Posts by Bryan

Quote from Cassius

spitting on good (or is it beauty?)

We do have Johannes Stobaeus (_{fl. f.} 450 ^CE) in his Anthology: volume 3, chapter 17, section 24 quoting Epicurus: "I teem with what is pleasant for this little body – using only water and bread – and I spit on the pleasures from extravagances: not because of them, but because of what is difficult that follows from them"

[Ἐπικούρου] "Βρυάζω τῷ κατὰ τὸ σωμάτιον ἡδεῖ – ὕδατι καὶ ἄρτῳ χρώμενος – καὶ Προσπτύω ταῖς ἐκ πολυτελείας ἡδοναῖς: οὐ δἰ αὐτάς, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὰ ἐξακολουθοῦντα αὐταῖς δυσχερῆ"

If we take the sigma, I think we have προσπτύω. Given the active form of προσπτύσαντες, it is difficult to pair with προσπτύσσομαι.

Quote from Cassius

Preuss holds a very unconventional view on Epicurus' view of death. Preuss apparently believes that Epicurus held open the possibility of life after death

To claim that Epicurus in any way accepted the idea of "life after death" is a misapplication of his denial that all statements about the future must be either true or false.

I think we can all agree that Preuss is far off the mark here.

Quote from DistantLaughter

Furthermore, the katastematic/kinetic distinction itself is a later philosophical construct imposed retrospectively on Epicurus’s thought,

Quote from DistantLaughter

a katastematic condition, even if he doesn’t use that term himself.

I am not sure it is possible to say that Epicurus did not use the term, or that it is a later construct, given Diogenes Laertius' direct quote without the use of any indirect speech or an attribution to a secondary source.

10.136: "Epicurus in his book On Choice speaks in this way 'Tranquility and Painlessness exist as established (katastēmatikái) pleasures, but Cheer and Merriment are seen from movement through activity.'"

Quote from Eikadistes

Don demonstrated that the "early tenth" refers to the Twentieth

Great example. I am certain Don is correct, but I just asked GPT and it said the 7th!

Although the robot is not accurate, I think Cassius is leaning into the correct angle:

There are physicists who take fundamentally different basic assumptions.

From their different basic assumptions (of whether everything is physical matter or not) the different sides stack up their evidence.

Quote from Eikadistes

I don't think, for me, comparing ancient physics with modern physics will be helpful to try to improve our understanding of either.

I mostly agree. I think you will also agree that taking the side of the mathematicians who say that elementary particles can be something else but a discrete hard unit with mass and weight is a position that is not based on evidence, but in opinion -- and it is a basic premise that Epicurus considered and rejected.

So, it seems to me, those who say Epicurus is incorrect on this topic, are not "staying up to date" but just choosing a contrary basic premise.

Quote from Don

As far as "seeing" atoms, it depends on your definition

Absolutely -- what we call “atoms” today can be seen with instruments, but of course those are vastly larger than a true atom and they are made up of countless real atoms. I was referring to a true atom in the original sense: an indivisible, solid bit of matter.

Quote from Martin

Electrons and photons are adequately described as elementary particles,

An adequate description of an elementary particle must include that particle always having mass.

Quote from Eikadistes

how reliable of a transmitter he is of Hellenistic philosophy

I would say Diogenes of Oinoanda is accurately transmitting Hellenistic philosophy from our school's perspective. Plato studied Heraclitus "in the garden at Colonus" before joining Socrates (Lives 3.5), and eventually "created a synthesis of the doctrines of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Socrates" (3.8); Aristotle did preserve a lot of this synthesis.

We do have:

10.44a. ^[Bailey] "For on the one hand the nature of the void which separates each atom by itself brings this about, as it is not able to afford resistance, and on the other hand the hardness (stereótēs) which belongs to the atoms makes them recoil after collision to as great a distance as the interlacing permits separation after the collision."

stereótēs is "the condition from making stiff" and means firmness or hardness.

"Totally changeable and soft matter" is for the other schools -- it is the exit door out of science and into religion.

"The Stoics together with Heraclitus say that matter is wholly and completely changeable and alterable and mutable and fluid." _{(Aetius 1.9.2)}

It seems to me that the current state of modern theoretical physics is in a precarious position for following Einstein. A lot of data has been automatically bent to fit incorrect assumptions.

Every year there are many good students, potential physicists, who do not accept the current model and therefore have been turned away from the priesthood. If we had a similar amount of money as the institutions who have been overrun, our version of physics would dominate!

In this sense, it is very political, and we should not give up because we are in the underdog position at the moment.

Real atoms are too small for machines to detect, and what looks like the bending of space is really just the effect of “oceans” of these invisible atoms and their wakes.

Quote from Eikadistes

APOLLODORUS [the Epicurean]
APOLLODORUS [of Athens]

Thank you for helping with this. We know Diogenes Laertius references as his source "Apollodorus of Athens" (7.181) and "Apollodorus the Epicurean" (10.13). This itself might be the source of the scholastic tradition of them being two different men.

Given my arguments above, I do not think two different epithets certainty means two different men. Epithets in Diogenes Laertius are not consistent or systematic.

And at 7.181, it is "Apollodorus of Athens" defending Epicurus, quite like an "Apollodorus the Epicurean" would be expected to do!

• "Apollodorus of Athens, in his "Collection of Doctrines" wanting to show that the works of Epicurus (written by his own efforts and not copied) were innumerably more numerous than the books of Chrysippus, said in these very words: 'indeed if someone were to remove from Chrysippus' books all that was cited from elsewhere – his papyrus would be left empty!'"

Quote from Eikadistes

“APOLLODORUS [of Lampsacus] [1] (fourth century BC)

I may be overlooking something, but I am not finding him.

Quote from Eikadistes

Sannídōros!

I still think your translation of "Phallodorus" captures the whole spirit better.

Quote from Eikadistes

"gilded"

Yes, Joshua pointed this out as well and I agree that it is the correct direction. I'll update.

Thank you for your comments!

Yes I was pointing to the similarities between Heraclitus "the Agitator" and the current theorists in charge as a further charge against them!

The current dominant interpretation in theoretical physics is far closer to Heraclitus’ flux, which imagines a universe in constant transformation, where particles are not solid entities but fleeting excitations in dynamic fields. In this view, reality is a process (only occasionally a substance) shaped by tension, motion, and continual becoming -- this idea is not new, but a form of magical thinking that Epicurus considered and rightly rejected.

"The Stoics together with Heraclitus say that matter is wholly and completely changeable and alterable and mutable and fluid." Aetius 1.9.2

I take from the poem, and the whole passage, that in Laertius' writings "drinking unmixed wine" certainly stands for "intentional death."

This was already rather clear, but I think 4.44 makes it undeniable.

I think this is the most instructive clue I have found, (Laertius 4.44):

"[Arcesilaus] died in a fit of madness, as Hermippus says, after drinking a good deal of unmixed wine, he had by then reached the age of seventy-five, and no man was more highly regarded by the Athenians."

That alone is only suggestive (just like the example with Epicurus), however the very next line, Diogenes says:

"My own verses about him run as follows: Why, Arcesilaus, did you draw unmixed wine so unsparingly as to take leave of your sense? I pity you not so much for your death..."

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As a side note about Arcesilaus being "highly regarded," Plutarch says "The reputation of Arcesilaus seems to immoderately distress Epicurus -- given that [Arcesilaus] was especially admired among the philosophers in those times" _{Plutarch (fl. 80 CE), Against Colotes, 26, 1121 E fin.}

Arcesilaus was a pupil of both Theophrastus and Pyrrho, yet he ended up leading the Academy a few years after Epicurus died.

ADMIN EDIT BY CASSIUS 04-23-26: Due to the importance of this material and the need for easy cutting and pasting I am adapting Bryan's work (which will remain the gold standard for accuracy into a reformatted table https://epicurustoday.com/02-key-sources/mockery/

I wanted to share this incomplete rough draft of the mocking epithets applied to other schools. I'm looking for any critiques, large and small. Most of the pairings of epithet to the particular philosopher are clear, but not all, given the higgledy-piggledy presentation given in Plutarch, Non Posse, 1086 D.

He was fundamentally a skeptic, saying "let us not hazard guesses about the most important matters." (Laertius 9.73)

Quote from Cassius

What we seem to be revolving around is seeing proplepsis as a form of automatic selectivity among the inputs provided by the sensations and feelings, by which the brain then in a separate step takes that selected raw data

Yes, if someone shows you a diseased rat in a cage and says, "This is a god!" -- the immediate, automatic rejection you feel comes from the fact that it does not match your prolēpsis (i.e., mental sense / anticipation) of what a god is.

Only after that initial sensation can you begin reasoning out why you automatically think a sick rat in a cage is not a god.

Plátō mocked the Heracliteans and their theory of flux by calling them "the fluxing ones" (Theaetetus 180c).

The mocking epithet Epíkouros used for Hērákleitos was "Kykētḗs" which means "the Agitator."

Epíkouros' term alludes to Hērákleitos' own metaphor of the kykeōn (a mixed barley drink) which must be stirred to stay combined (DK B125)

A quote of Sedley From this article. 

"According to Timocrates, Epicurus insulted the Cyzicenes... ...Eudoxus of Cnidos, the great mathematical astronomer and associate of Plato, taught for a period at Cyzicus, and produced there several distinguished pupils. One of these, Polemarchus, in turn became the teacher of Callippus of Cyzicus, who was later to move to Athens and exert a profound influence on Aristotle’s astronomical thinking. All this points to an established Eudoxan school at Cyzicus, which our fragment suggests was still going strong in Epicurus’ day."