Posts by Pacatus

Confession: I’m generally not a podcast kind of guy – unlike many people, I find it harder to absorb information aurally. But, after listening to the Lucretius Today interview with Dr. Boeri, I decided to listen to the ones with Dr. Emily Austin. (And will likely do more.)

I had to pause briefly because Cassius just gave me my laugh-out-oud line of the day (in the context of how our culture seems to affirm pain rather than pleasure as virtuous/good) with his tongue-in-cheek: “Thank you, Puritans, for establishing what we call American culture!”

To which Dr. Austin responded: “Those people were weird!”

Quote from Don

So, it appears Democritus uses terpsis, not Epicurus.

By Ἡδονή! I think you've got it!

(And I agree with your better wording for the thread title. )

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.” Isaac Asimov

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.” Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” Benjamin Franklin

“We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.” Christopher Hitchens

“If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can’t be very important gods.” Arthur C. Clarke

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That last (Clarke) quote seems quite in the Epicurean spirit.

Came across this headline in the Washington Post today: “A plurality of Americans believe God created humans without evolution.”

I’ll provide the link for those that want to read the political analysis pertaining to this, but won’t comment on that – only adding this more specific quote from the article: “Polling released this week by Suffolk University for USA Today indicates that this comports with the views of nearly 4 in 10 Americans – more than say either that human evolution was steered by God or that humans evolved without any divine intervention.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/…evolution-poll/

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but my initial reaction was a dismayed “Oh my!”

The Wikipedia article gives this as the source for terpsis: Warren, James (2002). Epicurus and Democritean Ethics: An Archaeology of Ataraxia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University. Warren is also the editor for The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism. I'm going through some of his articles on academia.edu -- but that will take awhile.

Calling Don (Our linguistic El Greco!)

The following is a quote from the Wikipedia article on Hedone:

“In the philosophy of Epicurus, hēdonē is described as a pleasure that may or may not derive from actions that are virtuous, whereas another form of pleasure, terpsis, is always virtuous. Another Epicurean reading, which distinguished hēdonē from terpsis, referred to it as a feeling of pleasure that is episodic and might or might not be beneficial. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Epicurus uses hēdonē in reference to only physical pleasures.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedone

Wiktionary has terpsis (τέρψις) as “full enjoyment, delight, gladness, pleasure” from a proto-Indo-European term meaning “fulfillment, satisfaction.” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%84%CE…2#Ancient_Greek

In the cited Stanford Encyclopedia, there is no reference to terpsis, rather to khara (χᾰρᾱ́) – joy or exultation: “There are also positive states of mind, which Epicurus identifies by the special term khara (joy), as opposed to hêdonê (pleasure, i.e., physical pleasure).” [There follows a commentary on kinetic versus katasematic pleasures, the latter being (according to the author) associated with the pleasure of well-being (eudaimonia) as such.] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/#PsycEthi

Are there sources in the Greek, among the Epicurean corpus, for τέρψις and/or χᾰρᾱ́? And a distinction from Ἡδονή?

(If this has already been the subject of previous threads, just send me there. On a very cursory skim of some other threads on pleasure, I didn't see anything. )

I said "No" -- though it's a mixed bag. I was never on Twitter or Instagram; I weaned myself from Facebook, deleted my account. In the end there was more stress than pleasure, even though I restricted my account to family and friends. I'm on the internet a lot, though I try to limit my exposure to a few news sites (especially market-related news)-- and don't find a forum like this one to be obtrusive.

LATE EDIT: I also play some chess online.

Eikadistes This is beautiful (the other one also)! I just ordered the large one from Etsy. There is a big blank white wall in front of my desk, where it will hang!

It seems to me that discussions of katastematic pleasures in terms of relative stability or relative duration run into a kind of sorites question: how many grains of sand do you have to have before you can call them “a heap”? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox) How stable for how long does a pleasure have to last to become katastematic?

I found it interesting that the Wiki article made the point that “Vagueness alone does not necessarily imply invalidity.”

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Sunday night, I was watching a football game and cheering for my team: a pleasurable activity that I would call kinetic. During breaks in the action, I would allow my awareness to go to my bodily feeling of continued satisfaction and contentment from the light dinner I had eaten sometime before. Is that more katastematic? I initially thought so. Or does the iteration of my awareness itself imply kinetic activity that determines how the pleasure would get labelled?

Quote from Cassius

"Justified to whom?"

Whilst I agree that context and circumstance are critical, I just want to say that I think we ought to be careful not to totally relativize the question: the most atrocious act against another human being you can think of can likely be justified by “someone” somehow (especially, perhaps, the perpetrator).

With that said: (a) it seems almost universal across cultures (historical and present) that justification is called for with regard to acts of harm (whether we might think whatever justification is valid or not), while acts of kindness and compassion generally do not require such justification. And (b) justification and justice (in terms of a just act), despite their etymological relation, are not the same thing. The question of justice would seem to be what circumstances might justify (in Epicurean thought) violation of the compact to neither harm nor be harmed.

Yes, it’s a tough nut. I think Don gave two good examples.

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I want to add that there are different concepts of justice generally: e.g., restorative or redemptive/rehabilitating as opposed to merely retributive/punitive.

Best wishes on your birthday(s)!

Quote from Kalosyni

And are there challenges to living an Epicurean life in today's society?

Daily bombardment across the media aimed at stimulating (often likely subliminally) not only unnecessary but also unnatural desires.

I was just re-reading Emily Austin’s chapter on “Living Unnoticed: Politics and Power.” I think it gives a good, and moderate, analysis of the basis for an Epicurean politics. I will refrain from my penchant for reproducing all the quotes that I particularly like.

But this one hit me personally:

“An Epicurean’s political activity must operate within the bounds of their own tranquility.” [And I would add: health and well-being.]

Most of my social activism violated those bounds: I was far too often stressed, developed chronic stomach problems, had anxiety nightmares, etc. My father, in his idealistic neo-Kantian zeal, died at a young age from chronic stress and the addictive behaviors (most notably chain smoking) that he used to try to damp it down. (We disagreed politically, and there were some issues we had to agree not to discuss.)

I am also reminded of a story about North American volunteers against the political oppression in El Salvador at the time. The local people were joyously preparing for a religious feast and fiesta. The volunteers asked how they (the locals) could have such cheerfulness in the face of terrible, day-after-day oppression and suffering. The response (in so many words): “You speak like people who will not live here. You come to help because of your kind-heartedness and compassion – but then you will return home. We must remain. How could we endure without occasions for happy celebration?”

If one cannot be active without self-inflicted τᾰρᾰχή and πόνος (which you will also likely inflict on those around you), best, all round, to refrain.

Cassius asked Dr. Boeri about his thoughts on Epicurus’ political leanings, e.g. whether he would be inclined to democracy (small d) or monarchism. My recollection is that Dr. Boeri replied that this was a very good, but difficult, question.

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Epicurus lived in Athens from 306 BC till his death in 270 BC. According to a Wikipedia article (all bold/italics mine):

“Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Although Athens is the most famous ancient Greek democratic city-state, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens.[1][2] By the late 4th century BC, as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek cities might have been democracies.[3] Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic), who probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.[4]

“Solon (in 594 BC), Cleisthenes (in 508–07 BC), and Ephialtes (in 462 BC) contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Cleisthenes broke up the unlimited power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived, rather than on their wealth.[5] The longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles. After his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions in 411 and 404 BC, towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts of the system are of this fourth-century modification, rather than the Periclean system. Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but how close they were to a real democracy is debatable.”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy)

Under the heading of “Citizenship in Athens” are these comments:

“Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens. The percentage of the population that actually participated in the government was 10% to 20% of the total number of inhabitants, but this varied from the fifth to the fourth century BC.[25] This excluded a majority of the population: slaves, freed slaves, children, women and metics (foreign residents in Athens).[28] The women had limited rights and privileges, had restricted movement in public, and were very segregated from the men.”

“Some Athenian citizens were far more active than others, but the vast numbers required for the system to work testify to a breadth of direct participation among those eligible that greatly surpassed any present-day democracy.[25] Athenian citizens had to be descended from citizens; after the reforms of Pericles and Cimon in 450 BC, only those descended from two Athenian parents could claim citizenship.”

Under the heading “Women in Athens” are these excerpts:

“With participation in Athenian Democracy only being available to adult male Athenian citizens, women were left out of government and public roles. Even in the case of citizenry, the term was rarely used in reference to women. Rather, women were often referred to as an astē which meant "a woman belonging to the city" or Attikē gunē which meant 'an Attic woman/wife'. Even the term Athenian was largely reserved for just male citizens.”

“In addition to being barred from any form of formal participation in government, women were also largely left out of public discussions and speeches with orators going as far as leaving out the names of wives and daughters of citizens or finding round about ways of referring to them. Pushed out of the public sphere, women's role was confined to the private sphere of working in the home and being cast as a second-rate human, subservient to her male guardian whether that be a father or husband.”

– All the more remarkable that Epicurus not only allowed women in the Garden, but also to participate in philosophy as well (e.g. Leontion)!

Under the heading: “Main Bodies of Government”:

“There were three political bodies where citizens gathered in numbers running into the hundreds or thousands. These are the assembly (in some cases with a quorum of 6,000), the council of 500 (boule), and the courts (a minimum of 200 people, on some occasions up to 6,000). Of these three bodies, the assembly and the courts were the true sites of power – although courts, unlike the assembly, were never simply called the demos ('the people'), as they were manned by just those citizens over thirty. Crucially, citizens voting in both were not subject to review and prosecution, as were council members and all other officeholders.”

“As the system evolved, the courts (that is, citizens under another guise) intruded upon the power of the assembly. Starting in 355 BC, political trials were no longer held in the assembly, but only in a court. In 416 BC, the graphē paranómōn ('indictment against measures contrary to the laws') was introduced. Under this, anything passed or proposed by the assembly could be put on hold for review before a jury – which might annul it and perhaps punish the proposer as well.”

“In the 5th century, there were no procedural differences between an executive decree and a law. They were both simply passed by the assembly. However, beginning in 403 BC, they were set sharply apart. Henceforth, laws were made not in the assembly, but by special panels of citizens drawn from the annual jury pool of 6,000. These were known as the nomothetai (νομοθέται, 'the lawmakers').”

“The institutions sketched above – assembly, officeholders, council, courts – are incomplete without the figure that drove the whole system, Ho boulomenos ('he who wishes', or 'anyone who wishes'). This expression encapsulated the right of citizens to take the initiative to stand to speak in the assembly, to initiate a public lawsuit (that is, one held to affect the political community as a whole), to propose a law before the lawmakers, or to approach the council with suggestions. Unlike officeholders, the citizen initiator was not voted on before taking up office or automatically reviewed after stepping down; these institutions had, after all, no set tenure and might be an action lasting only a moment. However, any stepping forward into the democratic limelight was risky. If another citizen initiator chose, a public figure could be called to account for their actions and punished. In situations involving a public figure, the initiator was referred to as a kategoros ('accuser'), a term also used in cases involving homicide, rather than ho diokon ('the one who pursues').”

“Pericles, according to Thucydides, characterized the Athenians as being very well-informed on politics: ‘We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.’”

Under the section “Criticism”:

Athenian democracy had many critics, both ancient and modern. Ancient Greek critics of Athenian democracy include Thucydides the general and historian, Aristophanes the playwright, Plato the pupil of Socrates, Aristotle the pupil of Plato, and a writer known as the Old Oligarch. While modern critics are more likely to find fault with the restrictive qualifications for political involvement, these ancients viewed democracy as being too inclusive. For them, the common people were not necessarily the right people to rule and were likely to make huge mistakes.[73] According to Samons:

‘The modern desire to look to Athens for lessons or encouragement for modern thought, government, or society must confront this strange paradox: the people that gave rise to and practiced ancient democracy left us almost nothing but criticism of this form of regime (on a philosophical or theoretical level). And what is more, the actual history of Athens in the period of its democratic government is marked by numerous failures, mistakes, and misdeeds—most infamously, the execution of Socrates—that would seem to discredit the ubiquitous modern idea that democracy leads to good government.’”

“A new version of democracy was established in 403 BC, but it can be linked with both earlier and subsequent reforms (graphē paranómōn 416 BC; end of assembly trials 355 BC). For instance, the system of nomothesia was introduced. In this:

“A new law might be proposed by any citizen. Any proposal to modify an existing law had to be accompanied by a proposed replacement law. The citizen making the proposal had to publish it [in] advance: publication consisted of writing the proposal on a whitened board located next to the statues of the Eponymous Heroes in the agora. The proposal would be considered by the Council, and would be placed on the agenda of the Assembly in the form of a motion. If the Assembly voted in favor of the proposed change, the proposal would be referred for further consideration by a group of citizens called nomothetai (literally "establishers of the law").”

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Okay, an already overlong post! But as I was gathering snippets for myself, I thought I’d put them up.

All of which is only intended to outline the kind of (varying) democracy Epicurus might have been familiar with during his tenure in Athens. How much he approved and how much he criticized (and which aspects) – and what he might think of today’s institutions – remains an open question. But I suspect he would have disagreed with Pericles.

I don’t know if this belongs here, or ought to be transferred elsewhere (e.g., a continuation of the discussion at Anticipations - Justice & Divine Nature).

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I don’t like the word “anticipations” as a rendering of prolepsis. To get at what I said in post #16 here about “moral noncognitivism” (a phrase I think may not be helpful either) and “feeling”, I’m going to suggest borrowing a neologism coined by philosopher/psychologist Eugene Gendlin: “felt-sense.”

For example, I have a felt-sense of disgust and revulsion and outrage at the abuse of a child – a mental disturbance (τᾰρᾰχή ) accompanied by πόνος in the body (e.g. trembling, muscle-tightening, etc.). I don’t need to take account of what the perpetrator thinks/feels in order to act. Nor do I need a set of philosophical or moral principles in order to act. Nor do I need to really think it out at all (hence the “noncognitivism” relative to an ethical response; the felt-sense may be an innately arising response to the situation).

I would not call that a felt-sense of justice – closer to the example in the above-mentioned thread of a child exclaiming “That’s not fair!”

But, in order to advocate socially and politically for a compact to prevent and punish child abuse, I do need some defensible concepts/principles of justice – e.g. the compact to neither harm nor be harmed. I would consider that to be realpolitick, and a natural ethical extension of that felt-sense – and quite in line with Epicurean justice. (And maybe the word prolepsis could just be retained as is.)

Question (I am likely to have only questions for now): Prolepsis was also briefly mentioned in the podcast. Can there be a proleptic (or quasi-proleptic) concept of justice? That is not easily expressed in determinative theoretic terms? But that the latter can best be understood as supporting rational arguments?

This would possibly remove idealism from a kind of “moral noncognitivism” (broadly defined) – which, personally, would comport well with my experience (and frustration) with moral idealisms such as those proffered by the Stoics, Kant, and religious divine-command idealisms, and finding more reasonable philosophical grounding – and testing – for my “feelings” of what appears just or unjust via Epicurean philosophy.

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Now, I need to attend to my Phillies in today’s National League Championship game; if they win, they win the pennant and move to the World Series! (Keeping my pleasure priorities straight, Cassius !)

Quote from Don

I got the impression he was referring to Realpolitik:

I would guess then that "contingent," in this case, means something like political/social activity for aims that are not pragmatic (say, to sustain beneficially secure social contracts, laws and norms), but based on some other "contingent" considerations: such as personal power or enforcement of some ideology. (Think of that as a question ...)

I finished the podcast. Wonderful! Thank you so much Cassius and Fernando for presenting this, and your fine moderation -- and of course gratitude to Dr. Boeri.

What has initially piqued my interest is the distinction between "contingent politics" versus "everyday/real politics." I need to take some time to explore and mull over that., and where the contextual/circumstantial lines might be.

Once again, kudos on a fine presentation! Much appreciated!

Thank you, Cassius! I'll catch it tomorrow -- now I have to watch my Philadelphia Eagles play the Miami Dolphins. ("Fly, Eagles, fly!"). Old Pennsylvania boy, here!

The more I read of Frances Wright, the more I admire her!

Frances Wright

www.monticello.org