Posts by Cassius

Quote from Patrikios

There is a miss-link. Under the Articles list, the entry for Christos Yapijakis: “Epicurean Philosophy, Modern Science, and Life”, links to a different article by Elli.

Thank you Patrikios I think that is fixed now.

The front page also now contains a list of the "Featured Podcasts" which focus on the core doctrines of Epicurus. This doesn't constitute a "Best Episodes" list, but it provides direct links to the podcasts we have done on the core aspect of Epicurean philosophy.

Today we've updated the home page to make it a lot easier to find the most important articles that we've posted over the years. Until today these were scattered over a wide variety of article and blog pages which made them very difficult to find. I've accumulated those that seemed to be most useful to new readers of the site and included them into a "Featured Articles" list that appears right after the chart of Epicurean Philosophy. If you have a favorite article which you'd like to see included in this list please let me know. Look for the section that begins with the following:

This is to start a thread on "Risk" and how it relates to the way people choose between actions depending on the pleasures and pains they expect to result from those choices. Obviously in Epicurean philosophy there is no Fate nor is there 100% necessity in all things, so predicting the likelihood of a particular action producing a particular result is going to be a part of every decision.

To some extent this consideration is not always stated consciously: when we evaluate whether to take an action, we often make unstated presumptions about the likelihood of obtaining the result. One person may think that a choice to pursue a particular pleasure is absurd because it is very difficult or impossible or highly risky for them. Another person in other circumstances may see the likelihood of obtaining the goal as virtually guaranteed. If the people discussing the choice do not state their Risk Assessment as a factor in their opinions, there can be a huge failure to communicate. Someone including but not identifying risk in their assessment of a choice may look like they are employing an absolute standard of desirability of something, when in reality they are saying that they don't think the goal is achievable, not that it is pleasurable or how pleasurable the goal might be.

So this post is to start a thread for discussion. This is a big topic, but among the issues to include over time would be:

1. What category does this topic fall under best? Prudence? Courage? For the time being I am placing it under Courage, but clearly prudence is involved as well.
2. What is the relationship between this topic and the natural/necessary desire classification? Clearly "easy to get" (to the extent that is a well documented consideration, which is debatable) relates to risk assessment.
3. There would seem to be a hierarchical approach to this topic. For an Epicurean we would probably emphasize eliminating fear of supernatural gods and reward or punishment after death, but as hard as those may be, it doesn't take 100% of our attention to deal with those. How do you calculate prudently here and now issues of lesser importance?
4. One source of information might be Philodemus' property management text. Also the discussion in Jefferson's "Head and Heart" letter.
5. How do we incorporate self-sufficiency and self-knowledge into this topic. We can think about, for example, how risk tolerant / risk averse we "are." What about how risk tolerant / risk averse we "should be?" Is risk tolerance a "given" for a particular person, or is it something that can and should be worked on and "improved?"
6. How do we articulate in words - clearly - what a "proper" level of risk tolerance is or should be?
7. There is for example the old Boy Scouts - "Be Prepared" motto.
8. Analysis Paralysis - Do some people avoid risk-taking because they don't want accountability, and they prefer to debate risk endlessly rather than force the issue?
9. Epicurus doesn't seem to focus as much on length of life (or pleasure) as he is about quality. Does that tell us something about Epicurus' view of risk? What conclusions can we draw from real-life Epicureans and how they made their choices?
10. We could factor in the difference in perspective on pleasure that is assumed to be the case between Cyreniacs and Epicureans (and here consider Sedley's take on the meaning of happiness in his article on Epicurean vs Cyreniac happiness
11. Is it true that there is possibly an "objective" percentage of risk from an activity that is applicable to "most people" (such as insurance companies use) but there is not a way to objectively weigh the pleasure or pain that comes from the activity and therefore the desirability of assuming that risk?
12. This issue clearly relate to the Benthamite "pushpin" question as to the interchangeability of pleasures, Why take a risk to obtain a particular pleasure if any old pleasure is equally interchangeable? (Is it?)

Full transcript

Episode 347 - If You Think True And False Are Impossible To Find, Then Don't Talk To Me About True And False

Lucretius Today PodcastEpisode 347 - If You Think True And False Are Impossible To Find, Then Don't Talk To Me About True And False

epicurustoday.com

Welcome to Episode 348 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue in Section 14 of Book Two.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here: Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

As we proceed through the end of Academic Questions these are the topics we expect to cover:

24. Lucullus's Extended Rebuttal of the Academic Doctrine, and His Concluding Appeal to Cicero (2:XIII)
25. Cicero Begins His Reply (2:XX)
26. Cicero Lays Out the Syllogism About Assent and Opinion (2:XXI)
27. Cicero Turns to Antiochus's Own Inconsistency (2:XXII)
28. Cicero Defends His Citation of the Ancient Philosophers (2:XXIII)
29. Cicero Adds Chrysippus and the Cyrenaics, Then Returns to Arcesilas and Zeno (2:XXIV)
30. Cicero Returns to Attacking the Senses (2:XXV)
31. Cicero Presses the Sun's Size and the Limits of Trained Perception (2:XXVI)
32. Cicero Turns the "Art" Argument Back on Lucullus (2:XXVII)
33. Cicero Multiplies Examples From Madness (2:XXVIII)
34. Cicero Attacks Reason and Dialectics: The Sorites Paradox (2:XXIX)
35. Cicero Presses the Liar Paradox (2:XXX)
36. Cicero Presents Carneades's Own Positive Doctrine of Probability (2:XXXI)
37. Cicero Distinguishes the Academic Position From Epicurus's (2:XXXII)
38. Cicero Defends Probability Against the Charge That It Cannot Support Memory or Action (2:XXXIII)
39. Cicero Answers the "Self-Refuting" and "Two Incompatible Propositions" Objections (2:XXXIV)
40. Cicero Broadens the Argument Beyond the Stoics (2:XXXV)
41. Cicero Reflects on His Own Position Among the Competing Schools (2:XXXVI)
42. Cicero's Survey of Disagreement Among the Natural Philosophers (2:XXXVII)
43. Cicero Presses the Problem of Providence and the Limits of Physics (2:XXXVIII)
44. Cicero's Survey Continues: The Soul, the Antipodes, and the Motion of the Earth (2:XXXIX)
45. Cicero Asks Which Natural Philosopher He Would Even Choose to Follow (2:XL)
46. Cicero Turns to Ethics: Even the Gods Are Disputed (2:XLI)
47. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part One (2:XLII)
48. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part Two (2:XLIII)
49. Cicero Weighs Zeno Against Antiochus on Virtue and the Happy Life (2:XLIV)
50. Cicero Catalogs the Stoic Paradoxes About the Wise Man (2:XLV)
51. Cicero's Climactic Debate Between Pleasure and Honor (2:XLVI)
52. Cicero Turns to the Canon of Truth, and Zeno's Hand (2:XLVII)
53. The Dialogue's Close (2:XLVIII)

Lucretius Today Podcast Episode 347 is now available: "If You Think True And False Are Impossible To Find, Then Don't Talk To Me About True And False”

Complete transcript is here:

I haven't had time to look at the links but I think this is a good direction. I don't think the statement that's often repeated to the effect that after all pain is eliminated pleasure is not increased but merely varied is intended to be a slam on variety as it appears to be being interpreted. ALL pleasure is pleasurable and therefore desirable, and the limitation is not that any pleasure is unpleasing in itself, but that some pleasures cost more in pain than they are worth. And as Epicurus says to Menoeceus life is desirable - which means living on IS desirable so long as we can do so with net balance of pleasure.

So that idea that pleasures of "variety" are somehow beneath the dignity of an Epicurean needs to be swept away as an artifact of Stoicism or Buddhism or worse.

Quote from Patrikios

However. Dr. Christos_Yapijakis included some info of that era on healing methods in his research paper, “Ancestral Concepts of Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine in Epicurean Philosophy”. Could any of the applications of Epicurean principles as ‘medicine for the mind’ be part of future discussions on this forum?

In addition to what Kalosyni said, Patrikios do you recall specifics from this paper or have a link to it so we can pull specific points and consider them?

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Welcome to Episode 347 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue in Section 13 of Book Two.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here: Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

As we proceed through the end of Academic Questions these are the topics we expect to cover:

24. Lucullus's Extended Rebuttal of the Academic Doctrine, and His Concluding Appeal to Cicero (2:XIII)
25. Cicero Begins His Reply (2:XX)
26. Cicero Lays Out the Syllogism About Assent and Opinion (2:XXI)
27. Cicero Turns to Antiochus's Own Inconsistency (2:XXII)
28. Cicero Defends His Citation of the Ancient Philosophers (2:XXIII)
29. Cicero Adds Chrysippus and the Cyrenaics, Then Returns to Arcesilas and Zeno (2:XXIV)
30. Cicero Returns to Attacking the Senses (2:XXV)
31. Cicero Presses the Sun's Size and the Limits of Trained Perception (2:XXVI)
32. Cicero Turns the "Art" Argument Back on Lucullus (2:XXVII)
33. Cicero Multiplies Examples From Madness (2:XXVIII)
34. Cicero Attacks Reason and Dialectics: The Sorites Paradox (2:XXIX)
35. Cicero Presses the Liar Paradox (2:XXX)
36. Cicero Presents Carneades's Own Positive Doctrine of Probability (2:XXXI)
37. Cicero Distinguishes the Academic Position From Epicurus's (2:XXXII)
38. Cicero Defends Probability Against the Charge That It Cannot Support Memory or Action (2:XXXIII)
39. Cicero Answers the "Self-Refuting" and "Two Incompatible Propositions" Objections (2:XXXIV)
40. Cicero Broadens the Argument Beyond the Stoics (2:XXXV)
41. Cicero Reflects on His Own Position Among the Competing Schools (2:XXXVI)
42. Cicero's Survey of Disagreement Among the Natural Philosophers (2:XXXVII)
43. Cicero Presses the Problem of Providence and the Limits of Physics (2:XXXVIII)
44. Cicero's Survey Continues: The Soul, the Antipodes, and the Motion of the Earth (2:XXXIX)
45. Cicero Asks Which Natural Philosopher He Would Even Choose to Follow (2:XL)
46. Cicero Turns to Ethics: Even the Gods Are Disputed (2:XLI)
47. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part One (2:XLII)
48. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part Two (2:XLIII)
49. Cicero Weighs Zeno Against Antiochus on Virtue and the Happy Life (2:XLIV)
50. Cicero Catalogs the Stoic Paradoxes About the Wise Man (2:XLV)
51. Cicero's Climactic Debate Between Pleasure and Honor (2:XLVI)
52. Cicero Turns to the Canon of Truth, and Zeno's Hand (2:XLVII)
53. The Dialogue's Close (2:XLVIII)

It is clear to me that the topic of this thread is a continuing issue that needs regular discussion. Here's the original quote from Bentham in which he compares music and poetry to push-pin. He never says that they are objectively of equal value, he is saying that at certain times and circumstances push-pin can be more valuable. But of course the reverse is true even under this analysis - at other times and circumstances music and poetry can bring much more pleasure than push-pin - and it would be ridiculous to say that the activities are always interchangeable.

Epicurus never makes such an interchangeability claim either. Both of them are highlighting that pleasure and pain are personal and subjective, and not something that have objective basis in a particular activity. There are in fact no such things as objective "pleasure units" or "pain units" that are inherent in particular objects and that everyone experiences the same at all times.

This is important because while bread and water CAN give the greatest pleasure to those who are hungriest, Epicurus never claims that they ALWAYS produce the greatest pleasure, and it would be ridiculous to argue that eating bread produces exactly the same effect in every respect as eating steak.

But that's what is implied in arguing that all you really need to experience the best life is bread and water. There are different perspectives invoked, and if you ignore the context of those perspectives you easily go from the profound to the ridiculous. To hold that "bread and water" produce the greatest pleasure and imply "always" in saying so is as wrong as saying "steak dinners produce the greatest pleasure with the implication that that is "always" the case.

Lucretius Today Podcast Episode 346 is now available: "Epicurean Defense of The Senses Against Plato's Cave Analogy" -

Complete transcript is here:

Episode 346 - Epicurean Defense of The Senses Against Plato's Cave Analogy

Lucretius Today Podcast Episode 346 -Epicurean Defense of The Senses Against Plato's Cave Analogy

epicurustoday.com

You are asking great questions Matteng and each of them require detailed response. This is quick start:

Quote from Matteng

Is it needed that the Cup „must“ be full ? I think we not only fill the cup with Pleasure but also and that can be an important point: adjust the size of the cup ?

No, nothing requires you to get the most pleasure you can out of life. Nature allows you free will and you can sit in a cave and eat bread and water for the rest of your life if you choose to. But most normal people would agree that that is not the highest and best pleasure, nor is it free from painful repercussions for most people - which means for most people it is far from the best use of your time.

As to the size of the cup, here I think you need to be careful of the limits of the analogy. What does the cup represent here but "the full extent of your life"" - the "cup of life" so to speak. You can work to make your life longer or shorter or deeper or shallower, and in general you should work to make it longer and deeper. But in the end "your cup" is "your cup" and the question of whether it is full applies to all sizes and types of vessels.

Quote from Matteng

Reflecting desires, gratitude and other Epicurean Virtues often aim at limiting or realistically measure the desires and with it the limit of the cup.

I always kick back at the idea of limiting "the desires" in general without being clear that what you are targeting to limit are those desires that bring more pain than pleasure because they cannot be satisfied. It would make little sense to target limiting your desire for "bread and water so long as you live" because that desire is relatively easy to satisfy and highly unlikely to bring more pain than pleasure. The limitation of desire issue is focused on the question of making sure you don't pursue things that will bring more pain than pleasure.

Quote from Matteng

So now maybe I am full of Pleasure but later when I am hungry do I lose the full cup of Pleasure ?

Just like Epicurus in his dying days you are not experiencing 100% pleasure. But what you do not lose is happiness, because happiness is viewed as having more reason for joy than for vexation - having a positive balance of pleasures over pains. Epicurus had that positive balance even in his last days, and as even the wise man on the wrack can have because he can consider his past experiences and current thinking and upcoming relief from pain (through death if necessary) as offsetting his present torture.

Quote from Matteng

What is more stable is ataraxia or satisfaction with the one life and when this is my limit of the cup than it would be full even when little pains/ desires come back. Than Epicurus had a complete full cup of Pleasure in his last days.

Stability is not the goal or the overriding factor! The supreme good is pleasure. Yes you would prefer your pleasure to be stable, but even if not stable you prefer great pleasure accompanied by some instability over small pleasure that is absolutely stable. Epicurus did not have stability of complete pleasure in his last days but he had the more pleasures than pains even while both were fluctuating.

Quote from Matteng

But maybe that would go in the Stoic direction and neglect the body. And maybe it is ok that the cup is not always full and one is not a full Sage ( another topic could be, does one need to be an Epicurean Sage for full Pleasure ? Again a Stoic Idea ? But for what than should someone aim at wisdom / Sagehood ? )

Seems to me that when people today in English use the word sage, and especially when they capitalize it, they are looking for a type of perfection in wisdom that Epicurus never focused on promoting. In fact he said that prudence is more important than philosophy, and friendship is the greatest tool for happiness, and neither of those require classification as "Sage." That's more of a Stoic concept, and even they viewed their "sages" as being more rare than a phoenix. The whole idea of looking for "full pleasure" is a very subtle concept which people are interpreting as an ideal of perfection and then quickly converting that ideal of perfection into the worst enemy that practical happiness based on pleasures outweighing pains ever had.

Thanks again for the comment Patrikios. I think now the other colors are updated so that those major boxes are now matching the respective theme colors. Would not have picked that up without your comment.

A related question on the issue of fullness-as-a-bucket-list (which I am rejecting) would be:

- How many years must a person live to have lived a "full life"? If Epicurus had died at 25, which for the sake of argument had allowed him to get his school started, would it still be appropriate to say he had lived a "full" life? A bucket-list-view-of-fullness would seem to require a certain minimum number of years, but I think most of us would agree that does not make good sense.

In fact as another thought in the same direction I would pose the following questions to anyone - whether or not they have read the first word of the Arenson book.

Probably the most famous reference to the term "fullness of pleasure" comes from the Oinoanda inscription.

I think people are interpreting it as if it as reference to having "lived a 'full' life" or somehow "having experienced 'full' pleasure."

Questions:

• Is there any justification in the rest of the inscription -- or anywhere else in the preserved Epicurean texts -- for the reading that life is "full" because it meets some kind of list of specifice experiences?
• Where if ever has Epicurus or any leading Epicurean given a specific "list" of things that have made their lives "full"?
• What does that kind of "full" even mean, except as the most ambiguous of expressions?
• Is an ambiguous expression like that something you'd expect an Epicurus who values clarity to generate?

I don't recall that line of reasoning anywhere - and I suspect it's not there for the reasons cited to Matteng.

It's far more likely that any reference to fullness/completeness came about as a reference to the Platonic challenge that pleasure cannot be full or complete, which is the background that Arenson is excavating from Philebus and The Republic.

Thanks for this reply Matteng because when I see your reaction I see that there is more I need to say -

Quote from Matteng

Fullnes of Pleasure makes sense for me. It is not about avoiding all pain but to fullfill necessary bodily and mental desires. An unfullfilled necessary desire is a pain.

Only problem could be vulnerability ?
The vessel doesn‘t stay full, would a small pain destroy the fullness ?

When getting old we become more ill, is there fullness than even possible ?

Otherwise yes pain is a signal and motivation to get back to the fullness of Pleasure and maybe thats a reason why Epicurus advices to reduce the desires to natural/necessary, there is then a smaller vessel to fill or it will become easier/faster full.

Interesting is the role of mental pleasure vs short bodily in this subject. Epicurus memory if philosophy with friends made is whole life to a happy life in his last days. How full / complete was his Pleasure in his last days ? Overshadowed his Eudaimonia his bodily pains ? How long is that possible ? I think it supports the enduring of pain and resilience.

I read the way you are applying fullness and I think I can see exactly why you are thinking in that direction.

But I don't think that's the direction to think at all!

If you'll dig with us back into the Platonic origin of the "full/complete" problem, what I'd like to suggest is that you're using fullness/completeness in a very different way.

And again I can see why you would - your saying it just highlights to me that there is a problem here.

There's no single definition of a "full life." Or a "complete life." Does someone who lives his or her whole life and never have children fail to have a "complete" or " full" life? You could ask that question about any pleasure -- and the answer is pretty obviously -- NO - Nature doesn't have a checklist that you must experience each and every possible pleasure in order to have a complete life.

Plato's objection was not that there's a master list of Pleasures that has to be reached in order to be complete. His objection was that NO SET of pleasures can even begin to be thought of as complete because they are always "IN PROGRESS" -- they are a process not a destination.

So I don't think at all that we should think that "COMPLETENESS OR FULLNESS OF PLEASURE" means that there is a list that is to be fulfilled.

And certainly NOT a list that is composed of only "necessary" desires. Or of any list of necessary desires. Food and water and air are "necessary" -- but for how long? Must they be obtained for a certain number of years before one's life is "complete"? Again I would say no.

The natural and necessary classification is a tool for allowing you to predict the likely pain/pleasure result of any choice. It's not a list that says "if you subsist on bread and water for ten years your life is complete" or anything approaching that.

So thank you for posting that and describing your thought process.. It should have been obvious to me that someone would think this and that it needed to be "headed off at the pass."

I don't think fullness or completeness of pleasure has anything to do with the natural/necessary classification, or with any list of pleasures whatsoever.

The point that pleasure can be complete applies both to any individual pleasure, and to the concept of pleasure as a whole. The boundary of pleasure is pain, just as the boundary of an atom is the void. Pleasure is not "incomplete" any more than an atom is incomplete.

The last part of PDO3 - "Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once."

From the perspective of questioning whether pleasure is being vs becoming, Pleasure is always being (complete), and not becoming (in progress and therefore incomplete) I'd say the same thing about pain.

It apppears to me from the Platonic background that the whole being/becoming vs complete/incomplete analysis is just a Platonic word game that - once understood - should be rejected.

This is being discussed most intensely in the Kelly Arenson book thread, so as we read further into that hopefully we'll either confirm this viewpoint or refine it in a different direction.

I see what I failed to do on Inspire Green. I think I've fixed that now, and I will fix the other Inspire colors too. Unfortunately the Lucrretius Today box probably stays blue, but the rest of it should work well