Posts by TauPhi

I conducted similar thought experiment some time ago and tried to imagine how Epicureans in antiquity could tackle this problem. I hope you find it interesting:

Post

Ancient Epicurean worldview (classes of compounds of atoms)

A few of the recent conversations got me thinking and as a result a new perspective on ancient Epicurean worldview emerged in my mind. I'm curious how viable you think the perspective is, my dear EpicureanFriends.

Firstly, the required Epicurean foundations:
1) The universe is infinite. (both is geometry and duration)
2) Atoms and void are infinite (atoms in quantity (but not quality!) and duration, the void in geometry and duration)
3) Compounds of atoms are finite in quality (there are limits to…

TauPhi

September 2, 2024 at 2:44 PM

I see virtue as excellence in something that is desirable. For me being virtuous means achieving excellence in something desirable. Friendship is pivotal in Epicurean philosophy so I completely agree with the statement that friendship is a virtue. Like with any other virtues, however, there's no free lunch. One has to work hard to achieve excellence. That's why 'Every friendship is an excellence (virtue) in itself...' translation doesn't work for me. Not because 'friendship is a virtue' part but because of 'Every'.

Thank you, Don .

I'm not a big fan of correcting manuscripts as it adds yet another danger of warping the original ideas. I think any corrections should be clearly marked and explained so the readers know what has been done and why.

That said, 'choiceworthy' or 'to be chosen for its own sake' option makes more sense to me in this case for very practical reasons. The act of starting a friendship doesn't make it excellent from the get go. Excellence and virtue in friendship can only be achieved by friends' good will, action and compatibility. Not all friendships end up being excellent and none start as excellent and virtuous. But that's only my personal interpretation.

Quote from Cassius

After 2000 years of Judeo-Christianty and all sorts of philosophical regression, and over 500 years of Pythagoreanism and Platonism and Academic Skepticism and even Democriteanism before that, what has happened is essentially the same thing as a "mind virus at the kernel level" which has destroyed any progress that Epicurus made with his canonics.

If that's the case, Epicurus was the One. Every philosopher before and after him was and is infected with a "mind virus"? I'm pretty sure this attitude will not get you far in promoting Epicurean philosophy.

Quote from Cassius

The virus is the idea that "proof" or "proving something" requires omniscience, omniscience, and omnipresence -- an unhuman an inhuman level of "certainty" that is impossible by definition for a human to reach. This mind virus has destroyed the ability of many people to think that anything can be "proven" or anything can be "known" or that anything can be "real" if it fails to meet such an impossible standard.

In that case I think almost all of us are safe. I literally don't know anyone who thinks that proving something requires omniscience, omniscience, and omnipresence. Proofs, knowledge and reality are very much within a grasp and abilities of most people.

Quote from Cassius

This is why I think philosophy has regressed so far since the Epicurean period. Rather than accept Epicurus' position that there is a reasonable standard of proof grounded in the senses in which the mind IS and SHOULD BE ACKNOWLEDGED to be able to prove things in human terms, such a position is denounced as the ultimate sin. Some will say "sin against god" but the majority of modern philosophers and intelligentsia will consider it a "sin against humanism" in a "good-without-god" kind of way.

Nope. What you described here is not the ultimate sin. In science it's called five sigma and it's a statistical significance which scientists agreed on to call a phenomenon proved to be true. No omniscience, omniscience nor omnipresence is required. In day to day life people are much less strict than that. We only need to recognize a pattern to call something proven. If I hit my finger with a hammer it hurts. If I do it once more it hurts again. I established a pattern and I've proven that hitting fingers with hammers hurts. No-one goes ad infinitum hitting themselves with a hammer because they think it wasn't proven enough that the activity brings pain every time. That's human knowledge. It may be limited but it's ours and our limitations don't mean no knowledge is possible.

I find it really weird that you constantly try to claim that there's only 'Epicurus' truth' or 'nothing can be proven at all' as the alternative. And narrative where you accuse many people over millenia to be infected with "mind virus" and philosophers other than Epicurus to be regressive doesn't promote Epicurean philosophy at all. It makes it sound insane.

Martin and Cassius . Please correct me if my reasoning is faulty at any point but at the moment here are my thoughts about some of the things you mentioned in the posts above:

Quote from Martin

Within Kant's epistemology, certainty with respect to knowledge about phenomena is possible but the metaphysical claim that that knowledge is the truth about how things actually are is unfounded.

Quote from Cassius

That certainly sounds to me like the equivalent of making the assertion that because we observe progress in science we cannot claim "knowledge" of anything physical. And since the physical is this world, and we can't claim knowledge of it.

I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense based on what Martin said. We certainly can claim knowledge. We can't claim that our knowledge is equivalent to the truth about how things are.

Quote from Cassius

That sounds like the functional equivalent of saying that there is in fact a "true world" which is inaccessible to the senses and toward which we can never do anything more than approach knowledge.

Again, this conclusion is incompatible with what Martin said above. There's no "true world". There simply is the world which we can gradually obtain knowledge about. The world doesn't care if some species on a third planet from their star declares that the world is "true". What we call "true" is what we experience with our senses, feelings and anticipations and these stimuli are processed with a bit of reasoning powers we possess. That is all. That is our limit. And Nature doesn't work this way: "Oh, humans got some knowledge about me. I better adjust to what they have just discovered and act accordingly so I am true to them." Our knowledge will never be the truth about how things actually are. And this statement is not incompatible with Epicurean philosophy. There are only subjective, human faculties in Epicurus' canon: feelings, senses and anticipations. There's not even one canonical faculty that would allow us to measure how things are outside of our human experiences.

Quote from Cassius

And I would say that it sounds like the equivalence of saying "nothing can be known" to any regular person who has to choose how to live today based on whether there is a supernatural god and reward/punishment after death.

And again, I have real difficulty understanding how you draw conclusions like that. Your equivalences sound more like: There are stairs to knowledge we need to climb but we can't see the end of them therefore we must declare that the stairs don't exist.

Things can be known. We can most definitely get knowledge from our human perspective. And the things we don't know about doesn't make them supernatural. We simply didn't find a way to discover them yet or we won't be able to discover them at all because of our human limitations. The knowledge we acquire is our "truth" but that knowledge doesn't mean we conquered Nature and know it to its core. We are not Nature. We'll never be Nature. We are only a part of it. Nature's "truth" is not equivalent to our "truth". And that's how I understand Martin 's initial quote.

Quote from Cassius

Tau Phi I will think you have adequately stated your position as to any AI in this thread here. If you have some substantive criticism of the article please add it too.

I still think the content of the article is very good. Nothing has changed and I have no criticism in this regard whatsoever.

I retract my praise for the article because I was misled to think you wrote it which is not entirely the case. As I said before, I have no problem if you, or anyone else, choose to delegate creative processes to AI. I'm interested in doing philosophy with humans. That's my goal here. I'm not interested in AI summaries. If you have different goals, that's perfectly fine as long as you are clear about them.

However, if you intend to present AI creations as yours in conversation with me without notifying me about it, please refrain from doing so as I'm not interested in having conversations about AI algorithmic simulacrum of philosophical ideas, no matter how clear or accurate. I'm only asking about clarity in this respect when it concerns me personally. Nothing more.

Unfortunately, I have to retract my praise for this article as I found out it was AI assisted creation. Cassius , please add information about AI usage in your publications when AI is used. Signing such creations with your name only is misleading as you're not the sole author of such works. I have the utmost respect for you as a person and your vast knowledge of Epicurean philosophy but I have zero intention of publicly praising your ability to give prompts to LLMs. To be perfectly clear, I have no problems with people using AIs if they choose to do so. I just don't want to be unknowingly involved in AI generated content.

Quote from Eikadistes

... weirdly, I am missing page 259 in my copy of Obbink's translation of On Piety, which includes an English translation of column(s) 77A/77B, and after scouring the web, was lead here...

Haha. It's official then. EpicureanFriends site has every resource on Epicurean philosophy in the universe. Including missing pages from books in form of its members!

Eikadistes I can see on your web site that you managed to find the missing English translation of 77A/77B. Footnotes need a little more work, though.

Here are correct footnotes:

1 Pleasures.
2 Literally 'exchangeable for'.
3 The pleasures that come from the satisfaction of necessary desires.
4 SC. desires, ἐπιθυμίαις ἀναγκαίαις (2209/12), i.e. those that derive from freedom from fear of harm.
5 Namely, escaping detection all their lives.
6 The gods.
7 Literally 'cause no trouble' or 'bother', particularly in this world.
8 The gods (2232 αὐτούς).

Here's what needs correction on your webpage:

2) missing quotation opening and it should be 3)
3) should be 2)
4) Greek provided instead of Latin transliteration, missing 'ἀναγκαίαις' and 'fear'
8. Greek provided instead of Latin transliteration

ADMIN NOTE BY CASSIUS -- I don't have the ability to create my own post so as to explain this thread so I am doing so in this ADMIN edit. I am moving all discussion of issues of the use of AI in two blog posts I generated in late March 2026 (of course it's applicable far beyond those) to this thread. I am posting in those original threads links to this thread. The original discussion threads for those articles should be used for discussing substantive comments, criticisms, changes, etc. Issues of the use of AI apply to both and should be made here in this thread entitled "Revisiting Issues of The Use of AI in Epicurean Philosophy"

I usually avoid philosophical skirmishes because they tend to lead to 'my god is better than your god' scenarios but I want to give credit where credit is due. I really enjoyed your response Cassius . This is a very well written article and the quality of Mr. Pigliucci's work pales in comparison with yours.

This is cool. I didn't know about its existence. Thank you Eikadistes . It reminds me of something I wrote to myself some time ago. I rarely share my personal scribblings with anyone but I'll make an exception on this occasion:

Radiate, pulsate and be alive.
Face your fears and smile.
Embrace the passage of time.
It is worth your while.

The best online resource on Cyrenaics I'm aware of:
The Cyrenaics Resource [The Lucian of Samosata Project]

Quote from Cleveland Okie

As we seem to read a lot of the same things, here is a list of Epicurean books I have read so far, is there anything I have missed that you (or anyone else) would like to recommend?

Hi Cleveland Okie. Good to hear from you.

You've read a lot of secondary material on Epicurean Philosophy already so recommending you another contemporary book would make you read the same, rehashed ideas all over again. I'll try something more interesting. May I interest you in a book written in 1866 by Frederick Albert Lange called 'The History of Materialism and Criticism of its Present Importance'? It's a huge volume dedicated to the development of philosophical materialism over the past 2 millennia but you absolutely don't need to read the whole thing. Antiquity is covered within the first 150 pages or so and this material will allow you to put Epicurean Philosophy in context to better understand what made the philosophy possible at the time it was conceived. If you chose to continue reading past the first section, you probably won't be disappointed. The history of materialism is quite intriguing after the classical period as well. And since the book was written in 1866, it's in public domain and freely available on archive.org:

The History Of Materialism : Frederick Albert Lange : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Book Source: Digital Library of India Item 2015.221554dc.contributor.author: Frederick Albert Langedc.date.accessioned:…

archive.org

Thank you Eikadistes . To read something completely new so close to the source is a real treat.

I especially like this part: 'and [we will] forever [live] having remembered [them] exactly as during [their] time living, [thoughtful] of the natural end, [...]' but this line also made me pause when I first read it. I know 'forever' here is not to be understood literally and it's just an expression but taking into consideration the context of a dead friend, this 'forever' made me stop and ask: 'wait, what?'. If I may suggest something, I think translating ἀεὶ as 'always' instead of 'forever' might be more fortunate here. 'Always' retains permanence but is free from implying infinite amount of time dedicated to living and remembering.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing this translation. I appreciate it.

Aristippus' anecdotes about sea voyages he took. Both come from Gnomologium Vaticanum (link below).

Aristippus the Cyrenian philosopher was shipwrecked sailing into Athens, and having been taken in by the Athenians and asked what he intended to tell his friends back home after returning to Cyrene, said: “to procure the sorts of travel provisions, which will float together with a shipwreck.”

[Aristippus] had taken a lot of money from Dionysius when sailing back and because of this the sailors were plotting against him, so he moved from the middle of the boat to one side and ordered them to empty the money out onto the benches as though they could immediately count the money, but instead he turned around and threw it into the deep; and with the sailors being furious at this, he said: “Better to lose the money because of me than to lose me because of the money.”

Source:

Quote from Cassius

The reason I agree that the article was needed is that I perceive many articles about Epicurus by Academics in the last hundred years tend to go exactly in the direction of holding Epicurus to be trying to solve every problem by thought ALONE.

Correct me if I'm wrong Cassius but I think it's widely accepted position that Hellenistic Philosophy was largely practical. And this applies not only to Epicureanism but to all main philosophical schools of that period. The main focus was how to live the Good Life and not how to think about the Good Life.

That's why I find the claim somehow strange that many articles were published in the last century which paint Epicurus as someone focused exclusively on theory ('solving every problem by though alone', as you put it). In fact, it's hard for me to recollect any publications making such claims. If such works exist, please point me to them because I am very curious how such position could be defended.

Instead of repeating my slightly incoherent attempts to discuss this topic, I'll leave you with Ricky Gervais' quote which sums up the thing pretty neatly:

Quote

… Science is constantly proved all the time. You see, if we take something like any fiction, any holy book… and destroyed it, in a thousand years' time, that wouldn't come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book, and every fact, and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they'd all be back, because all the same tests would [produce] the same result.

Quote from Cassius

Ok so you're focusing on the title rather than the content.

I couldn't care less about the title. I'm trying to make people aware that calling fear of dying and fear of death the same thing is misleading. I'm not saying Emily Austin wrote a bad article - she didn't. It's a very interesting article but for people who are new to Epicurus' concepts it will not be as clear as it is to you, Cassius .

The conclusions like that:

Quote

I have argued that Epicurus does not believe all forms of the fear of death are irrational and eliminable. At least one fear – the fear of violent death caused by others – is brute and must be managed politically. [...]

or that:

Quote

In sum, I argue that Epicurus believes there is a fear of death that does not disappear, which we can control with due care and with close attention to the social environs. Though my thesis might render Epicurus less of a radical with regards the fear of death than heretofore believed, and though it may even make him seem a bit less than perfectly brave, I maintain that it is a good way to make sense of the text. [...]

are perfectly fine when you understand she's talking about fear of dying and not fear of death. There are no different forms of the fear of death in Epicurus' system. Epicurus was as radical about fear of death as it's humanly possible - we can't experience death so there's nothing to be afraid of. This radical claim is crucial to his system because it slams the door shut on supernaturalism, heaven, hell, eternal punishment, reward etc., and it leaves no backdoor option to get back to such concepts.

Quote from Cassius

So you are agreeing with her? Or are you saying that her article is what is misleading?

What is misleading is calling fear of dying and fear of death the same - fear of death. This article should be called 'Epicurus on the Politics of Fearing of Dying'

This article conflates and equates two different concepts: the fear of death and the fear of dying. Emily Austin provides four varieties of the fear of death at the beginning of the article but only the first one is an actual fear of death. Remaining three are variations on fear of dying.

(1) the fear of being dead;
(2) the fear that one will die, that one’s life is going to end;
(3) the fear of premature death; and
(4) the fear of the process of dying.

She then proceeds with her article and continuously describes fear of dying as fear of death.

I find it quite misleading because to my understanding Epicurus tried to remove (1) the fear of being dead. He never tried to remove fear of dying (2), (3), (4) because process of dying and everything connected with it belongs to the living and is painful and human beings can't switch off pain at their will. If they could, the whole Epicurean philosophy would make no sense and pain and pleasure could no longer be considered canonical. People can, however, minimise the fear of dying by the means described in the article. People can also be unafraid of being dead. These two things shouldn't be put in the same basket under 'fear of death' label.

Quote from Joshua

I think a similar model of the human perception, experience, knowledge, and intimation of nature can be useful in the study of Epicurean physics. In the Epicurean view, this Middle World is defined by the limits of what we can perceive with our senses. When we venture into the lower or higher levels of reality, it becomes apparent that a veil has fallen over our eyes, and that the methods by which we attempt to penetrate that veil must necessarily be limited, too.

Fascinating post, Joshua . I would argue, and it's partly a speculation on my behalf, that ancient Epicureans suggested a way to get to the truth behind the veil by introducing what some call a fourth criterion of truth - image perceptions of the mind. I tried to explain the purpose of these to Little Rocker some time ago by describing image perceptions of the mind as 'the ability to know truth about our surroundings outside of the direct contact.'

Here's the link to my post (#65), if someone is interested. I gave an example of distance there but it can easily be changed to scale to reflect indirect levels of reality. As I mentioned above, it's just me thinking out loud about the forth criterion so I give no guarantees that anything there is correct but here it is, nonetheless:

Post

RE: Episode 234 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 09 - Dealing With Marcus Aurelius And The Canonical Basis For the Epicurean View Of Divinity

[…]

Image perceptions of the mind are 'senses at the distance', so to speak. According to Epicureans every object (most likely with the exception of singular atoms and the void - but let's not go there right now) emits images - εἰδωλα. That's why we have two ways of detecting objects:

1) direct contact - eidolas do not make any difference as we have exposure to the objects themselves. In this scenario, the senses are criterion of truth (take precedence) for image perceptions of the mind, which in…

TauPhi

June 30, 2024 at 10:55 PM