Posts by Peter Konstans

It's difficult to see Epicurean pleasure as something other than a static process when we see Epicurus writing things like that:

"We have need of pleasure when we are in pain from its absence : but when we are not feeling such pain, though
we are in a condition of sensation, we have no need of pleasure. For the pleasure which arises from nature does not produce wickedness, but rather the longing connected
with vain fancies."

" The stable condition of well-being in the body and the sure hope of its continuance holds the fullest and
surest joy for those who can rightly calculate it."

Intense pleasures that cause movement are perfectly fine and there's absolutely no reason not to encourage them as long as one doesn't struggle with contolling them. But struggle with pleasures is usually the norm rather than the exception among humans.

Daniel describes how the Piraha quickly gain weight and become obese when they visit civilization for a while but lose all the excess fat gained in just a couple weeks upon their return to the tribe and then act as if nothing happened. They don't look forward to the next binge. That's a case of someone successfully enjoying himself to the fullest and then successfully avoiding dependence. When I lived in Germany I observed many young people - who were usually miserable - eagerly waiting for the weekend to arrive so they can get wasted drinking insane amounts of alcohol. That's the antithesis to the Piraha case. The Piraha live for today. Not for the weekend.

The master writes:

"The happy and blessed state belongs [not to abundance of riches or dignity of position or any oflice or power, but to freedom from pain and moderation in feelings] and an attitude of mind which imposes the limits ordained by nature."

The obsession with exercise is precisely such a case of a mind *not* respecting the limits ordained by nature.

It is no accident then that the 'motivational' language employed by fanatical 'exercists' (as Lieberman calls them) is full of slogans like 'limits are destined to be overcome!'

The desire to 'build' 30kg additional muscle mass into your body is not a desire that fulfills any purpose that natural selection designed the human body for. It's not even a practical need that society requires. Workers from developing countries who easily carry 100kg sacks on their backs tend to have slim and lean bodies. They don't have the body gym rats usually aspire to because nature has no need of it.

Let's share our perspectives on the differences between the Epicurean and Cyrenaic understandings of pleasure.

I believe that that the Epicurean conception and definition of pleasure was formulated to combat the Cyrenaic conception and definition of pleasure and that the perceived oddity of Epicurus' understanding of the term pleasure (as we see in Cicero who expresses bewilderment at how Epicurus defines it) is best understood in the context of Epicurus trying to separate his own position on pleasure from the position of the Cyrenaics.

For Epicurus the ultimate pleasure ideal is a continuous mental state that we have to fully immerse ourselves in and then perpetually remain in it.

For Cyreanics the ideal of pleasure is an active pursuit that resembles going on a hunt and it's sensually oriented. For them the ideal condition is having access to an endless cake of pleasure where you enjoy one piece at a time till you are satiated and when the satiation goes away you come back for more slices.

The ideal life for the Cyrenaics consists in successfully chasing concrete experiences that cause direct pleasure.

For the Epicureans the ideal life consists in doing what's necessary to achieve a permanent state of pleasure and not allowing yourself to stray from it.

So that's why Epicurus put the focus on the pleasures of the soul as the secure guide to a fulfilled life. Epicurean pleasures are permanent while Cyrenaic pleasures oscillate between fulfillment and satiation.

Of course, Epicurus doesn't reject the sensual pleasures that Cyrenaics favored but for him they serve a secondary function as ornaments and auxiliaries to pleasure and do not constitute the primary focus of the whole pleasure enterprise.

Do we have evidence that the Epicurean ideal of stative and permanent pleasure is attainable? Plenty. One example is the Piraha tribe. Daniel Everett described the Piraha as living in a state of permanent happiness and joy. Another researcher remarked that if we tried to measure the amount of time in a day they spend laughing and smiling they would probably come out as the happiest people on earth.

In the video below a Piraha man is talking in his language. And you can definitely see that there's a permanent smile and a permanent glow of happiness and serenity painted on his face. This guy can safely be said to have attained ataraxia. And he is not some unusual person. The same thing has been observed to be a general feature of his people.

Do we have to live in the jungle to reach a comparable state of bliss? Of course not. But certain aspects of our social life would doubtless have to be seriously modified to rival this person in sheer eudaimonia.

There is another thing about the Piraha that reflects Epicurus' insistance on extreme empiricism.

The Piraha believe everything they see to be true and for this reason – Everett says – have a lot of trouble distinguishing fact from fiction. The Piraha are so extreme in their empiricist approach to life that they simply refuse to consider any claim unless somebody they know has been a direct eyewitness to it and their language always marks for evidentiality. Their extreme empiricism also shows itself in the absence of abstract notions like numbers and counting and the absence of anything we can associate with religion like rituals or a creation story. They do believe in spirits that talk to people but only because they see them in what we can only take to be hallucinations.

The extreme empiricism of this supremely happy people (challenges and all) got me thinking that Epicurus was really up to something when he recommended exactly this approach to epistemology. The Piraha rejection of mathematical abstractions also reminded me of Epicurus' rejection of geometry.

According to Michael Erler, professor of philology at the universtity of Würzburg, translating eudaimonia as happiness is not quite accurate. A more accurate translation would be flourishing.

Just like the Latin term 'augustus', the Greek term eudaimonia carried strong religious connotations which are already apparent from its etymology. Daimon translates to deity or divinity and eudaimonia is when a divinity is well disposed towards you, so the term comes pretty close to modern 'blessedness'.

The closest ancient Greek equivalent to 'personal happiness' would be 'eupraxia', a noun derived from the quite common expression 'eu prattein' meaning 'to be doing well in life' or 'to be successful'.

In modern Greek the general term for 'personal happiness' is 'eutychia' which in ancient times was more confined to the sense of 'good luck' which is modern Greek is simply tyche. In modern German, the term 'Glück' (related to English 'luck') is the standard term used both for the sense of 'personal happiness' and for the sense of 'good luck'.

Those in ancient Greece who taught people how to be 'happy' in the modern sense of 'doing well in life' were actually the sophists who professed to teach people how to be successful in both their public and private affairs for a price. It was not the philosophers. The philosophers were generally skeptical of such definitions and approaches to success and focused on teaching practical ethics.

Erler writes:

For Epicurus is convinced, as he says at the end of the Letter to Menoeceus as well, that whoever obeys his advice day and night will achieve freedom of pain with regard to the body, i. e. aponia, and freedom of pain with regard to the mind, i. e. ataraxia. In short, they will be happy. Happiness is feasible! That is Epicurus’ message, which might sound strange to many because of our different understanding of ‘happiness’. It is important to keep in mind that Greek eudaimonia (or happiness) has a meaning which differs from our modern understanding of happiness. For ‘happiness’ today is commonly regarded as a subjective mood, a feeling that can change from
day to day and can be influenced by new situations. For the ancient Greeks,
however, eudaimonia, which is usually translated by ‘happiness’ but which
rather should be translated by something like ‘human flourishing’, was not an emotional state, but rather about whether a human being had attained virtue and excellence, achieved his aims, and truly made the most of his life.

This understanding is well illustrated by Herodotus in his Histories where he
tells the story of Solon making an important point about human happiness in a conversation with Croesus: Any human life according to him is filled with change, so that a person’s life cannot be evaluated as ‘eudemonic’ properly until he or she has died. This remark follows from the understanding of happiness as a fulfilled life, which is the reason why Epicurus – and Plato for instance – can claim that he offered doctrines helping to become happy by helping to live a good and happy life. Only if eudaimonia is understood in terms of ‘fulfilled life’ does it really make sense to say, as Epicurus does, that one can teach someone to become 'happy'.

I recommend reading the academic book

Pleasure, Mind, and Soul, Selected Papers in Ancient Philosophy by C. C. W. Taylor

The second chapter examines the Epicurean thesis that all perceptions are true, arguing that what it means is that every instance of sensory presentation (widely construed, to include dreams, hallucinations, and imagination as well as perception proper) consists in the stimulation of a sense-organ by a real object, which is represented in that perception exactly as it is in reality. That thesis presupposes the truth of the physical theory as a whole. It is itself supported by the epistemological principle that it is possible to distinguish truth from falsity only if all perceptions are true. But since the latter thesis is unfalsifiable, it is empty, and cannot therefore refute scepticism.

It seems clear to me that Epicurus considered visions and hallucinations (and therefore the existence of the gods as the sources of those visions) to be true. His notion that the sun is as large as it seems should also be understood in the context of his epistemology.

Here are some excerpts from C. C. W. Taylor

Epicurus is reported by Diogenes Laertius (X. 31) as having said that perceptions (or perhaps ‘the senses’ or ‘sense-impressions’, which are also possible meanings of Epicurus’s own term aistheseis) are among the criteria of truth; this report is confirmed by two passages of Epicurus himself, at DL
X. 50–2 and 147.

By itself this need imply nothing more than the merest common sense; of course perception and the senses must have some role in determining what is the case and what is not, and hence which statements are true and which are false. But the matter is not so straightforward. For, firstly, aisthesis and related words are used in a wider range of contexts than ‘perceptions’ and its cognates: e.g. cases of hallucination are sometimes said to involve aisthesis (see below). Secondly, Epicurus is also said to have maintained the much more obviously controversial thesis that every aisthesis is true. In this paper I shall try to establish what he meant by those statements, to clarify the relation between them, and to consider their
wider implications for his epistemological and physical theory.

I turn first to the doctrine that all aistheseis are true, for which the evidence has been helpfully collected by Gisela Striker. No version of it occurs in the texts of Epicurus himself, but the following doctrines, or versions of the same doctrine, are attributed to him by other writers.

1. Every aistheton is true (Sext. M VIII. 9: Ep. ta men aistheta panta elegen alethe kai onta ... panton de ton aistheton alethon onton; 63: Ep. elege men panta ta aistheta einai alethe, kai pasan phantasian apo hyparchontos einai ...). Cf. M VIII. 355, every aistheton is reliable (bebaion).

2. Every aisthesis and every phantasia is true (Usener, no. 248: Aetius IV.
9. 5; Usener, p. 349, 5–6: Aristocles apud Eus. PE XIV. 20. 9).

3. Every phantasia occurring by means of aisthesis is true (Plut. Col. 1109
a–b).

4. Every phantasia is true (M VII. 203–4, 210).

5. Aisthesis always tells the truth (M VIII. 9: ten te aisthesin ... dia pantos te
aletheuein ; 185: medepote pseudomenes tes aistheseos). Cf. the passages in Cicero referred to by Striker, to the effect that the senses are always truthful.

It appears likely that most of these formulations differ from one another
only verbally. Thus Sextus is the only writer cited above to use the term aistheton (‘sense-content’), and his use of the term strongly suggests that it is interchangeable with phantasia (‘appearance’).

This appears particularly from M VII. 203–4, where the thesis that phantasia is always true is supported by a number of examples from the various senses, e.g. ‘The visible (horaton) not only appears (phainetai) visible, but in addition is of the same kind as it appears to be’, which are summed up in the words ‘So all phantasiai are true.’ Here, then, what is true of aistheta is taken to be true of phantasiai as a whole; further evidence that Sextus regards the terms as coextensive is given by M VIII. 63–4, where he represents Epicurus as counting Orestes’ hallucination of the Furies as a case of aisthesis, and therefore as true.

Again, in the passage from Aristocles cited above, quoted by Eusebius, aisthesis is treated as interchangeable with phantasia, since the thesis introduced by means of both terms (i.e. 2 above), is expressed in the course of the passage firstly as the thesis that every aisthesis is true and then as the thesis that every phantasia is true.

If these writers treat aistheton and phantasia as strictly coextensive terms, they misrepresent Epicurus, who distinguishes phantasiai of the mind (e.g. appearances in dreams) from phantasiai of the senses (DL X. 50–1). In strict Epicurean doctrine, then, aistheta are a species of phantasiai.

But the misrepresentation is not crucial, since Epicurus clearly holds that both sensory and non-sensory phantasiai are always true (ibid.: for the Epicurean view of the ‘truth’ of dreams, see below). In the passages from Sextus cited under above, where aisthesis is said always to tell the truth and never to lie, it is possible to render the word as ‘sense’ (equivalent to ‘the senses’), ‘perception’, ‘sensation’ (i.e. the
faculties thereof), ‘the (particular act of ) perception’, or ‘the (particular)
sensation (occurring in the perceptual context)’.

But however we render it, the thesis that aisthesis always tells the truth is presented either as following immediately from the central thesis that all aistheta are true, or as entailing it, or as restating it. The precise logical relation of the two theses (if indeed they are two) is impossible to determine from these passages; by the same token, their intimate logical interconnection is displayed by both. Our evidence, then, indicates that ancient writers regularly attribute to Epicurus or the Epicureans the doctrines that every phantasia is true and that every aistheton is true. Though strictly aistheta are a species of phantasiai, differentiated by their causation via the sense-organs, some later sources appear to make no distinction between the terms. In some reports the doctrine that every aistheton is true appears to be expressed as ‘Every aisthesis is true’; in others, where aisthesis may mean ‘sense’ or ‘faculty’, the thesis that aisthesis always tells the truth is inextricably interwoven with the thesis
that all aistheta are true.

In the concluding paragraphs he writes

... Epicurus had, then, some good arguments, or at least the materials
of such arguments, which he could advance against scepticism without
presupposing his physical theory. His method thus displays a subtle interaction of epistemological and metaphysical considerations.

The fundamental epistemological requirement is that every aisthesis should be true, i.e. that whatever seems to be the case should in some sense or other actually be the case. It then becomes part of the task of the general theory of nature to specify the sense or senses in which what seems to be actually is. It is an astonishing achievement of atomism, both in its fifth-century and in its Epicurean version, to have provided an even reasonably plausible account
of the satisfaction of this requirement as part of a comprehensive account of the world.

But problems remain. For the sceptic can reasonably claim that the account of how things always are as they seem is, in the last resort, empty. For example, how is the claim that sweetness is always the taste of a
structure of smooth atoms to be tested? Suppose microscopic examination revealed that in some cases the atoms were smooth, but in others spiky.

If both the microscopic and the gustatory observations are, in the theoretical sense, ‘true’, then we have two sets of atoms instead of one. No doubt we could add to the theory a description of how a structure of smooth atoms emits a structure of spiky ones, but the problem of verification arises there again, and so on at every level. The basic difficulty is that a theory of objective reality which is not subject to any constraint by experience must be empty of actual content.

Epicurus could have avoided this difficulty only by abandoning his fundamental epistemological requirement and facing up to the sceptical challenge to find a way of discriminating veridical from non-veridical experience. The subsequent history of philosophy to the present indicates the formidable nature of that undertaking; the Epicurean alternative, though ultimately unsuccessful, was well worth exploring.

The Epicurean acceptance of the existence of the gods didn't just rely on abstract theories but also on the idea that the existence of the gods is an empirically verifiable fact because of visions or images of them streaming into our mind. So Epicurus is basically telling us that we know gods exist because many people have actually seen them.

This strange idea ceases to be strange if we recall that mass hallucinations of the sort described below were probably common in ancient communities. They could have been the result of chronic use of hallucinogenic substances traditionally consumed in religious rituals.

The anthropolgist Daniel Everett who observed an Amazonian tribe for years describes witnessing the remarkable occurrence of a whole village simultaneously observing the presence of a 'spirit' that he and his daughter just couldn't see. If you asked these people how they know that 'spirits' exist they would simply tell you that they have seen them. In other words primitive communities experience shared hallucinations.

The following Paragraphs are from his book.

Often when I first opened my eyes, groggily coming out of a dream, a Pirahã child or sometimes even an adult would be staring at me from between the paxiuba palm slats that served as siding for my large hut. This morning was different.

I was now completely conscious, awakened by the noise and shouts of Pirahãs. I sat up and looked around. A crowd was gathering about twenty feet from my bed on the high bank of the Maici, and all were energetically gesticulating and yelling. Everyone was focused on the beach just across the river from my house. I got out of bed to get a better look—and because there was no way to sleep through the noise.
I picked my gym shorts off the floor and checked to make sure that there were no tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes, or other undesirables in them. Pulling them on, I slipped into my flip-flops and headed out the door. The Pirahãs were loosely bunched on the riverbank just to the right of my house. Their excitement was growing. I could see mothers running down the path, their infants trying to hold breasts in their mouths.

The women wore the same sleeveless, collarless, midlength dresses they worked and slept in, stained a dark brown from dirt and smoke. The men wore gym shorts or loincloths. None of the men were carrying their bows and arrows. That was a relief. Prepubescent children were naked, their skin leathery from exposure to the elements. The babies’ bottoms were calloused from scooting across the ground, a mode of locomotion that for some reason they prefer to crawling. Everyone was streaked from ashes and dust accumulated by sleeping and sitting on the ground near the fire.
It was still around seventy-two degrees, though humid, far below the hundred-degree-plus heat of midday. I was rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I turned to Kóhoi, my principal language teacher, and asked, “What’s up?” He was standing to my right, his strong, brown, lean body tensed from what he was looking at.
“Don’t you see him over there?” he asked impatiently. “Xigagaí, one of the beings that lives above the clouds, is standing on the beach yelling at us, telling us he will kill us if we go to the jungle.”
“Where?” I asked. “I don’t see him.”
“Right there!” Kóhoi snapped, looking intently toward the middle of the apparently empty beach.
“In the jungle behind the beach?”
“No! There on the beach. Look!” he replied with exasperation.
In the jungle with the Pirahãs I regularly failed to see wildlife they saw. My inexperienced eyes just weren’t able to see as theirs did.

But this was different. Even I could tell that there was nothing on that white, sandy beach no more than one hundred yards away. And yet as certain as I was about this, the Pirahãs were equally certain that there was something there. Maybe there had been something there that I just missed seeing, but they insisted that what they were seeing, Xigagaí, was still there.
Everyone continued to look toward the beach. I heard Kristene, my six-year-old daughter, at my side.
“What are they looking at, Daddy?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see anything.”
Kris stood on her toes and peered across the river. Then at me. Then at the Pirahãs. She was as puzzled as I was.

Kristene and I left the Pirahãs and walked back into our house. What had I just witnessed? Over the more than two decades since that summer morning, I have tried to come to grips with the significance of how two cultures, my European-based culture and the Pirahãs’ culture, could see reality so differently. I could never have proved to the Pirahãs that the beach was empty. Nor could they have convinced me that there was anything, much less a spirit, on it.

As a scientist, objectivity is one of my most deeply held values. If we could just try harder, I once thought, surely we could each see the world as others see it and learn to respect one another’s views more readily. But as I learned from the Pirahãs, our expectations, our culture, and our experiences can render even perceptions of the environment nearly incommensurable cross-culturally.

Everett also describes another hilarious shared hallucination among the tribesmen. When I first read it, I just couldn't stop laughing.

The morning after one evening’s “show” an older Pirahã man, Kaaxaóoi, came to work with me on the language. As we were working, he startled me by suddenly saying, “The women are afraid of Jesus. We do not want him.”
“Why not?” I asked, wondering what had triggered this declaration.
“Because last night he came to our village and tried to have sex with our women. He chased them around the village, trying to stick his large penis into them.”
Kaaxaóoi proceeded to show me with his two hands held far apart how long Jesus’s penis was—a good three feet.
I didn’t know what to say to this. I had no idea whether a Pirahã male had pretended to be Jesus and pretended to have a long penis, faking it in some way, or what else could be behind this report. Clearly Kaaxaóoi wasn’t making this up. He was reporting it as a fact that he was concerned about. Later, when I questioned two other men from his village, they confirmed his story.

Laws (which basically means exploitation by a ruling class and force or the threat of force to keep the exploited from exploiting one another) are necessary only because modern people are domesticated and have been conditioned to live and behave like domesticated animals. Just like farm animals couldn't be expected to adapt immediately upon being released into the wild the same applies to humans and to them it probably applies to an even greater degree because human intelligence paradoxically allows humans to suppress their nature far more effectively than any other animal.

Large-scale utopian projects in recent centuries have demonstated this point quite well. Without education sufficient to reverse the effects of human domestication, without economic and political autarky and the means to defend it, traditional political ideologies and structures are the only way to live.

I agree that what you guys and DeWitt say about ancient Epicurean theology is accurate though I think there are missing elements to the puzzle. What might Epicurus have answered if he was asked what natural law necessitates the existence of the gods? Why couldn't the atomic universe simply do without them? Why couldn't they be fully mortal regardless of what the masses think? What would he have answered to Cicero's reasonable reservations about the logical coherence of a strictly atomic view of immortal gods? I am sure that there are some fine details about the system contained in his lost works that we simply don't know of.

At any rate nobody can doubt that Epicurean theology was supposed to function as a medicine against harmful notions regarding the supernatural. The ancient Epicurean conception of the gods worked well as a remedy but only in the context of the ancient polytheistic society it was developed for. Outside this context the medicine can't be expected to take effect. Just as we don't expect anyone to believe in Loki and Zeus today (and the few eccentrics claiming to do so are in reality engaging in what amounts to little more than a form of ancestor worship) it is equally difficult to make people believe in the Epicurean gods.

Atomism continues to remain relevant and essential to Epicurean dogma. The eternity of the world remains relevant and essential too. But the ancient Epicurean conception of the gods is in my view outdated because it cannot play a viable medicinal role in today's environment.

So I think we need to work out a new theological medicine specifically designed for an era in which the most popular harmful notions regarding the universe are based on monotheism or on nihilism. A profitable solution would be to adapt the most crucial aspects of Epicurean theology to a single God only. The result would be a sort of deism but somewhat different from the enlightenment-era deism of the American founding fathers.

Another innovation that future Epicureans will need down the line is a specifically Epicurean place of worship. Ancient Epicureans were able to worship the gods in the same spaces as everyone else. But we modern Epicureans cannot do the same in churches/mosques/synagogues because modern religions lack the civic and folkloric character that pagan religions had which made them tolerable to Epicureans. Today we're dealing with religions that may be seen as fully-fledged rival philosophical systems and for this reason it is impossible to share quarters with them.

7. Plutarch

Let us therefore turn to Plutarch for a moment. At the end of his Adversus
Colotem, Plutarch criticises Colotes for praising those who established law in
societies because they provided human life with security and tranquillity of
mind:

The men who appointed laws and usages and established the government of cities by kings and magistrates brought human life into a state of great security and peace
and delivered it from turmoil. But if anyone takes all this away we shall live a life of brutes.

Plutarch argues, however, that a happy life that is guaranteed only by obedience to laws as a guide to a good and just life is unworthy of a true philosopher. According to him, the Epicureans would live like beasts if there were no laws to deter them from this way of life, because they always pursue pleasure and wish to gratify every desire.

For if someone takes away the laws, but leaves us with the teachings of Parmenides, Socrates, Heracleitus and Plato, we shall be very far from devouring one another and
living a life of wild beasts.

Plutarch, on the other hand, is convinced that true philosophers like Parmenides, Socrates, Heraclitus or Plato have no need of laws to deter people from being unjust or living like beasts. Plato’s followers will live a just life because they live according to Platonic philosophy. Plutarch of course agrees that Plato wrote important books on the philosophy of laws. The philosophy itself, however, that he implanted in his pupils, was much more important and admirable.

Now, when reading Plato’s Republic, one cannot but agree with Plutarch. In the Republic, Plato aims at showing that justice is an intrinsic good. Therefore, Plato argues, nobody will do wrong, even if he or she is able to do wrong without being detected, because doing wrong would do harm to one’s own soul. Plato is convinced that it is possible to live according to his teachings and that this will make people feel secure and happy. This is why written laws and traditional political institutions are of less importance in Plato’s ideal city Kallipolis.

Of course, Plato admits, this ideal community based on philosophy is a utopian place, but a utopia that could conceivably come about as an object of prayer (euche). Since Plato is well aware of the fact, though, that the majority is not strong enough to justly live according to his philosophy, he offers the concept of a community – Magnesia – that is based on rules and laws which have to be accepted by all members of the community.

Now, let us come back to what Plutarch has to say about Colotes’ argument, according to which laws are necessary to prevent people from devouring each other like beasts, and have a look at it in the light of Diogenes’ statement about the Epicurean wise man. At first sight, Colotes’ statement seems to defend a strong legalist position. Modern commentators even feel reminded of what Glaucon says in Plato’s Republic, for there he argues, playing the devil’s advocate, that it is good to commit injustice, if one is strong enough to do so. Since human nature always wants more (pleonexia), it is natural to live out one’s aggression and simply commit injustice whenever it seems helpful –especially if one has a great chance of not being detected.

This is the reason why laws are necessary to protect us against suffering injustice from people who are stronger than we are. However, laws should not prevent us from doing injustice if we are able to. Now, despite some similarities, there is an important difference between Diogenes’ statement and that of Glaucon in the Republic, which should not be overlooked. According to Epicurus, human beings are not aggressive by nature and do not strive for power and pleonexia, as Glaucon claims, but they long for security and happiness.

Otherwise, the cradle argument, which – as we have seen in an earlier chapter – tries to prove that the argument according to which all humans by nature strive for hedone, i. e. pleasure, would not be valid. Of course, Epicureans recognise the necessity of
laws. But as Diogenes’ statement shows, for Epicureans they are the second-best solution when one wishes to create a society of people who feel “secure” and happy.

As we read in Diogenes and in other Epicurean texts, laws are necessary when speaking about common people’s motivation and how to deter them from injustice. This is the option Colotes obviously is addressing, but, as we learn from Diogenes, there is an even better option or possibility: namely that of people acting according to Epicurean philosophy, guided by their phronesis alone. This is what Diogenes says and this is what is already hinted at in Kyria Doxa 13:

There would be no advantage in providing security against our fellow-men, so long as we were alarmed by occurrences over our heads or beneath the earth or in general
by whatever happens in the boundless universe.

Obviously, what Epicurus wants to say here is that laws cannot protect us against the fear from inside, which is caused by ignorance concerning disturbing phenomena like, for instance, death or pain. For the Epicureans were convinced: When one does something wrong, one never will be sure that this
criminal act will not be detected. This uncertainty creates a kind of insecurity
from inside, which can only be avoided if you realise by rational calculation – phronesis – that it is not good to do something wrong.

Only reason, that is, can protect us from unhappiness. This is also true when one is confronted with adverse phenomena, such as death or pain. In these cases as well, rational thinking is needed. In that case, true security can only be provided by Epicurean physiologia:

It would be impossible to banish fear on matters of the highest importance, if a man did not know the nature of the whole universe but lived in dread of what the legends tells us. Hence, without the study of nature [physiologia] there was no enjoyment of unmixed pleasures.

For even if human life is protected by walls and institutions and laws, humans will be afraid of irritating phenomena, such as death or pain, if they are not able to understand what the phenomena that concern human beings, like pain or death, really mean. At this point, Epicurean physiologia is needed to protect us. As we learn from the Epicurean Hermarchus: If all humans recognised the benefit that results from justice, laws would not be needed. As we have argued in the first part of the lecture, the Epicureans are convinced that it is possible and necessary to live according to their philosophy in order to be secure and happy. A society based on laws, we now learn from Diogenes, is a second-best solution – as far as ordinary people are concerned. This is what Diogenes’ statement implies and this is important for three reasons.

First, it is now clear that the Epicureans are not strict legalists. They only accept a legalist position with regard to common people, just as Plato does. For I would like to remind ourselves of the fact that Plato as well propagates an ideal city, Kallipolis, which is governed by Socratic true politics and where laws are not needed precisely because of this true politics, which can provide people with a happy life.

However, Plato, too, is aware that for common people laws are necessary. For them he created Magnesia, where laws are the foundation of social life. We now realise that Epicurus as well is propagating a social utopia, an Epicurean Kallipolis, so to speak, where – as Diogenes puts it in Fr. 56 Smith – “fortifications are not needed and all humans are happy”. That is to say, with regard to their political utopias both Plato and Epicurus are not legalists.

For sure, Epicurus does not believe that justice is something intrinsically good or should be chosen for its own sake, as Plato does. The Epicureans rather accept justice because of its consequences, a position which Plato ridicules in the Republic.

And of course, their respective conceptions of what philosophy is are worlds apart. Yet these differences should not prevent us from realising that both agree on the fact that the kind of philosophy they defend would allow everyone to live a happy and secure life in a community where laws are not needed.

Second, Diogenes teaches us something about Plutarch’s argumentative strategy. For obviously the latter’s polemic against Colotes only works because he leaves out the Kallipolis option. For only then can he turn Epicureans into legalists and criticise them as such. Diogenes’statement on the Epicurean wise man should warn us not to isolate the quotation of Colotes from its context and turn Epicureans into legalists, as Plutarch does and modern interpreters want them to be.

Rather, Diogenes teaches us once again that, despite grave differences, Epicureans sometimes are more closely related to
Plato than Platonic polemics want us to see. Diogenes’ fragment not only throws light on an element of Epicurean political thinking. It indeed helps us to understand better the strategy of argumentation which Plutarch pursues, and which has misled some modern interpreters by suggesting that Epicur-
eans are legalists. In fact, Epicurus – like Plato – is a utopian anti-legalist.

This brings me to my third and last point and back to the beginning of this chapter: Just like the utopian Kallipolis, as it is described in Plato’s Republic, the Epicurean lawless utopia is based on the philosophical knowl-
edge of the wise men and a practice of politics which Socrates calls ‘true
politics’. We have seen that the postulate to practise true politics instead of traditional politics goes back to Plato, was accepted by Aristotle, and forms the background to what Epicurus and the Epicureans have to say about politics. We have also seen that even in imperial times the Epicurean Diogenes
not only accepted this tradition, but also illustrated it by putting up his inscription as a document which illustrates what is meant by practising ‘true Socratic-Epicurean politics’.

4. Aristotle

Now it is striking that this transformation of elements of traditional political concepts and their integration into the philosophical discourse as ‘true politics’ is not just something that was proposed by Plato and then died with him. Rather, Socratic ‘true politics’ created a tradition, which began with Aristotle: For in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that there are two kinds of politics: first, traditional politics, which is motivated by personal ambition, and, secondly, what he calls ‘true politics’ and a ‘true politician’, who strives to make his fellow citizens ‘good or better’ concerning their soul. This is, of course, exactly what Plato’s Socrates stands for. “Also, the true statesman seems to be one” – or so Aristotle says – “who has made a special study of goodness, since his aim is to make the citizens good and law-abiding men”.

It is obvious that Aristotle’s differentiation between traditional and true politics, which is intended to educate and improve the souls of the citizens, picks up what Socrates has to say about ‘true politician and true politics’ in the Gorgias, where Socrates also argued that the educational intention of ‘true politics’ only can be turned into practice within a small circle of students and in case one avoids traditional politics.

5. Philodemus

As the example of Aristotle shows, Socrates’ transformation of politics into philosophical ‘true politics’ actually was the starting point of a tradition and as such reads like a blueprint for what we heard about the Epicurean ‘true politics’, the intention of which is to provide ‘true security’ within man. This becomes clear if we have a look at the treatise On frank criticism written by the Epicurean Philodemus in the 1st century BC; it is an epitome (a condensed account) of lectures given in Athens by his teacher Zeno, which Philodemus attended.

This treatise illustrates well how Epicurean ‘true politics’ works as an educational programme in a small circle of applicants instead of large crowds in the polis. For instance, it discusses how the political concept of parrhesia, or ‘freedom of speech’, was used in the Epicurean school as a means to disseminate Epicurean doctrines. For that reason, Philodemus demands edification, admonition and correction of the disciples, advocates openness and rejects concealment, strives for trust and wishes to
avoid distrust.

For according to Philodemus, the aim of Epicurean education, of which parrhesia forms a basic element, is to reform the character of the disciple by emotional change and theoretical inquiry. Philodemus offers rules for a philosophical discourse which will prove useful and therapeutic for his follower’s soul. Just as Socrates does in the dialogue Phaedrus (and as is
practised in all other dialogues), the Epicurean Philodemus teaches us that
the application of educational elements, like encouragement or criticism, should be adjusted to the disposition of the addressee.

It seems obvious to me that the political concepts of parrhesia, elenchus or rhetoric, which were transformed by Socrates into elements of his philosophical ‘true politics’, were used by the Epicureans in the context of their own ‘true politics’ in order to create ‘true security’, which – according to the Epicureans and Socrates – traditional politics cannot provide. From that I conclude that the Epicurean dichotomy between traditional and ‘true’ politics goes back to Plato’s Socrates and may have been conveyed to Epicurus by Aristotle or by reading the Gorgias himself.

6. Diogenes of Oenoanda: An Epicurean Politician

Epicurus as a Socratic politician and benefactor to the community: this is the model that was emulated by Diogenes who lived in the second century AD in Oenoanda, a small town in Lycia near the river Xanthus, not very far from today’s Antalya in Turkey. Diogenes had a monumental Epicurean inscription erected in a public place, the Stoa. This inscription is of great interest for our discussion on what Epicurean true politics means. For Diogenes informs us that he published the inscription as a manifestation of his beneficence (euergesia) and as an example of what could be called ‘true politics’ in his local hometown. The inscription also tells us something about the role of true politics in an ideal society and its relation to its laws, which comes close to what we learn from Plato’s Republic.

It proves that, like Plato, the Epicureans were by no means legalists in the sense that philosophical enemies like Plutarch and modern interpreters want to portray them. According to the inscription, the Epicureans rather proposed a kind of political utopia, which – as they claim – would function in many ways without laws and would be based on the practice of true politics – very much like Plato’s ideal state, Kallipolis. So let us hear the reasons why Diogenes decided to have this inscription written on a wall in Oenoanda:

Having already reached the sunset of my life [and] being almost on the verge of departure [from] the world on account of old age … I decided, … to help now those who are well-constituted. Now, if only one person or two or three or four or five or six … were in a bad predicament, I should address them individually and do all in my power to give them the best advice. But since … the majority of people suffer from a common disease, as in a plague, with their false notions about things, … and, [moreover], since it is right to help [also] generations to come … and since, besides, love of humanity prompts us to aid also the foreigners who come here – now, since the remedies in written form reach a larger number of people,I decided to use this stoa to advertise publicly the [medicines] that bring salvation, medicines, which we ourselves have put [fully] to the test.

These sentences make it clear: Diogenes thinks that most people are afflicted with the pestilence of false opinion about the true nature of things, i. e. by fear of the gods, of death, and generally fear of all that is foreign to them. By putting up the inscription, Diogenes wishes to be a benefactor to his fellow citizens, but also to mankind as a whole: Education through enlightenment in order to offer a medicine for the plague of ignorance: that is what the inscription promises to its reader. Since 1883, 299 fragments of this inscription have been discovered and deciphered, and more is to come. By now, we can infer that the inscription was over 80 metres long, that the overall height of the sections of the text was 3.5 metres, and that only 30% of it has been found so far.

Along with the papyri from Herculaneum, the inscription is one of the most important sources for later Epicurean philosophy and enriches the corpus of Epicurean writings with new testimonies, hitherto unknown letters of Epicurus, new aphorisms of the school’s founder and, not least, with extensive discussions of Epicurean teachings by Diogenes himself, about whom we only know what is derived from this inscription.

The text consists of seven horizontal rows of script with numerous sections, which are arranged one above the other. At the bottom there is an epitome of Epicurean ethics (Fr. 28–61 Smith) in which Diogenes deals with
the benefits of virtue and pleasure. Above that (II) there is a section on Epicurean physics (Fr. 1–27 Smith) with reflections on atomic theory, epistemology and theology, astronomy, and the origins of civilisation; and above that again, writings by Diogenes and Epicurus (Fr. 97–116 Smith).

Both these latter sections are inscribed with smaller letters than the other sections
and are positioned at the reader’s eye level. Below the section on ethics, there is a line in larger letters with maxims from Epicurus’ main teachings and other aphorisms. In this way, they form for the reader, not only optically but also in terms of content, a fundament and, as it were, a legitimation of Diogenes’ Epicurean treatises. Above the section on physics there is a section (III) consisting of two letters written by Diogenes to his friends Antipater (Fr. 62–67 Smith) and Dionysius (Fr. 68–74 or 75 Smith), and some aphorisms. Above that (IV) follows a section with some texts by Epicurus and Diogenes (Fr. 119–136 Smith). The final section at the top of the inscription consists of three rows, each set above the other (V–VII), with a treatment of the problems of aging (De senectute, Fr. 137–179 Smith), a critical discourse on the so-called drawbacks of old age, such as idleness, illness, loss of enjoyment, and approaching death.

As we have already noticed, Diogenes addresses his inscription to open-
minded novices in Epicurean philosophy. Like Epicurus, Diogenes sees philosophy as a vademecum for his fellow citizens and for passers-by from all over the world, seeing himself as a cosmopolitan. With his inscription, Diogenes seeks to offer his readers an aid and a remedy for living their lives and to help them help themselves. This didactic intention is emphasised by the design of the inscription as that of an open papyrus roll. Each section is written in columns, with strict rules of syllabification. This is a way of offering to the reader, in a public place, something akin to an open book with an exposition of Epicurean doctrines.

Now, the very public display of the text may be seen as conflicting with Epicurus’ maxim that Epicureans are to live a reclusive life (lathe biosas). But Diogenes himself, by implication, clarifies his position in relation to this maxim by describing his observations as a particular kind of politics, which sees itself as a therapy for the souls of his fellow citizens and not as normal politics. For he says:

In this way, [citizens,] even though I am not engaging in public affairs (prattein), I say these things through the inscription just as if I were taking action, and in an endeavour to prove that what benefits our nature, namely freedom from disturbance, is identical for one and all.

Obviously, Diogenes is just doing what we expect an Epicurean to do: to put politics into practice – this is what prattesthai means – but he does not mean traditional politics, but ‘true politics’, namely educating the reader by teaching them Epicurean physics and ethics – in short, Diogenes is practising the philosophia medicans, which might help the reader to be healed from the disease of ignorance.

In doing so, Diogenes proves that he not only has a profound knowledge of Epicurean teachings, but also is familiar with other philosophers. He explicitly mentions Plato and Socrates several times. Mostly, of course, Diogenes is critical of them. But there is one passage where – as I shall argue – Diogenes’ Epicurean teaching comes quite close to what Plato has to say about the role laws should play in an ideal community. The passage belongs to the ensemble of some fragments (NF 167 + NF 126 + NF 127 + Fr. 20 + NF 182), which appropriately have been called a “Theological Physics sequence”.

In this passage, Diogenes speaks about those who will be just only because they are able to think correctly, i. e. just because they are Epicurean wise men. This fragment not only helps to understand better a dispute between Epicureans and Platonists about the ideal community and the importance of laws in it, as for instance Plutarch describes it in his treatise Adversus Colotem. I shall argue that Diogenes’ statement about the Epicurean wise man should be taken into account when discussing what the Epicureans thought about how men should live together in an ideal community which functions well without laws just because of the fact that Socratic Epicurean ‘true politics’ is practised there, and that this should be understood as an Epicurean response to Plato’s concept of the ideal city, that
is to say as an Epicurean Kallipolis.

Just a short reminder of the passage: The overall argument of the fragment is to show that Epicurean gods do not harm human beings by living a remote life without interfering with humans, punishing the bad or rewarding the good, because – or so Diogenes is convinced – the fear of the gods
does not influence humans towards a just life.

In order to prove this, Diogenes distinguishes three groups of humans: a) Those who are bad and unjust. These people would not care about the gods anyway, and even less would they be afraid of Plato’s underworld judges;

b) the ordinary people, who are just only because of their fear of the laws and of the penalties imposed;

and c) those wise people, who do not need gods and laws in order to live a righteous life: for they are able to think correctly in contrast to ordinary people, who are righteous on account of the laws only. But, as for the others, I declare that those of them who grasp arguments based on nature are not righteous on account of the gods, but on account of their having a correct view of the nature of desires and pains (IV) and death (for indeed invariably and without exception human beings do wrong either on account of fear or on account of pleasures).

The last category is the most interesting for us because Diogenes obviously considers the possibility of man being able to be just because of right, i. e. Epicurean thinking. This – it seems to me – is an important statement since it seems to contradict the opinion often held in modern and ancient times that Epicureans are legalists, a view which is also presupposed by ancient critics like Plutarch in his anti-Epicurean polemics in Adversus Colotem and especially in a passage at the end of the treatise.

The following text comes from Michael Erler's book Epicurus: An introduction to this practical ethics and politics. Erler is professor of classical philology at the University of Würzburg. His book contains six lectures that he delivered in Beijing. This is the third lecture and concerns the topic of Epicurus' politics. He argues convincingly against the traditional misunderstading of ancient and modern interpreters that the Epicureans were strict legalists. I agree with Erler's view.

1. Epicurus and Socratic ‘Politics’

In this chapter, I wish to pose the question whether, and if so, how an Epicurean would accept to live in a community like the Greek polis. At first sight, the answer to this question might seem clear. It is common knowledge, or so it seems, that Epicurus refused to get involved in politics at all. Epicurus advised his followers to disengage from the public and to “abstain from politics”, as we read in a fragment of Epicurus’ important, though lost ethical work On Lives (De vitis). We also learn from Plutarch that, according to Epicurus, Epicureans should withdraw from the ‘many’ and ‘live
unnoticed’ – and indeed, the expression lathe biosas has become a kind of hallmark of Epicureanism, but also a target of many attacks by Epicurus’ adversaries. So the right answer to the question whether or not Epicureans wished to get involved in public affairs and the community seems to be negative.

In what follows, I would like to try to question what appears to be the common understanding of the Epicurean position. I shall argue that Epicureans – although trying to keep out of the everyday affairs of politics in the traditional sense of the word, nevertheless were well prepared to be involved in society and to practise politics in a different sense of the word. For by ‘practising politics’ the Epicureans did not mean dealing with the political institutions of the community. Rather, Epicurean politics aimed at improving the mental disposition of their fellow citizens in order to help them live a happy life.

I shall argue that Epicureans regarded their philosophy as a political activity in itself, and I shall suggest to call this kind of activity ‘Socratic politics’, since it very much reminds us of the kind of philosophical activity which Socrates practises in Plato’s dialogues and calls ‘true’ politics in the Gorgias, in contrast to traditional politics, and indicating that he is talking about his own philosophical pragma, i. e. his epimeleia tes psyches or ‘caring for the souls’ of his partners and of his fellow citizens in order to provide them with the security they had declared to be the main goal of doing politics. Thus it will be argued that the Epicureans distinguished between two different ways of practising politics and had in mind two different concepts of security – the traditional social security provided by the polis and a security provided by ‘true – i. e. Epicurean – politics’, which does not require traditional institutions or protection by city walls. I shall try to show that in this respect Epicurus’ understanding follows the Socratic tradition.

In the second part of this lecture, I shall introduce to you a monumental
inscription, which the Epicurean Diogenes put up in Oenoanda, a small town in Asia minor, in the second century AD. The inscription propagates the basic tenets of Epicurus’ teachings, and, as I shall argue, is a manifestation of Epicurean–Socratic ‘true politics’, as far as its intention is concerned.

In addition, I shall try to show that a recently discovered fragment of this inscription confirms the observation that the Epicureans indeed favoured the concept of an ideal community, which resembles Plato’s ideal city Kallipolis as presented in the Republic, in so far as both communities are managed by ‘Socratic’ true politics rather than traditional politics and that in both poleis traditional political institutions and written laws are of minor relevance. This is a new and important aspect for the Epicurean tradition, which often is thought of as legalist by modern interpreters as far as their conception of justice is concerned. I shall argue that this is not true in an absolute sense, just as it is not true for Platonism.

2. Epicurean Politics and its Aim: True Security

2.1 Social Security

So let us first reconsider the Epicurean view on the meaning of politics. In order to understand why Epicurus recommends to live unnoticed and to keep out of politics, we should ask ourselves what is meant by ‘politics’ when Epicureans warns us not to get involved. In order to do so, one has to keep in mind that the underlying motivation for Epicurus’ political thinking and his major criterion for judging politics is the question whether a certain kind of politics is able to provide security, tranquillity, and confidence for its people: This trias is the core of the Epicurean motivation for any political consideration.

For sure, the Epicureans recognise the fact that one needs to try to create social security for human beings. This is what Epicurus expects from traditional politics and this is why Epicureans were well prepared to get involved in politics – but only if necessary, as we read in Seneca’s treatise De otio and realise in the final crisis of the Roman republic. For at that time, Roman Epicureans indeed decided not to “stay out of politics”, if I may remind you, for instance, of Cassius, who in about 48 BC converted to Epicureanism and despite or, perhaps, just because of this fact, joined the Academic Brutus in fomenting the conspiracy against Caesar in 44 BC.

So he and many others who we know of did not wish to disengage from political affairs at all costs – or at least, if they thought it to be unavoidable. We learn from a passage by the Epicurean Colotes and quoted by Plutarch in his treatise Adversus Colotem that „The men who appointed laws and usages and established the government of cities by kings and magistrates brought human life into a state of great security and peace and delivered it from turmoil”. From this it seems to become clear that Colotes praises lawgivers and law-governed communities because of the protection they provide against any threats to life and because of the social security they offer. It is because of statements like these that Epicureans often are regarded as legalists by ancient as well as by modern interpreters. But, as we shall see shortly, this judgement is at least one-sided.

2.2 From the Inside

According to the Epicureans, it is not enough to provide social security, that is against external danger. For sure, traditional politics might be helpful in order to protect us against enemies and to secure physical integrity, in so far as it provides us with social security and therefore might mitigate the fear of external enemies. But traditional politics is regarded as a dangerous business and based on a wrong view of how security is to be attained. In Kyria Doxa 7, we read:

Some men have sought to become famous and renowned, thinking that thus they would make themselves secure against their fellow-men. If, then, the life of such persons really was secure, they attained natural good; if, however, it was insecure, they have not attained the end which by nature’s own promptings they originally sought.

The Epicureans were convinced of the fact that there exists a form of uneasiness or insecurity which stems from inside of man and cannot be fought by building walls or by creating laws or a good government. For even if walls and castles and laws protect our bodies from the fear of death, the fear of the gods and irritations, which result from misunderstanding how the world works and from wrong judgement of traditional values like wealth or power, remain inside. And these misunderstandings cause irritation and insecurity, which often result in misbehaviour and aggressiveness towards others. That is to say, insecurity and uneasiness within man are caused by a lack of knowledge and wrong understanding of what death means, what the gods do, or how natural phenomena are to be understood. According to the Epicureans, it therefore is of greater importance to achieve security in the sense of tranquillity of mind. For according to them, this kind of security alone guarantees true happiness.

Thus, for the Epicureans there are two kinds of insecurity and two methods of providing security: First, external insecurity, which can be fought by traditional politics, and secondly, insecurity stemming from within, and which must be erased by complete clarification of the real causes of phenomena. For it is impossible to remedy fear of the phenomena, the gods, or death, if one does not understand how the world functions, as Epicurus states: “It would be impossible to banish fear on matters of the highest importance if a person did not know the nature of the whole universe, but lived in dread of what the legends tell us (mythos). Hence without the study of nature there was no enjoyment of unmixed pleasures”.

From this follows, to quote Epicurus again:

There would be no advantage in providing security against our fellow humans, so long as we were alarmed by occurrences over our heads or beneath the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless universe.

Only then, a tranquil state of mind, the ataraxia, can be guaranteed – namely by explaining why death is nothing to us, that the gods do not care about us and therefore are not to be feared, and that phenomena should not irritate us because everything can be explained without any teleological intention.

That is to say, since there are two causes for feeling insecure: one from outside of men, one from inside, there also have to be two kinds of politics: one that tries to provide social security with respect to men by dealing with social affairs, institutions and government, which is called traditional politics; and another kind of politics, which is able to explain how the world functions, why death is nothing to us, why the gods are not to be feared and that all goods that are necessary for a good life are readily available – in short: what is needed is the Epicurean physiologia. Lack of knowledge and fear often are the causes for breaking the rules and for other forms of misbehaviour, as the Epicurean poet Lucretius writes in his poem De rerum natura:

that for fear of death men are seized by hatred of life and of seeing the light, so that with sorrowing heart they device their own death, forgetting that this fear is the fountain of their cares: it induces one man to violate honour, another to break the bonds of friendship, and in a word to overthrow all natural feeling.

Therefore, freeing one’s mind from these kinds of fear by means of physiologia is of much greater importance than achieving security. From this follows that the Epicurean ban on politics only concerns traditional politics, but not true or rather philosophical politics, i. e. the Epicurean philosophia medicans, which, in fact or at least according to the Epicureans, does a better service to the souls of people and in doing so, to communities and poleis. It is not by chance that Epicurus was called the saviour of mankind and the city, because he tries to save the souls of the city, not its institutions. Epicurus is the true politician and Epicurean physiologia or philosophy is true politics: this might seem strange to us – or at least a utopian programme; but it is interesting to see that Epicurus was neither alone nor the first to recommend this kind of approach. In fact, as I shall suggest, he picks up what Plato’s Socrates recommends in Plato’s dialogue Gorgias. And in the Apology, Socrates even calls himself the saviour of the city.

3. Socrates, the True Politician: Gorgias

So let us turn to Plato’s dialogue Gorgias for a moment and see what Socrates tells us there about politics and what he calls ‘true politicians’. Although Socrates discusses different topics with different partners in the Gorgias, he focuses on the question how to live a happy life. In the dispute with Callicles, the question concerning the correct mode of life comes to a head over whether one should choose to become a ‘politician or philosopher’.

Callicles defends the political life while Socrates represents the philosophical side. Traditional ‘political life’ stands for a lifestyle, which, according to Callicles, is oriented around common sense. It deals with the institution of the polis and orients itself towards the enforcement of one’s own interests. Socrates confronts this understanding of politics with what he calls “true politics”, the aim of which, in contrast to traditional politics, is to help others to become better and to be happy. To improve other people’s souls is the goal of Socrates’ question-and-answer game, which leads people to perplexity (aporia), but also to awareness of the fact that they are dependent upon mere illusions.

For Socrates, it turns out, the topic of the discussion of whether to do ‘philosophy or politics’ does not involve mutually exclusive alternatives. For Socrates, to do politics means to do philosophy because politics as he understands it should be concerned with creating order in the soul of the citizens and in society as the source of justice and therefore of individual and civic happiness. The goal of true politics, which does not regard philosophy and politics as incompatible, is the conversion of men and the restoration of order in their soul. The leading representative of this lifestyle is Socrates as he says himself:

I think I am one of few, not to say the only one, in Athens who attempts the true art of statesmanship, and the only man of the present time who manages affairs of state.

A true politician, such as Socrates – it seems – is not concerned with power and with institutions, but rather with creating the conditions in individuals that will allow them to interact with the powerful, that is institutions and other people, in a correct manner. For real power consists in what is actually good for one’s own soul and having the capacity to implement this knowledge.

People like Pericles, Cimon, or other well-known celebrities do not represent the politicians who serve Athens well, but it is Socrates, the philosopher, who claims to serve the Athenians best. For Socrates is not interested in dealing with political institutions. Instead, he cares for the souls of his fellow citizens (epimeleia tês psychês), an approach which therefore could be called philosophia medicans since it tries to free people from misconceptions by refuting them.

Socrates is the true politician because he cares for the souls of his fellow citizens: This might seem bizarre to some modern interpreters. However, one should not forget that to the ancients the word polis does not necessarily entail the aspect of territory or institution as the modern concept of state does. Polis rather means community of people as individuals.

This is why Socrates calls his philosophical pragma ‘true politics’ and this is why in Plato’s Republic, where Plato talks about true politics and develops his ideal polis, Kallipolis, laws play only a minor role. In the Republic, Socrates has much to say concerning the human soul, but much less concerning laws and next to nothing about political institutions.

Although laws exist in Kallipolis, these laws often stand for unwritten rules only, which should be supervised by the philosopher-ruler. In the Republic Socrates regards them as helpful, but inflexible and therefore as a second-best solution. A life without rules is described in the Politicus in the context of a myth. It is only in Magnesia, the second-best option of a state described in the Laws, that institutions and laws really matter.

This notion of polis forms the background
to Socrates’ discussions on traditional elements of political concepts just as
much as rhetorical or ethical concepts like shame, benevolence, or punishment. From Socrates’ perspective of therapeutic – i. e. philosophical – ‘politics’ these traditional political concepts need to be transformed and integrated into Plato’s understanding of philosophy: Traditional rhetoric as an
art of defence changes into an art of therapeutic accusation which is meant
to cure the souls of others from error, which is illustrated by Socrates in the Apology; punishment also becomes part of Socratic therapy, insofar as it aims at the improvement of his dialogue partners.

As Epicureans we agree that the gods are fully material beings (not an ultra-fine essence or 'spirit') and that they are created and sustained by natural processes. It is reasonable to assume that the gods are not passive entities like cogs in a machine but free and able to interact with their environment or with each other in way that ensures their body doesn't decay. Certainly this view fits the notion of their blessedness better than if we were to assume that they are completely passive.

However we can't assume that the gods are engaged in a struggle to 'feed' and preserve their bodies similar to that of biological beings. This would imply that they are not blessed but live in a state of at least partial insecurity. The idea that instead of dealing with issues of survival the gods engage in care-free creative activity (like creating works of art) and then in contemplation as a means of 'resting' from creative activity fits the image of blessedness better. Maybe the gods even have a blessed 'end' where they reach a stage of existence so high that they merge with God. Again, this doesn't by itself violate the notion of blessedness.

'Supernatural' traditionally implies superiority in hierarchial terms, like the ability of a god to put natural things in order and provide for the needs of nature and people as if he were a governor and law-maker. In other words it emphasizes the power or 'imperium' god has over creation. By using the word 'divine' I wanted to frame godly superiority in purely ontological terms: the gods are superior to us because they enjoy a more secure and blissful existence than we do, not because they are more 'powerful'.

The notion that reality has a divine foundation means theism. It means that divine beings in some form exist, that the universe is in some form a divine expression and that the whole of reality emanates in some way from ontologically superior planes. I don't agree that this whole theistic notion by itself necessarily contradicts the eternity of the world, the eternity of particles, or the ability of nature to manage its course independently of divine oversight and guidance by means of natural laws.

Religions are false and harmful not because they accept the reality of a divine sphere (regardless of how they define this sphere) but because of their completely false notions about the divine.

Quote from DavidN

Quote from Peter Konstans

Exercise is not very conductive to pleasure as it's mostly a painful activity. It also not as health-promoting as it's usually made out to be. Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman makes the case in the linked book below that humans have not evolved to exercise.

Observations of hunter gatherers today who spend much of the day just sitting around suggest that our remote ancestors were in fact no less couch potatoes than we are. Dan Buettner who has studied populations around the globe with a high concentration of people blessed with stunning longevity shows their lifestyles to have many traits in common. Among these traits and perhaps the most surprising is the fact that they never exercise. Instead, they tend to engage in lots of natural low-Intensity physical activity, mostly just walking around.

As Lieberman shows, the commodification of exercise today has led to unnecessary hustles, psychogical pressures, weird mental complexes, injuries and expenses. Even in antiquity there were those who said that people highly passionate about exercise are weird. Fitness junkie Ross Enamait who wrote some excellent training manuals says he's been called crazy for his fitness passion.

What are your personal views on the issue? Does exercise make a lot of sense from an Epicurean point of view? Why shouldn't the time and money spent torturing the body with high-Intensity exercises just for some vague notion of 'feeling good about yourself' and impressing your 'bros' not be better invested in more pleasurable activities? Epicurus sure loved visiting the theater but as far I know he didn't visit gyms at all. Do we have any evidence that he did?

Metrodorus would say that we should endure lesser pains to enjoy greater pleasures or avoid greater pains. From this line of thought we should expect that if we live an overly sedentary life as many people do in modern times, that artificial exercise might be necessary as maintenance for health.

The hunter gathers and farmers of our ancestry may have not engaged in what we consider exercise, however they did engage in greater physical activity than modern day humans in many ways. Early hunters were endurance hunters, long distance runner who would need to stalk prey upto 8 hours a day. Whatever they may have done with their down time I think their time spent hunting would outweigh their sedentary time. In the same way anyone who has worked on a farm can attest to the same physical nature of farm life. These lifestyles didn't need the addition of what we consider exercise as it was built into there lifestyle.

I do agree that alot of the mentality around modern exercise is likely unhealthy, this however does not negate the benefits of moderate exercise applied to an otherwise sedentary lifestyle.

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As Lieberman says in the book, the modern hunter-gatherers he observed don't engage in any physical activity that exceeds moderate levels of exertion - not even on the hunt - and if you ignored the fact that they don't have a couch and a television you could easily call them incorrigible couch-potatoes because they spend surprisingly many hours just sitting on their bottoms.

I agree that exercise can be a good thing (although the true reason why the masses engage in it is rather the vain desire to conform to contemporary beauty ideals) and it's almost necessary today but its benefits have mostly to do with counteracting the effects of a hideous diet rather than our inborn and natural tendency to sit a lot.

The idea of the hard-working peasant who breaks his back working from sunrise to sunset is also mostly a modern misunderstanding. Peasant life was indeed miserable but what really made it so was the fact that these were effectively enslaved people. They had to work not just for themselves but also for pampered local aristocracies and they were also subjected to periodic depredations by marauders and militaries. We have many reports of Roman army personnel of all centuries fleecing and abusing the local peasantry.

We are in agreement that there have always been atoms or particles in some form just as we are in agreement that there are infinite cosmoi. But it doesn't go against any Epicurean position to suggest that each particular cosmos is finite. As long as we accept that the universe doesn't ever run out of cosmoi, no Epicurean position is violated.

Epicurus writes:

'First believe that god is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind; and so believing, thou shalt not affirm of him aught that is foreign to his immortality or that agrees not with blessedness, but shalt believe about him whatever may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality.'

Following Epicurus we affirm that gods are a part of nature and as such not 'supernatural' but since they are immortal we also affirm that they are 'supernatural' in the sense that the matter that makes them up doesn't dissolve.

Epicurus encourages us to believe about the Gods whatever upholds their blessedness and immortality. The idea that gods are engaged in contemplative activity similar to prayer is an idea that doesn't violate the notion of their blessedness in itself.

The idea that reality has a divine foundation (i. e. that space and time are not the whole of reality but simply a part of it) is the only way to support the notion that the universe has existed forever and always will exist and it is the only way to counter cosmological nihilism.

Immortality and indestructibility are not observed anywhere in space and time. If the cosmos has no divine foundation then both the place of the gods in it and the notion of infinity run into logical problems.

That's why modern cosmologists tend to believe in a finite, one-shot, once-in-an-eternity universe that came from nothing i. e. 'quantum fluctuations'. I am not saying they are correct but if you assume that the universe has absolutely no divine foundation then it makes sense to think this way.

Atoms are defined today as the basic particles of the chemical elements. According to modern cosmology atoms did not exist forever. They were created through the process of nucleosynthesis. Are we in agreement that modern cosmology is correct in this?

According to Epicureanism gods exist between the intermundia, i. e. between the infinite cosmoi. Are we in agreement that this doesn't go against any Epicurean position?

The existence of Epicurean gods raises the question where they came from. The logical answer to that would be that they emerged from a single divine source.

A particular cosmos, is only a temporary agglomeration of atoms, and it is only one of an infinite number of such cosmoi, which come into existence and then dissolve away. So time and space experience individual periods of birth and death as each cosmos comes and goes but this cycle extends to infinity.

Atoms themselves were forged in stellar explosions but where exactly the raw physical energy that set the universe alight ultimately comes from is unknown. Since the universe can't have just 'popped up' as the late Hawkings believed we must assume that it actually has divine roots.

But just like Lucretius we must rule out the notion that the universe was designed like a machine because our scientific knowledge of its nature is enough to show us conclusively that there is no deliberate fabrication process taking place. What we observe is a discharge of energy and then we see the universe harvesting this energy and arranging itself in a random evolutionary manner.

We must then suppose that the universes emanate from the energies of divine entities that dwell in a realm beyond time and space that we cannot observe.

Since we can't imagine blessed immortal beings creating and using tools, the universes couldn't have been made to serve a strict utilitarian purpose like watches. Instead, they could be something more akin to a work of art than a tool. They could represent a sort of spiritual or contemplative activity by the gods with the purpose of imitating the platonic One, the theoretical ineffable principle of reality, inaccessible even to the gods.

Just as the Epicureans prayed to the gods not to request favors but to contemplate them and receive some of their divine essence, it can be assumed that the gods contemplate the One and that this contemplation results in a burst of creative energy that perpetually generates finite universes.

Epicureanism deserves to be called a religion because it systematically answers the most profound questions of life. Aristotle managed to create an all-encompassing philosophical system too and we know that the Christian church establishment made good use of the services of Aristotle's 'philosophy' for least one full millennium.

Indeed, Christianity would not have evolved to something beyond a cult for society's lost and confused if it hadn't assimilated various aspects of ancient philosophy. So if Christianity could manage to profit from philosophy and remain a religion so too could Epicurean philosophy assimilate various religious tropes to benefit from their appeal to the human soul and at the same time remain true to itself.

Let's consider what alternative Epicureanism can offer to the prevailing theistic and nihilistic theories about the origin of the universe.

Daniel Everett (an ex-missionary turned atheist and linguist known for his theories about the origin of language) explains why it would make better sense to think of the universe as the collective output of a divine culture of gods, rather than the output of a single creator.

'One frequent theistic answer to the question of how DNA and subsequent forms of life evolved is the ‘watchmaker’ theory. Watches were, at the time of this metaphor, the highest technology known. For many reasons, discussions of philosophers and theists often revolve around the most advanced technology of the day. In this case, watches are intricate, complicated, hierarchical in structure and obviously designed. So if someone found a watch on a distant planet, the presence of that watch would indicate that somewhere there was a designer who had a purpose in mind for it, designed it and fabricated it.

There are modern theologians and theistic scientists who consider this argument sound, substituting a complex organ such as the eye in place of the watch. But philosopher David Hume pointed out three serious problems with the watch analogy. First, the materials of the watch are not found naturally – the watch is built from human-made materials. This makes the analogy artificial. As Hume said, it would make much more sense to use something composed exclusively of organic materials, such as a squash, instead of a watch because one can observe that squashes come forth on their own.
Hume’s second objection is that one may not use experiential knowledge to infer a conclusion about non-experiential knowledge. If you understand what a watch is, you also know that the watch was created. One could even observe a watch being made. Yet no one could have any direct experience with the creation of the world. Thus the conclusion that because a watch has a designer the universe also does is not only empirically unjustified but also illogical.

Finally, Hume remarked that even if a watch did show that every complicated thing, the universe in particular, has a designer, this lesson would still have nothing to say about the nature of that designer. Such reasoning thus, even if it had not been shown to be invalid, supports no known religion or idea of a deity above any other.

Perhaps the most effective argument against the watchmaker analogy, however, comes from culture. No person can make a watch or its component materials by themselves. A watch is the output of a culture, not a designer. If the universe was designed, this design would have required a society, not a god, unless that god were far different than it is described in the major religions.'

We could thus theorize that the part
of observable reality we call the universe is an artefact created by the divine activities and interactions of the Epicurean gods residing in the intermundia. As a divine artefact, the universe has a divine purpose or meaning (hence refuting cosmological nihilism) but this purpose is relevant only to the gods, and completely irrelevant and infathomable to us.

Quote from Don

Quote from Peter Konstans

or made any sort of exhortation about how people should best govern themselves

They did have thoughts on how those who govern should act.

There's a missing book of Epicurus titled Of Kingship.

Philodemus wrote On The Good King According to Homer.

There were Epicurean advisors to kings.

It seems to me they had specific ideas on how to govern but they would rather advise rulers than rule themselves.

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According to Plutarch the Epicureans wrote on kingship (with which they had the new Macedonian monarchies in mind) to warn of the dangers of living with kings or of being a king.

How many instances we have of them advising kings? The only instance I know of is an Epicurean warning Pyrrhus to stop his adventures. But this was not in a formal capacity in the way modern governments have paid advisors but in the context of monarchs surrounding themselves with refined company, including philosophers.

Do you agree with McConnells idea that the Epicureans considered kingship to be the ideal form of government for Epicureans to adjust to?

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44698386

A healthy degree of conformism is necessary if you want to be socially successful and institutionally reproduce yourself. An ancient philosophical school was a true institution, not an ad hoc gathering of folks to talk. Because they were institutions they could survive for many centuries if left alone. It was Justinian, an emperor with a near theocratic mentality, that forced the surviving Athenian schools to shut down.

Before Epicurus there were hedonist schools that prized non-conformism. Despite having some very brillant and interesting people engaged in them, they didn't attract a lot of followers and faded quickly from view. That's because the prospect of social success places hard limits on what you are allowed to say and how you are allowed to say it. Although some things had changed in Epicurus' time, an Athenian citizen who didn't participate in the state religion and all its festivals and sacrificial rites was, simply put, an abomination. Promulgating in your school that all things people believe about the nature of the gods are completely false and then participating in popular religious rites carries a certain degree of hypocrisy. This hypocrisy didn't go unnoticed by the creed's enemies but it was a necessary adaptation.

If Epicureanism is best adapted to a highly particular social setting (decentralized non-hierarchy or whatever) or best reserved only for the good times (and the times were very bad in 1st century BCE Italy when according to Cicero Epicureanism was popular) then it can't fulfill its claim to provide eudaimonia to all its followers.

The ancient Epicureans of all centuries never made any serious effort to affect political change or made any sort of exhortation about how people should best govern themselves because they simply didn't care. The fact that some Epicureans fought in the Roman civil war or other conflicts means that the personal fortunes of those people hinged on political status which forced them to participate. But even if you don't stand to gain anything from participating in wars it is prudent to do so because of the huge social pressures to conform. Conforming even to regimes you despise is actually wise as many young impulsive people like Sophie Scholl or those in today's Russia find out the hard way.

Ancient Epicureanism is not a political philosophy and as far as we can tell Epicurus deosn't seem to have written a single major work about government, politics and the like. The Epicureans also never mounted a serious polemic effort against Christianity because by the time Christianity was ascendant Epicureanism was not even on the radar as a competitor anymore.

You said that hunter-gatherers have hierarchy. That's not accurate. Immediate-return hunter gatherers (meaning people who subsist entirely on wild foods they they consume soon after catching and who do not cultivate any plants or keep any livestock and possess nothing that they can't carry with them) have some status differences as all primates have but these don't translate in anything we would recognize as hierarchy and systematic coercion. Leaders in those societies are just people whose opinion on some matters is valued more because they have convinced others that they are wise. They are not some authority figure who says 'jump!' and you must jump or else and he isn't someone who is entitled to more food, and entertainment than you. In fact 'leaders' are expected to outperform others in pro-social gestures.

Only under the conditions of agricultural surpluses does our natural propensity to assign status tend to express itself as a hierarchical pyramid. Similarly, climate change manifests itself by producing more drought in some places and more snow and rain in others. Same underlying cause, different effects.

People in remote tropical regions of the world with dark skin and scant or crude garments that grow yams and bananas and keep domestic pigs and chickens but sometimes also hunt and gather are not hunter-gatherers. The right word to call them is peasants. My grandparents hunted and gathered everything that was in season and my great-grandparents almost never used money. But they were simply peasants. If they had dark skin and lived in Australia or the Amazon they could have been called 'hunter-gatherers'.

Steven Pinker does exactly that. He considers some peasant groups in the tropics who are as poor or poorer than my great-grandparents and who occasionally engage in vendetta-like squabbles very typical of peasant communities to be the same thing as prehistoric hunter-gatherers and uses this to prove that our pre-historic ancestors lived in a Hobbesian nightmare. He also apparently considers the famous Ötzi mummy to have been a hunter-gatherer. But he was a neolithic farmer and ore smelter of Anatolian descent who for some reason got into a fight before being stalked up a mountain and taken out with an arrow.

Steven Pinker's Stinker on the Origins of War

Did Steven Pinker knowingly mislead his audience at TED?

www.psychologytoday.com

The Famous 'Iceman' Ötzi Is Not Who We Thought He Was

A new and improved DNA analysis of the famous 'Iceman' mummy suggests this ancient individual is not who we thought he was.

www.sciencealert.com

I disagree with your view that colonial America or Switzerland are somehow relevant as examples of fair and just societies. And I disagree with your view that non-traditional ways to organize a small community are indefinitely viable within a civilized society. But anyway you might want to look at this book which traces such recorded experiments and presents them from a favorable perspective.

https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Utopia-Years-Experiments-Teach/dp/1982190213

Exercise is not very conducive to pleasure as it's mostly a painful activity. It also not as health-promoting as it's usually made out to be. Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman makes the case in the linked book below that humans have not evolved to exercise.

Observations of hunter gatherers today who spend much of the day just sitting around suggest that our remote ancestors were in fact no less couch potatoes than we are. Dan Buettner who has studied populations around the globe with a high concentration of people blessed with stunning longevity shows their lifestyles to have many traits in common. Among these traits and perhaps the most surprising is the fact that they never exercise. Instead, they tend to engage in lots of natural low-Intensity physical activity, mostly just walking around.

As Lieberman shows, the commodification of exercise today has led to unnecessary hustles, psychogical pressures, weird mental complexes, injuries and expenses. Even in antiquity there were those who said that people highly passionate about exercise are weird. Fitness junkie Ross Enamait who wrote some excellent training manuals says he's been called crazy for his fitness passion.

What are your personal views on the issue? Does exercise make a lot of sense from an Epicurean point of view? Why shouldn't the time and money spent torturing the body with high-Intensity exercises just for some vague notion of 'feeling good about yourself' and impressing your 'bros' not be better invested in more pleasurable activities? Epicurus sure loved visiting the theater but as far I know he didn't visit gyms at all. Do we have any evidence that he did?

Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding

Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding

www.amazon.com