Posts by Cassius

"At first I thought, well he never experienced a god, so how could he say he knows of them from prolepsis."

This sounds to me as though you are not considering a prolepsis to be an experience. That's an issue we talk about regularly without much to work with, but at the very least: To the extent that prolepsis processes not only the five senses but also the feelings and also "images," I think some would maintain that Epicurus regarded "knowing them from prolepsis" as indeed "experiencing" them.

Bryan would you say that differently?

Just to be clear it looks like the outside box is you talking DaveT e, and not quoting Titus? I can fix that if you can't but I don't want to change it if indeed that outside box is somehow from Titus.

Also Titus this chat exchange has me thinking about something that I think needs to be a focus of the forum in the future - and it's an aspect of prolepsis.

Taken separately, I think the data in the chat you presented is largely correct. As I said it's probably stated more clearly than many of us can do ourselves. That makes the information in the post a valuable data point.

But the value of that data point is limited if we can't integrate it into a bigger picture of how and why it fits into the philosophy as a whole. I see this problem as analogous to what prolepsis itself does - it's a faculty that takes individual data points out of an otherwise overwhelming background noise, allows us to recognize patterns, and helps us apply those patterns to evaluate future experiences.

Ultimately, the biggest pattern we need to be concerned about is the philosophy as a whole. Saying "I understand what Chatgpt just wrote about anticipations" accomplishes next to nothing if we have the ability to fit it into the big picture and then use that picture.

I'll use another example I think is far more of a problem: Reading the letter to Meneoeceus and seeing "By pleasure we mean the absence of pain" means absolutely nothing unless we can intelligently fix that into the big picture. Failing to see that the letter is about happiness, and that happiness is about pleasure, but taking that part out of that context as if it can be taken alone converts the entire philosophy into the command "minimize pain." And that's a disaster.

We've developed, and will continue to develop, lots of detailed information about individual letters and books and writers and summaries. Each of those detailed treatments gives us valuable data points. But if we don't integrate those points into the bigger picture they are useless and get us nowhere.

Someone I follow on youtube had what I thought was a good video (below) about this issue of high level integrated thinking. He framed it in terms of how to stay ahead of AI, but the focus of his argument is that what makes humans smarter than AI is stronger ability to juggle lots of isolated facts and see their relationships and evaluate them by context.

That's what I take away from your AI chat -- the facts stated seem to me to be generally correct. The issue is whether we ourselves can integrate that information into a big picture that allows us to see why it is important and what it means for daily life. The video makes the point that "low-level thinking" - the accumulation of isolated facts - does not necessarily lead to "higher-level thinking" where those facts are integrated into a working whole. I think he's right, and that's a big problem we face.

I don't know what the best way to push that forward will be. The video makes a couple of suggestions. But I think "thematicallt" we need to move the forum forward needs to be in that direction. All of the detailed information we develop is useless or even potentially harmful if we don't see the relationships and integrate them into a working whole we can confidently apply.

Sunday June 14, 2026 - Zoom Discussion 12:30 PM EST - Lucretius Book Review - Lucretius Book 1 - 645 - The Competitor Theories As To What Things Are Made Of

1. Welcome and news / requests for new topics. We'll continue to deal with individual topics as they occur. Just message me and we will set up an agenda each week that allows for new topics.
2. Please help us stay on topic. Don't be afraid to comment or ask questions about the implication of any section we are covering, but please remember that there are controversies outside the scope of our project that we don't have time to cover.
3. Every session let's try to cover questions like:
   1. What is the context of this section?
   2. Why included at this point in the presentation?
   3. What are the major points Lucretius is making?
   4. What are the implications of these points?
4. Notes on New Topics / Announcements
   • Last week we discussed:
   • Plutarch on necessity of eating and drinking
   • Robert - Can we experience both pleasure and pain at the same time.
   • Bryan quoting Epicurus on his pain at the end
   • This week we will continue with Lucretius Book 1:645.

Welcome to Episode 338 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, 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 toward completion of Section 8 of Book 2

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

I would say analysis of this issue goes right along with analysis of the issue of the proper aspects of anger as referenced by Philodemus. If we don't have the integrity and presence of mind to feel righteous anger when ourselves or especially our friends are suffering serious harm, then we don't have the integrity and presence of mind to feel true love or compassion or graciousness or any other natural emotion when those are appropriate. As humans, pain is something we want to avoid, but we need to listen to Nature's signals and not suppress them. When it is natural and appropriate to feel pain, we need to feel it, just like the wise man cries out when under torture, but nevertheless remains "happy" in the broader sense of the word.

Quote from Kalosyni

I don't think that the use of mocking words against philosophical enemies is constructive, and it goes against suavity. (I like to think that Diogene Laertius got that aspect of Epicurus wrong).

Also....VS79. The man who is serene causes no disturbance to himself or to another

That's why we need this discussion. It is clearly established in the texts that Epicurus and other Epicureans did exactly that (referred to philosophical opponents or at least their opinions in mocking terms). Yet Epicurus and his followers (Atticus' biography is an example) were considered by their friends to be a model of proper living.

If certain of us today have a definition of suavity that excludes the combination of graciousness toward friends with frankness toward enemies, then the burden is on us to undestand way. I think it's relatively easy to find a way to reconcile the evidence rather than conclude that we are smarter than Epicurus on that point.

Titus I would say that that discussion of a working theory of what Epicurus mean by prolepsis is better than what 98% of us on the forum could do if we sat down and decided to devote 20 minutes to tackling it. I am sure that most of us would also find tweaks we would suggest but in general I think someone who followed this model would be in good shape. I think it does a pretty good job as well with what often seems to be the trickiest part - that anticipations are not in themselves opinions, but foundations on which opinions are generated.

We very much need articles addressing the nature of "good manners" both in general and here on the forum. We know that Epicurus did not hesitate to use mocking wordss against his philosophical enemies, and we know that he strongly advised "frank speech" in ways that are direct but constructive. Kalosyni if you have any interest in this I hope you will help in that project of getting together some advisory material on this.

We want frank and direct exchanges here on the forum because we have a lot to do that needs to be accomplished, and we need to be efficient. On the other hand we also want it to be clear that this is EpicureanFriends and not Reddit. Tone and diplomacy and sticking to subjects are major problems on internet forums, and we've failed to investigate and address this subject for far too long, despite the clear pointers that we have from the section written by DeWitt.

Episode 337 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Confidence In Knowledge And The Epicurean Attitude Toward Pascal's Wager"

Transcript: https://epicurustoday.com/00-lucretiusto…337/#transcript

Thank you for taking the time to write that Elli!

Thanks Don!

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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Bailey:

And even if the nature of mind and the power of soul has feeling, after it has been rent asunder from our body, yet it is naught to us, who are made one by the mating and marriage of body and soul. Nor, if time should gather together our substance after our decease and bring it back again as it is now placed, if once more the light of life should be vouchsafed to us, yet, even were that done, it would not concern us at all, when once the remembrance of our former selves were snapped in twain. And even now we care not at all for the selves that we once were, not at all are we touched by any torturing pain for them. For when you look back over all the lapse of immeasurable time that now is gone, and think how manifold are the motions of matter, you could easily believe this too, that these same seeds, whereof we now are made, have often been placed in the same order as they are now; and yet we cannot recall that in our mind’s memory; for in between lies a break in life, and all the motions have wandered everywhere far astray from sense.

Quote from Joshua

on a flyleaf at the back

For people casually coming across this post, probably worth pointing out that this statement by Montaigne is presumably keyed to the part of Book 2 (I believe... I don't have the line number) where Lucretius makes essentially this same statement.

Glad to have you autoataraxic. When I search i don't bring up much other than an article written by Elli Pensa, a friend of ours in Greece a couple of years ago. I don't find any historic use of it from the ancient world.

My read of Elli's article is that it is sort of an artistic flourish but not intended to be a major philosophical point. Certainly Epicurus held that atoms are not living things, and I don't think he would say that the swerve of the atom is a living function either. Of course at some point life does "emerge" from the motion of the atoms through the void, and Lucretius talks about the swerve being related to "free will," so there is at least some relevance.

Probably going further in discussing this would be helped by a little background on your interest in it (?)

I suspect our friend Bryan here might have the best thoughts on usages, but thereagain knowing the context of your question would probably help.

AutoAtaraxic tells us:

Hi,

I was seduced by De Rerum Natura a couple of years ago and recently had a paper accepted for publication in which there was a strong influence of the atomic swerve in my understanding of the indeterminism of acts of dissensus a la Jacque Rancière's emancipatory philosophy. I'm also very interested in Epicurus notion of time as derivative, as the accident of the accident as Marx put in in his thesis on Epicurus and Democritus. I came across your website via the piece Clinamen Vitae - The swerve toward lived experience, where life is worthy of being lived, after researching the term Clinamen Vitae which links, I believe, to an indeterminate form of emancipation. As such, I thought I'd try to start up an account and engage more with your website.

Best,

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This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards and associated Terms of Use. Please be sure to read that document to understand our ground rules.

Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from most other philosophies, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit of truth and happy living through pleasure as explained in the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

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We have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

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In recent discussions I came across two videos which I found useful in analyzing Schopenhauer. The author of the second of these two videos has also produced a video on Nietzsche vs Kant. i have viewed this and also found to be useful in understanding the basic issues in dispute that are relevant to Epicurus:

Thanks Raphael.

Quote from Raphael Raul

Schopenhauer is a philosopher who intrigues me with his main idea of the blind force of "The Will", a force that is outside of the phenomenal world of matter, a noumenal realm outside of our understanding.

What you mentioned is featured in the videos - especially in the second one where Nietzsche identifies this as a variation of Platonic idealism or contention that there is a "true world" or "real world" beyond this one, and to that extent it's hard to see that as compatible in any way with the Epicurean view.

What has confused me for so long is that apparently Nietzsche started out a big fan of Schopenhauer but hen reversed his position by the end of his life. In long years past I did not read much of Nietzsche other than "Thus Spake Zarathustra." At that time other than a few bits here and there that stood on their own, I hardly understood a thing he was saying. I had no clue whether the "last man" was supposed to be good or bad!

To the extent that the second video is correct lots if not all of the dispute comes down to the dispute as to whether we should affirm THIS world and THIS life as of supreme value to us, of go with Schopenhauer and see this life as a sickness or disease. It would seem that Nietzsche saw that "disease" point of view as a thread going all the way back at least to Socrates and Plato, continuing to today and leading to nihilism. I think I would pretty strongly share that view, but I would of course exempt Epicurus from that criticism. I would say that it is clear that Epicurus affirms this life and shares most of Nietzsche's attitude about making the most of this life as the only one we have. I have never much cared for the terminology of "will to power," but I can see parallels between that and Epicurus' extended view of the nature of "pleasure."

I think you will find those videos to be very well done. It's unfortunate that the second on contains some low-key advertising but I think it has the more valuable content of the two because of the way it frames the issues.

If anyone thinks they have time for only one of the two videos I would strongly suggest the second on on the Nietzsche criticisms. The strong parallels between Nietzsche's criticisms of Socrates and Plato will jump out at you as very similar to what most of us see Epicurus doing. The second video is helpful to us on its own, even without considering its relationship to Schopenhauer.

A LOT of issues come down to one's basic attitude toward life: Should we affirm life or deny life? I think the answer is clear but these videos help define the question by showing how two philosophers can disagree so starkly.

The topic of Schopenhauer is of some interest in comparison with Epicurus. Clearly Schopenhauer had some things to say of which Epicurus would approve, but it is arguable that Schopenhauer said much more of which Epicurus would disapprove. Our forum is targeted to those who are not professional philosophers, so to kick off the discussion I found two basic videos which I viewed and found to be extremely informative. Of course everyone should ask "Are they accurate?" so to the extent group members are familiar with these issues please comment if you think the videos are inaccurate. I found them extremely helpful, and presuming they are true, overwhelmingly clear about many basic differences between Epicurus and Schopenhauer, starting with basic assessments of the value of human life.

This first video is focused exclusively on Schopenhauer, and the narrator speaks such good German that it would be a pity to find out that it's not accurate. As far as I can tell, it's balanced and right on point. I'll state this caveat about both videos in this post: This is not an Anti-Schopenhauer forum, and our purpose here is not to condemn Schopenhauer but to use the information we learn in better understanding Epicurus:

After watching this first issues the good parts and the bad parts are pretty clear. The next video expands on these issues by explaining Nietzsche's criticisms of Schopenhauer. This is not a Nietzsche forum and our purpose here is not to become Nietzscheans - only to take from Nietzsche what we find supportive of our understanding of Epicurus. I find it starkly revealing compelling, but let us know in the thread if you think it's inaccurate:

I'm glad this topic has come up because in the space of these two relatively short videos I think we find a dramatic illustration of many of the issues we all have to decide in how we interepret Epicurus. To repeat here, our purpose in this forum is not to become experts on other philosophies, but to use the controversies they explore to deepen our understanding of Epicurus.

And in the case of these two videos here, I find that they tremendously deepen my understanding of numerous very key issues that were already inherent in what Epicurus was teaching.