Posts by Little Rocker

Interesting. I guess I'm reading it as something like: ‘Whenever we say pleasure is the goal, we don’t mean the pleasures of the profligate or those pleasures that lie in consumption,’ reading κειμένας as indicating the source or location. But I'll look at it more closely because it would be interesting if it instead addressed charges of sloth or indolence!

In a similar vein, another thing that interests me about small, isolated places is that if people know each other personally and have a history of mutual assistance, the political stuff doesn't play such a big role even if people talk all day about politics in the coffee shop. So people will say something along the lines of, 'Yeah, Bob is a liberal/conservative, but he's one of us' because Bob rushed out to pick up Paul when his car broke down on the mountain pass just before the big blizzard hit. Sort of like, 'he's a fool, but he's our fool.'

Quote from Don

Friendships based on politics or convenience would not be of any help if the friendship was no longer politically beneficial to one party.

I've thought about this as a feature of small towns in rugged environments in America today. Why alienate neighbors by arguing over politics when you might need each other in cases of peril. I've been in some places lately where my main thought was, 'wow, I'm in a place where there are so many ways to get killed by making a simple mistake.' And most people have stories like, 'You remember when we all had to go out in the snow to save (insert name of fellow resident of the town)?

I love your discussion of 'neighborliness,' Pactatus! I've long been puzzled by the opening of KD 40, which includes the phrase ἐκ τῶν ὁμορρούντων, generally translated as 'from their neighbors,' but it's a strange construction for a number of reasons, among them that it's not clear whether these neighbors are a threat to the Epicurean community or part of it.

I listened to a Philosophy Bites podcast with him back when I was consuming more podcasts, and I seem to remember Nigel Warburton politely undermining Bloom's point at almost every turn.

Quote from Cassius

Deliberate and stubborn refusal to identify "meaning" as "pleasurable" for reasons that probably need a psychologist to drill down to find.

The last clause of this sentence really cracked me up! I can't make sense of someone saying, 'Reflecting on my highly meaningful life is terribly unpleasant.'

Quote from Nate

I hear that the Ukrainians are currently being blessed with a heightened level of existential meaning.

Exactly! 'Ah, yes, this war will be wonderful for developing the resilience of our children!' Epicureanism appeals to me for many reasons, but chief among them is the view that there is no meaning or purpose behind suffering.

I once read all (or at least most) of Roskam's Live Unnoticed. Let me see whether I can track down some key passages from that and post them later. The main thing that I remember Roskam arguing (and that I agree with) is that the advice depends on circumstance, much like most other Epicurean advice.. Sometimes it is actually more prudent to get involved in public affairs when it bears directly on your own security. But I think we are to understand that those circumstances are few and far between.

I myself (perhaps mistakenly) have come to believe that it means, at least in part, that we should not *care* to be noticed. We should not do things for that reason. We should be perfectly content, to use something like Don's rendering of lanthano, to be overlooked or unnoticed.

Quote from Don

Quote from Cassius

"once saved, always saved" issues in Christianity

I have my doubts. It didn't seem to take with me.

Ha! I have a strong aversion to this and some other related doctrines, but I admit that my mother believing it is probably why she doesn't seem to manifestly worry for my soul. Gotta get in early with the kids before they learn any different, I suppose.

Yeah, I've wondered about the same thing. I seem to remember that concern showing up in the objections section of a paper I read on Epicurean gratitude by Ben Rider (attached in its pre-published form)

Quote from Don

Plus, I continue to advocate for a translation of "well-being" for eudaimonia. "Flourishing" doesn't strike me as conveying the right tone... it's hard to explain, but I'm sticking with "well-being."

It is really hard to explain, but I agree--flourishing is just not the right word! It sounds too Aristotelian, too much like 'these plants flourish in afternoon sun,' but with humans rather than plants.

Quote from Cassius

Epicurus focused on PLEASURE as the guide of life. Eudaimonia and flourishing are terms associated with Aristotle and other Greeks, not the Epicurean perspective.

I guess I think Epicurus intended to position himself within the long-standing dispute about the nature of happiness rather than outside it. So when he says early in the Letter to Menoeceus, 'Therefore, one must practice the things which produce happiness, since if that is present we have everything and if it is absent we do everything in order to have it,' he uses eudaimonia. But I totally agree he thinks eudaimonia consists in pleasure.

I want to second all of these great suggestions and wish you luck with your group! Austin has done some podcasts, and I myself think the best of them is the two-part episode with Lucretius Today, accessible for free on this site and wherever podcasts are found.

This thread is great! I'll convince myself that this thread is so important that I won't do the unpleasant thing that needs doing (forget long-term advantage!).

On friendship, I agree with Waterholic that there is a sense (I think false) that we can now outsource the practical dimensions of friendship through internet resources. But I think even our natural and necessary desires are too vast to be satisfied by a curated yellow pages. But even if they could be, I think there are good reasons not to entirely outsource everything. Friendships are reciprocal and equal, and most relationships with people I pay are not. Also, there are still many places even in America where you 'need a guy,' and other places where there is not even reliable internet. My brother lives in such a place (he calls it 'the mountain') and he has a guy who welds and a guy who cuts trees and a guy who.... my brother does computers, and they all swap resources gratis+beers through highly informal arrangements. He thinks other people's way of approaching these practical things is sad, and I tend to admire this part of his somewhat unorthodox life. In places where people cannot afford or travel for services or they have friends who provide services, they have much different practical relationships. I got a bid to fix the plumbing in my house for 1500, and my partner did it for 200 in supplies because he's handy and I'm wordy.

But even if things are entirely outsourced on a practical level, intimacy is something that doesn't work that way, and intimacy matters a lot in laughter and misfortune. In the periods of my life when I have not had close friends, I have struggled. I currently have a group of friends I would not leave for any other reason than to care for my parents. I consider myself immensely fortunate to have them. One friend went through a serious mental health crisis, and another had a premature infant at 25 weeks, and we are closer now than we have ever been in the decade we have known each other. So yeah, I would be anxious without those friends and they contribute more to my life than pretty much anything else.

Which brings me to the question about anxiety in the Epicurean life. That's not an issue we can settle, though we benefit from continuing to discuss it, but I tend to split the difference between Don and Cassius. Unlike Don, I would be anxious if I saw a tornado on the horizon, but I am not currently anxious that I will be abandoned if I get sick. I have a great deal of confidence that friends will be there for me. If I do get sick, I hope I'll be as chill as I can, but I'm pretty sure I'll be anxious. Epicureanism can help me cope, but it won't tell me it doesn't suck. Perhaps the thing I like most about Epicureanism is its 'let's cross that bridge if we come to it' mentality. I'm not going to catastrophize or imagine all the bad things that can happen--I'm just going to live and enjoy my life with friends as long as it lasts. And read about how to take shelter in the event of a tornado (though I already know that one because I grew up in Tornado Alley).

On Cassius' point about Platonism and the desire to control others, a hearty Amen.

Quote from Kalosyni

Just like there is the idea within religion of Perennial philosophy, so to we need to watch out for some like this when comparing Epicureanism to other philosophies (such as the philosophy of Buddhism). I once read a very good explaination about why the belief in "perennial philosophy" is incorrect -- since the end goal of each religion is actually slightly different.

Like Cassius, this is a new term to me and it's like a penny dropped that helped me make some connections about the motives behind some of the 'wisdom' related organization/podcasts out there that seem to give off some vaguely religious vibes. For example,this guy.

Quote from Don

Even scooping dried pigeon droppings under bridges for "the best garden fertilizer." This is where it starts to sound like work!

I'm wondering how many people read the book and say, 'you know, this other advice I could take or leave, but scavenging pigeon droppings is a great idea!'

I always find myself of two minds when Don and Cassius discuss this. It definitely feels odd to start off by describing Epicurus with a term people commonly associate with something else and then tack on--'but not in the familiar sense.' It risks sounding like, 'he's a gastroenterologist, but not like any gastroenterologist you've ever met.' It's what leads to the charge that he's a hedonist in name only. But then if you don't call him a hedonist, then you risk making it sound like the goal isn't pleasure. Not to mention that he does the same thing himself--he identifies the aim as pleasure, then complains that people misunderstand what he means, so he tries to clear it up.

I'll be curious, Don, to find out whether 'frugal hedonism' ends up weighing in on the other stuff--like, you could be a frugal hedonist and still await your heavenly reward or be a frugal hedonist and still think the death of a child is part of a well-ordered cosmos.

As a related anecdote, my partner and I are very different people with entirely different skill sets who thankfully share the actually important commitments, and I remember when I was explaining the basics of Epicureanism to him, he said, 'Oh, I think I watched an interview with an Epicurean on an episode of Cheap RV Living.' So I watched it and thought, 'Well, I can see why he would think that.' Especially when they talk about community, death, and memories.

Quote from Don

Were you thinking of Epicurus maybe?

"Epicurus's teachings caused strife in Mytilene and he was forced to leave." (Wikipedia)

DeWitt pieces together an intriguing piece of historical fiction to flesh out Epicurus's experience and expulsion from Mytilene.

Found it:

One source has a certain Philodemus driven from the Sicilian town of Himera when his teachings were thought to have incurred divine wrath in the form of an epidemic (Aelian, in Suda, s.vv. Himeraiai, sukophantein, and timôntai; cf. Sider 1997, 9–10). The reconstruction of the testimonium is somewhat difficult, and nothing says that it must have to do with our Philodemus. Still, it would not be unusual for an Epicurean to be accused of atheism, and new readings in Philodemus’ Index Academicorum (cf. Fleischer 2017b) show that he did indeed spend time in Sicily. (From Blank, SEP)

As I understand it, all awareness, whether sensory, awareness of thought, proprioception, etc., depends on the configuration of atomic structure. When that structure breaks apart at death, all awareness goes down with the ship. Our current medical situation, which Epicurus could not have anticipated, has introduced questions about whether continued bodily reflexes in the absence of any capacity for awareness counts as death, but medical consensus on brain death and harvesting organs says it does.

I admittedly haven't done much reading on it, but it wouldn't surprise me if Epicurus thought our capacity to reflect on our thoughts and feelings is semi-perceptual. Aristotle talked about thought in the same terms as perception, for example. That leaves a person with a regress problem, but there are fancy ways to try to evade that (Aristotle's bizarre 'thought thinking itself'). But either way, Epicurus thinks it all depends on an atomic structure that breaks apart at death, so KD2 is on solid footing as far as I'm concerned.

Now that you mention it, I think that Epicurus might move if given the option (didn't Philodemus get kicked out of somewhere for impiety?), but I wonder what he would do if his only options were to recant or die.

Yeah, Socrates claims that he can't expect anyone else to tolerate his company if his own fellow citizens won't, so he refuses to propose exile as his penalty. He also claims that it would be cowardly and hypocritical after he says he would rather die than give up philosophy to give up philosophy to avoid death. He would be a laughingstock. It reminds me a bit of that part in Lucretius where he talks about how lots of people say that plenty of things are worse than death, then they willingly choose those things rather than die. Lucretius is like, 'and yet they live.'

The question about Socrates and the afterlife is super interesting because in Plato's Apology, he considers it equally likely that there could be no afterlife. I think Xenophon's Socrates never says anything about the afterlife. So the Socrates who cares about the afterlife could be colored through Plato's own Pythagorean commitments.

Keep us posted. Can't help seeing that cover and thinking of Prufrock: 'Do I dare to eat a peach?/ I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.'

Yeah, it sounds like she might be ceding too much ground to the common objection from academic philosophers that if Epicurus thinks we only study science for the sake of achieving the good, then that opens the empirical possibility that false scientific beliefs can be prudent, either because false beliefs more effectively diminish anxiety or make you safer from external threats. Epicurus cares both about diminishing anxiety and protecting himself against external threats, so they object that his commitment to truth is only skin deep.

I myself prefer to think that true belief diminishes anxiety, and I sort of suspect Epicurus might be happy to die rather than recant his science before the world. But I could be wrong--perhaps those beatific faces of the saints really do reflect greater psychological equanimity than I will ever achieve (see this study, admittedly quite vague, as usual, about 'happiness'), and perhaps Epicurus would recommend turning Galileo under the circumstances. I agree she probably should have argued in Epicurus' defense more forcefully.