who have been sentenced to death have not to fear! This is indeed forestalling the spear-thrusts of Fortune.
So, Epicurus undertook these intervals of experimenting with a meager diet, "less generous than prison fare," from time to time to prove to himself that if he *had* to live on that much due to unforseen circumstances in the future, he could still be happy. He was testing his limits experimentally.
We have to be careful about the English translation of Seneca's glorior in the Latin text as "boast". Remember that we're getting Epicurus's Greek filtered through the Stoic Seneca's Latin. Glorior does mean "boast" but also "take pride in." And remember we don't have Epicurus's words. We can't know how he described his feeling. To indulge in some DeWittean flight of fancy referring to a lost text, I could easily imagine Epicurus writing to Polyaenus: "Recently, I've been able to satisfy my hunger pleasurably on less than an obol. I'm quite pleased with that outcome. Metrodorus has found he still requires a full obol, and we have had enjoyable frank discussions about our experiences..." That's all imagination remember. But if the lost letter went something like that -- and we don't know if it did! -- I could see the Seneca the Stoic saying Epicurus was boasting or was proud of himself.
There's a good book about this, aptly titled War, Food, and Politics in Early Hellenistic Athens, GJ Oliver.
By Zeus, I love my library! Just put a hold on it in our collection. Ready to pick up Thursday
I think that's what we're after here at EpicureanFriends too, and if there emerges from that a distinct flavor that separates this from other approaches, it's not adherence to DeWitt's conclusions that makes the difference. It's much more a shared approach of going after everything we can find that sheds light on what Epicurus may have been thinking, and trying to place it fairly but sympathetically to reconstruct the larger picture, that makes the difference.
Fully endorse that 
Probably a good place for another general comment about DeWitt. It has been said at various times and places that the emphasis on DeWitt's book here at EpicureanFriends gives the group a "DeWittian" flavor. I don't really know what that would mean, but if it's in part true, in my mind it is not because there is any particular "DeWittian" spin on Epicurean philosophy.
In doing a quick search for "DeWittean/DeWittian" on the forum and finding that only I and Cassius seem to have been the only people to actually use that term in writing, I'll add my two cent reply to his post.
I have great respect for DeWitt's scholarship, especially his individual academic papers.
I think he has some interesting takes on difficult topics. Look no further than his conjecture that Epicurus owned a three-wheeled chair due to his infirmities. I don't necessarily agree with all his takes, but he's willing to dive in where others fear to tread.
I have no doubt of his passion for Epicurus and his philosophy and in spreading the word about its applicability and usefulness.
What I personally have issues with is his tendency to go far beyond what the texts and evidence have to offer. Especially the books written in retirement: Epicurus and His Philosophy and St. Paul and Epicurus. I think he often interprets and extrapolates far too much with very little evidence to make a point he wants to make. Following up on his references is frustrating because his text will say one thing and the reference don't back it up. Or he'll simply make things up for the sake of historical narrative or philosophical stance. He was skilled at creating historical fiction based loosely on the evidence. That's one of my big issues with DeWitt.
The other, again especially in Epicurus and His Philosophy, is his antiquated and sometimes opaque writing style. Parsing DeWitt can sometimes be almost as difficult as parsing ancient Greek! That is one of the reasons I'm reluctant to fully endorse DeWitt as an introduction to Epicurus and his philosophy. I *fully* agree that his methodical, synoptic approach is valuable and I am grateful for the podcast for taking the time to really go through his book. That has been extremely valuable. But confronted with Epicurus and His Philosophy as a starting point can be daunting, and I fully admit I have yet to get through a reading cover to cover. For me, he's valuable to dip into now and again, but I can't do prolonged readings. That's one of the reasons I like his papers: short and to the point.
DeWittean is NOT meant to be pejorative (all the time), but I still feel that he's not the be all and end all - the arkhe and the telos - of Epicurean scholarship. Nor do I think Cassius thinks that! I just thought I'd get my perspective out there.
I think they might have bought bread judging from Epicurus's famous "gloating" about living on less than a penny.
I addressed the quote from Seneca about the "penny" in a post from January:
And, yes, the Garden (ho kēpos ο κήπος ) would have included vegetables and fruit. If you search around on the site here (or take a look at my paper on the location of the Garden in the Files section) you'll see some description of the size and use. They would not have exclusively lived off the land, however; no more than any other ancient Greek living in the city of Athens.
Parsed:
Greek text: Usener edition
4 Οὐ χρονίζει τὸ ἀλγοῦν συνεχῶς ἐν τῇ σαρκί, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ἄκρον τὸν ἐλάχιστον χρόνον πάρεστι, τὸ δὲ μόνον ὑπερτεῖνον τὸ ἡδόμενον κατὰ σάρκα οὐ πολλὰς ἡμέρας συμβαίνει· αἱ δὲ πολυχρόνιοι τῶν ἀρρωστιῶν πλεονάζον ἔχουσι τὸ ἡδόμενον ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἤ περ τὸ ἀλγοῦν.
Parsed:
συμβαίνει
δὲ αἱ πολυχρόνιοι τῶν ἀρρωστιῶν πλεονάζον ἔχουσι τὸ ἡδόμενον ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἤ περ τὸ ἀλγοῦν. (2 prepositional phrases)πολυχρόνιος
αἱ πολυχρόνιοι τῶν ἀρρωστιῶν = the long-lasting days of sickness ("illnesses of long duration")περ intensifies following word "very"αρρωστιών f Genitive plural form of αρρώστια
πλεονάζω
Okay, made first pass through 2nd manuscript: codex Parisinus gr. 1759 (14th c.) known as P. Some very interesting marks and abbreviations and ligatures. Some similarities with Pluto.69.35 and some differences.
I want to get through a 3rd manuscript before I start sharing any specific observations or possible structures.
I must say I continue to find it amazing I - or anyone! - can peruse these manuscripts online. It is humbling and exhilarating at the same time.
Stay tuned y'all. Thanks for your patience... And continued interest (I hope ).
Edit:
I've also put on hold my copying of the Vatican Sayings into their respective threads. Kuriai Doxai is a much more self-contained text so I'm concentrating on that for now.
That Attalus site is such a resource!!
In looking at one letter:
DII (F IX, 23)
TO L. PAPIRIUS PAETUS (AT NAPLES)
CUMAE, 17 NOVEMBER
I ARRIVED yesterday at my Cuman villa, tomorrow I shall perhaps come to see you. But as soon as I know for certain, I will send you word a little beforehand. However, M. Caeparius, who met me on the road at the Gallinarian wood, 1 told me you were in bed with the gout. I was sorry to hear it, as in duty bound; nevertheless, I resolved to come to you, for the sake not only of seeing you and paying you a visit, but even of dining with you: for I don't suppose you have a cook who is gouty also. Expect therefore a guest, who is far from being a gourmet, and is a foe to extravagant dinners.
That snarky comment about gourmet and extravagant dinners seems to me to be a jab from Cicero using the Epicurean stereotype.
Edit:
By Zeus! Cicero was insufferable!!
I believe I remember ya'll discussing the "when in their cups" quote from DeWitt. FWIW, here's my take on that characteristics of the sage:
Hicks: Nor will he drivel, when drunken: so Epicurus says in the Symposium.
Yonge: Nor will he ever indulge in drunkenness, says Epicurus, in his Banquet,
Mensch: He will not talk nonsense when drunk.
Is the emphasis here on the drunkenness or the "drivel" (to talk stupidly or carelessly). Let's check the original text: οὐδὲ μὴν ληρήσειν ἐν μέθῃ …
So, technically, [from my perspective] the wise one can get drunk, but they need to be careful how they act. The fact that this characteristic is an excerpt from Epicurus's Symposium (Συμπόσιον) which is a drinking party, is interesting. Chances are attendees were getting drunk and acting silly. To me, Epicurus is saying, "Go ahead and drink, but, Paian Anax, don't act the fool!" (According to Norman DeWitt, Epicurus liked to pepper his writings with names of the gods, Paian Anax was one of his favorites.)
