Posts by Pacatus

Cicero obfuscating and arguing out of both sides of his mouth?! Say it ain’t so!

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Although the main matter here may have to do with mortality, the following struck me:

“‘Cicero’ conflates both argumentative strategies. On the one hand, he shows (i) that also according to non-virtue single-good schools, the goods required for happiness are available even under adverse circumstances, while conditions regarded as bad are no bads or at least not so bad that it would be impossible to obtain the goods constitutive of happiness. On the other hand, (ii) he attributes to virtue an instrumental function for guaranteeing happiness.

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“All types of real non-virtue goods are sufficiently available for a person to be happy, and there is no reason to suffer from apparent bads that one can despise and disregard (strategy i). However, a person also needs the ability to assess goods and bads correctly, must assume the right attitude toward them and make the right choices. This ability is virtue, understood here as a mind educated to assess correctly what is good or bad so that it does not value what is worthless or fear what is harmless (strategy ii).”

As I recall, the primary practical (instrumental) virtue for the Stoic Epictetus was what we today would call agency: exercising our ability to choose among options.

It seems to me that this virtue is precisely what Epicurus emphasizes in our practical ability to choose among (1) the three categories of desires, and (2) pleasures that may lead to pain and pains that, if endured, lead to greater pleasure.

Possession of this virtue itself does not guarantee happiness (eudaimonia – with due recognition of problematic translation), but only its astute application. Virtue cannot be the only thing necessary for happiness (let alone, as the author mentions earlier, being happiness!) – but rather its instrumental application toward what is happiness: pleasure.

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There, at bottom, seems to be a kind of vicious circularity in the Stoic notion of virtue being the sole necessary and sufficient “good” for eudaimonia – let alone constituting eudaimonia. Virtue is either instrumental or not. Cicero seems to want it both ways.

Welcome MaiTaiNye.

An off-point attempt at some humor, in terms of examples of "god":

Sorry ...

Happy B'day!

Quote from Don

recognition of meaningful patterns

I just want to add (perhaps redundantly, having just blundered in here ) that such pattern recognition is (most?) often intuitive, rather than the result of any (time consuming) discursive analysis of all the elements forming the pattern. That is something that chess masters have often have relied on, rather than complicated calculative iterations. The intuition does rely on memory, of course.

And by “intuition” here, I mean something like “immediate apprehension or cognition” (per Webster’s).

Welcome, David!

BTW, could you (or anyone else here who has read it) comment further on the Jones book? It is pricey enough on Amazon to give me pause, but if it's worth it ...?

Quote from Little Rocker

I admit that I feel like I've reached a point where every time I hear a passionate argument about altruism I cry a little on the inside, even though I recognize that the possibility of altruism really matters to a lot of people. I think I've just lost sight of why it does.

Just some off-the-cuff thoughts:

For me, altruistic acts – from an Epicurean view – can be important from two different points of view: (1) they give me pleasure (the Stoics might deny that as a criteria, but I think they tend to delude themselves with regard to their own pleasure/satisfaction on this score – as Don said); and (2) both in terms of local community and friendship, and in terms of a more extended social fabric – based on a social contract to prevent harm by means of preserving an amenable social context in which we perforce live – as instrumentally choiceworthy, even if any reciprocity is not immediately expected. In today’s world, that social fabric likely includes at least some global considerations.

And perhaps pleasureable feelings of empathy are evolutionarily derived, supporting humans ability to live in any sense of community – and are still valid pathé today in that sense.

None of that relies on some abstract ideal of virtue or “command-morality” (as in the Stoics and Kant, say), which I heartily reject. And, it seems to me, it is the practical instrumentality that those idealists find objectionable.

It does, of course, depend on how narrowly or broadly one thinks of that term “altruism.” But Epicurus did say that one might reasonably die for one’s friends.

At least that’s my personal reflection …

I have just finished Wilson’s Epicureanism: A Very Brief Introduction. It is, indeed, very brief: the text being 120 pages.

As I read, I realized that the books we talk about here fall generally into two categories (though one might often “bleed” into the other): (1) the pragmatic – in terms of how one might live as an Epicurean in our modern times (and why that is worthy of consideration); and (2) the more straightforwardly “philosophical” – in the contemporary sense of that term. In the first category are such as Emily Austin, Hiram Crespo, Haris Dimitriadis and Wilson’s How to Live as an Epicurean (which I need to revisit). In the second category are DeWitt’s Epicurus and His Philosophy, Epicurean Philosophy: An introduction from the “Garden of Athens” (Christos Yapijakis Editor) – and Wilson’s Very Brief Introduction.

What one might recommend as an introduction thus ought to consider where a given person’s interest and prior exposure might be. (I tend to return more to those in the first category.) With that said, Wilson’s Very Brief Introduction might be considered as a sort of “outline primer” to, say, DeWitt.

Her treatment of Epicureanism is what I might call “critically fair” (fair as in evenhanded). She often skillfully sets up the arguments of Epicurus' critics (such as the Stoics and – especially -- the Christians and Kant), only to effectively dismantle (or at least diminish) them. Where she herself offers criticism (or affirms those of others), it was generally in the manner of “it seems” – to her, or to majority contemporary thought. In other words, she seems to leave room (at least implicitly) for cogent criticism of her criticism. [And that has been accomplished, without direct reference to Wilson, on here many times.]

In sum – and, as I said, contingent on my revisiting of her How to Live as an Epicurean – I am revising my opinions recorded above in this thread to a more affirmative view.

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On reflection of my thoughts in the 2^nd paragraph above, I searched my (much diminished) philosophy shelf, and found a book I had forgotten: Atoms, Pleasure, Virtue: The Philosophy of Epicurus by Avraam Koen (1995). Has anyone else read it? The book was drawn from his PhD dissertation. It seems to be out of print but available: the Amazon price for the paperback is a hefty $61.75.

My copy is riddled with highlights, underlines and marginal notes – some of which I started to skim. If I find anything I think worth discussing here, I’ll post it.

An article on recent research into the importance of friendship. (I’m an introvert, but I’m fortunate to live with my best friend.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/05/28/in-person-friendships-health-benefits/

Quote from Julia

(At times like this, it still feels wild how I myself have been blind to this simple truth for so long; how that was even possible despite all the reading and reflection, despite knowing in my gut that “something isn't right”; how completely I was entrenched in what is wrong so obviously.)

I’m 73 years old, and I still struggle with some of that old stuff (though so much I have let go), and I still have questions. I just keep coming back here.

Quote from Don

I need to read Wilson's Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction separate from her How to be an Epicurean.

I've just started it. I've always liked that Oxford University Press series.

Quote from Julia

(The Cynic answer: “I just shat on the floor.”)

Quote from Julia

The Epicurean answer: “Myself!”

In the context of the video, absolutely. But I'd extend the Epicurean answer to: Myself – and if can we can be friends, then you too, à la the so-called “Gestalt Prayer”:

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.

— Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, 1969

Quote from Don

I need to read Wilson's Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction separate from her How to be an Epicurean.

Good catch! I was really thinking of her How to be an Epicurean.

Quote from Cassius

How would you compare it to the Catherine Wilson books?

Although I enjoy and appreciate Wilson, I would likely not include her in the top half-dozen. For example, I would put Crespo ahead of her, and Frances Wright’s fictionalization, A Few Days in Athens. And also Epicurean Philosophy An introduction from the “Garden of Athens”, Christos Yapijakis Editor (maybe ahead of Crespo).

Is there some reason why Haris Dimitriadis’ book generally seems to get left out of these discussions? I really like it, and would surely recommend it, at least after (1) Austin and (2) DeWitt as a next-step presentation for modern readers. But maybe I’m missing something …

I agree with Don on the thumbs up for "Eye of the Tiger." But I am also partial to "Let It Go" from the film Frozen.

Quote from Don

I don't think we can be aware of ourselves without something external to us

Further, we have no non-relative "view from nowhere" (a so-called "god's eye view" ) from which to be aware of anything. This is ultimately what is behind the existentialist dictum "existence precedes essence" -- i.e., we can not even consider how things "really (essentially) are" except from some relative perspective(s). I am thinking here of the existentialist perspectivism of Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gassett (but Nietzsche was also on to it).

Quote from Cassius

An existence possessing such a power I have never seen; and though this says nothing against the possibility of such an existence, it says every thing against my belief in it. And farther, the power which you attribute to this existence — that of willing every thing out of nothing, — being, not only what I have never seen, but that of which I cannot with any distinctness conceive — it must appear to me the greatest of all improbabilities.

This reminds me of how I think Pyrrhonists and Epicureans (both ancient and modern) seem to often talk past one another (not to say there aren’t significant differences: they seem to have different understandings of “dogma” – and perhaps of “truth,” with the Pyrrhonists perhaps holding to what would now be called an “infallibist” version: that is, to claim to know truth about how the reality “really is,” one is claiming objective certainty – which a Pyrrhonist would say one cannot have about “non-evident” matters, even as one accepts inductive inference as the best guide we may have for agency – including further investigation). Epicurus’ position in the quote would I think be perfectly acceptable to a modern Pyrrhonist like Adrian Kuzminski (Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism). Here is a debate between two modern advocates of each camp:

Epicureanism Versus Pyrrhonism

Comparisons between any two philosophies typically focus on their differences. This article will instead focus on similarities. In…

pyrrhonism.medium.com

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Note: It also reminds me of Hume’s skepticism about causality (perceived correlation versus actual cause) – but I think he might have done well to draw on Epicurus’ early (original?) views on the possibility of any effect having multiple causes (causal over-determination), e.g. in the Letter to Phytocles.

http://www.academyofathens.gr/static/philosophy/Abstract-Handout_Tsouna_010421.pdf

Quote from Godfrey

There's an interesting paper "The Polytheism of the Epicureans" by Paul Terrence Matthias Jackson which may also be relevant here.

The Polytheism of the Epicureans

Epicureans have been branded atheists since antiquity, but although they might have held unorthodox beliefs about divinity, they did nevertheless believe in…

www.academia.edu

Quote from Bryan

Additionally, if an idea synthesized in our mind does not accurately correspond to an external object, then it is an empty opinion.

And yet, our ability to imagine often leads to discoveries about the external, sensual world that may not have come about otherwise: theoretical science often becomes physical science.

There is also the aesthetic element: Mozart imagined (“heard"/synthesized in his mind) combinations of musical notes that became a score – and hence a symphony that can be played and enjoyed.

And the very ways in which we represent the sensual world to ourselves, and think about it, may invariably involve some imaginative activity (at least I don’t think that can be discounted; and I think there is some empirical evidence for it). For example, “Even when you use your imagination to remember something that actually happened to you, you’re creating a simulation of a time and place that no longer exists.” (Jim Davies. Imagination: The Science of Your Mind's Greatest Power. 2019. Pegasus Books.) Also, imagination can be employed therapeutically to discover and address things about ourselves we might otherwise have not uncovered.