April 20, 2024 - Twentieth Gathering Via Zoom - Agenda

Hi there... all Level 03's and above!

--- The next Twentieth Gathering is coming up this weekend, on Saturday...

Agenda for the evening:

1. Welcome

2. Reading for commemoration of Epicurus and Metrodorus

3. Notable Epicureans - Philodenes of Laodicea and Leontion

4. Open discussion

5. Tentative discussion topic: Psychological hedonism

--- Looking forward to seeing you there!

A bit more on "psychological hedonism":

Definition: "Psychological or motivational hedonism claims that only pleasure or pain motivates us." --Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"

Did Epicurus advocate "psychological hedonism"? Were Cicero, Plato, and Aristotle "psychological hedonists"? Does everyone do what they do because they believe it will bring them pleasure? What if anything is accomplished by discussing "psychological hedonism"?

These are some possible questions for what we can discuss on the 20th.

It was great seeing everyone last night -- we had a total of seven of us. Last night's meeting had lots of good discussion on psychological hedonism and reconciling happiness with the man on the rack.

Here are my notes (not very good), and are very brief, often paraphrased, and often did not write who said what:

--psychological hedonism: is a fact of human beings, but not a philosophy.

It is helpful to think about it so that you can have alignment with your motives and your telos (the final goal is to increase your own pleasure).

Epicurus teaches how to do psychological hedonism better.

How you think about hedonism depends on your definition of pleasure.

"Happy is he who knows the causes of things" - Virgil

felicity - fortunate

good hedonistic calculations

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Demand-side of pleasure seeking

Supply-side of pleasure seeking

Salt, fat, sugar.

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"The lonewolf dies, but the pack survives" -- Joshua quoted this, (but I don't have the name of the person who said this) -- regarding the need for community, connection, friendship...and think of all of the inventions such as the telephone, radio, TV, etc. and now Tik-toc -- and social media leads to addiction, but instead of taking a stoic way of discipline of trying to get rid of desire, it is better to instead use a hedonic calculus to find better ways to arive at fufilling our human needs...need to fight addiction with healthier choices.

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The body seeks pleasure but the mind seeks wisdom (at odds?)

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Worthwhile as "happy" on the rack?

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Happy - lucky, blessed, fortunate, fruitful, productive of pleasure and happiness, fair and fortunate.

For the opening reading, I read from A Few Days in Athens, the short section at the start of chapter one, when Theon meets Epicurus. I made this graphic with the help of text-to-image and further editing (not very good, some blurry aspects, and would look better if Theon was reading a scroll).