Posts by Cassius

I have been delinquent in not spending more time with this thread, especially since I encouraged Raphael to post it. Also, it's possible I may take the liberty of editing the thread title so that it is more broadly applicable, as I think the issues that need to be addressed deserve to be evaluated in a much wider scope that the financial focus of the current thread might indicate.

We had a very good and long discussion about some of these issues this past Sunday the 12th and many of those issues deserve to be covered here.

Quote from Elli

Dear Raphael, sorry but your whole text is a measurement of turmoil, not pleasure. You count taxes, cost of living, politics, technology, decline, demographics, robots, migration, feminism, MGTOW, Schopenhauer, Augustus, Rome, Nietzsche, the West , but you do not count yourself. Epicurus says that every desire must be judged by the pleasure it brings and the disturbance it creates. You judge having children in terms of the market, not in terms of the Canon.

Elli's reaction here is why I may retitle the thread and perhaps even add a note to the first post. My understanding of the positions of both Raphael and Elli is that they are likely on the very same page about the issues of personal relationships, marriage, children, growing old together etc., but the broader social / financial issues may have obscured that fact.

Quote from Elli

So when I wrote that modern people cannot find partners because they cannot find friendship, I meant it in this Epicurean sense: intimacy is not something separate from friendship, nor something that appears magically. It grows out of the daily practice of mutual care, openness, and trust. To have a friend, you must be a friend -and to have intimacy, you must cultivate friendship.

Yes these are the issues that need discussion to find ways to address them.

Another aspect of this is the increasing difficulty of speaking freely to people and letting them know what we actually think about things. Monitoring and censorship and the fact that the internect seems forever can tend to make people reluctant to say what they really think, and in a time when people rely on meeting others online, you don't have much to go on other than a picture and look in someone's eye, and with AI image creation you certainly can't trust even that anymore.

If you are - like many of us - very opinionated and also not in the "majority' on many of these issues, it becomes very difficult to find people who really "connect" with you.

Quote from Max DuBoff

This generally seems right, but what it misses is that the absence of pain is a pleasure according to Epicurus. So it's pleasure vs. ataraxia for Epicurus; it's a question of how ataraxia fits into the landscape of pleasures.

Since I am among the leaders in typos I get used to recognizing them. Probably this was to be "So it's NOT pleasures vs ataraxia....?

Quote from Max DuBoff

What I do claim is that, for Epicurus, only some pleasures (katastematic ones) determine whether a life is blessed--and that's because the absence of pain is the only pleasure that can be complete.

Yes, the "only some pleasures (katestmetic ones) determine whether a life is blessed" is where we will continue to strongly disagree.

Quote from Max DuBoff

To be clear, though, I think Epicurus absolutely endorsed the claim that a good (i.e., blessed) life is a perfect/complete one. But that was a choice. And it's a choice that fits uncomfortably with hedonism. Personally, I'm very convinced that Epicurus was right about hedonism and right that the absence of pain is a pleasure. I'm less convinced he was right that a blessed life is a perfect/complete life.

Max in my case I like to build up from the earlier premises to the higher ones, so before we even get to the implications of PD3 and PD4 there is PD1 and PD2. Where do you land there? Do you agree or disagree with Epicurus that there are no supernatural gods, that gods do not reward friends and punish enemies, and that there is no existence after death? In my case, it is because I strongly agree with him on those first two doctrines that I find it inconceivable that - despite all his other statements about active pleasures - he would have held katastematic pleasures to be the only ones that contribute to a blessed life, as you are claiming.

Here is a slightly edited note from Luzveraz telling us this:

Dear Cassius,

I am grateful to the founder and moderators of this website for promoting Epicureanism.

I used to be a PhD candidate in China majoring in theoretical quantum information science.

What prompted my interest in Epicureanism:

I think the difference between people is largely caused by environments where they grow up, and during my days on earth, I have a strong desire to be a good person, which rooted in the experience that I do not feel popular among my peers during my journey of study, perhaps due to lack of social skills and physical strength, thus I used to be unhappy and feel bad for myself. However, one day when I watched the anime movie Nobita and the New Steel Troops: ~Winged Angels~ as a teenager, combined with my observation of my joyful and inspiring peers, I begin to realize the feeling of true happiness and warmness in my heart is the judge of good and bad. I begin to be committed to the idea to "find and create true happiness", and I become happy with my life and unafraid of the future. I was so happy with my idea, that I wrote a lot about it in my diary. Guided by this idea, I studied math and had fitness in body, and as a child I wished to spread the idea to the world. But only two year later, I went through hardness which is beyond my endurance, my freedom was completely deprived and I was forced to participate foolish rat race for years, which continued to make me doubt my old idea. Now I figured that the ability to "find and create true happiness" is difficult to achieved in certain environments, which I used to believe can stand any trial.

If one had the patience to read my past, it is easy to see why Epicureanism appeals to me when I first read

For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good. – Letter to Menoeceus

Then I learned that Epiucureanism treated the definition of true pleasure with great care and attention, and the more I read the more aspired I am to the wisdom within the lines. The brave attitude toward religion and death just add to my admiration to Epicurean teachings. I wished the flowers in the kepos is always blooming, for the people here outwitted the evil and spread the teaching of true wisdom.

I am a beginner in philosophy. I am most interested in Epicurean ethics and working-examples in concrete affairs. I am also interested in Epicurean view of the universe and physics. I know that Einstein wrote a forward for Lucretius' DRN in the 1923 version translated by Hermann Diels, and am reading DRN recently.

....

Quote from Don

Jack Gedney has struck a blow for Epicurus in two comments to that Robertson article! Huzzah!

Am I reading this below correctly? Donald Robertson asserts directly to Jack Gedney that the supreme goal of Epicureanism is freedom from physical and mental pain and Jack does not respond by disagreeing with him and correcting him to say that the Supreme Goal is pleasure??? And Jack responds without even mentioning the word pleasure?

Quote

Donald J. Robertson

The supreme goal of Epicureanism is freedom from both physical and mental pain (ataraxia and aponia) so I would say that goes quite far beyond what you describe here. It's certainly true that the Epicureans avoided unnecessary pain but that alone is potentially a very extensive definition.

Jack GedneyUntroubled7h

I'm happy to admit that avoiding pain encompasses a great deal of therapeutic territory in Epicureanism. All the things I mentioned can be placed under that broad umbrella: eliminating unwarranted fears (about death and the gods, for instance), practical prudence (frugal living, cultivating friendship), training of one's habits (by temporary dietary restriction, for instance), and avoiding unfulfillable desires (as for wealth and fame) are all ways of reducing pain.

I don't see how any of that qualifies as the kind of "experiential avoidance" that modern psychotherapists would warn against, however. If someone has a fear of driving or crowds, then avoiding driving and crowds for the rest of your life is certainly a poor way of developing emotional resilience. I think Epicureans and Stoics would be in perfect agreement about that. But no one goes to a therapist to be cured of their measured decision not to pursue great wealth and political power, so Epicurean "avoidance" does not seem parallel to this kind of psychological tendency to me. Since the only direct textual evidence the article supplies for Epicurean "unfeelingness" is the mistranslated passage from Seneca, I'm unclear where you're deriving that impression from.

Maybe I'm missing something! Bonus admoneri gaudet, as Seneca says.

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Welcome Luzveraz

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If you have not done so already, please be sure you have read Torquatus' Presentation of Epicurean Ethics (also available in a more compact side-by-side format at EpicurusToday.com). That is the clearest, most complete statement of Epicurean ethics to survive from antiquity, and reading it early will save you -- and us -- a great deal of confusion. Most people arrive with a version of "Epicureanism" assembled from the Tetrapharmakon, the Letter to Menoeceus, or scattered quotations of questionable reliability -- and of the three, the Tetrapharmakon is the least reliable foundation of all. It is many times more compressed even than the Letter, and terse enough that it has been read in sharply different, sometimes incompatible ways by different interpreters; at best it serves as a reminder of Epicurus's four main topics for someone who already knows their content, not as a source of that content. The Letter to Menoeceus is a real summary, but it too is compressed and was written for students who already understood the foundations of Epicurean ethics. Torquatus is the best surviving example of how Epicurus's own well-educated students understood and presented that foundation themselves. It is the fastest and most reliable way to find out whether what you already believe about Epicurus matches what he and his school actually taught.

The moderators here are well aware that many fans of Epicurus hold sincerely-held views about what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with this forum's purpose. This forum exists specifically for people committed to classical Epicurean positions, not for reconciling those positions with modern "eclectic" reinterpretations that borrow Epicurus's name while rejecting his actual conclusions. Reading Torquatus first is the quickest way to see where that line falls, before investing time in posts that argue against the very foundations this forum exists to defend.

All of us here arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies. We don't demand of others what we weren't able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is different enough from most other philosophies that understanding how deep those differences run simply takes time. That's why we have participation levels that give new members room to learn, but it's also why we have standards that can mean arguments being limited, or participants removed, when the purpose of the community requires it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, isn't committed to unlimited free speech within its own meetings, and isn't organized around anything except the pursuit of truth and a happy life through pleasure as Epicurus explained it.

Please tell us a little about your background reading Epicurean texts, how you found this forum, and what particularly interests you -- that context helps us help you. Our Getting Started page also has ideas for using the site.

Beyond Torquatus, two books will do the most to deepen your understanding quickly. Norman DeWitt's Epicurus and His Philosophy is the single best book-length treatment available. DeWitt treats Epicurus as a coherent system rather than filtering him through later Stoic, Platonic, or modern secular assumptions. If you read one book beyond the ancient sources, make it this one.

Emily Austin's Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life is a clear, engaging modern introduction that many of our members have found a useful on-ramp. Read it, but read it alongside Torquatus and DeWitt rather than in their place, since like most modern treatments it makes no attempt to give the full picture that DeWitt provides.

From there, Epicurus's own surviving letters -- to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus -- and Lucretius's On The Nature of Things are also on the essential reading list. Our Recommended Reading page has a fuller list for when you're ready to go further. None of this is required before you participate, but the more of it you've read -- starting with Torquatus -- the more you'll get out of being here.

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to Episode 342 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.

We are now in Section 10 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

As we move into section ten, Lucullus (from the Stoic perspective) attacks those who imply that the mind - a creation of nature - is useless for obtaining knowledge, which has the result of overturning the whole of life.

He then moves to address those who argue that there is a difference between saying everything is uncertain and that nothing can be perceived, and this takes him toward the discussion of Cicero's own position - that it makes sense to say that some things are probable and some are not.

Then as we move into eleven the talk turns more and more to discussing "signs" - and that is the beginning of the point we are looking for - so that we can eventually tackle Philodemus' "On Signs"

Matt - In case you have not seen it, I have just updated my long-standing summary on the issue behind what Robertson is saying, which I believe needs to be taken in context of Plato's Philebus. This contains my most complete list of citations on the topic.

Quote from Pacatus

But that is so egregiously wrong. He clearly did not do his due diligence on that

Unfortunately, it's equally if not more probable than he's got a sheet-full of citations from modern writers supporting him on that. Wrong, but they are legion.

Quote from Pacatus

But “blessedness” is not one that works for me either way. Perhaps I just don't understand it the way that those for whom it is helpful do. So, I just let it go (past tense there) – along with the gods.

Exactly - what meaning can "blessed -" possibly carry to a normal ear today other than "blessed by the gods" which Epicurus explicitly rejected. It's a word that appears and has to be incorporated in reviewing texts, but I see no reason to focus on it in normal conversation today rather than "happiness" or "well being" or "the best life."

I may have more to say later but this is why you don't listen to stoics - or anyone who advoccates relief from pain rather than pleasure - as what Epicurus taught as the Supreme Good.

The whole premise of the article is built on a false conception that Epicurus advocated tranquility ABOVE pleasure. If you want that, you should indeed be a Stoic.

This has been a very long thread but I think we got to this point without including the argument that meets Max's concern about why Epicurus was concerned about "perfect" or the limit of pleasure: He needed a response to the argument that Plato had made (repeated by Seneca later, which is evidence of its concern) that that which is not perfect cannot be the highest good.

Plato's Philebus

The Platonic argument against pleasure based on “limits” is important enough that it needs to be referenced immediately. Unfortunately this topic would consume a long discussion in itself, but here is an excerpt from Philebus as a finding aid to the full discussion where the argument can be researched:

SOCRATES: I omit ten thousand other things, such as beauty and health and strength, and the many beauties and high perfections of the soul: O my beautiful Philebus, the goddess, methinks, seeing the universal wantonness and wickedness of all things, and that there was in them no limit to pleasures and self-indulgence, devised the limit of law and order, whereby, as you say, Philebus, she torments, or as I maintain, delivers the soul. — What think you, Protarchus?
…

SOCRATES: Have pleasure and pain a limit, or do they belong to the class which admits of more and less?

PHILEBUS: They belong to the class which admits of more, Socrates; for pleasure would not be perfectly good if she were not infinite in quantity and degree.

SOCRATES: Nor would pain, Philebus, be perfectly evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that element which imparts to pleasure some degree of good. But now — admitting, if you like, that pleasure is of the nature of the infinite — in which of the aforesaid classes, O Protarchus and Philebus, can we without irreverence place wisdom and knowledge and mind? And let us be careful, for I think that the danger will be very serious if we err on this point.

PHILEBUS: You magnify, Socrates, the importance of your favourite god.

SOCRATES: And you, my friend, are also magnifying your favourite goddess; but still I must beg you to answer the question.
…

SOCRATES: And whence comes that soul, my dear Protarchus, unless the body of the universe, which contains elements like those in our bodies but in every way fairer, had also a soul? Can there be another source?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly, Socrates, that is the only source.

SOCRATES: Why, yes, Protarchus; for surely we cannot imagine that of the four classes, the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two, and the cause, the fourth, which enters into all things, giving to our bodies souls, and the art of self-management, and of healing disease, and operating in other ways to heal and organize, having too all the attributes of wisdom; — we cannot, I say, imagine that whereas the self-same elements exist, both in the entire heaven and in great provinces of the heaven, only fairer and purer, this last should not also in that higher sphere have designed the noblest and fairest things?

PROTARCHUS: Such a supposition is quite unreasonable.

SOCRATES: Then if this be denied, should we not be wise in adopting the other view and maintaining that there is in the universe a mighty infinite and an adequate limit, of which we have often spoken, as well as a presiding cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges years and seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom and mind?

PROTARCHUS: Most justly.

Seneca's Quotations

We can find the same point made by Seneca in the following letters:

Quote

Quote Seneca’s Letters – Book I – Letter XVI: This also is a saying of Epicurus: “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.” Nature’s wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless. Suppose that the property of many millionaires is heaped up in your possession. Assume that fortune carries you far beyond the limits of a private income, decks you with gold, clothes you in purple, and brings you to such a degree of luxury and wealth that you can bury the earth under your marble floors; that you may not only possess, but tread upon, riches. Add statues, paintings, and whatever any art has devised for the luxury; you will only learn from such things to crave still greater. Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping point. The false has no limits.

Quote

Quote Seneca’s Letters – To Lucilius – 66.45: “What can be added to that which is perfect? Nothing otherwise that was not perfect to which something has been added. Nor can anything be added to virtue, either, for if anything can be added thereto, it must have contained a defect. Honour, also, permits of no addition; for it is honourable because of the very qualities which I have mentioned.[5] What then? Do you think that propriety, justice, lawfulness, do not also belong to the same type, and that they are kept within fixed limits? The ability to increase is proof that a thing is still imperfect.”“THE ABILITY TO INCREASE IS PROOF THAT A THING IS IMPERFECT.”

Additional citations here:

Episode 341 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is It True That No One Dies For A Lie?

Quote from wbernys

First of all, it is likely Plutarch is being typically unfair here, as i imagine right after this Epicurus may have mentioned examples like helping a friend, or acquiring food in need. But Plutarch uses this to suggest unfairly Epicurus would be okay with things like murder or sexual assault. Notice how Plutarch conveniently doesn't mention what the "anything the law forbids" actually is.

I agree that this is an important consideration. It would have been obvious to Plutarch and Epicurus that the law sometimes forbids in ways that are unjust, and Epicurus' views of justice clearly show that circumstances can change and agreements can and should be broken when they are no longer just to those concerned. I would suspect that those circumstances (when a law becomes unjust) were of as much concern then as they are today, and that prompted Epicurus' examination of the issue in detail in the Principal Doctrines.

So the fact that indeed punishment may come from breaking a law is true in many circucumstances, and one would hope that laws are generally beneficial. But there are many cases when breaking the law is not only the just thing to do, but also in fact brings much more pleasure and beneficial results from and to the community than complying.

So while "murder and sexual assault" are going to always be wrong, there are many ways to break unjust laws that are not wrong in themselves just because a law is involved, and you have to account for both situations in one's analysis.

I've sent an email to Christos but it's late in Greece so I presume it will be some time before i hear a response.

Quote from Patrikios

Would you feel comfortable reaching out to either of the speakers to get a copy/url for the video of their June 27 session?

Sure let me see what I can do.....

Quote from Pacatus

I have become more and more a “one day at a time” kind of guy.

And that's why I see this as relevant to the other thread on how widespread literacy was in the ancient world, and why it grew so well in the Roman world in particular. When you are practical-minded and have limited time to pore over abstract texts, you have no choice but focus on practical conclusions and applications.

Quote from Pacatus

This is exactly the kind of ideal (in the sense of ultimate goal or telos) I no longer entertain, let alone strive for – like Nirvana or Bodhi or “big Satori.” I just let that kind of thing go – relaxing from it, as it were.

I 100% agree Pacatus, and while also not denigrating any sincere Epicurean's argument about this, I think it's very very dangerous to look at it that way. Human life can and should target conceptual ideals as a way to visualize the best life, as a way of making the best decisions, but if you think that your targeting is going to actually make you an Epicurean god, you're sadly deluded, and I don't see the texts justifying that as what the Epicureans meant. Living "as a god among men" cannot have meant that you are going to live as an ACTUAL god among men.

I just posted this in another thread, but since it is directly applicable to this discussion I'll duplicate it. Max, would you disagree with this summary? (As we all know these engines like to tell us what we want to hear, so let's presume this has been talking to me and has picked up my biases. Even so, is it wrong?)

Pleasure (ἡδονή, hēdonē) is the term the Principal Doctrines are built around. It is named repeatedly and functions throughout as the explicit standard by which choice, avoidance, and the good life are judged. Happiness in the strict sense — εὐδαιμονία (eudaimonia) — does not appear as a noun anywhere in the text. Where the Doctrines gesture toward that idea, they use μακάριος / μακαριότης (“blessed” / “blessedness” — PD 1, PD 27), not eudaimonia.

Tranquility is a more complicated case than a simple presence/absence question. The abstract noun ἀταραξία does not appear as a headline term the way ἡδονή does. But a cognate of it is the organizing term of an entire doctrine: PD 17 — “The just person is the most undisturbed (ἀταρακτότατος), but the unjust person is full of the greatest disturbance (ταραχή).” That is not a passing phrase; the whole doctrine is built on that contrast. So it would be wrong to say the concept of undisturbedness never appears as a central term in the Doctrines — it is central to PD 17 specifically.

What is accurate is a claim about frequency and rank, not absence. Pleasure is named as the criterion of choice and avoidance in over a dozen doctrines (PD 3, 5, 8–10, 18–21, 25–26, 29–30, 40). Undisturbedness in this technical sense surfaces explicitly only once, in PD 17. And nowhere — including PD 17 — is it treated as a good in its own right or ranked above pleasure. In PD 17 it describes a consequence of justice, and justice is itself instrumental to living pleasantly (PD 5). Tranquility is never the measuring stick; pleasure remains that throughout.

For example:

• PD 3: “The limit of the magnitude of pleasures is the removal of all pain.”
• PD 5: “It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly… and impossible to live prudently, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly.”
• PD 17: “The just man is most free from trouble, the unjust most full of trouble.”
• PD 18: “The pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied.”
• PD 27: “Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship.”
• PD 29–30: classify desires by whether their non-fulfillment produces pain.

Aponia (ἀπονία, absence of bodily pain) follows the same pattern as undisturbedness: it is not put forward as an independent goal-term. Instead, the Doctrines repeatedly define the limit of pleasure as the removal of pain (PD 3), keeping pleasure — not the absence of pain by itself — as the operative standard.

Where later interpreters and many modern summaries treat ataraxia as Epicurus’s stated goal, the Doctrines give that reading a real but narrow foothold — PD 17 — rather than the broad support it’s often assumed to have. The dominant, explicit standard throughout the Principal Doctrines is pleasure. Tranquility appears, but only once, only in service of that standard, and never above it.

Quote from DaveT

However.... I think an absolute necessity to the teaching and learning process had to be frequent, (dare I say more than weekly) meetings for both the illiterate and illiterate to learn and adopt the lessons from the Garden(s) into daily life.

Had to be frequent, and I would say likely had to repeat and focus on key points rather than deliver (for example) a Lucretius-length monologue.

Here's my view:

I would agree with the direction you are coming from Pacatus and "happiness" is the term I prefer to use for the reasonable human goal.

I'd also say it appears that just as today, Epicurus' time was filled with religious speculation and terminology. Most people were familiar with looking to the life of "the gods" as an example of the best life possible. Epicurus wouldn't have believed that the gods "bless" anyone directly, but as a shorthand for the best life, which is presumed to be what the gods live, the term probably can be used without injecting too much supernaturalism.

Same problem with "eudaimonia," and it's good demon, but Epicurus used the term anyway. if you want to be understood at all sometimes you have to adapt the common vocabulary.