Posts by Pacatus

Quote from Cassius

Words like "heap" and "good" are useful even though they have no mathematical precision, but it needs to be understood that these words lack not only mathematical precision but any intrinsic meaning of their own absent reference to the individual items that are being described in summary.

Epicurus is arguing that "pleasure" as a concept has no meaning apart from the individual instances of pleasure which are contained within the summary term. Of course the concept is very useful as a way to communicate ideas, but Plato and the others are asserting that there is an absolute realm of ideas where there is a "perfect" or "form" of pleasure, and that pleasures are pleasures because they somehow mystically partake in this form or idea.

These ideas are overlapping in two threads -- but, here again, I think you nailed it.

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Admin Edit Note 8/11/2025: the other thread referred to, is here.

Quote from Cassius

I would presume that what this means is that abstractions such as "color" or "good" do not have an independent existence apart from the things that we are describing as colored or good. Nor do "happiness" or "pleasure" as concepts have any independent meaning apart from individual instances of real people experiencing real feelings.

On the other hand, words such as "color" and "good" are useful, and so everyone - including Epicurus - uses them.

I think that is about as good a summary argument against the actual existence of such universals as “redness” or “goodness” – while retaining their semantic usefulness – as one could expect.

As one process philosopher that I once read put it: it is the error of assuming that for every “substantive” that we have in our language, there must be an actual “substance” (existent). Once you abandon Platonic idealism, such universals also fall away (Bertrand Russell notwithstanding).

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LATE EDIT: And, as you point out in another thread, those concepts can have meaning only in terms of contextualized actual individual experience.

Quote from Cassius

Clearly just because something can be imagined does not make it possible

Agreed, of course. But, the so-called “sorites problem” (where I agree with TauPhi* ) aside, I recall that in modal logic there is a principle that would lead to something like this:

If it is logically necessarily possible that X exists in some (possible) world, then – in a model of infinite (logically) possible worlds – X will (necessarily) exist in at least one of them.

[My italics and underlines.]

Of course, it’s not logically necessarily possible that I have really understood all of that …

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[This type of thinking has been offered as a “proof” of “God.” But if a “god” so defined is not logically possible (e.g. is defined incoherently) – let alone logically necessarily possible – then such a god cannot exist even within a model of infinite possible worlds.]

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* I am reminded of a similar language issue in the later Wittgenstein. We, in ordinary discourse, generally have sufficient understanding of what someone says when they use a phrase like “a heap of sand” (or even “a heap of love”) without needing an arithmetical rule.

Quote from Rolf

I'm a big fan of this poem, but I feel it's acutely anti-Epicurean. "Raging against the dying of the light" brings to mind a bitter and agonising response to dying.

I agree that it's not Epicurean. However, I have always read "rage, rage against the dying of the light" as defiance (perhaps even a kind of "heroic" defiance), rather than bitterness. Remember, it is Dylan speaking to his father, not his father speaking ...

Dylan Thomas is perhaps the most inspirational poet (though not the only one) for me – in terms of his creative and unique use of language (less in this villanelle, I think, than others – such as “Fern Hill” *). I discovered him by accident in me undergraduate years, pulling his Collected Poems off a shelf in the library stacks: I ended up cutting all my afternoon classes to read him.

If I were marooned on a desert island, and could have only one book of poetry, this would be it. [Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems would be the other, if I could have two – which might point to a certain poetic schizophrenia! ]

With that said, I think neither this poem nor Dylan generally can be considered Epicurean.

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* https://poets.org/poem/fern-hill. I would love to hear Sheen recite this one! (I used to have a recording of another Welsh actor, Richard Burton, reading Thomas.)

In looking up Tsouna’s essays cited above by Patrikios, I stumbled on this paper (a master’s thesis) on an “Epicurean Theory of the Mind.” I have not yet read it (and likely will do so in my usual slow, piecemeal fashion ). But I thought it might be interesting …

Didn’t know the proper place to put it, so just stuck it here …

Epicurean Theory of Mind

It has been argued that Epicurus was a reductionist with regard to the mind. It has also been argued that Epicurus is a non-reductionist with regard to the…

www.academia.edu

Quote from Don

Dogmatic doesn't mean keeping to strict orthodoxy, it means being willing to take a position as opposed to remaining skeptical of everything, or as the word used means, "to be at a loss, be in doubt, be puzzled."

Quote from Don

One's occupation doesn't define them as a living breathing human being.

Thanks for the thorough reply, Don .

I just want to say that, lest anyone think I was being elitist with my reference to factory workers et al – I spent pretty much all of my second decade, and some of the third, as pure “blue-collar” labor: washing dishes in a restaurant basement kitchen, a few years in a couple of canneries, and eight years of seven-day rotating shift work in a paper mill. So, of course, I know your comment here is right on.

Quote from Cassius

But it's a key issue to remember that variation is pleasure too, and Epicurus is not saying "and variation is not desirable."

Quote from Don

My perspective veers more toward seeing Epicurus as an observational researcher of the natural world and synthesizing those observations into workable practical applications for real people.

Don

How do you think this might relate to past discussions on here about the “practical Epicurean” and the “philosophical Epicurean” (my shortcut terms, the latter referring to folks who have the ability and inclination to delve more deeply into the texts and scholarly – which is not to say “academic” – analyses)? My sense of the general sentiment on here is that the former are predicted to fall away from Epicurean practice if not sufficiently philosophically educated.

Or: how to offer a helpful (“therapeutic”) Epicurean practice toward daily life to the former group without undue simplification (my emphasis)? Or is that not possible? (If not, then Epicureanism seems destined to remain an option only for a fairly narrow segment of the general populace.) What can we offer to the factory worker who labors overtime hours, or the farmworker bending her back to harvest our fruits and vegetables, or … ? Anything? If so … how? (If not ... then not.)

Just some questions for thought … (Since you've already risked muddying the waters ... )

Quote from Cassius

Not trying to pick nits here

I didn't notice any nits ...

A main theme of Nehamas’ essay is that φιλιά for the ancient Greeks had a public dimension that modern notions of friendship do not. Epicurus would surely have been aware of that and, although he might not have rejected it out of hand, may have treated his social-compact view of “natural justice” as more applicable to the public sphere … ? [That’s intended as a question.]

From page 219 of the Nehamas essay: “Although relationships based on benefit or pleasure are not ideal, they would still be friendships as long as they, too, involved mutual affection and, more important, wishing good things for each other’s own sake: that seems the least we should ask of them.”

For Aristotle, only friendship based on mutual appreciation of virtue is perfect or ideal. From page 220: “Aristotle’s conclusion is that only friendship that involves reciprocated love based on the virtues of another is a friendship in the proper sense of the term. He is half-tempted to say that no other relationship should even be called friendship, but, as a concession to ordinary usage, and by way of uncovering what is right about that usage, he concedes that any other relation may be counted as a friendship, to a greater or lesser degree, to the extent that it resembles this ideal.”

It seems to me that Epicurus would accept friendship based on mutual appreciation of virtue – but not as the “only friendship … in the proper sense of the term.” And, after all, such appreciation is itself surely a source of pleasure.

And there is, for example, VS23: “Every friendship is worth choosing for its own sake, though it takes its origin from the benefits.”

Quote from Cassius

The basic problem here is that “freedom from pain” is made to sound like something different from pleasure, when in fact everything that is not painful is pleasurable when there are only two alternatives, and tasty food is as legitimate a part of the set of total pleasures as is poetry or literature or friendship or anything else. Epicureans don’t narrow the definition of pleasure to an ambiguous state of “absence of XXX” - they expand the definition of pleasure to include all experiences of life that are desirable – and life itself is desirable, with the only undesirable experience falling under the name of “pain.”

Quote from Cassius

When you get past superficial readings of the letter to Menoeceus, there’s plenty of textual evidence that explains that Epicurus held there to be only two feelings, and that means - just as stated in Principal Doctrine 3, that when pain is absent then pleasure is present, and the reverse also.

This seems to me to point up what I consider to be the major error of the Cyrenaics (as articulated by Aristippus the Younger): that there is a third “neutral” condition that is neither pleasure nor pain. The Epicurean category of katastematic pleasure – in addition to the kinetic pleasures that seem to be the only ones the Cyrenaics recognized – corrects this error.

Just as an aside (tearing myself briefly from my reading assignment – as my hypertexting brain asserts itself ).

AxA said: “The philosophy encourages applying "common sense" and using "basic meanings" of words, but that can lead to projecting back an imaginary "English Epicurus" when we apply all the connotations of English translation words back to the original philosophy. "Edward Curris" lol.” on that.

I just want to add that I don’t think that even the plainest of plain speech can be reduced to some one-meaning-for-one-word-for-all-cases – in any non-artificial language at least. Or even for a phrase that includes, say, adjectival or adverbial modifiers and that may recur in varying contexts. All speech (and writing) is semantically dependent on context, which is the basis for Wittgenstein’s dictum: “Don't look for the meaning, look for the use.”

And, as AxA points out, that can be even more tricksy in translation, where the context is not immediate, but needs itself to be searched out – as well as carrying the risk of “projecting back an imaginary ‘English Epicurus’."

From Don: “I always feel the need in these threads to bring up that Epicurus didn't use the words "friendship/friend." His usual term was φιλιά (philia) which can, of course, be translated into English as "friendship." But both "friendship/friends" and φιλιά/φίλοι have their own semantic baggage they carry with them that often goes unquestioned.” And: “I don't expect anyone to read every word …”

Well, now that has become my reading assignment for the day …

From the article linked by Kalosyni: "In every German village there is the corner bar, and in the corner is a table. It's reserved for the sort of elders or other regulars. And they sit in the corner and they drink their beer and smoke their cigarettes and pontificate on the town and all of its craziness."

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Reminded me of this from Daniel Klein, Travels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life; excerpts from the Prologue: “The Table at Dimitri’s Taverna” –

“I eavesdrop on Tasso and his companions. As is their habit, they sit side by side and speak loudly to one another, so I have no difficulty hearing them. Although my Greek is rudimentary, I can catch the drift of their talk, a conversation that began before I arrived and will continue until the sun begins to drop behind the Peloponnese, just across the sea. It is aimless, cheerful chat, for the most part mundane. They talk about the sunlight, which is unusually hazy today, the new owner of a cheese stall in the port market, their children and grandchildren, the state of political affairs in Athens. Occasionally one tells a story from his past—usually one his companions have heard before. The talk is punctuated by leisurely, comfortable silences as they gaze out at the Peloponnesian straits.” . . .

“One of Tasso’s companions signals Dimitri to bring another bottle of retsina and a few plates of mezes—some olives, stuffed grape leaves, and a yogurt, cucumber, and garlic dip. They now arrange themselves around the table so all are in reach of the food. I have yet to see Dimitri present them with a bill, and I believe he never does; the men will simply place a few coins on the table when they leave—“old man” rates. Tasso pulls a deck of cards from his pocket, and they begin to play prefa, their preferred card game, with one of the four sitting out each hand and taking up any slack in the conversation.

“And I turn back to my book about Epicurus.”

Happy birthday, Patrikios!

Another “interesting take” on Don ‘s position above (which was a game-changer for me), that I came across in my reading. The quote is about the Aristippian Cyrenaics, but seemed to me to be relevant here: some pleasures may not be contingently choiceworthy because they would lead to greater pains – but pleasure itself, in se, is intrinsically choiceworthy.

“In [the example cases, a particular] pleasure is not choiceworthy given the circumstances, since its acquisition involves more than countervailing pains. But it remains choiceworthy for itself and in itself. In other words, its intrinsic ability to motivate choosing is a matter of its self-evident phenomenal character, which is not altered by prudential circumstances.”

– Kurt Lampe, The Birth of Hedonism: the Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life. [My generalizing edits in brackets.]

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Note: Lampe seems generally to think that some of the differences between the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans (while real and worthy of note) have been perhaps overstated – to the detriment of the Cyrenaics as philosophers. [At least in terms of what Lampe calls “mainstream Cyrenaicism” – e.g. of Aristippus and Aristippus the Younger (the “Metrodidact”), and presumably Arete, the Younger’s mother who inherited the role of teacher from her father, Aristippus the Elder (and who might be one of the unsung women philosophers of antiquity)].

Quote from Don

From my perspective, Epicurus was not positing a philosophical position in that "pleasure is the telos." He was identifying a universal trait of human beings - in fact, a trait of all living beings.

Once again, I come back to this.

I came across the following while reading Tim O’Keefe’s treatise on Epicureanism. I’m not sure that O’Keefe takes it all the way to the logical conclusion that you do (so well) here, but it did remind me –

“So we do not need to discern our inherent telos in order to discover the purpose of life. Instead, in order to find the highest good we simply have to observe what, as a matter of fact, people desire and pursue for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else.”

– Timothy O’Keefe, Epicureanism

In other words, it’s an empirical question – not some “second order” philosophical one, as in, say, Plato.