Posts by Hiram

Re: this

“Then at about 13:50 she says: "Coming to terms with these limits is really the center of Epicurean ethical philosophy." And here I have to disagree. In my reading of Epicurus, the center is really the principle of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Limits play a peripheral role. I could be wrong, and I'd like to here what other members here think of this.

I'll listen to the rest and add to my comments later”

I remember that diogenes mentioned that not knowing the limits of our desires among the three “roots of all evil”. So this must have been of great importance.

https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2017/03/25/dio…-the-pleasures/

Just as an exercise, because this is one of the first things that come to my mind when I find a MODERN interpretation of Epicureanism that focuses on simplicity, I'd like you Cassius to read this poem by Horace, and see what reaction it draws from you. It's curious to me because this is part of how the "gospel of Epicurus" was preached in antiquity. I wonder if your opinion is that Horace was calling for ascetism.

https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2017/06/03/hor…-simple-living/

Horace: In Praise of Simple Living

Learn how great the virtue is, my friends, of plain living …

When exercise has made you less fastidious, hungry,

Thirsty, then spurn plain food, refuse to drink the mead …

Well, bread and salt will soothe a rumbling belly.

Why so? The greatest pleasure’s not in costly flavours,

it resides In you yourself.

Gourmet eating is ridiculous.

It’s a belly seldom hungry that scorns common fare.

Now learn the benefits that accompany plain living.

First good health …

But the plain-living man who eats then snatches a nap

Quick as a flash, rises refreshed for his appointed tasks.

In times Of uncertainty who’s more confident?

The man Who’s accustomed a fastidious mind and body

To excess, or the man content with little, wary

Of what’s to come, who wisely in peace prepared for war?

Book II, Satire II

(Notice that the ending verses seem to echo LMenoeceus)

Many of these criticisms have been said before and the alternative is to give your own TED speech expressing your own view, if you can, in about 12 minutes. Something to think about.

I respect his passion and audacity to stand in front of a large group of people to lecture about Epicurus. Michel Onfray and Jose Mujica are among the few others who have taken this important step in the West outside of Greece and Italy.

I think we have to eventually accept that one of the interpretations of EP is the frugal one, and that it is one of the ways in which the Letter to Menoeceus can be read. In my particular case, for instance, simple living still makes sense for now, and as the gap between rich and poor continues to grow I imagine this interpretation will continue to be relevant for Many or Most people for many generations.

Those who are privileged to be able to live a life of greater luxury should present EP together with their own autarchy curriculum to help others get closer to escaping the cycles of wage slavery, and present the bourgeois interpretation of Epicureanism (maybe appealing to the precedent from Philodemus and he House of Piso), but even there I remember that Horace had a character, Ofelius, who preached simple living.

Also keep in mind that there were probably many college students in that audience, who are proverbially poor and in debt, I remember all the ramen noodles I ate in college ...

The truth is that, for Many people (including many epicureans in Greece during the current fiscal crisis), frugality and anti consumerism makes a lot of sense.

Hadn't noticed this before

http://holegon.net/wp-content/upl…n%C3%B3nica.pdf

Vintage Books (a division of Penguin Books) has scheduled the book release of "How to Live a Good Life" for January 7, 2020. It includes 15 chapters on how modern people live out their religious or non-religious philosophies in the 21st Century. I wrote the "Epicureanism" chapter.

Here is the Table of Contents and blurb.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/604070/h…daniel-kaufman/

https://sociedadepicuro.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/el-canon

Well you learn something new every day! I just learned how easy it is to make "tables" on Wordpress.

Here's the essay. Feel free to share it:

http://societyofepicurus.com/the-pursuit-of…fe-improvement/

Quote from Garden Dweller

Yes

What name should this be attributed to? Garden Dweller sounds too impersonal.

Garden Dweller Is it okay if I share this in the Society of Epicurus page?

We need more bloggers

I’d love to read your Epicurean tract

R Gervais

“Answers we don’t have” — I suppose I was thinking that people have not tried every possible model of government and also that we do not know all there is to know about human nature. Or maybe that human nature is too complex and varied to make universal assumptions. Questions about ideal Governments usually rely on assumptions about human nature.

Quote from Cassius

Hiram I am certainly not advocating libertarianism of any other form of government as suitable for everyone, or as something that everyone should submit to my judgment on.

Are you?

No, that would require too many answers that we don't have...

Quote from Elayne

Ok, so let me make sure I understand: are you hesitant to promote Epicurean Philosophy and its moral relativism-- in which virtues are only good if they lead to pleasure-- because you are worried that your brother and others like him will not be able to use this type of advice for their own pleasure? And because you love him, of course this affects your pleasure too.

Hmmm … I don't hesitate to teach Epicureanism to those who are "armed for happiness", as Epicurus said in "On Nature". But I am sincerely interested in the question of whether we should trust others, and in particular certain people, with moral relativism. I think this is an interesting challenge and I do not have an answer for it yet.

We have observed religious people engaged in all kinds of hypocrisy, but also people for whom it makes a difference between being faithful to their wives and raising their children as responsible fathers, or leaving them. And I, for one, want my sister to continue having the support of my brother-in-law, and if religion helps then great!

My brother will NEVER be able to profit from Epicureanism. He does not have the disposition to read books, much less philosophy books, and decades of alcohol abuse have distorted his pleasure faculty.

So this is a case where I want him to be as happy / healthy as he can be considering his own personal history and innate?/psychological configuration.

Would I trust my brother with "moral relativism"? No, but I also don't trust him with moral absolute belief. He's done a lot of harm to his own kids and ex-wife with his behavior, and I'm not sure whether it makes a difference what he believes, or what his coping mechanisms are or need to be.

Quote

The 12 step programs, with their absolute morality, have no better effect than no treatment if "intention to treat" analysis is applied. There is a form of therapy-- an example would be Stanton Peele's life process therapy-- which is more effective. The focus is on helping patients find activities they enjoy so much that they lose interest in their addiction. It seems reasonably Epicurean to me, but the main thing is that it works. I am a pragmatic person about medical care.

If you are interested in talking to Stanton, I can personally connect you. He helped me with a family member. I wrote an endorsement of a recent book he put out. His therapy is not inexpensive, but it's worth it.

This, and the SMART Program against addiction, is interesting to me but I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the research or with the problems related to addiction, and have little time and incentive to delve into this considering it doesn't directly relate to my line of work, and my audience is not made up of many addicts as far as I know, so other content-creators in the Epicurean circles might come along someday and be able to do something useful with this information.

Quote

I am glad we are talking about this. One thing that would help new people keep things straight is if you can clearly identify when you are approaching things from an Epicurean perspective and when you are not-- otherwise, others tend to assume it's all Epicurean, and they get muddled.

I'm also really sorry things aren't going well for your brother, and that it causes you pain

Thanks. We've come to accept him for who he is, but from time to time we see tips of the iceberg of how big his problems are (he fainted in my parent's house some months ago as a result of alcohol withdrawal, his son left him a 15-minute angry voice mail telling him of how he was never there for him, etc.). I could never see myself making the choices he's made, so it's become very clear to me that he has a different, addicted brain, that his brain works differently, and that different people need different mechanisms to cope or be happy.

Quote from Cassius

.... Maybe that ends up in a similar place with "libertarianism" - but it's not based on any kind of "first do no harm" or "no first use of force principle." In the end there are no overarching principles that override the actual on-the-ground feelings of the people involved.

Sounds good in theory, but in practice this or any other form of anarchism will risk becoming Somalia. The absence of state power and its monopoly on violence will allow evil ideologies to rise to the top (whether Christian or White supremacists in the US, or Islamists in Somalia) and society may degenerate into a pre-civilized state of savagery.

I think this type of doctrinal libertarianism is as naïve and dangerous as any of the traditional religions.

Quote from Elayne

Hiram, I appreciate your honesty regarding your uncertainty about moral relativism. I have suspected that is an issue for you, from reading your book and from many of your posts and comments. The alternative to relativism is absolutism, or a mixture of some relative and some absolute areas (which seems to be the most common approach to me)-- and that is not a position consistent with Epicurean Philosophy. As an online friend, I can say that you seem like a very nice person-- and not yet an Epicurean. I do not think you have fully placed pleasure as your goal in life. That is understandable-- in our culture, it is hard to adopt a fully Epicurean position. However, I have serious concerns that you have become a public figure who is thought to be an Epicurean, when you have not really embraced the whole philosophy. I believe you would have the best chance at a pleasurable, happy life if you could become comfortable with the relativism in Epicurean Philosophy-- and that those who are following you as their Epicurean expert would also be better off. I am following Epicurus' example by being frank with you here, because friends are honest with each other, and I hope other Epicureans will be frank with me should I go off course in some way myself.

Elayne I do not accept absolutism. Maybe you misread me, but thanks for your initiative at frankness. I accept relativism, and also can appreciate the merits of the moral realism expressed by Polystratus, our third Scholarch, in "on irrational contempt".

What I did say is that Catherine posits her challenge to Nussbaum in terms of _whether people can be trusted with_ moral relativism. This is a different question than whether there is an absolute morality.

Nussbaum does not believe that people can be trusted with moral relativism. I think the Epicureans should argue that people CAN be trusted with moral relativism, and there are many instances where we can easily demonstrate this to be the case.

But I question whether EVERYONE (included addicted individuals, sociopaths, etc.) can be trusted with moral relativism. And in doing this, I believe that PD 39 echoes my opinion that some people can't be trusted with believing in moral relativism, and (even if we choose not to associate with them) may be better off believing whatever they believe, so long as they don't hurt others.

I hope I made myself clear.

at the crux of this issue are two facts:

1. my oldest brother is an alcoholic and seems sure that he will never be able to quit or stop being an alcoholic.

2. my neighbor and good friend is a recovering alcoholic also and I've visited AA meeting as a friend / family / ally in support of him. He says "idle hands do the devil's work" and that he does not believe that many addicts will stop themselves from engaging in their behavior if they're bored or idle.

So we know that morality is never absolute.

We also know that NOT everyone has the same moral stamina.

This means that different moral concepts must work for different people. In fact some sources say that philosophy and morality are built for the PROTECTION of sages, because they do not really need to restrain their nature like people of lesser stamina do.

So, the question is: is it wise to conclude that false beliefs are "ok" in some way for OTHER people who may be dealing with addiction or other issues, even if they're false. Clearly, not everyone is meant to be an Epicurean. And it's also clear to me that people with addiction or other character problems need a different approach to applied philosophy than the rest of the population.

I don't have all the answers, but if belief in moral absolutism can help my brother overcome or manage his addiction to alcohol WITHOUT too many bad side effects, his false beliefs may be of utility.

Is there or will there be a summary or notes taken from these discussions for future reference, that can continue to be used or posted for the benefit of people in the future who may choose to read it, using a "study guide" prepared by Epicureans?

If there is, I'd like to have a page link to share.

Seems that Catherine Wilson has taken on Nussbaum:

https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/review-morgan-wilson

Part of the criticism stems from the insinuation that people can not be trusted with moral relativism. I’m not sure where I stand with that.