Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from Don

Saying something like Pleasure is The Goal takes in the full spectrum of pleasure writ large.

No doubt; the Hegemon does not mince words:

HΔONHN EINAI TEΛOΣ

"The goal is hēdonḗn" (10.11).

I go with "pleasure", here, but if there were another noun I'd experiment with as a substitute for "pleasure" (from hēdonḗ), I think I'd entertain the idea of "sweetness", as in, "the sweet life" or "living sweetly". It also compliments the gastronomical approach of the Epicurean school. I might also consider "delight" and "delights", but both of those import their own, cultural nuances.

We can also leave "hedone" untranslated (as we often do with "ataraxia"), but I'm not sure that this approach would be helpful for new students reading in English. I think anything besides "pleasure" (in English) is more likely to cause confusion about "the goal" than to prevent it.

“If these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?””

Committing a crime in the name of self-preservation. Full stop.

Quote from Matteng

Is/Can Aponia be part of Eudaimonia?

Definitely!

In two places, the supreme pleasure of the gods is referred to as παντελῆ εὐδαιμονίαν (pantelē eúdaimonían) "complete happiness" (Laértios 10.116) and τελείαν εὐδαιμονίαν (teleían eùdaimonían) “perfect happiness” (On Piety 13), so there are equivalencies between "happiness", "pleasure", and "blessedness". "Complete happiness" (as of the gods) does require painlessness (aponía).

In the Epistle to Menoikeús, Epíkouros also writes that "those necessary [desires] are [instrumental] to happiness" (10.127), being the reduction of hunger, thirst, and cold.

Quote from Matteng

In my view Epicurus reached Eudaimonia the happy life but he had extreme pain, so no aponia, or do I miss something ?

I agree. I think his reconstructed sayings, and his Last Will document that he was at least, generally happy when he died. "Even if the wise were tortured on a rack, they would be happy" (Laértios 10.118). It was inevitable, and, like Metródōros, he accepted it as any other natural event.

He was definitely "happy" in the general sense of neither grieving nor complaining, and he "expired undauntedly" (On Death 39.15), but I wouldn't say that he was enjoying "perfect happiness" or "pure pleasure" just because his mind was untroubled. Ataraxia is just half the formula.

I formatted (and greatly expanded) the A-B-Cs of the "Epicurean Verses for When You're..." retort I made to the "Promises of God" section in the appendix of most Bibles, and put it online.

I'm constantly shifting things around and exchanging verses per my moods; there are at least a few, uncommon, catchy one-liners from fragmentary texts that I've enjoyed.

A true masterpiece.

Quote from Don

Just saw this recitation of the beginning of the Iliad on YouTube. Imagining this as an ancient rhapsode performing at a banquet is pretty easy. I found it intriguing.

I was personally blown away by this video. I'm sharing this without any commentary on the figure reciting the verse. Like I said ... totally surprised (refreshingly surprised). Skip to 0:59.

For the record, that's a direct quote from Plátōn's Tímaios.

I didn't quite appreciate it until I read into it a bit, but the arguments for Creationism (or however it's been dressed-up for a new audience) have gone unchanged for millennia.

Meanwhile, the fossil record has expanded every day for decades.

"My eyes were made by God!" said the person wearing glasses.

Imagine being more impressed by psychics than physics.

Welcome! Your work will be very welcome here.

Question for math friends:

1. Given any, one planet in the observable universe, what are the chances that this planet has both (1) exactly one moon, which is also (2) the exact same apparent size as that planet's parent star?

Another question along those lines:

2. Under what conditions could ancient humans have measured the sun without the moon?

I'm ultimately getting to this thought experiment:

3. If you're a humanoid alien on an Andromedan planet with no moon, once a sage from your species apprehends the relationships between local triangles, what observations need to be made (or what technologies need to be invented) to allow the them to make accurate, celestial measurements?

Quote from ReiWolfWoman

We can glean what he valued for himself and his friends [...] but a cost-benefit analysis he would advise a ruler to perform

This is one of the primary differences in the flavors of ancient Epicurean Philosophy versus contemporary Utilitarianism, both being hedonistic, but with different emphases on the happiness of an association of friends versus the collective happiness of the masses. We'll probably find tremendous overlap with both, since the flavor of Epicurean hedonism understands that one's own happiness depends upon the cultivation of friendship and long-term security in society. To my mind, both Hérmarkhos and Diogénes of Oìnóanda (at least) convey the importance of contributing to a stable society. Observing peaceful relations and acting justly are fundamental to Epicurean ethics.

I'm curious about the phrasing you got. I might have it wrong and need to review.

In KD35, I have "Οὐκ ἔστι τὸν λάθρα τι κινοῦντα..."

I based my translation of Book 10 on this text from Perseus.

Quote

"Who that is wise practices that which the laws forbid, knowing that they will escape notice? A simple-minded accusation is easy to pass." (Usener 18, from Against Kolṓtēs.)

Epíkouros stops short of saying, 'don't ever break the law'.

This reflection seems poignant in times of lawlessness and collapse, when "someone establishes a law" that "no longer possesses the nature of the just" (KD 37), or when many "things appear not to fit the definition of what is considered to be just" (KD 38).

When this is the case, I think the wise person would continue using comparative analysis to determine which options are most profitable (including potential law-breaking). In the case of betraying a friend versus breaking the law, the suffering one commits to the soul is greater with betrayal:

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"And so the wise tortured on a rack [suffer] no [more] pain than the torture of a friend, and in defense of them will die. For if one betrays a friend everything through one’s life will become frustrated by doubt and strained" (Vatican Sayings 56-57)

Quote from Cassius

I wonder if our much younger members here see any of this and whether they have any comment on whether they think the claimed renewed interest in Catholicism is overblown. Eikadistes ? Charles ?

I do not believe that we are on the brink of a 'Fifth Great Awakening' of American Christianity. If anything, the general trend right now is a line from Catholicism to astrology.

I think it's political context. I can think of a handful of minor tweaks that would radically change the tone of this entire dialogue. Imagine if J. D. Vance converted to the Orthodox Church. Imagine if Pope Francis elected an Israeli to the Papacy. Imagine if Jeffrey Epstein was born Catholic.

It looks like its primarily a compilation of Epicurean core texts and related texts. (It looks like the editor had a similar intention in mind as did I with The Hedonicon). Klavan also includes a few interesting selections of Newton, Hume, Adams, Jefferson, and Maxwell.

I don't love the following description by Pseudo-Ploútarkhos, but as is translated by Goodwin, it presents "burden" (usually translated as "weight" or "mass") as "gravity:

Quote

Those bodies acknowledge these three accidents, figure, magnitude, and gravity. Democritus acknowledged but two, magnitude and figure. Epicurus added the third, to wit, gravity; for he pronounced that it is necessary that bodies receive their motion from that impression which springs from gravity, otherwise they could not be moved. (Book 1, Chapter 3)

I don't know if that's accurate about Dēmókritos because Pseudo-P. was writing something like 800 years or so after him, so his (whomever he was) reviewing these ideas is like me writing a biography about Genghis Khan, and then people in 3800 CE using me as a source; too-far removed.

Still, I found the phrasing interesting. Just an anecdote.

I've been wondering lately if there might be an innate correspondence between the three qualities and the atomic motions, being falling, recoiling (10.44), and swerving. Epíkouros writes to Hēródotos that the βάρους (bárous) "burden" (so I'm translating to avoid any modern ideas) justifies why any one particle falls (10.61). I don't find it being directly expressed, but I imagine that the μεγέθους (megéthous) "magnitude" partially determines the manner in which any two particular rebound off of each other, as the case when particles of different, atomic sizes collide.

I've never been conceptually satisfied with my own model of "the swerving", but I toy with the idea that the particular σχήματος (skhēmatos) "scheme" of a particle results in a swerve ... I personally imagine the schemes as being like the different shapes in Tetris and the rotating blocks skipping spaces when you turn them as being a crude example of a kind of lateral swerve.

That may be totally off, but it's also a concept for which we have the least, thorough documentation. just to note those instances, so far as I know, we've got Philódēmos' On Signs (36.12-13), Cicero's On Ends of Good and Evil (where a character dismisses the swerve as an "arbitrary fiction"), Diogénēs of Oìnóanda's inscription in refuting Dēmókritos (fr. 54, col. 3, no. 6), and Lucretius (Book II). So, anyway ... I've been thinking "Tetris" lately with regards to the unpredictable wiggle.

Quote from wbernys

Quote from Eikadistes

Someday, I would like to fatten-up The Hedonicon with the works of Philódēmos

Certainly would be awesome. I mainly want Torquatus (And Velleius) speech included and some of the english to be more clear and a little less archaic (PD6 in hedonicon is a example where i struggled to understand it). Got the best of Epicurus by classic caves. Like that the most.

That's really perceptive, and I appreciate you noting that one, in particular, because of all of the Doctrines, I find 6 to be unquestionably the most mis-translated, due to the language. You're right, it does need an update, though I caution that other translators are making compromises.

(This might warranty another thread, but...)

Compared against any other doctrine, Six has been translated with more difference than any. You'll find the most differences with each translators treatment of 6. I found that each translator makes some compromise at some point in negotiating with (what seems to me to be) unique phrasing, so, the awkward phrasing that you notice is definitely intentional with that one at this point.

Of all available translators, I personally find Makridis (2005) to have rendered a translation of Doxa 6 that seems to reflect the semantics most authentically, so I used that more as a model:

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“This <human ability to lead a good life> originally became possible by nature and for the sake of imparting courage in human beings <who were then living in a pre-social condition.> And this is the natural origin and principle on which all authority—be it even kingship—is based. And it is from the same <natural propensities> that a human being is able also to arrange a good and pleasant life.”

I like him because he adds some commentary, particularly noting "kingship" as being a translators addition, not authentic vocabulary. The rest seem content to invoke modern political language:

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“As for the assurance of safety from the attacks of men, by virtue of the nature of political dominion and kingly power this is a good thing, no matter by whose aid one is able to procure it." - De Witt, Epicurus and His Philosophy 79 (1954)

“Political rule and kingly power being what they are, it is a good thing to feel secure in human relations no matter through whose agency one is able to attain this." - De Witt, St. Paul and Epicurus 187 (1954)

“The natural good of public offce and kingship is for the sake of getting confdence from [other] men, [at least] from those from whom one is able to provide this.” - Inwood & Gerson (1994)

“That natural beneft of kingship and high offce is (and only is) the degree to which they provide security from other men.”- Anderson (2004)

“It is a natural beneft of leadership and kingship to take courage from other men (or at least from the sort of men who can give one courage.” - Saint-Andre (2008)

“In order that men might not fear one another, there was a natural beneft to be had from government and kingship, provided that they are able to bring about this result.” - Mensch (2018)

“There was some natural good in leadership and kingship for the purpose of establishing mutual confdence among people, any time someone is thereby able to do so.” - White (2021)

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There's this trend you'll notice them doing where they present two, parallel, sociopolitical words ("political rule and kingly power", "public office and kingship", "kingship and high office", "leadership and kingship", "leadership and kingship"), but those words are not in the original text. Instead, we find a few "to be's" a few infinitives, and frustratingly ambivalent pronouns.

This is a great one to dive into the language for personal study.

To mention a point that Don always champions, the Doctrines should be taken as a whole. While KD6 seems awkward on its own, it makes a lot more sense when you contextualize it against KD5 (you've gotta be peaceful and practical about pleasure), and KD7 (fame usually isn't practical).

That said, thanks again, and I'll definitely review for the sake of fluidity.

Quote from m.dango

I have a lot of reading to do! 😅

Great call on Living for Pleasure! Professor Austin pops in here every now and then. The crew here with LucretiusToday podcast interviewed her about the book. You can find it here.

Someday, I would like to fatten-up The Hedonicon with the works of Philódēmos, which comprises a large volume of existing Epicurean literature, but, in the meantime, you can find those works in the library at TWENTIERS.COM, along with some attempts at rescuing fragments.

Welcome! Here, you will do well to tarry ... and all that.