Posts by Cassius

Epicurus vs Pythagoras - Again, I think this one's good, as it focuses on the deepsest issue of whether there is a supernatural structure to life. As in the first video I personally don't approve of saying that Epicurus promotes "simple pleasures." He's very clear that what he promotes is pleasure, and issue is not whether the pleasure is simple but whether the activity produces more pleasure than pain. You'll find that's an important issue to study, EdGenX, but any differences of opinion on that fade in comparison to the areas where most of us fully agree and what Epicurus taught was abosutely clear: (1) There are no supernatural gods, and (2) We do not have immortal souls which survive death.

After we're clear on those two points its up to each individual to choose what pleasures they want to pursue and how much pain they are willing to to obtain those pleasures. Some people may indeed want to go exclusively for pleasures that they deem to be simple, but that's not the way Epicurus expresses it. Yes there are lots of reasons to think that pursuing pleasures well within your means is often the best way to obtain more pleasure than pain, but that's not an absolute and ironclad rule, and to think that it is an absolute and ironclad rule betrays a major misunderstanding of Epicurus. There are no absolute ironclad rules and nature has given us only pleasure and pain as guidance on what to choose and what to avoid.

Letter to Menoeceus:
[126] But the many at one moment shun death as the greatest of evils, at another (yearn for it) as a respite from the (evils) in life. (But the wise man neither seeks to escape life) nor fears the cessation of life, for neither does life offend him nor does the absence of life seem to be any evil. And just as with food he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant.

In this context it's essential also to understand that Epicurus did not limit the meaning of "pleasure" to those of the body. Pleasures of the mind - all the emotional attachments we find valuable in life, are just as important or more so. There are even times when we will give up life itself for a friend if that seems to be the better course. The issue of the meaning of "pleasure" is huge but that's something that isn't mentioned in the videos so best for another post later.

TikTok · Stoic Debates

Check out Stoic Debates’s video.

www.tiktok.com

Thanks for the link! I had not seen those before.

I found this one on Epicurus vs Pascal - not sure if there are more. I like how it focuses on the existence of the supernatural is key to the difference.

TikTok · Stoic Debates

190 likes, 6 comments. “Epicurus vs Blaise Pascal – "Pleasure or Faith: What Leads to Peace?"”

www.tiktok.com

Edit - Just watched the full video. It is definitely focused on the god/life after death / meaning of life issue so I definitely like it! If that's the one you saw it's a good "omen" that you will enjoy your time with us EdGenX!

EdGenX if you can recall a link for the video that you remember watching, it would be interesting for us to see it so please post if you can. Many of the popular presentations of Epicurus will have points in them with which not all of us here will agree, so that video could itself spur an interesting conversation.

Happy Birthday to EdGenX! Learn more about EdGenX and say happy birthday on EdGenX's timeline: EdGenX

Glad to have you! Tell us more about your areas of interest and I am sure we'll have more suggestions.

Welcome Ed!

Ed tells me:

I actually came across Epicurus philosophy about 2 weeks ago. I was online, I think TikTok or YouTube and came across several AI generated philosophy debates. I was inclined to Epicurus point of views on life. I did some more googling and found his friends! I consider myself a life learner and look forward to learning more about Epicurus philosophy

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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).

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to Episode 311 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 in the absence of Joshua and Kalosyni we will make a brief review of Dr. Emily Austin's "Epicurus and The Politics Of The Fear of Death," which we have discussed in a recent thread thanks to Pacatus bringing the article to our attention.

Next week we will be back with more Tusculan Disputations, but this week we'll set the stage for more discussion of this very good article.

Episode 310 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Neither Happiness Nor Virtue Are Binary States"

Joshua also quotes in this episode from Game of Thrones. I have not watched that so I am coming up dry looking for a video clip of the scene, but here is a link to the text:

Quotes by Davos

Quote

Melisandre: Are you a good man, Davos Seaworth?

Davos: I am a man. I am kind to my wife, but I have known other women. I have tried to be a father to my sons, to help make them a place in this world. Aye, I've broken laws, but I never felt evil until tonight. I would say my parts are mixed, m'lady. Good and bad.
Melisandre: A grey man. Neither white nor black, but partaking of both. Is that what you are, Ser Davos?
Davos: What if I am? It seems to me that most men are grey.

Melisandre: If half of an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil.^[11]

—Melisandre and Davos

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Davos_Seaworth

Quote from DaveT

Please indicate how I would get to that page from the home page.

We're going to improve that and make it easier to find. For the time being it is par of the "Map" box in the right sidebar if you are on a wide screen, or near the footer if you're on a phone.

Kalosyni

We've updated the "Map" page with an easier-to-read version. The old maps are still there but this is definitely easier to navigate on a phone-sized screen:

- Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

Quote from Don

I certainly don't think it's a cut and dried argument for hooking up to the machine (which I don't think you're saying btw!).

Right. I generally see the experience machine hypothetical as geared toward the normal ordinary person to test their views of pleasure. This set of facts focuses more on someone who is in a very difficult situation with no realistic hope of improvement. But it does deepen the question in my view, because once you break down the barrier of "I would *always* choose reality no matter how bad it is" then you start to ask questions about what circumstances would justify such a decision.

As another way of revisiting the same question in this hypothetical, I recently rewatched the Star Trek original series two part episode: "The Menagerie." I would say that this story sets up the question pretty well.

The Menagerie (Star Trek: The Original Series) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In that episode, the Christopher Pike, the first captain of the Enterprise has been tragically injured in a radiation accident and injured to the point where he is a total invalid with a fully working mind but the with the inability to move over than to blink one for yes and two for no through light bulbs on his wheelchair. Spock kidnaps Pike and hijacks the Enterprise and takes him to a planet where the occupants have incredible powers of illusion. On that planet they have a female human (who like the Epicurean gods, did not have a pattern by which to reassemble her remains after she crash-landed on the planet) and that want Pike to be her mate. In the original pilot Pike refused to stay, but in the Menagerie he is so injured and disfigured that it becomes debatable whether he should return to the planet and live "under the illusion" of perfect health, or reject the opportunity in favor of his existing reality.

All variations of this hypothetical require that you grapple with the question of who evaluating who is running the machine, and this scenario is no different.

But for those who like Star Trek this is an interesting way to ask the question of choosing between something that is apparently an "illusion" as opposed to "reality."

The final words of the second episode are something to the effect:

"Captain Pike has his illusion and you have your reality. May your way be as pleasant."

Also from section 14 of the same chapter:

Quote

XIV.¶

To me such are the only men who appear completely happy; for what can he want to a complete happy life who relies on his own good qualities, or how can he be happy who does not rely on them? But he who makes a threefold division of goods must necessarily be diffident, for how can he depend on having a sound body, or that his fortune shall continue? but no one can be happy without an immovable, fixed, and permanent good. What, then, is this opinion of theirs? So that I think that saying of the Spartan may be applied to them, who, on some merchant's boasting before him, that he had despatched ships to every maritime coast, replied, that a fortune which depended on ropes was not very desirable. Can there be any doubt that whatever may be lost, cannot be properly classed in the number of those things which complete a happy life? for of all that constitutes a happy life, nothing will admit of withering, or growing old, or wearing out, or decaying; for whoever is apprehensive of any loss of these things cannot be happy; the happy man should be safe, well fenced, well fortified, out of the reach of all annoyance, not like a man under trifling apprehensions, but free from all such. As he is not called innocent who but slightly offends, but he who offends not at all; so it is he alone who is to be considered without fear who is free from all fear, not he who is but in little fear. For what else is courage but an affection of mind, that is ready to undergo perils, and patient in the endurance of pain and labour without any alloy of fear? Now this certainly could not be the case, if there were anything else good but what depended on honesty alone. But how can any one be in possession of that desirable and much-coveted security (for I now call a freedom from anxiety a security, on which freedom a happy life depends) who has, or may have, a multitude of evils attending him? How can he be brave and undaunted, and hold everything as trifles which can befal a man, for so a wise man should do, unless he be one who thinks that everything depends on himself? Could the Lacedæmonians without this, when Philip threatened to prevent all their attempts, have asked him, if he could prevent their killing themselves? Is it not easier, then, to find one man of such a spirit as we are inquiring after, than to meet with a whole city of such men? Now, if to this courage I am speaking of we add temperance, that it may govern all our feelings and agitations, what can be wanting to complete his happiness who is secured by his courage from uneasiness and fear; and is prevented from immoderate desires and immoderate insolence of joy, by temperance? I could easily show that virtue is able to produce these effects, but that I have explained on the foregoing days.

Notes during editing:

I set up a separate thread for the issue of Happiness not requiring absolute absence of pain, and I'm going to name this episode something to the effect that Epicurus does not consider Happiness to be a binary state (where the only two options are happiness and unhappiness).

That raises something that Joshua points out, however: Epicurus does treat pain and pleasure as a binary state - that you are either feeling one or the other but not both at the same time and not an in-between state.

So we'll want to discuss: what's the difference between "happiness / unhappiness" and "pleasure/pain?"

This point is implicit in many other discussions here on the board, especially those which relate to:

- Epicurus stating that he was happy even in the midst of dying from kidney disease.

- Epicurus saying that the wise man can be happy even while on the rack.

- Torquatus explaining to Cicero that the wise man is always happy because he always has more reason for joy than for vexation.

The reason I wanted to post this is to include a section of "Tusculan Disputations" where Cicero directly addresses the point that some people want to argue that "happiness" requires "completeness" - basically that if you are 99% happy but have 1% of your experience "not happy" then you should not consider yourself to be "happy."

This also falls under discussion of "the perfect is not the enemy of the good."

But here's one place where Cicero brings this up in Tusculan Disputations Part V, and takes the absolutist position:

Quote

VIII.¶

A. I wish that indeed myself; but I want a little information. For I allow, that in what you have stated, the one proposition is the consequence of the other; that as, if what is honourable be the only good, it must follow, that a happy life is the effect of virtue: so that if a happy life consists in virtue, nothing can be good but virtue. But your friend Brutus, on the authority of Aristo and Antiochus, does not see this: for he thinks the case would be the same, even if there were anything good besides virtue.

M. What then? do you imagine that I am going to argue against Brutus?

A. You may do what you please: for it is not for me to prescribe what you shall do.

M. How these things agree together shall be examined somewhere else: for I frequently discussed that point with Antiochus, and lately with Aristo, when, during the period of my command as general, I was lodging with him at Athens. For to me it seemed that no one could possibly be happy under any evil: but a wise man might be afflicted with evil, if there are any things arising from body or fortune, deserving the name of evils. These things were said, which Antiochus has inserted in his books in many places: that virtue itself was sufficient to make life happy, but yet not perfectly happy: and that many things derive their names from the predominant portion of them, though they do not include everything, as strength, health, riches, honor, and glory: which qualities are determined by their kind, not their number: thus a happy life is so called from its being so in a great degree, even though it should fall short in some point. To clear this up, is not absolutely necessary at present, though it seems to be said without any great consistency: for I cannot imagine what is wanting to one that is happy, to make him happier, for if anything be wanting to him he cannot be so much as happy; and as to what they say, that everything is named and estimated from its predominant portion, that may be admitted in some things. But when they allow three kinds of evils; when any one is oppressed with every imaginable evil of two kinds, being afflicted with adverse fortune, and having at the same time his body worn out and harassed with all sorts of pains, shall we say that such a one is but little short of a happy life, to say nothing about the happiest possible life?

I would say that's it's important to recognize that Epicurus is taking the position with which Cicero disagrees, that a happy life is so called from its being so in a great degree, even though it should fall short in some point.

In other words, Epicurus did not hesitate to call his last days happy even though he very definitely felt physical pain - and therefore those days could have been "more happy" without that physical pain during that time.

Yes that's one of the key quotes. There are several paragraphs in that section that are packed with info.

Excellent points.

These issues of recognizing more than one level of reality are discussed in similar manner in Sedley's "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism."

it seems to be difficult for some people (Plato et al) to think about there being a "higher-level" pespective and for others (Democritus) to think about there being an "atomic-level" perspective without ending up denying that our "middle-level" persective also exists and is just as real as the other two. In fact it's not "just as real" but for us it's actually more real because it is the level at which our senses function, and as you say the only way we can be sure of anything about the lower or higher levels is by the way we see impacts in our own level.

So that's why it's so important not to let the sensations be disparaged as untrustworthy. As soon as you stop demanding evidence at our own level of sensation then you've set the stage for all the otherworldiness both of religion and of "weird science" which goes with hope or speculation alone and without grounding in evidence that we can confirm.

I personally equate this too with Epicurus' statement about "outlining" in the letter to Herodotus. We have to keep the various levels of truth in our awareness at all times and be able to go back and forth between them without missing a beat.

And yes we'll go back over this in detail in the Sunday Zooms on Lucretius and then when we get back to Lucretius after the current review of the bigger-picture issues Cicero has summarized for us .

That's where I see us at currently. Most all of us need additional grounding in both the details and in the bigger picture. Cicero can show us where Epicurus stacks up (revolts) against the majority consensus. At the same time Lucretius shows us how Epicurus reasoned to his conclusions.

Cicero (On Ends / Tusculan Disputations / Academic Questions) gives us the big picture questions which everyone was asking and to which Epicurus was reacting, but Cicero doesn't give us the backup details of how Epicurus reached his conclusions. Lucretius gives us the backup details that explain how Epicurus reached his conclusions, but Lucetius often doesn't give us the big picture questions which everyone in 50 BC understood.

We need both in order to understand the full picture and what it means for us today.

Everyone should feel free to suggest addition of new "Cards" or rearrangements of items on existing cards. It won't be possible to accommodate all requests, but if you think something should be arranged differently then it's very possible others think the same, and we might not pick it up if someone doesn't suggest the possibility.

One of the main purposes of this format is to help those who access the site on cell phones in a narrow portrait mode. Drop-down menus and sidebars don't work very well on that format, but different people use different formats so if you see something that can be improved let us know.