Regarding "meditation"(Bailey), "pleasant recollection" (Anderson), "thoughtful concern" (Cook) vs. "taking care of them" (Elli)...
I think everybody is correct! When alive we "care for / look after / attend to" those around us, and when they are gone we "care for / look after / attend to" our pleasant memories of them.
It's a real challenge to think about where this goes in terms of how to convey the difference in meaning of words.
In a general sense, this was also a struggle at the time. Epicurus says, talking to Metrodorus (David Sedley translation, On Nature Part 28):
(Fragment 6, Column 1) "For it was so necessary to point out that we, by observing that those who speak the same language as us, in contrast to our own use of words, were assigning some unsuspected false connotation in addition to those meanings…
(fr. 13, col. 2) ...and you also used in those days to assign [names] without adapting certain conventional usages, in order that you should not make plain the principle that by assigning any name one expresses a particular opinion, and see and reflect upon the indiscriminate treatment of words and objects. (fr. 13, col. 3) And I too used to notice that you did not establish a difference between two sets of words and then say that you chose one set because it was better than choosing the other...
(fr. 13, col. 5 sup.) Perhaps , though, you might say that it is inappropriate to lengthen the discussion by citing these cases. Quite so, Metrodorus. For I do not doubt that you could cite many cases, from your own past observations, of certain people taking words in various ridiculous senses, and indeed in every sense in preference to their actual linguistic meanings, whereas our own usage does not flout linguistic convention, nor do we alter names with regard to the objects of perception.
(fr. 13, col. 5 inf.) ... not because] others transfer words from the class of that which is knowable to denote that which is unknowable, but because of their own errors, which we point out in our work On Ambiguity."
Zeno was Philodemus' teacher.
Yes, we have in Signs (P. Herc. 1065) Philodemus says "Zeno, in his discussions with us, used to set forth the arguments of our opponents, and he made use of the answers that have been given."
Interestingly Philodemus does concede familiarity of Zeno to a certain fellow-Epicurean named Bromius. Philodemus starts the second section of Signs saying "Bromius, however, used to say that Zeno expounded the beliefs of our opponents and the answers to them in the following way..."
It is interesting that this is out of Brigham Young University and most of the good recent translations of Philodemus have been from the Society of Biblical Literature.
(Fpr example https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/061633P.front.pdf)
Wow great find, thank you! So a certain Justin Barney was ahead of us and did this in 2015. I am working on something that looks very similar, but, in this regard, "the more the merrier," and this will help. Thanks again!
Does anybody know of a translation of Philodemus' work "On the Senses"? I have not been able to find any.
When I have tried asking AI about Lucretius and ask for references it typically says it cannot access the Latin text and then I argue with it about copyright. When it does give a reference it is usually incorrect. Success only occurred once or twice and then I gave up. However, it is proving useful as a dictionary.
I like the idea that they were used for knitting... or for candles. You may have seen them on ebay, for about $50.
wow, that makes sense, well I'll be ready then!
I dont think I have attended one of the Monday meetings before, but I'd like to tonight!
Yes, and it's not some random article - but this is THE section on death in the Oxford handbook.
"Recent debate among philosophers began with the realization that whether death is bad for people depends on 'assumptions about good and evil.' ...Only if one gives up Epicurus's principle that good and bad require sentience and adopts an alternative could one rightly think that death is bad for people. The alternative principle is that something may have value for someone, even if it has and can have no effects on the person in question" (pg 125)
"If death can have value in these ways, can be bad or good in relation to continued life, then it might appear that Epicurus was mistaken in believing that because the dead lack sentience death can have no value for people... People with this abstract idea of value attach good and bad for people to facts, which they regard as positive or negative... This abstract conception of value is a tool in the range of judgments people make, and has its place in making important judgments." (pg 129)
Thank you! Yes for that quote we also need the "ομαι" from the next column to give us: τοῦτ οἶδα καὶ τοῦτο βούλομαι καὶ τοῦτ οἴομαι
I agree with Cassius that it would not be fruitful to peruse who is lying - Apion or Josephus. There are may instances of Josephus were he is proud of his deceit, which is for him a virtue when used as in instrument in his success.
I would be avoid taking at face value any claims of Jewish ritual cannibalism or blood-drinking or inferring that the metzitzah b’peh is a vestige of this.
Even if we believe Josephus (who denies that Greeks were ever kept as prisoners in the temple and eaten), Josephus does admit to other instances of Jewish cannibalism, including eating children (although not ritualistically, but out of hunger) which horrified the Romans. For example:
Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Whiston chapter 3, Whiston section 4
"There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary... ....snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, "O thou miserable infant!... ...Come on; be thou my food." As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son..."
The idea that Apion was Epicurean is very appealing, but it seems there is no direct evidence.
Yes, I agree, atoms are uncuttable. What is incorrectly called an 'atom' by those currently allowed to get credentials in physics is really a conglomerate.
Indifference is a "chicken and egg" situation. Elite educators consider themselves curators of the Overton window.
The many and frequent critiques of Epicurus brought forward by academics (for example in Oxford's 800 page Handbook, published 2020) do not show scholastic indifference but formal opposition. They know who Epicurus is, but he is heretical to their system. They ignore producing translations and only produce critiques, and the critiques they put forward against Epicurus are now being repeated by the public.
There has been a demonstrable effort to bury the Epicureanism scholarship that had started before the world wars. Very little has been done by them since 1950's even though pulic interest has been organically increasing.
Looking for any criticism on this rough start, which I think may be the first attempt to fully render these lines into English.
But the moneyed rulers of society have very good reason for wanting us to revere Plato and Socrates and to be ignorant of Democritus and Epicurus.
Thank you Sir! This is true. I am about to share a work of Polystratus (a student of Epicurus) which, as far as I know, has not before been fully translated into English -- but modern education institutions have a lot of time and money --- can they not produce an English translation of Polystratus for the public? It is more than suspicious!
This argument has been building. Stephen Rosenbaum, who got the opportunity to write THE article about death in the recent oxford book, gives a long list of "modern philosophers" who argue that Epicurus did not understand that "value for a person does not depend on sentience or existence" or "facts thus might be good or bad even for those who are dead and no longer exist" I feel these statements are too absurd to need a counterargument..... but the absurdists are:
Kaufman's "Death and Deprivation" article,
Feinberg's "Moral Limits of the Criminal Law" article,
Feldman's "Confrontations,"
Rosenbaum's "The Harm of Killing,"
Silverstein's "The Evil of Death"
ALL just on footnotes of pgs. 124-125 on the oxford general article on this topic !
Anybody can look and see if I am correct or not.
They are trying to take our ladder away
Let me give another Polystratus quote "Thus, either all these things, which each person clearly perceives and works upon, must be said to be false -- or, not wanting to shamelessly dispute and fight against the obvious, we should not regard the ‘noble’ and the ‘shameful’ as falsely believed just because they are not the same for everyone -- in contrast to stone or gold or anything else of that kind."
ὥστε ἢ καὶ ταῦτα πάντα φατέον ψευδῆ ει αι, ἃ περιφανῶς ἕκαστος θεωρεῖ ὃ ἐργάζεται, ἤ, μὴ βουλόμενον ἀναισχυντεῖν καὶ μάχεσθαι τοῖς φανεροῖς, οὐδὲ τὰ καλὰ καὶ τὰ αἰσχρὰ ἀρτέον ὡς ψευδῶς νομιζόμενα, ὅτι οὐ πᾶσι ταὐτά ἐστιν ὥσπερ λίθος ἢ χρυ[σο]ς ἢ ἄλλο τι τῶν τοιούτων (P.Herc. 336 col. 16 sup.)
Your writing is very engaging! If I were unfamiliar with Democritus, this would certainly spark my interest in him. Thank you for sharing! (The stamp is also a nice addition)
Great point about Pietas, Joshua!
Following Nate's post on Polystratus, I was reading this similar quote from him which seems to relate in a general way to this discussion today:
"Certain remedies are beneficial to the one who suffers from one disease, others to the one who suffers from another illness; and such remedies benefit the patient in the throes of a violent fever, others to the one whose temperature is too low, and… It is the same for what concerns actions: there too, it is not profitable for all to perform the same acts; but some acts are beneficial for some and others for others. And it is not true that all opinions are false, but they depend on the differences that exist both in individual natures and in circumstances." (Polystratus, de irrationali contemptu)
