Posts by Cassius

I don't have any good links in English yet but this year's symposium in Athens Greece is coming up this weekend. Here's a PDF in Greek of the agenda - if someone knows a good way to get this in English please link it in this thread

https://epicuros.gr/Symposio/kombos16/16oS_Pr.pdf

Below is a clear English translation of the entire PDF you provided, preserving structure, titles, names, and sequencing. The translation is based directly on the uploaded document

AthensSeminar

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16th Panhellenic Symposium on Epicurean Philosophy

14–15 February 2026
Municipal College of Athens Theatre (Bodosakeio)
Paleopanagias Avenue, Kantza 15351, Attica
Information: epicuros.gr

Co-organizers:
Municipality of Pallini
Friends of Epicurean Philosophy: “Garden of Athens,” “Garden of Thessaloniki”

Saturday, 14 February 2026

17:00–17:30 Opening of the Symposium

Christos Aidonis, Mayor of Pallini

Greetings:
Leonidas Alexandridis, Representative of the Garden of Athens
Antonis Bilisis, Representative of the Garden of Thessaloniki
Dimitris Christakis, Representative of the Garden of Heraklion
Kyriakos Veresies, Representative of the Garden of Lysis (Cyprus)
International Friends of Epicurean Philosophy
Villy Pavlou, Director of the Municipal College of Athens

Encomium to Epicurus
(Lucretius, On the Nature of Things II.1–19 and IV.9–42)
Theodora Siarkou, Actress, Special Advisor on Gender Equality, Municipality of Pallini

The Timeless Message of Epicurus

17:30–18:45 Session A: Psychosomatic Health and Eudaimonia

Chairs: Christos Giapitzakis, Dimitris Liarmakopoulos

• Scientific Humanism and Psychosomatic Health – Christos Giapitzakis
• On Eudaimonia – Giorgos Gkonis
• In the Enemy’s Camp: Philosophy as Therapy of the Soul – Christos Koutsotassios
• The Garden as a Therapeutic Community: Epicurean Philosophy and the 12 Steps of Recovery – Kyriakos Veresies

18:45–19:00 Break – Poster Presentations

19:00–19:15 Artistic Interlude

Selections from Panhellenic Symposia of Epicurean Philosophy
Music: Athanasios Simoglou, Marios Strofalis, Manos Hadjidakis

19:15–20:30 Session B: Epicurean Approaches to the Contemporary World

Chairs: Takis Panagiotopoulos, Antonis Bilisis

• Irrationalism and Pseudoscience in Troubled Times: When the Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. An Epicurean Perspective on Our Contradictory Age – Stefanos Trachanas
• Epicurean Philosophy as an Antidote to the Absurdity of Our Time – Stratis Katakos
• Relational Dynamics within Groups through the Lens of Epicurean Philosophy – Evangelia Maritsa
• Epicurus in the Modern Era – Theodoros Georgiou

20:30–21:00 Discussion

Sunday, 15 February 2026

Epicurean Philosophy from Antiquity to the Present

10:00–11:30 Session C: The Epicurean Human Being Across Different Periods

Chairs: Leonidas Alexandridis, Kyriakos Veresies

• From the Musicality of Character to the Ethics of Music – Dimitris Christakis
• Gilgamesh: The Epicurean Human at the Dawn of History – Eleni Michopoulou
• The Enlightenment of the 18th Century and Epicurus – Leonidas Alexandridis
• Democracy through the Eyes of Epicurus – Takis Kalyvas
• Epicurus through the Eyes of a New Friend – Thanasis Lalas

11:30–11:45 Break – Poster Presentations

11:45–12:00 Artistic Interlude

Christianna Dimitriadou (song) – Giorgos Tagklis (guitar)

12:00–13:00 Session D: Epicurean Epistemology

Chairs: Evangelia Pitsikali, Dimitris Liarmakopoulos

• Criterion of Truth and Perceptual Capacity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence – Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos
• Epicurean Approaches to Language – Evangelia Pitsikali
• The Concept of Human Nature in Light of Evolutionary and Epicurean Theory – Vasilis Roukas

13:00–14:00 Session E: Epicurean Approaches to Physics

Chairs: Giorgos Gkonis, Anastasios Liolios

• The Physics of Epicurean Philosophy: Connections with Modern Physics – Anastasios Liolios
• The Epicurean Stance on the Interpretation Problem of Quantum Mechanics – Spyros Tserkis
• Chaos Theory in Human History and the Philosophy of Epicurus – Giorgos Froutzos
• Epicurus’ Contribution to Prigogine’s Thought and the Understanding of Physical Complexity – Ioannis Antoniou

14:00–14:30 Discussion with the Audience – Symposium Conclusions

Poster Presentations (Selected)

• Poems – Giorgia Siokou
• Epicurean Philosophy and Friendship – Efthymios Koliokotsis
• Free Will of Investors and Eudaimonia – Nikolaos Loukeris
• The Epicurean Philosophers of Dion – Theano Kalimeri

Speakers

(Full list translated faithfully from the original, including academic titles and affiliations)

[Speaker list continues exactly as in the original document.]

Happy birthday kochiekoch  and Alexa!

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I will be working to improve the text of the text-to-speech version of Bailey being used to generate the one based on Joshua's voice.

I am going to try to learn GIT so I can keep better track of changes and more easily accept suggestions. Given the current engine we are working with it's sometimes necessary to cut super-long sentences into multiple shorter ones, or slightly modify wording in way that the engine can handle without spazzing out. If you'd like to see that text and/or participate with improving the audio, the raw file is at this CODEBERG location:

Cookie monster!

If you know GIT feel free to suggest updates. If you don't know git, you can (1) click the "view source" button " < >" and it will show you the line numbers that need editing and then (2) submit changes either here in this thread or to me by private conversation.

I'll add other links as I find them but we need a media (audio) version of the Life of Epicurus, so this will start that process.

First, I have two versions of Book 10. The first and latest is Cyril Bailey translation. This is a first draft and I am going to work on improving it and will update this link.

(Status as of 2/9/26 15:45 The voice is better but there are still glitches in output.)

And here is an older version in a female voice which is less advanced but still very listenable. i need to check but i think this is the Hicks version:

In addition to the reference in Academic Questions, we have these additional citations to consider in contrasting Cicero's praise of Socrates to the Epicurean criticism of Socrates. The Epicurean criticism divides into at least two categories (1) Socrates' abandonment of the study of natural science, with all the many implications of that decision, and - related to that - (2) Socrates' assertion that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing

• Quote

  Nor was Pythagoras the inventor only of the name, but he enlarged also the thing itself, and, when he came into Italy after this conversation at Phlius, he adorned that Greece, which is called Great Greece, both privately and publicly, with the most excellent institutions and arts; but of his school and system, I shall, perhaps, find another opportunity to speak. But numbers and motions, and the beginning and end of all things, were the subjects of the ancient philosophy down to Socrates, who was a pupil of Archelaus, who had been the disciple of Anaxagoras. These made diligent inquiry into the magnitude of the stars, their distances, courses, and all that relates to the heavens. But Socrates was the first who brought down philosophy from the heavens, placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and obliged it to examine into life and morals, and good and evil. And his different methods of discussing questions, together with the variety of his topics, and the greatness of his abilities, being immortalized by the memory and writings of Plato, gave rise to many sects of philosophers of different sentiments: of all which I have principally adhered to that one which, in my opinion, Socrates himself followed; and argue so as to conceal my own opinion, while I deliver others from their errors, and so discover what has the greatest appearance of probability in every question. And the custom Carneades adopted with great copiousness and acuteness, and I myself have often given in to it on many occasions elsewhere, and in this manner, too, I disputed lately, in my Tusculan villa; indeed I have sent you a book of the four former days' discussions; but the fifth day, when we had seated ourselves as before, what we were to dispute on was proposed thus:—

  --Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, Book 5, paragraph 4

  
  
  Thats what I would contrast with the statements of Epicurus emphasizing natural philosophy as essential, and then Diogenes of Oinoanda
  
  Fr. 4
  
  ... [as is supposed by] some of the philosophers and especially the Socratics. They say that pursuing natural science and busying oneself with investigation of [celestial phenomena] is superfluous and unprofitable, and they do [not even] deign [to concern themselves with such matters.]

  Fr. 5
  Others do not] explicitly [stigmatise] natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge [this], but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?
  Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing [is] at no time apprehensible by sense-perception. And indeed [in no way would the upholders of] the view under discussion have been able to say (and this is just what they do [maintain] that [at one time] this is [white] and this black, while [at another time] neither this is [white nor] that black, [if] they had not had [previous] knowledge of the nature of both white and black.

  And the so-called [ephectic philosophers], of whom Lacydes [of Cyrene]...

  
  

Welcome to Episode 321 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 start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus. This week will will continue in Section 2 and our focus will include a statement by Varro in praise of Socrates, and possible Epicurean responses to it.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackam translation here:

• 
  

  

  Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

  
  

Quote from Matteng

to pursue philia and pleasure

In the end Epicurus is defining pleasure so broadly that in the end it's not really logically consistent to say "friendship and pleasure" given that. Friendship or anything else is either pleasurable (or leading to more pleasure than pain, even if some pain is required to obtain it) or there is no reason to pursue it.

The point I think needs to be made is that you can't just say that your whole goal is to avoid pain. If so, then you can just kill yourself. Your goal is to live pleasurably, which requires that you live, being alive being a good/pleasurable thing unless you are in a situation where you are guaranteed more pain than pleasure). Treasuring life in such a way is a positive activity.

I would say that yes there are ways of looking at life as "avoiding pain," especially if you want to emphasize that there are limitless ways to live pleasurably, and you want to emphasize the limitless aspect of it. But at some point you have to acknowledge the way words are used in your society, and if you just say "My highest goal is to avoid pain" in 2026 English, then the majority of people are rightly going to say that the only way to guarantee success in that is to kill yourself. Of course that's not what we mean, but if you're going to communicate clearly you have to make yourself understood.

Quote from DaveT

I tend to think the "eternal" Virtues of the

In my view, I would expect Epicurus to have been suspicious of anything claiming to be "eternal" by nature, since it's core physics that only the atoms have that attribute, and it appears that the gods only have it "by virtue" of their being able to replace their atoms over time without a time limit. So calling something "imperishable" would fit for the gods and be an allusion to god-like status, but would be allegorical in every other case, especially in terms of "values" or attitudes generated by humans.

And in those definitions Kalosyni cited my understanding of the latin is that "virtus" has a strong implication of "strength" as its core meaning, thus being associated with "men," and so "strength" can refer to any number of things that are effective toward a goal and wouldn't carry any unchanging moral meaning.

Given his view of the nature of the universe I would expect Epicurus' to have rejected the whole idea of morality being unchanging or eternal (meaning virtue with a definition that doesn't change over time, place, or person). The only thing given us by nature is the faculty of pleasure and pain and that seems to me to be almost completely dependent on context. Yes the human body reacts in certain ways to fire, for instance, so at some point fire applied directly to the skin is always going to be painful, but human interactions don't have that same kind of physical inevitability. Humans have "free will" and don't always react the same way.

This Sunday we will continue at line 146 of Book One of Lucretius and continue into 159 to the extent we have time.

EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side Lucretius

Multi-column side-by-side Lucretius text comparison tool featuring Munro, Bailey, Dunster, and Condensed editions.

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This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature; whose first rule shall take its start for us from this, that nothing is ever begotten of nothing by divine will.

Fear forsooth so constrains all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the cause of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search, both whence each thing can be created, and in what way all things come to be without the aid of gods.

1-159

For if things came to being from nothing, every kind might be born from all things, nought would need a seed. First men might arise from the sea, and from the land the race of scaly creatures, and birds burst forth from the sky; cattle and other herds, and all the tribe of wild beasts, with no fixed law of birth, would haunt tilth and desert. Nor would the same fruits stay constant to the trees, but all would change: all trees might avail to bear all fruits. Why, were there not bodies to bring each thing to birth, how could things have a fixed unchanging mother? But as it is, since all things are produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and comes forth into the coasts of light, out of that which has in it the substance and first-bodies of each; and ’tis for this cause that all things cannot be begotten of all, because in fixed things there dwells a power set apart.

Quote from DaveT

I googled ancient Greek Virtues and came away with those four.

Quote from DaveT

Each of us undoubtedly can add virtues we can aspire to. For instance, I would add Kindness, and Empathy.

I think those two observations are key. There's nothing magic about "virtue" or its classifications. But Epicurus was developing his philosophy in a cultural context in which certain words were used to refer to certain things, so he chose to work within the paradigm so as to be understandable. But the whole concept of virtue is meaningless except in reference to a goal, and the goal is not virtue itself unless you presume some god or other authority made it so. In our case the guidance of nature is to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, so whatever choices in reality and in total effect achieve that goal should be considered virtuous.

Quote from Kalosyni

Ultimately they can be summed up as "do no harm" both to others and to oneself. Non-harming brings about a good life free from troubles.

What? Define the goal purely negatively? If that were the case Epicurus could have stopped at "freedom from pain" without ever referring to pleasure (?)

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Welcome to Episode 320 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 start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus.

This week will will continue in Section 2.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackam translation here:

Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Wbernys I haven't had the opportunity to read this in full but thank you. In the meantime however i am not quite sure what you mean by the title "[Effort Post]"? Do you mean prototype, or "Work-in-Progress," or something else?

Episode 319 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is the Key To Happiness Found In Supernatural Causes and Geometry?"

I presume we can find on Academia but could you possibly a link?

Quote from mlinssen

Thomas rejects any and all reincarnation and afterlife.

Ok so that's a big one. So there is no eternal soul?

Quote from mlinssen

Anti-Judaism is a great distraction in Thomas.

Without being graphic, what's the general basis of this criticism. We know that Diogenes of Oinoanda is critical as well based on what appears to be general ethics, but what's the general basis of this criticism?

Quote from mlinssen

The Rock points to Yahweh and is described as dry and shallow, whereas the Acacias nilotica (one of 10 possible choices for the word 'thorn'!) points to the multi-deities of Egypt, and the singular worm to Apophis who indeed eats them every night when Ra travels through the sky with all other deities

So are the deities of Thomas the creators of the universe? Are they active in human affairs at all?

Quote from mlinssen

1. Rejection of religion
2. Rejection of the proverbial pot of gold
3. Indifference to gods
4. A stress on (autonomous!) movement and action
5. Rejection of everything outside, and sole focus on the inside
6. Rejection of reincarnation (e.g. 27, 89, 112)
7. Rejection of leaders, status

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Most of that sounds parallel but the references to "outside" and "inside" seem a little unclear (?)

Quote from mlinssen

I find the Epictetus idea of only caring for that which is in your control particularly strong in Thomas. Let's be honest, all ideas about any cosmogony are mere opinions.

As for that last part I would say that Epicurus would strongly disagree, so this would be a major point of difference.

Quote from mlinssen

Now about friendship. Thomas' Quest is a lonely, utterly solitary one where it is even strongly recommended to avoid everyone (64, 65).

Yes that sounds highly incompatible, and indicates something much more "dark" than I would say Epicurus would approve of. But to understand that would require more definition of whatever positive side Thomas was promoting, and I am not clear on his positive teaching at this point.

Quote from mlinssen

A last one: Thomas shows us how to become Son of Man, Child of the Human (106) - it is the closest to the father that we will ever come. Free of our 'garments', free from the yoke of Ego and Self, free from that hobble that limited our movement (23). Free from shame and fear. Free from our slaveowner the Ego. No rules, no plans, no paths. No worries, no virtues, no higher goals

This sounds like it's going in an eastern "nihilist" / ascetic direction that I'd say Epicurus would strongly disapprove of, because Epicurus is clearly promoting something that he believes qualifies as "happiness." What did Thomas promote?

(ADMIN NOTE) -- I moved two new posts over into this thread. For the time being let's keep the discussion of the Gospel of Thomas here in one place where people can best follow it. There is clearly some interest in this topic, but it's hard to assess the direction it will go, and we don't want a deep dive into this to disrupt the rest of the forum. This way, if some people want to simply "ignore" this thread, they can use the forium settings to do so.