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I was assuming I wasn't dying at the end of the week as a shepherd.

Personally, I think being a student of Epicurus for a week, even his last week, is more intriguing than "being" Epicurus himself.

(Quote from Don) Which leads me to ask if a more difficult question would be: You can travel back in time for one week (and you're able to understand and read the language, have all the proper inoculations, etc.) for a specifically Epicurean excursion. When and where do you go? Do you spend a week: - sitting with Epicurus as a child, badgering his teachers about the origins of Chaos - learning with Epicurus in Lampsacus at the beginning of his philosophical work - traveling with Epicurus when he…

(Quote from Cassius) Ah! But how readily available would he be available that last week? How open to questions? How bedridden and in pain would be be? How much wine was he drinking to dull the pain? I can come up with all kinds of complications!

If I may: I'm trying to understand what long term pleasure I would be gaining if I chose to endure the pain of the last week of Epicurus's life. We know (or are told) he was writing letters up to his last day, or at least dictating them. But I've seen people go through kidney stones, and Epicurus's were evidently impacted and infected. Plus do I die at the end of the week or come back to my present self? Do I get to retain all of Epicurus's knowledge? Do I get to come back and write books in Epi…

Now we're getting somewhere! Your Menoikeus quote is an interesting one. I went back to see how I translated it: (Quote from Menoikeus, Don translation) The key word that gets skimmed over by a lot of translations is καρπίζεται (karpizetai) "enjoy the fruits (of that which brings the greatest pleasure (ἥδιστον hēdiston))" which is related to Latin carpo as in carpe diem "pluck/harvest the day". There's a literal sense of reaping the benefits, enjoying the fruits, of the most pleasurable experien…

(Quote from Cassius) No. Epicurus was concerned with our entire existence: the well-being of both our physical (σώματος) and mental (ψυχῆς) health. By contemplating and following his philosophy, we come to understand that all our decisions of which actions to choose and from which actions to flee are going to affect whether our physical, material health and well-being are to be maintained or not and whether our minds are to be troubled or not. That is the baseline for every decision and with "As…

(Quote from Cassius) Hmmm. That said, I can take pleasure in learning something new and I don't necessarily have to share everything I learn. The differences with this Epicurus week scenario is: Would I know I know something that wasn't available to me or my Epicurean friends in modern time? Or am I simply transported into Epicurus's body with no prior knowledge of my previous existence? If the latter, I'm not worried about sharing. In the former, I'm dealing with having important knowledge that…

(Quote from Cassius) The feeling of pleasure is personal and subjective. Choices are based on context.

(Quote from Cassius) No. The "limit" of pleasure is the removal of all pain, by definition. After that, it's all variation. For anyone. People are going to be doing different things to provide that variety.

Don't get "the height of pleasure" or "the highest pleasure" or "the greatest pleasure" mixed up with the "greatest good." The greatest good, summum bonum, telos *is* pleasure. But I don't want to derail this thread, but I want to stress that point.

I've often interpreted PD09 to mean that a pleasurable feeling is a pleasurable feeling. Condensing all or every pleasure implies that's possible... Or does it? That "if" could be doing the same work as in PD10. IF x was possible, then y. But IF x isn't possible, y isn't possible. Maybe PD09 is actually saying that all pleasures do differ from each other! PD09, 10, and 11 all start out with ει "if..." If every pleasure were condensed...If the things that produce the delights of those who are pro…

(Quote from Cassius) See my addendum edit to post 35. I'm not convinced PD09 says pleasures are the same.

(Quote from Godfrey) It warms my heart to see someone else want more details on a hypothetical and these are ones I hadn't even thought of! Well done, Godfrey !!

(Quote from Godfrey) To be clear, where Saint-Andre uses "joy" the Greek is hēdonē "pleasure." My take on that PD is that if the definition of the limit of pleasure is the removal of all pain (and after that it's just variety) it doesn't matter the amount of time, finite or infinite. If your pleasure glass is full, it's full. But I always go back to this commentary from Diogenes Laertius when talking about Epicurus's take on eudaimonia: (Quote from Diogenes Laertius, 10.121) It's always tricky w…

(Quote from Cassius) The Perseus Digital Library doesn't have interlinear texts, but their ability to click on every word to access the authoritative dictionaries is priceless.

(Quote from Godfrey) You mentioned that these are listed somewhere. To which text or PD were you referring? Sorry, I'm missing the reference.

I still have problems with the assumption of the "uneducated" shepherd. It makes them sound ignorant. They may not be formally educated, but that doesn't mean they weren't knowledgeable about their craft. Plus, shepherds I wouldn't think were just lying around on the grass for weeks at a time. They needed to tend the flocks, take care of the sheep giving birth in that season, shear the flocks or butcher the animals depending on what they were raising the sheep for, etc. The Romantic notion of bl…

(Quote from Cassius) I'll give you that, but I also find it interesting how many people in this forum have said that they were attracted to Epicurean philosophy because it resonated with what they were already thinking. Epicurus's philosophy has a lot of common sense and personal responsibility aspects to it. Plus, we're supposed to be modeling nature. The shepherd in the field is closer to nature than someone living in Athens. Granted, they may still be trying to propitiate the gods for good we…

In going back to Nate 's compilation and looking at the Greek construction of the "if" clauses, I think Hicks gives the proper paraphrase: (Quote from Hicks, PD09 (emphasis added)) It seems to me (check my Greek, please!) that the specific construction of PD09 falls under the unreal present as defined in that Wikipedia article and elsewhere: Present unreal conditions Unreal (counterfactual) conditions referring to present time are made with εἰ (ei) followed by the imperfect indicative in the pro…