Posts by Bryan

We do have evidence of Epíkouros directly praising individual people. He dedicated books to his brothers, Neoklês, Chairédēmos, and Aristóbuolos, and wrote other books where the entire topic seems to have been praise, for examples his books Eurýlochos, Hēgēsiánax, Themísta, and Mētródōros.

If said to oneself, this could be a type of self-affirmation that feels similar to a prayer:

You possess an inherited impulse toward action.
You were well brought up by your parents,
You have added to this upbringing, your own proportionate self-control.
You are strong in body, insofar as is possible for a mortal.
You have set aside discussion concerning incidental matters.
You are diligent — especially in having separated
the disturbance of all desire
from what is in accordance with nature.

— Demetrius Laco, The Harms of Drifting Thought (P.Herc. 831) col. 15

First try for a possible ring variation. A version without the bubbling will look nice.

(Just throwing this in before I listen).

Cats exist. How do we know? For one, most people can see that they exist.

What is a cat? A living cat will have some necessary (συμβεβηκότα) qualities—characteristics that reveal what is universal (τὸ καθόλου) to all cats, such as being a mammal, having a head, and possessing a bone structure unique to cats.

You cannot assume anything about a cat you have not seen beyond qualities necessarily associated with any and every cat.

The anticipations are what we mentally sense before active thinking.

If you cannot imagine a cat without a particular quality, then that quality is part of the anticipation of a cat.

I wanted to highlight this section 19 from Lucian's "The Runaways" where he says, of hypocritical philosophers, (particularly the cynics):

"I will not tire you with a description of their drunken orgies; observe, however, that these are the men who preach against drunkenness and adultery and avarice and lewdness. Could any contrast be greater than that presented by their words and their deeds? They speak their detestation of flattery: a Gnathonides and a Struthias are less fulsome than they. They bid men tell the truth: yet their own tongues cannot move but to utter lies. To hear them, you would say they were at war with pleasure, and Epicurus their bitterest foe: yet nothing do they do but for pleasure's sake. Querulous, irritable, passionate as cradled babes, they are a derision to the beholder; the veriest trifle serves to move their ire, to bring the purple to their cheeks, ungoverned fury to their eyes, foam–call it rather venom–to their lips."

The Runaways | Fugitivi [The Lucian of Samosata Project]

From Cynicism to Christianity to Brahmanism and self-immolation. All new to me. Surprised Lucian mentions the Brahmans, "τους Βραχμανάς" by name (section 39).

From the Loeb edition: "Death of Peregrinus is an account of the life and death of a Cynic philosopher who for a time in his early life went over to Christianity, practicing it to the point of imprisonment under a very tolerant administration, and after returning to Cynicism became in his old age so enamored of Indic ideas and precedents that he cremated himself at Olympia, just after the games of A.D. 165, even as Calanus had done at Susa in the presence of Alexander the Great and as Zarmarus had done at Athens, after initiation into the mysteries, in the presence of Augustus.

Writing soon after the event, of which he was a witness, Lucian makes his main theme the story of what went on at Olympia."

Wow! Excellent idea for the reading! In all the versions I’ve seen lately that read the T.D., I have not heard a version that used two voices. Kalosyni and Joshua, you both really did a superb job. THANK YOU!

Following the Democritus' zombies, I was expecting ghosts, and at 1.13.29:

"they had no grasp of a reasoned system of causation and were influenced by the frequent sight of apparitions, mostly seen in the hours of night, to think that those who had departed from life still lived." Which is very reminiscent of the apparitions Lucretius talks about.

But the necromancy surprised me! Cicero uses the greek ἡ νεκυομαντεία, nekyomanteia. 1.16.36, and says his friend Appius practiced the rituals, but the ghosts were uncommunicative. "none the less they wish the phantoms to speak and this cannot take place without tongue and palate."

Cicero even gives a sample of the Latin.

"Unde animae excitantur obscura umbra aperto ex ostio Altae Acheruntis, falso sanguine, mortuorum imagines!"

Please never say that three times by candlelight.

I am not 3d printing, for some reason I still think that is something only other more technically skilled people do! I am just making molds and casts....

As we have seen, most of the books of Epíkouros' On Nature are about physics, which makes sense. Book 25, however, is about ethics, and book 28 is about epistemology. Therefore, in preparation for book 28, I have looked at the canon again. I have added some symbols for the main pieces of the canonic engine. It's a work in progress and probably does have some errors.

I wanted to share this new version I found (the one on top). I'll be making plastic copies soon, if anyone wants a few (free but amateur) copies let me know.

It seems he said that the god-to-man connection via films is a deliberate communication from the gods to men -- and he thought the films have their own perception.

This is great, thank you both! I've got the books and will read along.

Yes it is interesting De Finibus starts with a bit of an apology for Latin, but here in T.D., Cicero is a bit more confident; also, both are addressed to Brutus.

Cicero admits Amafinius was popular. As you said Joshua, at 4.3,6 we hear that "...by the publication of his works, the crowd had its interest stirred, and flocked to the teaching he advocated in preference to any other."

So Cicero gives us a hard time on both ends by saying Amafinius' style is so bad that he is only read by Epicureans—but then admits that is a large part of the population!

The topic of Democritus' zombies is interesting, great sources for that! "Stories of people who appeared to have died and then came back to life were collected by many of the ancients including the scientist Democritus in his writings..." (Proclus, Commentary on the Republic, 2.113.6)

Yes clearly if there is a purposeful design there is a purposeful designer. In the Cratylus, Plato goes over how well formed language is, and agrees it must have been by purposeful design... and in the end he decides the purposeful designer did such a good job, that he must have been a god.

(Plato Crat. 438b)

"Socrates
How can we assert that they gave names or were lawgivers with knowledge, before any name whatsoever had been given, and before they knew any names, if things cannot be learned except through their names?

Cratylus
I think the truest theory of the matter, Socrates, is that the power which gave the first names to things is more than human, and therefore the names must necessarily be correct."

Near the conclusion, we have "It would seem, then, that On Arrogance does not allow us to conclude that the Epicurean sage’s greatness of soul excludes any element of disdain towards certain others." That puts it lightly! On the authority of the letter to Herodotus alone, it is clear that disdain towards certain others is at times appropriate.

^{[Bailey 10.80b]} ...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.

I'll also throw in:

^{[Sedley 20 B.1-2, Book 25, P.Herc. 1056 col. 16 ]} …‹ › …but many naturally capable of achieving these and those results fail to achieve them because of themselves, not because of one and the same responsibility of the atoms and of themselves. And with these we especially do battle, and rebuke them, hating them for a disposition which follows their disordered congenital nature as we do with the whole range of animals.

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.