Posts by DaveT

Of course there's the saying: To have a friend you must be a friend.

I look back on my life and now, in my late 70s and I can see numerous stages where I had varying levels of "friendship": School boy, college student, young married, married with children, professional career, grand father, partially retired and late in life second effort as a writer, fully retired from the cares of working for a living and having time to pursue new fields from the comfort of my couch. Each period had different challenges to happiness and pursuing friendships.

I'd like to discuss this further, but I need to catch some lunch before the Sunday EpicrueanFriends zoom.

Quote from Bryan

Also, I cannot keep track of who I have said what to, so I presume I have said everything to everyone. It keeps them on their toes (rather than bored as I am perhaps telling them something twice).

I hear you, man. Sorry (not sorry) to say, it gets worse as we age. Generally now I ask "Did I tell you about?" (not sorry because I'm still around)

Quote from Don

It's sort of the uncanny valley transposed to the audio instead of video environment.

Thanks for showing that. Whoddathought? I may lose the battle long term, but I have to fight against using female pronouns when referring to my GPS's voice in the car, and Alexa's voice at home. It's--it--it!

I enjoyed both the original podcasts and the summaries. To my level of understanding, the summaries complement the long form podcasts. For me, listening to both deepens my own thoughts process.

And on the tech level at this stage of the development, all I can say is WOW!

Quote from Matteng

The path to pleasure/eudaimonia always leads via virtue. I see the biggest difference (virtue or pleasure as the core of eudaimonia/life goal) in that eudaimonia, the good self or inner spirit, is defined by the Stoics as "doing good" while Epicureans define it as "experiencing good."

I am enjoying this discussion. I recently read that a distinction between the Stoics and the Epicureans was that the Stoics focused on a public, civic-minded orientation, and thus a belief in virtue as a goal to that end. And that the Epicureans’ belief in more private life promoted pleasure etc. and friendship for personal happiness. I know this may sound simplistic, but that comparison helps me understand why the two philosophies were so different in the view and uses of virtue.

I have a hard time dealing with the words “skeptic, skepticism, etc.” Sometimes people use them carelessly, and other times, perhaps after thoughtfulness, they use them in a narrow sense. His use seems to be that of the ancient Greek Skeptics. We’ve all looked at the chart that came from the article that I read. I’m skeptical about the author’s credibility (he’s a music critic). But, okay.

The chart is alleged to show possible results from his diagnosis of societal problems caused by AI, but these are possibilities that have no relationship to the probability of anything he wrote about occurring. Sadly, mental illness is a curse for those trying to survive in our modern world, but come on! Blaming AI? Already? For sure, we need guardrails on any new application of advanced technology, but his chart could be a list of fearsome results from the discovery of mRNA vaccines.

As far as his chart goes, yes, those are bad things, bad, bad, bad things for any society’s common welfare. (I’m getting out of breath here.) I could blame those ills on many things affecting individuals yesterday, today, or tomorrow. So, meh.

I reject his scare tactics, and more specifically, I reject his definition of skepticism as a negative behavior. Skepticism is healthy when properly used. My definition varies depending on the topic. A general usage to me is that I’m skeptical of any proposition that seems to lack proofs, and I’m willing to suspend my belief or disbelief until I see enough proof to satisfy me.

Quote from Don

Quote

Benatar explained. “But compare that with a scenario in which that person never existed—then, the absence of the bad would be good, but the absence of the good wouldn’t be bad, because there’d be nobody to be deprived of those good things.” This asymmetry “completely stacks the deck against existence,” he continued, because it suggests that “all the unpleasantness and all the misery and all the suffering could be over, without any real cost.”

I don't know anything about this subject yet, but this quote reminds me of the nonsensical quip: I'd like to have a ham and egg sandwich if I had some ham, if I had some eggs.

In addition to the texts here on the website, I've just started reading "The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia" by Brad Inwood and L.P.Gerson. I find it easier to read than DeWitt. In addition to the usual texts, I am anticipating getting to the part containing extensive short fragments and testimonia from other various ancient sources. It's about 100 pages in total. DeWitt's argumentative and old fashioned professorial style is a chore for me.

I follow the issue discussed here, but my perspective is a bit different. First, not too many people are going to read this book. On Amazon, it has 27 reader reviews, and it’s been out since last January. Second, it is a self-help book as much as any other content, to help people deal with the 21st century. Third, his market is an overwhelmingly Christianized western world, which is dominated by the belief in an Abrahamic divinity’s providential influence as trials and tribulations upon mankind. (Whew!)

To me, the earlier Austin reference by Don. It cuts to the perhaps largest issue when comparing the similarities and distinctions in the Stoic vs Epicurean debate. And this debate is essentially the same one that mental health counselors, psychiatrists and many other professions that focus on helping people cope with the struggle to live better in our modern western world (without regard to religion). I don't see how one wins or loses in this philosophical battle over a book that only partially addresses Epicurus’ truths. I think perhaps any discussion of Epicurus is a good one. Kind of like the cynical quip, “I don’t care too much what you write about me, just spell my name correctly in the newspaper.”

Cassius  Don Like so much of Epicurus' thoughts, I find his logic fascinating. Whether he is correct or not as our technology discovers more of nature, is not so important to me. However, I wonder if this concept of all matter being constructed from atoms is one more reason some other schools of philosophy were threatened by his conclusions on nature. Rather than saying everything was made up of water, or fire, he bypassed both and posited that water and fire were composed of atoms. Thoughts?

Cassius: Thanks. I respect your scholarly analysis and your cautions to me on the Introduction above. I have read Austin and just reviewed Nikolsky's Abstract <https://www.academia.edu/11301216/Epicu…work_card=title>

But it seems to me they and most of the textual histories are far deeper than I am inclined to dig into. Records here on EpicureanFriends are satisfactory guidance from a master logician and communicator for my level.

The distinctions of types of pleasure you point out haven't concerned me that much for two reasons: most of the writers in ancient times up to the present, seem to have a motive, dare I say an ax to grind, and I usually take everything I read, including expert translations of texts supporting Epicurus as useful, with at least a small grain of salt. And secondly, my nature is to try to boil down complex thoughts to the simplest analysis I'm able to absorb so that I can structure a lifestyle I'm comfortable with.

I didn't read the section on the Introduction to the Plutarch's writing I posted above to be anything more than my discovery of an interpretation by a scholar, who among so many others was trying to make sense of Plutarch's thoughts. Since it looks to me that almost everything we attribute as Epicurus' thoughts are second hand except perhaps the few original records extent we are forced to accept those records as good faith efforts by other men who support Epicurean philosophy.

Cassius Thank you for posting the above. I found the Introduction from pps. 2-10 very clearly described the translation of Plutarch that followed. And in particular, at p.4 the following quote caught my attention regarding our discussion on last Sunday's zoom comparing and contrasting the two types of pleasures Epicurus said we experience."
“Pleasure, according to the Epicureans, is the highest good ; it is the ultimate aim of all our activities past, present, and future. It is of two kinds, pleasure of a settled state, and pleasure in motion. The settled pleasure is the same as the absence of pain ; indeed only those pleasures in movement are chosen that are incidental to the riddance of pain.

Such are the pleasures of the body. Pleasure of the mind is a reflection of these. Absence of perturbation (atarazia) corresponds to the settled pleasures of the body, and animation (euphrosyné) at the anticipation or remembrance of a pleasure in movement of the body is a pleasure in movement of the mind. Because it is not limited to the present but draws also on past and future, pleasure of the mind admits of greater stability and permanence than pleasure of the body ; it is thus the proper object of the philosophical life.”

Does anyone care to elaborate on this explanation?

I recently read that the Roman religious beliefs were accepting of other religious concepts. It was given that this was why the Greek religious (philosophical?) beliefs were followed as they were before and after the C.E. This adaptability then was posited as the reason that formerly pagan Romans eventually accepted Christian beliefs after they initially tried to stamp them out. Certainly the story is much more complicated than that, but perhaps it is a partial factor.

Comments please.

I've come across the following post questioning the attribution of VS 47 to Epicurus himself: VS 47" I have anticipated thee, Fortune, and entrenched myself against all thy secret attacks. And we will not give ourselves up as captives to thee or to any other circumstance; but when it is time for us to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who here vainly cling to it, we will leave life crying aloud in a glorious triumph-song that we have lived well."

SOURCE: https://www.epicurism.info/etexts/VS.html#**

Cassius (forgive the Bold type, I can't see how to change it) Regarding your comments about the Krauss book above, and physics for the layperson. His book is from 2013, and over the last 12 years there have been around 30000 reviews posted on Goodreads. That's 2500 per year. I doubt many lay people will ever read this book, and fewer yet among spiritualists. I often try to ask about the potential impact of anything presented as fact from the position of the layperson, also. Not sure it matters to ask about the impact of modern physics, when it comes to philosophical inquiry, though. As a basis for argument among the well educated, OK, fine, but for ordinary teaching and learning? Only the process of logical deduction (like in science) is important when discussing Epicurus, right?

I like this quote from Richard Powers who wrote that there is not anything that is “a matter of fact….there is only observing and humility." I think that is a fair request for the layperson as well as the experts in any field. And as for the foundations of physics, scientific discovery is never 100 percent certain, the scientists always challenge their community to disprove their conclusions, and that is the search for knowledge, isn't it?

And if I can add, paraphrasing Brian Greene; I come from the stuff of stars and to that state I shall return, and I'm happy with that.

Allow me a respectful comment on this thread. I think it is not helpful to compare and contrast the physical world hypotheses of the various ancient thinkers with our complex modern science of physics. Sometimes, an ancient thinker, by a fortunate coincidence, deduced and sensed a scientific principle later proven true by modern science. The fact that they hit on something that has now been proven to be true is a fortunate coincidence, does not diminish the power of their thinking, nor does it confirm who was correct or incorrect in their deductive powers about the physical world. In my view, Epicurus is worthy of consideration not as a soothsayer, but as a logician who bucked the tide of ancient metaphysics and religion, and developed a doctrine that many found to be a fulfilling lifestyle. As Inwood and Gerson write in The Epicurus Reader, The Four Point Cure (via Philodemus’ reporting) is: Don’t fear God, Don’t worry about death; What is good is easy to get, and What is terrible is easy to endure.

Do our learned friends here take issue with the following discussion by DeWitt? Please be specific and explain why the below is inapposite to this thread.

I ask because the posts discussed earlier are overwhelming me. The following comments and quotations in DeWitt seem to respond to the original query in this thread.

“EVIDENCES FROM SPECIFIC CONTEXT
In the extant texts of Epicurus the term prolepsis occurs four times
in a specific context. The first has reference to the divine nature and the
second and third to justice; the fourth applies to the concept of time.” P.146 DeWitt

“The discussion of the divine nature is found in the letter to the
youthful Menoeceus.44
It is there declared "that the pronouncements
of the multitude concerning the gods are not anticipations (prolepseis)
but false assumptions."” p.146

“The second and third examples of the term prolepsis are found in
Authorized Doctrines 37 and 38; the topic is justice. Just as in the case
of the divine nature, the first requisite is to discern the essential attribute
or attributes. It is Nature that furnishes the norm and implants in men
the embryonic notion or prolepsis of justice in advance of all experience.
Hence it is called "the justice of Nature," as in Doctrine 31: "The justice
of Nature is a covenant of advantage to the end that men shall not injure
one another nor be injured." Setting aside the idea of the covenant,
which is a separate topic,...” p.147

Rolf I hope I'm not abusing a topic, but I committed myself to reading DeWitt. DeWitt is hard reading for me, because he is constantly on both the offense and the defense.

Anyway, FYI if you choose to read more, in his chapter: VIII SENSATIONS, ANTICIPATIONS, AND FEELINGS, he gets into a discussion of Prolepsis at p. 143 under the topic of Anticipations of Epicurus' thought.

Long ago, my college speech prof put it simply, "Take your audience into account."