Posts by Bryan

Quote from Cassius

that he not only was of the same opinion with Pythagoras concerning the immortality of the soul,

I wanted to share this dialogue from Lucian's "Philosophies For Sale" (Loeb, Volume 2, page 452)

HERMES: The noblest of philosophies for sale, the most distinguished; who'll buy? Who wants to be more than man? Who wants to apprehend the music of the spheres and to be born again?

BUYER: For looks, he is not bad, but what does he know best ?

HERMES: Arithmetic, astronomy, charlatanry, geometry, music and quackery; you see in him a first-class soothsayer.

BUYER: May I question him?

HERMES: Yes, and good luck to you!

This is excellent and I love it! Thank you. This version is much better than Hicks and the recent Oxford translation (by Pamela Mensch).

It should not seem like a relief that Epíkouros says he wanted to eat the cheese in his potlet -- until we consider that others, while practicing tyromancy, were staring into their cheese pots like crystal balls!

minor notes:

"...of friends [is] public..." I don't think you want that "i" italicized.

"On Nature" is rubricated but the other titles are not.

Brilliant outline of the possibilities!

Quote from Eikadistes

Epicurus thought of himself as a “Democritean” as a younger man

Yes, a very good fact to keep in mind!

Quote from Eikadistes

he was a true historian of several hundred years of philosophy, and deeply fascinated by each thinker's arguments.

Yes, in On Nature, he is not just taking on Plato, but also Democritus and Anaxagoras (for example).

I agree there still may be a few dots to connect. I'll keep this post in mind.

Quote from Patrikios

I thought that Epicurus used “soul” to refer to that which conveyed our thoughts to our body, muscles; which we know today as our nervous system.

Hello Patrikios! I hope all is well. Yes this is also my understanding.

We are all comfortable with the word Epíkouros uses here "Psychē." As we all know, this word, along with many others, has been used in a way that does not correspond to nature or reality. This can lead the "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" effect.

Half the population thinks "there is no soul" and the other half knows they have a soul and "it is immortal" -- Epíkouros' way is to preserve the word, but to explain it in physically-based and non-supernatural terms.

Epíkouros emphasizes that we can control our thoughts and therefore are responsible for our own movements and behaviour (in contrast, for example, to Dēmókritos, who viewed our apparent self-generated movement to be transcending nature and therefore determined that it must be an illusion.)

Quote from Cassius

so I would be cautious about dividing them up more specifically

Yes, anyone familiar with Plato should develop a fatigue for specific definition-based divisions, and this was the case for Epíkouros. There is a limit to how specific we can be -- which is baked into the system right from the start regarding the soul...

Epíkouros says the soul has thermal (hot & fast), pneumatic (cold & slow) aspects, as well as a mixture of these two -- giving the aerial (moderate) characteristics:

"The soul is a subtle body, spread out across the whole aggregate, most closely resembling cool wind ["pneumatic"] that has a certain mixture of heat ["thermal"], indeed, in one way, it is closely resembling the one, and in another way, [it is closely resembling] the other." (D.L. 10.63a)

But the labeling stops there, as the third aspect remains unnamed:

"The third part exists, having acquired great variety in subtleness even compared to those [thermal and pneumatic elements] themselves – and because of this, [the third part is] more harmonious also with the remaining aggregate." (63b)

Epíkouros was adamant that all incorrect ideas come from the addition of thought (not from sensation). If I think I see water at a distance in a desert -- it may be water or it may be a mirage, but I know I must use what I sense (in this case what I see) as a starting point for further inference.

The prólēpsis is "the idea" you sense in your mind before you "manipulate" that idea in your mind by thinking. This "idea" is really an immediate sensation. The connection between the word "water" and your immediate mental image of water is direct and automatic -- it exists in your mind before active consideration. It is this basic "pre-thought" sense that is the proleptic sense.

We know the soul is composed of subtle atoms in our body -- and we have the ability to control the movement of those atoms. Most of the things that disturb us are self-generated. Even if somebody smacks you in the face—after the initial pain is gone, all subsequent pain is self-generated by your memory of the smack, which you can control. You can choose to move past it and delight in the fact that your face no longer feels the pain of the smack.

Remember, the gods are eternal because they have a constantly flowing form (like a waterfall). If you smack a waterfall—or even throw a rock at it—it will just move past it.

Yes, going to "Athens at the age of eighteen" is at the start and then we have On the Training of Epicurus as a Cadet mentioned at just 10.4.

In support of Timaeus being the views of Plato himself, we also have Diogenes Laertius, "His [i.e., Plato's] own views are expounded by four persons, Socrates, Timaeus, the Athenian Stranger, the Eleatic Stranger.... for, even when Socrates and Timaeus are the speakers, it is Plato's doctrines that are laid down." (3.52)

Quote from Cassius

There is every reason to believe that Epicurus and his friends complied with their military service.

Yes, as we know Herodotus wrote a book (Περὶ Ἐπικούρου ἐφηβείας), Hicks translates this tile On the Training of Epicurus as a Cadet. The new Oxford edition translates it very literally On Epicurus' Ephebic Training, and explains simply "in ancient Athens, young men of citizen status were required to undergo military training."

But of course he did not go as far as Plato, who "went on service three times, first to Tanagra, secondly to Corinth, and thirdly at Delium, where also he obtained the prize of valour." (DL 3.8)

Quote from Cassius

there is a "Natural" word for a banana

Epíkouros says that he and Metrodorus, when they were younger, used to think there was no inherent connection between a word and an object -- particularly for an object of thought only conceived by analogy to the seen.

Yet over time they came to increasingly sympathize with the idea that there is an inherent connection (specific to race and location) for "the primary thought according to each word." (10.38a). For example, Epíkouros says "we do not use customary terms out of their bounds, nor while changing words for evident things." (Epíkouros, Peri Phýseōs, Book 28, P.Herc. 1479, fr. 13 [col. 5 sup.])

It is clear that Epíkouros, in Book 28, takes up Plato's discussion of "conventionalist" vs. "naturalist" views of language.

A linguistic conventionalist thinks that languages come about only by convention. The conventionalist denies a word's intrinsic relationship to a class of objects and therefore asserts that any word can refer to a particular class of objects—and that no particular word is better per se for this purpose.

In contrast, Epíkouros recognizes that linguistic conventions originate from an intrinsic relationship between a class of objects and the primary expression naturally used (specific to race and location) to identify that class. Languages originated from natural impulses. Because of this, most words inherently apply to an originally specific concept. Therefore, Epíkouros recommends that we base our vocabulary upon these fundamental meanings.

So even though Epíkouros and Cratylus both disagree with Hermogenes regarding convention, Epíkouros and Cratylus disagree on the basis of "correct" usage (with Epíkouros basing this in automatic association of fundamental etymologies, and Cratylus in the divine origins of language).

The word we are looking at is εὐκαταφρόνητος.

Bailey does bring out the "despise" aspect of καταφρονεῖν (which does not have the good/easy "eu"):

^{[Bailey 10.80b]} So we must carefully consider in how many ways a similar phenomenon is produced on earth, when we reason about the causes of celestial phenomena and all that is imperceptible to the senses; and we must despise those persons who do not recognize either what exists or comes into being in one way only, or that which may occur in several ways in the case of things which can only be seen by us from a distance, and further are not aware under what conditions it is impossible to have peace of mind.

Here is how it fits:

The word places the object of consideration below (ΚΑΤΑ) the subject that is considering (ΦΡΟΝ) and affords agency (ΕΥ) to that subject. So we could bend it up to "good to despise" or down to "easily disregardable," with lots of options in the middle.

The waning gibbous shown on both sides with a curved mirror.

Cassius, you got a shoutout at 38:32:

15ο Πανελλήνιο Συμπόσιο Επικούρειας Φιλοσοφίας Ημέρα 1η

Σάββατο 15 Φεβρουαρίου 2025www.epicuros.gr

www.youtube.com

Quote from AxA

Here's my draft brochure for the in-person Eikas this weekend.

Hello, and welcome to the website. Your brochure looks great! Thank you for sharing.

The Tetraphármakos can be a good jumping-off point, but I wanted to point out that Cassius' reservations regarding it seem to be shared by Philodemus -- who, just before he quotes the Tetraphármakos (and this is the only source for it) says:

"...of those who are called Epicureans. While someone known or even described in detail by us, who also claims to be 'the authentic reader' on select writings and on a multitude of compositions – even if he performs poorly, he has selected many passages, but in individual thoughts he is the most inexperienced! In fact, for what he must do, he looks only at the main points – just like [someone] whom they say is 'a helmsman [navigating] from the book.'"

(Philódēmos, [Ad Contubernales], P.Herc. 1005, col. 3/4)

That looks great, Kalosyni, although I think the date for the founding of the garden should be 307/306 BCE (after leaving Lampsacus), aligning with Demetrius Poliorcetes' "capture" of the city in 307 BCE.

That is Μαρίνα Δακανάλη (Marina Dakanali) singing.

Yannis Avramidis was a lot of fun.

At the end, everyone was invited to a local restaurant.

Intermission (with a brief Bouzouki appearance). It is going well, and the echo issue has been mostly resolved.

Unfortunately the current live version has very difficult audio -- lots of echo. Hopefully the post-live upload will use a more direct audio source.

Spudceus I suppose is most likely from Spoudaios meaning "serious, earnest, diligent." I do not see that it is related to anything else or a reference to anyone.

I know Erasmus is joking, so we can asume that syphilis/pox was not ever really called the garden gout... right? And this is presumably a reference to the (poisonous) mercury treatment for syphilis:

Hedonius "Do they not Epicurise gloriously?"
Spudceus "Yes, if coming often to the powdering tub be doing so."

In a part of his work On Poetry, Philodemus spends 170 columns (around 18,000 words) rebutting the theories of Heracleodorus. There is also little doubt that Lucretius would have been aware of Heracleodorus' arguments. Reading through Janko's summary of Heracleodorus' ideas shows that there was a lot to object to:

(i) Genre, and the diction and content peculiar to genre, do not matter for poetic excellence; for the pleasure of poetry comes from composition rather than from language or content, which are shared with others. In fact, mimes like Sophron's are said to be poems; since even good prose-writers, like Demosthenes, Xenophon, and Herodotus, are actually poets, metre is irrelevant.

(ii) The contents of poetry, even including raw materials as ugly as fish, chamber-pots, or garlic, are irrelevant to composition, as is seen in passages from Archilochus, Sophocles, and Euripides. This is because content is irrelevant without good composition, and becomes beautiful from the particularity of the elaboration; good content need not entail good composition, as witness Chaeremon. So long as content is well composed, it may be shared or invented, or even false or unrecognizable, as Euripides shows. Artistry can redeem incomprehensible content. Poetry, like metalwork, needs artistry; composition, not raw material, is its particularity.

(iii) Obscurity can be good if the composition is good, as witness the minor tragedian (Anti)philus as compared with Hipponax and Empedocles, who also wrote tragedies. Homer entices us with his unclear proems, and poetic words are enthralling even if they are obscure, as many examples in Homer and Alcaeus prove. It is sound, not content or diction, that benefits verses. Different craftsmen, like ring-engravers and writers, use different materials, but all aim at achieving excellence in representation by means of their different media.

(iv) Excellence lies not in the composition but in the euphony that supervenes upon it, as is proved by rearrangements of the words in verses from poets such as Homer. Such metatheses prove that diction, word-choice, or content do not create beauty. Since sound, not content like plot or character, determines which verses are superior, as witness Choerilus and Anaximenes when compared with Homer, word-choice or content is not the cause of sound. Even prose-writers aim not at truth, but at pleasure, and poets must please the many by applying vivid new words to difficult contents; such words shine brightest when they first appear, like purple garments. The imitation of content must contribute to euphony via majestic and opulent diction, even if the poet utters total absurdities; but the choice of Homeric words does not by itself create the musical sonority that Heraclides desiderated.

(v) Plot depends on the poet's excellence, as we can see from Homer and Archilochus; bad poets often attempt fine plots, but fail to construct them well. Character too depends on the poet's excellence, which enables him to depict men, women, slaves, and animals without becoming comic or iambic. Not content, but excellence in composition, is the particularity of poetry; pleasing composition of diction that vividly, suggestively, clearly, and concisely expresses the underlying meaning is excellence, provided that it maintains poetic style and is suited to the genres, as poets do not prefer clarity to the tragic manner. Critics wrongly claim that the particularity lies in composition that conveys clever, beneficial, or exceptional content, or in character, but character does not determine excellence; composition is its sole cause. Excellence depends not on content, diction, or accidence, but on composition as necessitated by the sounds; when vividness creates excellence, it relies on sound. Critics wrongly claim that verse depends on its material and its writer, his diction and his thought.

(vi) The representation of intelligible content is related to genre, as witness epic style, which contains all the genres. However, genre is irrelevant to excellence, whether we compare Homer to Archilochus, Euripides, or anyone else; rather, it is excellence that creates style, if not also genre.

Heracleodorus (1st century BCE) - Wikipedia