Posts by Pacatus

Quote from Cassius

I think that's what we're after here at EpicureanFriends too, and if there emerges from that a distinct flavor that separates this from other approaches, it's not adherence to DeWitt's conclusions that makes the difference. It's much more a shared approach of going after everything we can find that sheds light on what Epicurus may have been thinking, and trying to place it fairly but sympathetically to reconstruct the larger picture, that makes the difference.

I endorse that as well -- just from my personal experience on here. And, I confess, I have never finished DeWitt.

Don

What if I am not a list?

Okay, couldn’t help myself: just my mood today.

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With that crass distraction tossed in the trash, I’d point out that the original Hebrew texts of the Bible had no verse numbers, no line breaks, no sentence breaks – and more often than not, no word breaks (and no determinate vowels before the Masoretes’ inventions between the 7th and 10th centuries C.E.). That is what makes classical Hebrew such a radically polysemous language, which guided the highly hermeneutical approach of the Talmuds and subsequent rabbinical Judaisms (many rabbis at the time objected to the Masoretes’ project as arbitrarily limiting interpretation).

[Oh, and far more of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Tanach) is actually poetry than is often recognized.]

The same can be said for the earliest Koine Greek of the New Testament. Such things as verse numbers (which can far too often – in my opinion – be quoted without attention to larger context) – and even phrase breaks – were later (interpretive) additions.

And so, I think you may well be onto something here ... (Do we know the historical development of these texts? I had thought not.)

HsiehKW

I think you are very much into something here (though I am no scholar of either Epicurean philosophy or psychology) – especially relating to Epicurus’ reliance on aesthesis, pathe and prolpsis as the empirical basis for cognition (as I understand it).

BTW, have you read Lakoff and Marshall’s Philosophy in the Flesh? I put it in my Amazon wish list, but I hesitate that it might be too deep of a dive – and the usual free sample read is not available. Any thoughts?

I just wanted to add to the above that I do not think of “frugality” as some kind of idealistic virtue-discipline (ala, say, the Stoics) – but just as the simple practical virtue of “living well within your means” – where the double entendre with that word “well” is deliberate. And living well just means living as pleasurable, painlessly and stresslessly as possible.

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HsiehKW

I’ve always been a natural introvert and even a bit reclusive at times (well, maybe more than a bit ). A few close friends matter a lot, but I would have a hard time living in a close community – even of like-minded folks. This is my Epicurean community.

I’ve shared before that my wife and I spent 15 years on 20+ acres in the country. Our cottage sat down a chert lane and across a small limestone creek (called Terrapin Branch), and against a high wooded ridge. We had goats and various fruit trees (my wife made tasty dry country wines from tart cherries and elderberries – and even parsley once). We had a kitchen garden that yielded enough tomatoes, bell peppers, onions and garlic – and herbs such as oregano, parsley and sage -- to last the winter. In the last years, we had a small greenhouse.

To do that, I had to retire early, and we cut our income by nearly half. Let’s say we lived those years in "rich simplicity."

Now we have lived for 10 years as townies in a small apartment. We only grow a few herbs on the deck. We do try to get a lot of groceries and produce from the local co-op. (During the pandemic we had nearly everything delivered – including wine from a discount wine club that supports up-and-coming independent vintners, including a number of women.) We eat out about once a week.

I am not by nature ascetic – quite the contrary! I do intermittent fasting for its health benefits (12 to 16 hours three or four times a week). All in all, as townies on fixed income, I would say that we live in “rich frugality.”

I looked up George Lakoff and realized that I read his book (with Mark Johnson), Metaphors We Live By, years ago. (Sadly, don't have it anymore. )

Joshua: That was how it was expressed in my Lutheran upbringing.

I will add that the lecture was very well received by the synagogue members in attendance (a mixed Reform and Conservative congregation).

Joshua

Re Onan: Some years ago I attended a lecture, at the local synagogue, by a university professor of OT, on the Onan story. He laid out in detail how it was really about controlling property: had Onan impregnated his sister-in-law, she would have controlled the property in question until it was inherited by her child. Onan wanted to keep the property for himself. The larger context was a patriarchal bias (of which, presumably, YHVH was -- again, in the context here -- disapproving). The professor's analysis was that this passage represented a more feminist trope in the Torah.

Note: YHVH, the tetragrammaton, is the name of God that cannot be pronounced. Interestingly, the half that is allowed to be pronounced -- YH: Yah (as in Hallelu Yah) -- is feminine in the Hebrew.

Thanks all.

Eikadistes: Yes, I like the simplicity of that.

Joshua: That's the kind of stuff I was looking for.

Cassius: I agree with your take. I think all "command moralities" are idealist, Kant no less than the Stoics or other "divine command" types.

Again, thanks all.

We all agree on the prohibitive (negative) formulation – and its importance. (And that is, apparently, the most common type of formulation – not only in ancient Greece but other cultures as well.)

There remains a twofold question:

Are there (in the classical Epicurean corpus) any similar affirmative statements on: 1) where reasonably possible, to prevent or stop wrongful harm from being done to another (particularly someone outside our immediate friendship circle); and 2) to foster social conditions that are conducive to maximizing the possibility for enjoyment/pleasure by most people (including those that may be on the socioeconomic margins)?

Of course, one can strive to do both without drawing on any school’s (or religion’s) ethical philosophy – e.g., as a matter of personal conscience. But I am still curious.

Note: in case 1) above, the perpetrator of harm would be someone who has not embraced the Epicurean social compact.

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Note: I have some other things to attend to, but I’ll try to check in tomorrow. Thanks again, all.

Don: No problem!

There are a number of versions of the so-called “golden rule” across cultures. In the Judeo-Christian tradition there are two:

The first is by Rabbi Hillel (died circa 10CE) “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour.”

The second is attributed to Jesus of Galilee in the gospels of Matthew and Luke: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

The first (Hillel’s version) is negatively formed – and I have often preferred it, sometimes wishing to tell some well-meaning person: “Please stop trying to do unto to me!” But I really view them as complimentary – each from a different perspective, and each sometimes being, perhaps, a salutary check on the other.

It seems to me that PD 31 can be analogous to Hillel’s version (with further explication in the following PDs):

“Natural justice is a covenant for mutual benefit, not to harm one another or be harmed.” (St. Andre translation)

Michel Onfray incorporated a somewhat more positively formed dictum in his Hedonist Manifesto: “Enjoy and have others enjoy, without doing harm to yourself or anyone else; that is all there is to morality” – especially if one takes that “have” in an active, rather than passive, sense.

I am wondering if the more scholarly on here can identify a similar positively-formed version in the Epicurean corpus? VS13 perhaps? VS15? VS44? Something in Philodemus or Lucretius?

Thank you.

Quote from Cassius

then I can easily productively and praisingly call you a "fundamentalist," in the best sense of the word!

How about a "fundu - mentalist"?

"fundu" in the sense of the English/Indian slang definition here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fundu#English

My crazy-quilt wordplay brain also immediately thought of "fondue mentalist" -- again, in the best sense!

Thank you, Godfrey.

I will add that, in his book, Gendlin really loosens up the specificity of the “six steps” – in order to encourage people to develop more variety in their personal style. But I don’t think you need the book to play around with it: the basis is really consulting the body and the “felt sense.”

Also, I can get lost in my head working a more rationalistic approach (thinking, thinking, thinking … !) – and this is one way (for me!) to get out of that “hedonic calculus” concept that a number of us were recently grousing about.

Also (how many “alsos can I play? ) it seems to get back to the ground of the senses (αἰσθήσεις, following Don).

Years ago, I read a book by meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn, who taught mindfulness meditation to patients plagued by chronic pain. Because they all had different physical abilities (and disabilities), he struggled with questions of meditative posture. In the end, he gave up and just said: “Just sit with dignity.”

He was amazed as he saw them all simply and naturally adjust their postures – within their diverse physical limitations – in a way that expressed that concept. He didn’t define the word for them or draw pictures. They just seemed to feel it.

The philosopher/psychologist Eugene Gendlin developed and taught a simple, effective therapy based on what he called a “felt sense,” in which one inquires of their body what’s going on with them, and noticing how that changes in response to various insights (what he called a “felt-shift”). He wrote a well-received – both among professionals and a popular audience – book about it titled Focusing (available from Amazon.) I have been, over the past few months, refamiliarizing myself with the practice.*

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Years ago (again) my wife and I read a book called Elegant Choices, Healing Choices by Marsha Sinetar – which I just recently recalled.

And so I am experimenting with just asking the question (in the sense of Epicurean hedonic choice and avoidance): “Where is the elegant choice?” And noticing what kind of “felt sense” (πᾰ́θος–αίσθηση perhaps? Don?) comes in response. This far, it seems fruitful (without attempting any further definition of that word “elegant” – ala Jon Kabat-Zinn above). So I thought I would share it …

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* Here is a (very) simplified description of the basic focusing process – but it was enough to help me get started again, till I could reacquire the book: https://focusing.org/sixsteps. It really is subject to multiple variations, which one can develop personally for themselves.

I would say that “atoms” (subatomic particles, energy, space, etc. – the basic physics of the universe and the combinations that define our world: emerging molecules, neuro-chemical processes, etc.) are the fundamental facts of the case. Such facts are neither good nor bad – they just are.

Such things as consciousness, pathe, the ability to choose, etc. are emergent phenomena from those fundamental facts that are facets of what it means to be a human being.

Talk of “the good” is ethical discourse (which is not the same as Stoical/Kantian/Christian moralistic discourse). And so, the “highest good” remains eudaimonia – which, from an Epicurean perspective, is defined by hedone/aponia/ataraxia.

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I realize there are a number of etcs. in this post: I am not a scientist. ... etc. ...

Quote from Nate

those "fundamentalists" who (according to Philodemus) over-relied on an unnecessarily-literal interpretation of Epicurus' vocabulary

Unfortunately, this reminded me of another “book fundamentalism” – and prompted this satirical doggerel:

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By the Book

By the Book, by God, by the big black Book

I do vow – by the holy Word, I vow –

no tittle or jot will a free thought blot.

I bow, my God, with bended head I bow …

To intrude a couple of mixed metaphors: For me, the Garden (and this place) is not so much like going to or joining a church (or the Stoa, or the like) – as it is like going to the grocery store for a variety of food and drink that are both tasty (pleasurable) and healthful. Or our local co-op with its emphasis on organic, local and natural products. (“No, I don’t think I’ll have an avocado with dinner tonight – maybe tomorrow. But I will take a bottle of this wine.” )

Or, what I find in Epicurus is – to quote a phrase from Kalosyni that I’ve never forgotten – “tools, not rules.” Finally letting go of that (ingrained) struggle to find (and clutch hard in a mental fist, so to speak) “the right rules” (rules as commandments -- commanded by whom?) just makes things a bit easier. “Easy does it.” (It does ... . )

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Note: I am aware that “canon” can be translated as “rule” – but I take it more in the sense of a measuring (or weighing) tool, a set of guiding principles to make life easier and more enjoyable.

Quote from Little Rocker

the second language is always in your head, even if you never speak it

An excellent and apt description!