To anyone:
I’ve heard from Clayton that Epicurus is the most libertarian of the ancient Greek philosophers. What should I read by him?
V.R. “staff” I got something awaiting some feedback. Other than that it’s ready to post.
SM: His entire surviving works are pretty scant (though he supposedly wrote the most of all ancient philosophers), so you might as well read everything. Have a look here: http://www.epicurus.net/
@SkepticalMetal: There isn’t actually a lot of surviving material by Epicurus and there isn’t even a lot written by his students and critics. So basically, you should read everything. I would say start with the Letter to Menoeceus and On Ends.
Epicurus’s physics has his characteristic lucidity and is pretty damn good for 2,500 year old physics but I think we have in the last century or two developed such superior understanding of physics that almost all of Greek physical philosophy is irrelevant except for its historical value. In particular, Epicurus erred with his “swerve” (despite the accolades that quantum indeterminists tend to heap on him for this very mistake). Followed to its conclusion, it is a fatal blow to causality (and, thus, rationality itself).
I believe Epicurus’s primary contribution is his moral theory, particularly its clarity, directness and longevity. His is no flash-in-the-pan, crackpot theory of free love society. Countless people over the course of more than two millenia have taken to heart his moral insights; they have directed their own personal affairs in accordance with them (no collective action problem, here) and have even formed small, peaceful, successful communities centered around these ideas (in other words, his vision is no unrealizable Utopia).
Two of the most contentious ideas of Epicurus are his atheism (actually, he wasn’t atheist, he simply held that the masses had impious supserstition regarding the gods, a charge that was doubtless true and is still true today in virtually any religion one could care to name) and his denial of the afterlife. The denial of afterlife is the most interesting as it is what ties together his physics and his ethics - fearing death and what follows is folly (pointless infliction of angst and worry upon oneself) because we are just comprised of atoms-in-motion (his physics) and when our body ceases to be alive, so does our consciousness, completely.
Clayton -
@Aristippus: A lot of the ancient manuscripts we have today actually came from the Church… what do you think the odds are that the Vatican might have some never-before-seen manuscripts written by Epicurus or one of his subsequent students hidden away in the Vatican secret library?
Clayton -
I’ve read De Rarum Natura. It was certainly interesting, although I didn’t get anything out of it.
The translations I’ve read are pretty rough going but it’s actually quite witty if you spend enough time parsing the butchered grammar. I recommend reading On Ends and Letter to Menoeceus. You should be able to finish both - with notes in the margins - in two hours flat.
Clayton -
I’d say it’s certainly a possibility. The archives there are enormous and most of the stuff there has probably never been looked at since being entered. Also, the works of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus are still being published, and there is the possibility of further Epicurean works being recovered from Herculaneum.
Btw Bert, I’ve posted some edits to your VR article on the relevant VR board thread.
Somebody commented on a Venus Project video that we should eliminate money, because if one person has more money than another, that’s inequality, and inequality is bad.
Unsame is doubleplus ungood!
Clayton -
It sounds like Epicurus was a hedonist.
In what sense a hedonist? I’m pretty sure I’ve had this discussion with you before.
The classical, Cyrenaic sense.
Yes, of course, since pleasure (‘hedone’ in Greek) is taken to be the ultimate good (although Epicurean ‘hedone’ is really ‘aponia’, the absence of pain).
Epicurus contrasted with the Cyrenaics.
Clayton -
Okay, but what about something like exercise? In order to not aches and pains throughout life, and in general live a healthy lifestyle, you have to experience that certain pain through exercise. So thus it becomes that some pain is necessarily to obtain pleasure, i.e. evil to achieve good.
Well you have to consider whether or not the pain in exercise reduces pain overall. Also on Epicurus on the Cyrenaics, there were some in the latter school that considered mental pleasure at least as signficant as physical pleasure.
Kind of reminds me of Aldous Huxley in a way.
@Skeptical: Epicurean philosophy does not ignore the capacity of the human mind to foresee the long-run consequences of choices. Hence, if you sit around and do not exercise, leading to foreseeable health problems, you are not choosing wisely. Moderate exercise suitable to maintain good chance of health into old age is only sensible. And even there, the body was designed to be exercised, so exercise is not merely strain… there is a “wholesome feeling” that comes from putting one’s whole effort into something, at least for a short duration.
Clayton -
Why? Are you assuming ‘pain’ refers to physical pain only?