Posts by Cassius

Darn I have not had time to read that article. I just glanced at it and it appears pretty substantive. Maybe needs a thread of its own? If needed I'll separate it out.

Stasi you might want to look at our reading list in the FAQ if you have not done so already. It will be great to have you here. One of my personal favorite articles is the one by Boris Nikolsky, who is Russian, and it would be interesting to hear from a Russian speaker if Nikolsky has written anything else on Epicurus that we don't have access to due to language.

In episode 332 we are going to build off of the way that we ended 331, with Joshua's indictment of radical skepticism as being a self-defeating paradox:

Quote

Joshua:

There's kind of a paradox inherent to blatant in that he adopted the physics of Heraclitus in that everything is in constant flux and that this is part of why we can't know anything and why we need to retreat into the abstract mental space of geometry and why we need to ascend morally to the realm of ideal forms. But the paradox is this, because everything is constantly changing around you, life is going to force your hand. You have to make real decisions in the real world. Most of the guys we're talking about here in academic questions were associates of the Roman General Sulla or Sons of fathers who were associates of the Roman General Sulla whose involvement in the Mithridaic war, which is discussed to some extent in book two, which is a part we're going to skip over, led to the destruction of the academy in its physical sense, at least partially and the complete deforestation of the area around the city of Athens to a distance of a hundred miles.

What are you going to do in a situation like this? What are you going to do? And it's no good hiding behind the claim that you don't know, so you shouldn't be asked. You shouldn't be forced to make a decision because of your own ignorance. You have to make decisions in life. It's like I said earlier, if we were to all base our lives on this, we wouldn't even get out of bed in the morning because there's no justification for that kind of thing. There's no justification for the belief that we should live virtuously because we can't even know if we know nothing what it means to live virtuously. It's such a self-defeating paradox that lies at the core of these systems of thought, and it's incredibly frustrating to have to deal with that.

This week we'll be back in the neighborhood of line 430 and we'll probably speak more about emergence as we did last week.

EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side Lucretius

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

handbook.epicureanfriends.com

Welcome to Episode 332 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 focus on Section 12. and transition to Book Two, where we will begin with Section 7

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

Episode 331 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "The Self-Defeating Paradox of Radical Skepticism." (a quote from Joshua near the end)

Welcome Stas! That explanation of your interest is very much in line with what we are here to do, so we hope to hear from you further.

Stas tells us:

Hi! My name is Stanislav, and I live in Crimea, which is either in Ukraine or in Russia, depending on your political views. I am not very fluent in English, so I use online translators.
I am interested in philosophical teachings that are compatible with atheism and a modern scientific worldview. However, I am also looking for teachings that can be practically useful in everyday life. Unfortunately, modern philosophical systems such as existentialism, analytical philosophy, or postmodernism tend to be too abstract and have limited practical applications. Therefore, I am interested in the materialist philosophers of the past, such as Epicurus. Unfortunately, most of his works were destroyed by Christians and have not survived to this day. Your website can help us reconstruct Epicurean philosophy based on the few fragments that have survived.

Welcome Stas

There is one last step to complete your registration:

All new registrants must post a response to this message here in this welcome thread (we do this in order to minimize spam registrations).

You must post your response within 24 hours, or your account will be subject to deletion.

Please say "Hello" by introducing yourself, tell us what prompted your interest in Epicureanism and which particular aspects of Epicureanism most interest you, and/or post a question.

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.

One way you can be assured of your time here will be productive is to tell us a little about yourself and your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you already have.

You can also check out our Getting Started page for ideas on how to use this website.

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).

Welcome to the forum!

I have added Bryan's information into this sketch of key philosophers here:

This week's podcast (to be released later today or tomorrow) is a bridge between Book One and Book Two of Academic Questions, with the focus changing to the Skeptical turn of the Academy and the dispute with the Stoics (who where not skeptics).

A key figure in this turn was Arcesilaus, who Epicurus disliked, and whose name is unfortunately similar to an early philosopher (Archelaus) who Epicurus had praised. Bryan gives us some distinguishing notes in his comments on U239 (below). I note this because the names can be difficult to distinguish so if we slip and use the wrong form in the podcast this week or in the future please be sure to avoid our mistake.

Patrikios while I occasionally use Grok and ChatGPT, these artilcles I have been working on have all been Claude. I "suspect" but cannot confirm that the reason I am finding Claude's output so useful is that I have now spent several months pointing it to, asking about, and uploading many of our past articles, plus much material from Dewitt and Sedley and others which i think are the most perceptive. I am combining that with a lengthy series of instructions about which perspectives on issues seem to me to make the most sense. For example, just feeding it the list of 15 principles on the front page here, plus some number of academic articles with which I agree, etc. is what is prompting it to produce such good drafts. I definitely have to read each word, however, because even against my strict instructions it will still fall back into views that I consider to be wide-accepted but wrong.

For example I am sure that it would be completely happy to produce an article saying that Epicurus merits little more than a footnote in history and that the real genius was Democritus, and than goodness we have Aristotle so Ayn Rand could base her arguments on him and we could all be Objectivists. It appears to me that Claude or any other AI engine is going to give you what you ask for - within limits - especially if there is a body of work out there which agrees with that opinion.

So while there are obvious very great dangers with AI, I don't think in the end that it can ever replace a strong human editor who has and end-goal in mind. No doubt the AI programmers code their own preferences into the system, but AI doesn't "care" about what it is producing unless it violates one of those hard-coded rules.

We as the authors taking responsibility for the output have to guarantee that it is worthwhile. AI doesn't care about us, and I continue to agree with those who criticize AI that in the end - I don't care what AI's opinion is either. It's a tool but it is no substitute for a human direction.

Getting back to your initial question, I suspect it's entirely possible that a similar investment in Grok or chatgpt or any other could produce similar results. And I am sure that at some point there's a wall to hit as to storage and other costs involved in particular platforms. I'm not paying for anything more than a "basic" tier of service at this point. And no matter how much storage and how many data points you load into the system, there are always going to be conflicts between the sources, so ultimately you have to be sure it follows reasoning that you yourself are willing to stand behind.

All this is fascinating and really is a brave new world.

Quote from Patrikios

It is going to take us humans several hours to wade through this AI generated defense against Intelligent Design.

Yep, I am aware that these long articles are not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I am writing them because this type of thorough presentation is what I would like to have access to fifteen years ago. Had I had this research tool and compiled information available to me then, the course of my own understanding and work on Epicurus would have been tremendously accelerated.

Quote from Patrikios

So, having an intelligent design requires having an ongoing divine providence operator??

I don't know that it has to be ongoing, I suppose that those who proposed Deism took the clockmaker approach, and had the creator stand back and never intervene thereafter. But i also gather that not many people found that approach very satisfying and that it has largely faded into the background of most discussion.

This thread will be discussion for the article here:

Blog Article

Let All Who Would Free Themselves From the False Claims Of The Geometers Enter Here

Epicurus Was Right: Geometry Is a Powerful Tool But Not the Final Truth About Physical Reality

Introduction: Two Inscriptions Over Two Doors

Over the entrance to Plato’s Academy in Athens, tradition records an inscription: “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here.” The words were more than a subject requirement. They were a philosophical manifesto. The world as it truly is, Plato held, cannot be grasped by those who have trained only on the deliverances of sense experience. The student who can…

Cassius

April 30, 2026 at 10:19 AM

Based on the abstract it looks highly specialized.

Quote from Godfrey

VS26: Understand that a long discourse and a short one both achieve the same result.

That's one that always has seemed to me to be in need of clarification. i think I've seen some analysis of it by commentators to the effect that the real meaning is that the purpose of both is to obtain the same result. It seems obvious that the meaning cannot always be: "use few words" or Epicurus would not have written 37 books on nature of so many articles. There are times when one or the other is appropriate, and the long will definitely not do the job when short is appropriate, not the short when the long is needed.

I am sure others can do better and I hope they will. In the meantime, I have set up a first version of an article on this topic at the link below. This is a particularly good example of where collaboration can make for a better product. I will have to retain editorial control over the article to prevent it from turning into a camel designed by committee, as the article is long already, but i am sure that there are points not raised in the article that could be fruitfully added. Please submit commentary on it in the designated discussion thread. I'll eventually publish it over on substack for wider circulation.

Blog Article

Epicurean Responses To The Intelligent Design Argument

Introduction: A Very Old Argument

The intelligent design argument is one of the oldest and most persistent claims in the history of human thought. In its simplest form it says: the world we observe is too complex, too orderly, and too well-fitted to human life to have arisen without purpose. Something designed it. Something ordered it. Something or someone stands behind the apparent organization of nature and is responsible for that organization existing. Whether that something is called God,…

Cassius

April 28, 2026 at 4:41 PM

This thread is for discussion of the Blog Article:

Blog Article

Epicurean Responses To The Intelligent Design Argument

Introduction: A Very Old Argument

The intelligent design argument is one of the oldest and most persistent claims in the history of human thought. In its simplest form it says: the world we observe is too complex, too orderly, and too well-fitted to human life to have arisen without purpose. Something designed it. Something ordered it. Something or someone stands behind the apparent organization of nature and is responsible for that organization existing. Whether that something is called God,…

Cassius

April 28, 2026 at 4:41 PM

Well duh sometimes I wonder if Cassius can walk and chew gum at the same time. While we wait for the Epicurean combination of Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger to arrive, I can at least use the method we've been discussing to provide something to those who would be interested in an Epicurus-themed response. I'm reminded of the cliche about lots of things being possible when you don't care who gets the credit. I'll get something started and then I can incorporate suggestions from others over time, as with the other articles.

Please stand by.

Thanks Martin!