I look forward to reading it. FWIW, For some reason the link doesn't seem to work on my phone, but works fine in a browser. Probably just me but if anyone else runs into that Don might like to know.

Thanks for posting these Don ! I've been meaning to read this for quite some time as well, but still haven't got around to it.

One minor detail (correct me if I'm wrong): looking at the dates it appears that Aristotle died after Epicurus was born. Aristotle still would have been an aging (and soon, dead) superstar in relation to the young Epicurus however.

I feel the sense of "domination" of all of history, and the undercurrent of Christianity continues with the use of BC/AD. I would say we all need to stand up for freedom from religion by using neutral year signifiers. Unfortunately "HE" may be too big of a shift for many people, and of course Christians would not go for it at all. (although I can image that people of other faiths would support it).

And there at times seems to be little use of BCE and CE -- Wikipedia doesn't use it.

Quote

Style Guides on Religious Neutrality

The choice may be up to you and your style guide. The 17th edition of the "Chicago Manual of Style (published in 2017) suggests that the choice is up to the writer and should be flagged only if the customs of a specific field or community are being violated:

Quote

"Many authors use BC and AD because they are familiar and conventionally understood. Those who want to avoid reference to Christianity are free to do so."

In terms of secular journalism, the 2019 version of the Associated Press Stylebook uses B.C. and A.D. (using the periods); as does the fourth edition of the UPI Style Guide, published in 2004. The use of BC and BCE is commonly found in articles concerning academic and lay historical research—including ThoughtCo.com—but not exclusively.

Despite rumors to the contrary, the entire BBC has not dropped the use of AD/BC, but its Religion & Ethics department, which prides itself on providing religion-neutral stories, has:

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"As the BBC is committed to impartiality, it is appropriate that we use terms that do not offend or alienate non-Christians. In line with modern practice, B.C.E./C.E. (Before Common Era/Common Era) are used as a religiously neutral alternative to B.C./A.D."

https://www.thoughtco.com/when-to-use-ad-or-ce-116687

(Anyway, just had to throw this in).

Don, looking forward to reading your notes on Nichomachean Ethics!

I, too, have long been an enthusiast of the Human or, as I prefer, the Holocene Calendar. It has the feel of a very deep sense of time.

If the ancients had used it more themselves I would be perfectly willing to us A.U.C. Unfortunately for the Roman substitute I am not very good at remembering sequences of consuls.

Ab urbe condita

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to searchThis article is about the year numbering system. For the book, see Ab urbe condita (Livy).

Antoninianus of Pacatian, usurper of Roman emperor Philip in 248. It reads ROMAE AETER[NAE] AN[NO] MIL[LESIMO] ET PRIMO, 'To eternal Rome, in its one thousand and first year.'

Anno ab urbe condita, rubricated and with a decorated initial, from the medieval Chronicle of Saint Pantaleon.

Ab urbe condita (Latin: [ab ˈʊrbɛ ˈkɔndɪtaː] 'from the founding of the City'), or anno urbis conditae (Latin: [ˈan.no̯‿ˈʊrbɪs ˈkɔndɪtae̯]; 'in the year since the city's founding'),^{[note 1]} abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome.^[1][2] It is an expression used in antiquity and by classical historians to refer to a given year in Ancient Rome. In reference to the traditional year of the foundation of Rome, the year 1 BC would be written AUC 753, whereas AD 1 would be AUC 754. The foundation of the Roman Empire in 27 BC would be AUC 727.

Usage of the term was more common during the Renaissance, when editors sometimes added AUC to Roman manuscripts they published, giving the false impression that the convention was commonly used in antiquity. In reality, the dominant method of identifying years in Roman times was to name the two consuls who held office that year.^[3] In late antiquity, regnal years were also in use, as in Roman Egypt during the Diocletian era after AD 293, and in the Byzantine Empire from AD 537, following a decree by Justinian.

Quote from Don

That section also shows that Aristotle is NOT a fan of the emotions, Greek παθη pathe. Epicurus includes the pathe (feelings, emotions) of pleasure and pain as part of his Canon of Truth! Aristotle simply says they can’t be trusted and young people get led astray by them. The two couldn’t be farther apart!

Starting around 1095b, Aristotle appears to stake his flag against pleasure as the Good:

“The common run of people and the most vulgar identify [the highest good] with pleasure, and for that reason are satisfied with a life of enjoyment…a life suitable to cattle.”

LOL! Oh, a life of enjoyment! Perish the thought!

He goes on to say that there are really three notable kinds of life:

• The life of enjoyment/pleasure
• The political life (remember, life in service to the polis)
• The contemplative life

However, Aristotle continues to refine his definition of the good and says “the good is a man’s own possession which cannot easily be taken away from him.” It seems to me something could not be more one’s own than one’s feelings of pleasure (and pain).

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This part reminds me of one of the things that I think is most important to stress early and often: that "pleasure" is a sweeping term that embraces every possible experience in life that we find desirable in itself. If it is desirable in itself, it is pleasurable. Once it is established that we are not just talking about immediate sensory stimulation it seems to me that the superiority of the Epicurean position is much more clear. Why would anyone do anything if they do not receive benefit from it, and what is "benefit" if not pleasure (under the Epicurean perspective in which all feelings are either pleasure or pain).

I think if I were in a debate with Aristotelians or any of them, that's a point I would want to stake out almost immediately before going in any other direction.

Very good point!

Even Christianity ultimately grounds itself in the desirability of eternal life, and that surely means finding pleasure in the reward. I grant that religions or viewpoints (Buddhism, etc?) that seem to call for the extinguishment of individuality or personality do appear to be elevating something other than the experience of pleasure as the goal, but those seem to me to fit in the "better to never have been born" category which I would argue most sane people would reject out of hand (and surely Epicurus rejected that too).

Once we make clear that "pleasure" is a sweeping term that embraces every form of desirable experience (and I think Epicurus is very clear about this) then it seems to me that setting "pleasure" as the goal of life is a compelling argument that is hard to reject by anyone except by rejecting life itself.

Yes, I agree with your observation. But for purposes of persuading those of them who may be "well-constituted" or "well-disposed" towards us, I think we probably have different paths of argument for the different groups.

Most every Judeo-Christian I have ever run into, if you push them hard enough, admits that they are following the religion because they want eternal happiness for themselves and their friends, not just because they feel a general duty to be religious.

But for those viewpoints (and I think true Stoicism fits into this, if their ultimate viewpoint is the merging of individual consciousness into divine fire) that seem to contemplate the eventual loss of individuality, I would say they are in a much worse place and would require a different approach for any hope of success in opening their eyes. Lots of them are superficial, but to the extent they really understand their viewpoints and buy into it, they are much worse lost.

So I guess I am saying I see the root of our attachment to life as being our love of it and our desire not to lose it. For this purpose I'm abstracting this life and any other life and giving them the benefit of the doubt that if someone loves "life" then they are open to seeing how short it is and how best to live it.

But for those who wish they had never been born or wish to cease to exist, and buy deeply into that argument, seems to me that's a much harder nut to crack.

Quote from Don:

Quote

Starting around 1095b, Aristotle appears to stake his flag against pleasure as the Good:

“The common run of people and the most vulgar identify [the highest good] with pleasure, and for that reason are satisfied with a life of enjoyment…a life suitable to cattle.”

LOL! Oh, a life of enjoyment! Perish the thought!

He goes on to say that there are really three notable kinds of life:

• The life of enjoyment/pleasure
• The political life (remember, life in service to the polis)
• The contemplative life

Could we correctly say that Epicureanism actually combines:

a) a life of enjoyment/pleasure

-AND-

c) the contemplative life (contemplating the nature of things)

Quote from Don

The thought that comes to mind is: is it our responsibility to convert or to simply evangelize. I don't think those are the same thing. Epicurus seemed to hold a dim view in some regards of the hoi polloi. He made his philosophy available but he wasn't handing out leaflets and screaming on the street corner.

Absolutely right. I am not sure that the Epicureans thought we have a "responsibility" to do either one. My reading of Lucretius and Diogenes both is that they had a benevolent general interest in "getting the word out" for those who were inclined to listen, so that might be akin to "evangelizing." But I definitely don't think they saw a responsibility to "convert" and they specifically seemed to acknowledged that not everyone was "well constituted" (seems I remember that in both Oinoanda and in Diogenes Laertius) so I bet they were clear-eyed about not converting everyone.

However it enhances our happiness to have more friends, and helps make us more secure if we at least don't have enemies (unnecessarily have enemies I guess I should say), so I see that as the primary way to describe the motivation to talk about the philosophy with others.

So definitely I would not scream on a street corner. Would I hand out leaflets (which appears to be exactly what the Roman Epicureans were doing)? Probably so, but I would be sure i did it unobtrusively and just mainly made them available.

Quote from Kalosyni

Could we correctly say that Epicureanism actually combines:

a) a life of enjoyment/pleasure

-AND-

c) the contemplative life (contemplating the nature of things)

I would say that the way to express that would have to be that Epicureanism teaches the pursuit of a life of enjoyment/pleasure, of which the pleasures of contemplation are pleasures and therefore are included in the goal of enjoyment/pleasure.

The word "and" is pretty easy to read as "separate goals" in that context and I would think that implication would need to be avoided.

Quote from Cassius

So I guess I am saying I see the root of our attachment to life as being our love of it and our desire not to lose it. For this purpose I'm abstracting this life and any other life and giving them the benefit of the doubt that if someone loves "life" then they are open to seeing how short it is and how best to live it.

But for those who wish they had never been born or wish to cease to exist, and buy deeply into that argument, seems to me that's a much harder nut to crack.

I just posted about both getting help of a therapist and finding more meaning in life, in this thread:

Post

Overcome Suicidal Ideation and Find Greater Meaning in Life

Occassionally on this forum and on the podcasts the topic of suicide, and also chosing to end one's own life when terminally ill, etc. has come up. And I feel the need to bring up and share some "therapeutics".

Given that we believe that we only have this one life to live (no-rebirth, no second chance) this means that ending one's life is rarely ever chosen unless out of great necessity ( @Cassius I know there are sources for this in Epicurean writings but can't remember off hand).

Ideally I…

Kalosyni

October 14, 2022 at 10:19 AM

Thanks Don , interesting reading!

I really appreciate having your distillation of the material: I intend to read at least this much Aristotle someday, but somehow that someday keeps slipping further into the future. Obviously, the perfect time to read it will be at that time when the present is the mean between the past and the future, weighted toward the future because there is the potential for more people to live in the future than have lived in the past, and therefore the median in time of the combined intellect of the human race will likewise be weighted toward the future. Hmmm, some quick mental calculations indicate that that median point will be well after I'm dead! Maybe I shouldn't weight it! I'll have to find an Aristotelian to help me figure out what to do!