Posts by TauPhi

On the surface, the quote may look like an attractive proposition to people who gravitate towards Epicureanism. On closer inspection, the quote is deeply anti-Epicurean, however. It reveals preference of non-existence over existence. Such a sentiment leads to philosophical pessimism where the only sensible course of action is taking Twain's hundred million years holiday prematurely. Out of nowhere, we find ourselves in the world of Arthur Schopenhauer or Philipp Mainländer.

Mark Twain had some 75 years of opportunity to resume his holiday if he so truly desired and yet he didn't take it. He died when opportunity was no longer opportunity but an unavoidable necessity.

I also don't think Twain thought through the nature of non-existence as he seems to romanticise it with the absence of undesirable feelings (worry, grief etc.) and the presence of desirable feelings (content, satisfaction etc.). Non-existence offers nothing.

That said, I also am a huge fan of Mark Twain. He was an exceptional writer.

Quote from Don

Where does he get "pale"? Did I miss a text? Maybe from Epictetus? I'll have to dig around unless someone knows and shares.

I wouldn't spend too much time trying to understand 'pale Epicureans'. The author seems to really love adjectives and probably just meant 'bleak', not 'pale'. The whole article is a perfect illustration why some people should have limited access to a thesaurus, or in the style of the author, the employment of a thesaurus should be categorically and unqualifiedly abstemious.

Thanks, Cassius . Great outline that can lead to an interesting discussion. I'm looking forward to it.

One thing that probably needs correction so it doesn't misrepresent the current science:

"3.1. Some argue that current science indicates that the entire universe is expanding from a center, and that this indicates a beginning point in both time and space."

I'm assuming you're talking about the big bang theory here. According to the theory, there wasn't a beginning point and the universe doesn't expand from the centre. The big bang gave rise to both the matter AND space as we know it and over time the space expanded to astronomical size as we get to experience it now. So the big bang happened everywhere at the same time. At the big bang moment 'here' and 'everywhere' were the same thing. 'The beginning point' was the whole universe. It's just got rather big over time and it expands everywhere, not from the central point.

I might be wrong, I'm not a physicist so maybe Martin can double check this.

With all due respect, Cassius and Kalosyni , I think you missed the purpose of the lecture completely. The purpose is to present few areas of Epicureanism and make people think about how and to what extent practical application is beneficial. It's about questions like: Can I take 3 types of desires as described by the philosophy and use this knowledge in everyday life successfully? Do I need something else or is it sufficient to make good decisions? Did Epicureans got friendship right? Should I change something in my approach towards my friends? What are the personal implications of acknowledging pleasure as the good? etc.

I think these are interesting questions to focus on instead of deconstructing the lecture for no other reason than showing if the presenter is 83% or only 68% accurate in his presentation of Epicureanism as you understand it. It's not an advanced course in the philosophy. And even if you're only interested in exposing how wrong the dude is, make sure you give valid arguments. Accusation that he's cherry picking makes no sense. This lecture is exactly about cherry picking. It's not a complete presentation of Epicureanism in 50min (which is impossible to do even if tried, which is not here). The lecturer picked few areas only and he explicitly says so. I don't understand Kalosyni's point in post #5 either. Kurt Lampe makes it crystal clear that for Epicureans all pleasure is good. Both mental and physical.

An interesting ~50min lecture by Kurt Lampe focusing on practical application of Epicureanism. First 7min are dedicated to general introduction after which the proper lecture starts. Mr. Lampe asks intriguing and sometimes inconvenient questions (e.g., is Epicurean typology of desires useful in real life? And if yes, to which extent?)

Quote from Joshua

It took me ages to track down even the French text of this epitaph, and I'm posting it here against the day I decide to learn French.

You got me curious, Joshua. And since I find French accent quite annoying, I'm pretty sure the day I decide to learn French will be the same day the hell freezes. Therefore, there's no point in resisting the temptation to know what the poem is about. I decided to butcher the poetry via machine translation.

I took the transcript from here: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Rons…e,_1554.djvu/36
I took the liberty of replacing all 'long eses' with regular 'eses' and butchered the poem into what follows. I fully expect Mr. Ronsard's ghost to poke holes in all white sheets I conveniently don't posses and use them for dramatic effects during his infernal howls while floating over my bed. What can I say? I'll have a night to remember tonight.

Anyway, here it is if anyone's interested:

Epitaph for Michel Marulle Tarchaniot, from Constantinnople.

Speak good words
Muses, & with my songs,
He faintly agreed with the sounds
From you Luts, & from you Violes.

Here is Marule's Tomb,
Prayed, what ever from heaven,
The sweet manna, & the sweet honey,
And the sweet dew falls there:

I hit the Tomb of Marulle,
From him Tombe didn’t sin
The veins letters of his name,
He lives there with Tibulle.

Above the Elysées rivers,
And under the shade of the myrtle trees,
An noise of waters sings its verses
Between well-prized souls.

Pincetant to lyre cornüe,
In a circle, in the beautiful middle of a valley,
All the first guide the ball
Digging through the grassy wheel

When these sub hums shine
The sweet flames of love,
The Heroines all around
From his Latin mouth hang:

Tibulle and more and more sa Delie
Dance, holding his hand,
Corynne lover Rommain,
And Porperse holds his Cynthia.

But when its gray worms gather
The old praises of the Gods,
The oldest Roman poets
Beans a son Luc s’emerueillent,

Dequoy him born on the riuage
D’Helesponte, sang so well
That his Thalia has overcome
Theirs, in their own language.

Dear soul, for beautiful things
That in your book there is understood,
Take these small prized eyelets,
These beautiful liz, & its beautiful roses.

Always light be the earth
To your bones, and to your tomb,
curling up with my own branch
Tousiours climbs the Lhierre green.

I was recreationally reading the Gnomologium Vaticanum (not to be confused with the Gnomologium Vaticanum Epicureum) and when I stumbled upon sayings related to Aristippus, I started to laugh out loud. Even if a fraction of those sayings are true, Aristippus was quite a character. If you're curious what the title quotation is about, check saying 39 here: https://ryanfb.xyz/gnomvat/gnomvat

I strongly suggest to go through other 576 sayings as well. And for those interested in the ancient world, investigate Ryan Baumann's website in detail. You will find links to some real treasure there - like scans of 277 Loebs that are currently in public domain or Index of Ancient Greek Lexica.

Quote from Julia

I don't glorify pain, it is not an end in itself, but I do embrace pain and discomfort, because I know it is not just one, but indeed the only path towards pleasure, which is my goal and guides my selection of which pains to embrace and which to shun (because it either does or doesn't outweighing the pain previously endured to attain it).

I will try to answer Cassius's initial question by showing that pain is not the only path towards pleasure. Julia Please don't take what follows as a criticism of your position. I think hedonic calculus is not only subjective but strictly personal and it's everyone's responsibility to make the calculus as efficient for themselves as possible. Whatever works for you, I'm happy for you and it's not my business or intention to criticize. I will just present my position which happen to be different to yours.

Some years ago, I started to realise that it's rather easy to appreciate pleasure when it comes from pain. In other words, when we move from discomfort to comfort, it's rather obvious to most people that this is a good time to feel good. I also started to play with the idea of pleasure as the ever present background to life. The background which is largely neglected by people. It's easy to detect pleasure in a glass of water in the middle of Sahara but awfully difficult to detect pleasure in a glass of water standing at the bottom of crystal clear waterfall with infinite supply of refreshing water at our disposal. The abundance makes people indifferent.

To my understanding, by observing that the absence of pain is pleasure Epicurus removed 'neutral state' for the purpose of tuning people into pleasure that is provided by nature in abundance. In other words, to teach people to feel pleasure when they feel nothing because feeling nothing is missed opportunity due to our misjudgement of reality we find ourselves in.

So my answer to the question: Why Do We Consider The Absence of Pain To Be Pleasure? is this: To gain ability of noticing and thriving in abundance of pleasure available to us instead of neglecting, being overwhelmed, being ashamed and ultimately rejecting pleasure that doesn't come from pain. After all, we are trained to firmly believing that there's no such thing as free lunch, right? Free pleasure must be repulsive. Earn it by suffering or reject it completely. Well, no. Pain is not the only path towards pleasure. It's definitely one of the paths. We cannot avoid pain. It will come whether we like it or not. We should learn from pain how to deal with it and how not to be broken by it, sometimes even how to transform it to pleasure but mostly, we should realise, appreciate and learn how to live our lives unashamedly in pleasure.

I'm a bit late to the party, but at least I know I can't possibly make a worse job with birthday wishes that Cicero.

Joshua , Kalosyni : Have a fantastic next year. And in case I'm not here in a year to wish you another fantastic year, have a fantastic rest of your lives.

Brilliant, Bryan . Thank you very much.

Quote from Cassius

I know some of us are shying away from these conclusions, but I don't think that Epicurus would have shied away from them any more than from his other radical conclusions. This is a subject we need to examine much more closely but I see no supernatural force or "necessity" that any particular object must be limited to a set and particular life span.

I suspect Epicurus to shy away from such conclusions if he had lived in our times. He would have been aware of laws of thermodynamics, for example. As far as we currently know, you don't need supernatural force of any kind to limit immortality. Natural forces do the trick perfectly well. If any compound of atoms is to perform meaningful work (that is to exchange energy and interact with its surroundings), immortality is out of the equation.

I am perfectly aware that human knowledge is not at the point (not even close) where we can claim with authority what is physically possible and what is impossible but I think Epicurus would be very cautious regarding the immortality of compounds of atoms of any sort by any means.

Quote

... it is possible to maintain that given an Epicurean physical theory and the doctrine that all compounds will dissolve, the Epicurean gods, as compounds, are yet still imperishable in the sense that they are morally incorruptible.

It's morally acceptable to kill a mosquito but killing a cat is morally unacceptable. It was morally acceptable for Epicurus to own slaves but it's morally unacceptable for us. I'm giving these examples to show that human morality is liquid, ever changing set of societal rules arbitrary agreed upon by majority of people at any given time.

To say that Epicurean gods are morally incorruptible basically means to me: Let's grant gods human liquid, ever changing morality and then let's make people believe they have to behave accordingly since they have godly example to imitate.

I see few problems with gods and morality combined. Epicurean morally incorruptible gods interpretation sounds awfully familiar to me. Is it just me or is it just another code name for Ten Commandments? After all, these dos and donts are perfectly sensible to live by in societies. Therefore, these commandments must have been given to us by a god to follow.

4th icon from the right at the top of the screen - it's called 'Control Panel'. Click it and at the very bottom, right in the centre of the pop-up menu you'll find 'Logout' button.

Joshua Around 40min mark when you talk about Empedocles and the four elements, I think we may already have a better source than Lucretius dealing with this failed idea. P. Herc. 1148, column 34 seems to be a refutation of philosophers endorsing the four elements as building blocks of reality coming directly from Epicurus in his 'On Nature - Book 14'.

I'm not going to pretend I know what I'm talking about, but if Bryan or Don or anyone else who knows Ancient Greek feels like spending some time on the fragment below, we may have few more words from the Dude himself to talk about.

DCLP/Trismegistos 59752 = LDAB 856

[πρὸς τοὺς]
ὁρίζοντας σχῆμα π̣[υρ]ὸς ἴ-
διο̣ν ἢ γῆς ἢ ὕδατος ἢ̣ [ἀ]έ̣ρος,
ὅτι γελοιότεροί εἰσι τῶν οὐχ ὁ-
ριζόντων μέν, κατὰ δὲ τὰς
παραθέσεις ὁμολογησάν-
[τ]ων ἂν ἢ ἑκουσίως ἢ ἀκου-
[σί]ως γίνεσθαί τινα σχημά-
[τ]ων ἴδια εἴδη καθ' ἑκάστην
[οὐ]σιώδη ῥηθεῖσαν ἂν σύγ-
[κρ]ισιν· ο̣ἱ μὲγ γὰρ τοῖς μὲν
[στ]οιχείο[ι]ς ἁμαρτάνουσιν,
[ἀ]κόλουθ̣ον δέ τι τούτοις
[μ]ᾶλλον, οὕτω λέγοντες,
[λέ]γ̣οιεν ἄ̣ν, καὶ ὅλως δὲ τὴν
[τα]ῖς μείξ̣εσι[ν] παραλλαγήν·
[οἱ] δὲ πρὸς τὴ̣ν   ̣  ̣  ̣ σ   ̣[  ̣  ̣] δι-
[ὰ σχημ]άτων̣ π[⁦ -ca.?- ⁩] 

Julia Thank you for taking time to write such a thorough post. From Epicurean perspective, I don't think there is much material regarding time available, but I want to mention two, maybe not so obvious, sources which I find particularly interesting.

1) Sextus Empiricus "Outlines of Pyrrhonism", Book 3, 137 (I provide two translations for comparison):

Quote

Epicurus (according to Demetrius the Laconian) [defines time] as "a concurrence of concurrences, concomitant with days and nights and seasons and affections and nonaffections and motions and rests." - R.G. BURY - "OUTLINES PYRRHONISM" (1990) p. 235

Epicurus, according to Demetrius the Laconian, [defines time] as an event made up of events, accompanying days and nights, seasons, pathe and the opposite, motions and rests. - BENSON MATES - "THE SKEPTIC WAY Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism" (1996), p. 195

2) Epicurus, On Time (PHerc. 1413/1416)

If I remember correctly, someone has already mentioned this Herculaneum scroll in the forum (sorry, I don't remember exactly where I've seen it). I don't think there's English translation of the scroll available, but there's a summary of a talk from 2022 by Alessia Lavorante in the pdf linked below (pages 7-10) where a lot of information about the scroll is provided. Definitely worth a read.

http://www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-12/HercArch_27_2022%202nd%20version_web.pdf

Quote from Cassius

I've now read through most of the material and I don't see any of it that brands Aetius as a raving anti-Epicurean, so I wouldn't think he would be tempted to misrepresent Epicurus generally (or at least, not more than seems commonly the case).

I don't think it is possible to know anything about Aetius' position on anything. It's not even certain if such person ever existed. Take a look here (I just skimmed through the text so I can't vouch for its quality nor factual reliability).

Did the doxographer Aëtius ever exist? [the original 1983 paper, now see the detailed 2016 refutation of Diels's Aëtius hypothesis and of Mansfeld and Runia's attempt to save it: "The origin and transmission of the doxographical

The original 1983 manuscript of the paper "Did the doxographer Aetius ever exist?" published in microfiche form in: Philosophie et Culture,…

www.academia.edu

Never mind the author of 'Placita', the work seems very interesting. Thanks, Bryan for mentioning it.

Quote

'Destiny, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach.' [Letter to Menoeceus, 133]

Recently, this fragment has caught my attention as it made me think about The Three Sisters of Fate for some reason. I never paid too much attention to them before, but this time I started to see them in more favourable light. I started to play with the idea of the Moirai as allegories for foundations on which our lives happen instead of a simple idea of our lives being determined by the Fates.

Let's call our theatre 'the Universe'. Atropos (Ἄτροπος) - The Sister of Necessity, the Inevitable, builds the theatre and sets universal laws which are not to be crossed, bent or dismissed. Theatre 'The Universe' is where everything is. Next comes Lachesis (Λάχεσις) - The Sister of Distribution, the Alloter. She builds the stage for our play called 'The Life'. She gives us our chances - our genes, health, environment where we operate etc. Finally, Clotho (Κλωθώ) - The Sister of Choice, the Spinner. She weaves the thread of our lives. She employees us as actors in 'The Life' play where we make the choices which are ours despite the fact that they are limited by the chances and necessities of the stage and the theatre.

Epicurus tells us to laugh at the idea of The Three Μοῖραι literal existance ([...] sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn [...]) and treats the myth as the myths should be treated - as allegories ([...] affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. [...]). This is one of the reasons I find Epicurus' words attractive. He basically says: Dude, stop with this silly business of putting your life in the hands of imaginary builders, scenographers and booking agents and use what you have to be a good actor in the 'The Life' staged in 'The Universe'.

BTW, this post was inspired by the latest Pacatus poem 'Way of the Seasons'. I love all of it but the 'fate' part is absolutely brilliant.

Relevant to the above discussion (with translation of the tetrapharmakos I personally like much better than the common 'wikipedia' one).

Laudator Temporis Acti: The Epicurean Tetrapharmakos

I came across this short but interesting article on the topic of Epicurus' appearance:

'How the portrait of the Athenian philosopher Epicurus became known to us' by Takis Panagiotopoulos:

https://www.epicuros.gr/pages/en/Panagiotopoulos_EpicurusPortrait.pdf

Eric My thoughts are similar to yours on the majority of topics mentioned in your post so I don't think you will benefit much from a fork praising other fork for being a fork. However, I do want to say that I had a big smile on my face reading your latest post. Not because I kept nodding to myself in agreement but because your clarity of thoughts is a pleasure to experience. Loved it. Thanks for sharing.