Posts by Charles

I did some digging on this piece today since I figured I'd upload it to the gallery. It's from a Dutch Almanac from 1803. "Almanak, van vernuft en smaak, voor het jaar MDCCCIII" (Almanac, of ingenuity and taste 1803 Volume 1). While reading through it, I discovered an 8.5 page long section titled "Epicurus bij Leontion" which is just the same as the illustration. Since I cannot read Dutch I don't know what the text says, however it appears to be a casual reading of the subject of the philosophy. Once I get a translation down from my Dutch friends I'll post it here.

Just a footnote for the other book I mentioned for future use and reference: The Epicuriana by Paul Donovan https://www.the-epicuriana-a-novel.com/blog-the-chapters/

Welcome!

Quote from Cassius

Charles where can we find an English translation?

It is in English, but here's the libretto.

Here's my submission for # 4: "Shepherd, what art thou pursuing?" from Acis & Galatea

https://youtu.be/NVMMd3JpTlY?t=1197The lyrics since Opera can be hard to discern sometimes.

"Shepherd, what art thou pursuing?

Heedless running to thy ruin;

Share our joy, our pleasure share,

Leave thy passion till tomorrow,

Let the day be free from sorrow,

Free from love, and free from care!"

A quick reverse image search reveals the sketch from an Arabic art page on Facebook dating from the 23rd of March this year, from here I can't find any other leads. It shows the picture with the caption:

"I never care about commoners, because what I know do not agree with me, and what they agree on I do not know." - Abiqur

Searching across Bing and Yandex also revealed nothing of interest or where to look further.

Quote from Cassius

Great find! I wonder why they are sure this one is Epicurus:

I'm going off on a limb but the hair is essentially identical, the major difference is that the bust does not depict Epicurus in his typical serious and stern expression. Other details seem to match too; from the length of the classical beard to his rectangular face and nose. It's interesting since I've never seen it before and its missing from Frischer's book about the various statues and sculptures tied to the school.

Welcome @ProstheticConscience!

Written in circa 1136-1139 by Peter Abelard, an extremely influential and pioneering theologian and Christian philosopher in the Middle Ages. His work lead to the adoption of Aristotelian principles into the many aspects of Christian metaphysics and theology, to the extent that he paved the way for Aquinas. Nevertheless, his popularity ensured that some of his written works have survived to this day. While on the forums here the first mention of Abelard and his student John of Salisbury were first mentioned in this thread, there's been little mentioned about them. A couple of notes and citations are in Joshua's thread about obscure references to EP in art and literature throughout history.

Dialogue Between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian. Which centers around Abelard recalling the conversation within a dream, has the three nameless eponymous characters engage in a high level intellectual discussion about the various natures of philosophy, ethics, religion, law's and Natural Law, and philosophical history. The three go back and forth with Abelard as the spectator and (nearly) an interlocutor by speaking to the trio and to the reader.

The significance of this dialogue is that it appears to be the oldest yet reference to Epicurean Philosophy within the Middle ages, preceding the glimpses of Epicureanism surrounding the life of Dante Alighieri in Florence by a century. In addition to being the first proposed reconciliation between the two philosophies. Abelard, within his dialogue through the character of the Philosopher in debate with the Christian, posits the exact nature of blessedness and so mistakes Epicurus' thoughts on the soul to then liken the Kingdom of Heaven to pleasure as the end of life as detailed by Epicurus.

I'll input the sections below and include a pdf attachment for the rest of the dialogue.

(178) THE PHILOSOPHER: “As a great many of your own people

have remarked, they have defined the ultimate good or final good —

that is, its summation or completion — as ‘what makes anyone who

has arrived at it blessed,’ just as conversely the ultimate evil is that

the attaining of which makes one wretched. We earn either one of

these by our morals. Now it is certain that virtues or the vices contrary to them are called ‘morals.’ But as Augustine remarks in Book

Eight of On the City of God, some of our own people have said that

virtue itself is the ultimate good, others that pleasure is.”

(179) THE CHRISTIAN: “So what, please, did they understand by

pleasure?”

(180) THE PHILOSOPHER: “Not the dishonorable and shameful delight of carnal allurements, as many people suppose, but rather a kind

of inner tranquillity of the soul whereby it remains calm and content

with its own goods in disasters and good fortune alike, while no sense

of sin consumes it. Far be it from philosophers, those greatest despisers of earthly happiness, those distinguished flesh-tamers, to set up

the ultimate good in this life’s shamefulnesses! Many people attribute

this to Epicurus and his followers (that is, the Epicureans) out of ignorance, not really understanding, as we said, what the latter would

call pleasure. Otherwise, as we said, if Epicurus had departed as far

as is said from the path of soberness and respectability, then Seneca,

that greatest morals-builder, who lived a most self-restrained life as

you yourselves acknowledge, would hardly have brought in Epicurus’

views so often for moral instruction, as if they were his own master’s.”

(181) THE CHRISTIAN: “Be it as you suppose. But please answer

this: Do those who understand pleasure in this way disagree in meaning too, as they do in words, with those who call the ultimate good

‘virtue’?”

(182) THE PHILOSOPHER: “There’s little or no distance between

them, as far as their overall view is concerned. Indeed, to be strong in

virtues is itself to have this tranquillity of the soul, and conversely.”

(183) THE CHRISTIAN: “So there is one view for both of them about

the ultimate good, but the nomenclature is different. And so the two

apparent views about the ultimate good are reduced to one.”

(184) THE PHILOSOPHER: “So I think.”

-

(207) THE PHILOSOPHER: “To tell the truth, I’m learning now that

you’re a first-class philosopher, and it’s wrong to resist shamelessly

such a plain argument. But according to the argument you’ve set out,

a human being’s ultimate good is to be looked for there rather than

here. Perhaps this was Epicurus’ view when he said the ultimate good

is pleasure. For the soul’s tranquillity is so great that bodily affliction

doesn’t disturb it from outside, and neither does any sense of sin disturb the mind nor vice get in its way from inside. Thus its best will

is entirely fulfilled.

(208) “On the other hand, as long as something opposes our will or is

lacking to it, there’s no true blessedness at all. Surely this is always

occurring as long as one is alive here, and the soul, weighed down by

its earthly body’s mass and confined in it as though in a jail, doesn’t

enjoy true freedom. For who doesn’t sometimes want heat when it’s

too cold, or conversely, good weather when he’s tired of rain, or often

want more food or clothes than he has? And unless we resist the plain

truth, there are countless other things that are pressed upon us against

our will or are denied when we want them. Now if as the argument

stands the future life’s good is to be regarded as ultimate for us, then

I think the virtues we are furnished with here are the way to get there.

We’ll have to discuss them more carefully later on [(253)-(295)].”

(209) THE CHRISTIAN: “See, our disputation has brought us to the

point of maintaining that a human being’s ultimate good, or ‘final

good’ as it was called [(178)], is the future life’s blessedness, and virtues

are the way to get there.

-

(213) THE PHILOSOPHER: “It certainly did seem that way to our

forebears, as Cicero describes rather fully in his Rhetoric. But surely

when it is said that virtue is to be aspired after for its own sake,

not for the sake of something else, reward for merits isn’t being ruled

out entirely; rather the inclination to earthly advantages is taken away.

Otherwise we wouldn’t have correctly set up blessedness as the virtues’

goal — that is, their final cause — as your Boethius remarks in Book

Two of his Topics, following Themistius. In fact, while giving an example there of the topic ‘from the goal,’ he says ‘If to be blessed is

good, justice is good too.’ For here, he says, justice’s goal is such that

if someone lives in accordance with justice, he is led to blessedness.

Look, he plainly shows here that blessedness is awarded as payment

for a just life, and that our purpose in living justly is that we might

reach it. Epicurus I think calls this blessedness ‘pleasure’; your Christ

calls it ‘the kingdom of heaven.’

(214) “But what difference does it make what name it is called by, provided that the thing stays the same, the blessedness is different, and

no other purpose for living justly is proposed for philosophers than for

Christians? For we, like you, arrange to live justly here that we may

be glorified there. We fight against vices here that we may be crowned

there with virtues’ merits, receiving the ultimate good as our reward.”

(215) THE CHRISTIAN: “On the contrary. As far as I can tell, our

purpose and merits are quite different from yours, and we disagree

quite a bit too about the ultimate good itself.”

(216) THE PHILOSOPHER: “Please explain that, if you can.”

(217) THE CHRISTIAN: “No one correctly calls that than which

something greater is found the ‘ultimate good.’ For what is below

or less than something cannot by any means be called ‘supreme’ or

‘ultimate.’ But it is agreed that every human blessedness or glory is

far and inexpressibly exceeded by the divine one. Therefore, none besides it is to be called ‘ultimate.’ Nothing besides it is justly said to

be the ‘ultimate good.’”

(218) THE PHILOSOPHER: “In this context we do not mean the ultimate good absolutely, but the ultimate human good.”

(219) THE CHRISTIAN: “But neither do we correctly call ‘ultimate

human good’ that than which some greater human good is found.”

(220) THE PHILOSOPHER: “That’s plain, certainly.”

AbelardDialoguePJC.pdf

A Dutch illustrator. The caption reads:

; maar ontdek er de Spooren van het geluk niet - Epicurus

; but do not discover the Traces of Happiness. - Epicurus

I have a Dutch friend, perhaps he is willing to provide a better translation.

Worth noting too that John of Salisbury was a student of Abelard.

Edit: I see these two were first mentioned in this thread Aurelian Robert and his book.

Huge find.

Peter Abelard; "Dialogue Between a Philosopher, a Jew,and a Christian" c. 1136/1139

Will cover more tomorrow as I read the text.

John of Salisbury; "Policraticus" c. 1159. The first work of political theory in the Middle Ages, a mirror book for Princes. He advocates for divine right and necessary tyrannicide from the will of the people

[In reference to the four rivers of Eden] 'four rivers which spring for Epicureans from the fount of lustfulness'.

Quote from Cassius

My impression in the past has been that Discord is largely devoted to "gamers." Are you suggesting that that type of community is a good target for an Epicurean community, or is there another reason?

While that was most certainly true around its launch and also remains true to this day, Discord has become mainstream enough to the point where there are tens of thousands (possibly hundreds) of servers dedicated to any topic. I would say it's become much closer to Reddit, and I agree with A_Gardner about the potential.

At least in my personal experience, using Reddit & Discord, the Epicurean communities I started there largely ended up as failed experiments with the latter having limited success. I've raised the question for months now about whether or not I should re-do it, and I've spent those months figuring out exactly what went wrong aside from my own quietness time to time within in.

I still consider it an option, but more restrictions and a better system or organizing role perms would have to be instituted, especially with partnerships and self-plugs on other servers.

As for Gab and Minds: I agree with Elayne.

I've had my eyes on this book for a few months now thanks to working in the book industry for a bit but I've paid little attention to it since but decided that it should be at least archived on here. It's another fictional book regarding Epicurus, and perhaps I'm being too harsh but it wasn't my cup of tea, far too dramatic and focused on Timocrates as opposed to other philosophies, something you could expect given references from Laertius and how well-versed his students. Though too its credit it was far better than the dialogue in Imaginary Conversations but its no A Few Days in Athens.

https://www.the-epicuriana-a-novel.com

Quote from JJElbert

Not bad for a school that St. Augustine wrote off 16 centuries ago; "Its ashes are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them."

And yet, as a whole, barring Lucretius and Laertius, it amounts to a collection of fragments and its lack of popular support and frankly, accessibility means we must make do searching high on end for any small reference and discuss at length many of its obscure elements. It takes a certain willingness to dwell in the garden with the drive to delve into these numerous sources and form a comprehension of the philosophy, oh but for those that do, they'll have an ardent companion to deal with any mysticism and superstition and the means to enjoy life like no other.

Last week I brought up an instance of 10 religious devotees “witnessing” a miracle and using that as a source of certainty for their faith, according to their perception, however, miracles by their very nature are miraculous and defy standards of nature, and are by definition exceptional, therefore in keeping with the materialist position, miracles cannot be considered as definitive proof or stand on legitimate grounds for defending faith, as they do not hold up to materialist scrutiny, by being unable to be repeated and observed with sensory experience.

Crossposting from FB:

Generally my friends would agree with that, though theres often the sense of belonging to a higher power or trusting some baseline of reason for them. Most of them know of my preference and belonging with Epicurean Philosophy, and so I trust them to assume that its a matter of belief and epistemology.

Almost anyone can agree or thinks that using reason over emotion is preferable, and so when one says "don't use logic or reason" it could be squeamish or uncomfortable, and someone unfamiliar with the canon would be turned off. On the other hand, if someone did know about the canon, but was not Epicurean, there is a chance they could view the anticipations/preconceptions as a priori knowledge and thus is a form of logic and becomes a process of reasoning when feelings and sensory experience are brought in.

Welcome @Pdunc!