Author Archives: Hiram

About Hiram

Hiram is an author from the north side of Chicago who has written for The Humanist, Infidels, Occupy, and many other publications. He blogs at The Autarkist and is the author of Tending the Epicurean Garden (Humanist Press, 2014), How to Live a Good Life (Penguin Random House, 2020) and Epicurus of Samos – His Philosophy and Life: All the principal Classical texts Compiled and Introduced by Hiram Crespo (Ukemi Audiobooks, 2020). He earned a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from NEIU.

Vegetarianism as a Life Choice for Epicureans

What follows is a recent discussion on vegetarianism as a life choice for Epicureans. Please read Hermarchus on the Ethics of Vegetarianism and Treatment of Animals for context.

Hiram. We’ve been wondering what thoughts people have on vegetarianism from an Epicurean philosophy perspective.

Ron. If death is nothing to us, it is nothing to the animals. However, they are sentient beings and while they are alive they deserve from us a pleasant life.

Lena. I think being involved in animal slaughter is a harm for the people involved. We can make this better by improving conditions for animals and people, but the physical and emotional danger to us must be part of the calculus.

Eileen. I don’t recall him ever saying killing is nothing, though. Epicurus believed we are not unique among the animals. Since we wouldn’t want to be killed, I can imagine he might think we should forgo killing them, especially since we can be healthy as vegetarians. I assume he was aware that people can be vegetarians because there were some in ancient Athens in his day. Maybe I’m assuming too much.

Anthony. I think as in all things hedonic calculus needs to be performed. In some situations, such as human starvation or malnutrition, there is less pain if the human, who has the blessing and curse of foresight (knowing they will starve to death or at least suffer much pain from hunger and malnutrition), the killing of an animal for food in my opinion is an obvious choice. I believe eating fish and insects may be more morally acceptable as those animals, as far as I know, are less aware of their fate and so have less anxiety about death.

Is it not natural and correct for the individual to first consider their own essential needs before another’s as we who understand nature would expect others to do?

Hiram. I suppose a more scientific approach to this from an ethical perspective that takes into consideration how much pleasure vs pain our choices and avoidances generate is to think in terms of the neural complexity of the creature that we kill for food. This has always seemed intuitively correct to me: like you said, a cricket is much less complex in his neural system than a cow or pig, and therefore getting protein from them is less cruel. I think the amount of unnecessary suffering generated is part of what generates discomfort and guilt in us.

Lena. Some Jains don’t eat potatoes because it destroys too many microbes, and I’ve seen an argument that the push to farm insects as protein isn’t a moral improvement over current livestock, because the quantity of lives and suffering would become so significant.

Hiram. The Epicurean Scholarch Hermarchus seems to be putting forward ecological management arguments in the cited article. If too many of certain creatures breed they should probably be eaten. On the other hand many species of fish will be depleted by 2050 because of over-fishing and will likely become protected species soon.

Matt. The best advice on this subject I ever have heard came from a Theravada Buddhist monk…though he himself was a vegetarian living in Sri Lanka, he admonished others that took a position that vegetarianism is the “correct” thing to do. He would say that Buddhists living in places where it is inhospitable to grow crops like Tibet and Mongolia … those monks must subsist on meat and dairy in lieu of a strictly vegetarian diet. So it can’t be a universal precept. It may be right for an individual but it can’t be proclaimed as universally orthodox since there are societies that have been subsisting on animal products since time immemorial and the reasoning has to do with necessity.

I have also made serious attempts to be vegetarian in my life, specifically when I adapted to a Hindu/Eastern philosophy years ago. I find the reasoning within eastern philosophy to be pretty flimsy, based on metaphysical idealism that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. I have finally settled on the fact that meat eating is good for me, as a personal position. I have hunted and I have killed animals before for food and I am comfortable with this decision from an ethical perspective, even if I don’t personally kill the animal that produces the meat I consume or my family consumes on a regular basis.

Si. Personally I think that looking at what you eat and why is a part of the analyzed life. The industrial meat industry is a lot different than in the Hellenistic era. So even if Epicurus has the occasional meat, it’s very different now. With environmental considerations as well as ethics, I personally made the choice to be vegetarian and move towards having a mostly plant based. I try and cause as least pain as possible in an imperfect world.

Marcus. Evidence points to the ancient Epicureans being flexitarians, eating meat on occasion but mostly encouraging vegetarianism as healthier. Desire for meat was considered natural but not necessary.

Beryl. Biologically we have the dental apparatus of omnivores therefore we have adaptations to eat everything. That is our true nature as human beings. I have worked in medical research and seen the morally corrupting influence of using animals as vessels for our own natural urges and unnatural urges and interests Killing does seem to change people and reduce their empathy for living things. I turned my back on this type of medical research in my twenties viewing it as barbaric and pollutional for me.

Shahab. I think our nature or our natural body is more adapted for consumption of plants, rather than meat. Historically, people used less amount of meat. Eating meat was considered to be ceremonial, and somehow, a privilege for kings and their courtmen. Moreover, maybe by comparing the shape of our teeth to other non-human animals we can draw the conclusion that we are less adapted to eating meat than to plants.

Plus, the veganism is a modern subject, or let’s say, a reaction to the modern problem of over-production of meat, and kinds of diseases related to over-consumption of meat, and also the development of ethical framework which takes non-humans as subjects of ethical discussions.

When I remember my own childhood, or see other children’s affection toward animals, and their deep opposition to killing them, I can draw the raw conclusion that beside eating meat, killing animals regularly and on a mass scale is an outright deviation from our nature.

Hiram. Philodemus says that people who suffer from chronic, out-of-control rage are “like wild beasts”. Similarly we could argue that people who enjoy causing suffering to innocent animals are also “like wild beasts”, and that they remain in a wild, pre-civilized state. Whenever a creature complains or cries while being mistreated, it is understood that the animal is not giving its consent to how it’s being treated, that some form of communication of denial of consent is being given. Therefore, the act is unjust (as per Doctrine 32), and if animals have to be slaughtered for food, they should be killed in the least painful way possible.

Matt. This particular study shows evidence that human evolutionary progress was the result of an exceptionally high protein diet. Even our facial structure has been changed. Early humans have gone through multiple phases, but the reality is that humans have in fact had high protein diets in prehistoric times and even today. Agriculture is a fairly modern invention in the history of humankind. Human biology shows evidence that early humans became what we are now from a divergent lifestyle of pure herbivory.

This is not a condemnation of Vegetarianism or Veganism on philosophical or health grounds. I believe that a person chooses that lifestyle for many good reasons. I cannot say the vegetarianism of the Hindu Indian is ethically more correct than the traditional heavy protein rich diet of the Inuit in Nunavut. Both lifestyles arose organically and are currently being practiced, and there are many, many cultures that fall in between these two extremes that also arose entirely organically.

Beryl. I attended a conference six years ago now which looked specifically at new diagnostic methods to link human genome to food benefits with many researchers saying that individual diets for health optimization were being developed, so I agree what is natural and necessary for one person is not natural or even healthy for another. Ultimately hedonic calculus helps to determine the actions that make one healthy bodily and psychologically and which cause oneself and those about us least suffering.

Ultimately though I do believe we must evolve to develop greater empathy and connection with our fellow species on this planet and to step aside from our egotistical drives for survival which are now hurting vast swathes of the world’s populations and is causing global temperature. There are 7 billion of us on the planet and some animal species are down to their last 50 individuals. As an individual, I am starting where I am, taking responsibility for what I do and influencing where I can. I am not wedded to that though. If our species died out then that would mean nothing to me, however the future suffering of the upcoming generations does trouble me and perhaps that’s a topic for further discussion sometime.

Nate. If it works for you, it works for you. Nature gave us a variety of teeth, a variety of micro-bacteria in our guts, and a variety of digestible items in our environments from which to choose. It would be odd for an omnivorous, opportunistic mammalian species to exhibit anything less than diversity in diets.

Second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods

This discussion, which is edited from our Garden of Epicurus FB group discussion on the Gods, is a follow-up to similar discussions from previous years. You may read Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods, the essay For there ARE Gods and Principal Doctrine 1: On the Utility of the Epicurean Gods to be appraised of the controversies. You may instead watch this short video, which summarizes the matter.

This is the second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods that we at SoFE edit for publication, in order to further clarify our ideas about the subject for the benefit of present and future students.

Second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods

Alan. Unfortunately, even recently, and in spite of progress in the study of Epicurean philosophy, Epicurus has still been stubbornly regarded as an atheist: yet anyone who believes this has not taken Epicurus’s texts into consideration and refuses to recognize the decisive role that theology plays in Epicurus’ system. Those who think Epicurus was an atheist would do well to meditate carefully on a passage in Philodemus’ De pietate, where, making due allowance for its apologetic purpose, the philosopher from Gadara furnishes an important piece of information:

“those who eliminate the divine from existing things (tōn ontōn) Epicurus reproached for their complete madness, as in Book 12 (sc. of On Nature) he reproaches Prodicus, Diagoras, and Critias among others, saying that they rave like lunatics, and he likens them to Bacchant revelers, admonishing them not to trouble or disturb us.” – Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism, Theology

Hiram. It’s curious that he compares them negatively to the Dionysian revelers, because the word he used for his ambassadors was “kathegemones” (=guides), and the priests of Dionysus (at least in the city of Pergamon) were also known as Kathegemones. It seems like he wanted the Epicurean Guides to model themselves, in some way, after Dionysian priests. It seems from this quote that the type of “guiding” that these priests did was very different from the mysteries of the Maenads.

We should ask ourselves: Why would Epicurus choose to name his representatives after Guides of a mystery religion? In what way is the role of the Epicurean Guides supposed to be similar to that of the Dionysian guides (even if in other ways the cult of Dionysus is worthy of objection)?

Alan. That’s an interesting question. I’ll let you know if the Oxford Handbook has any insight on it. There is a portion of the theology chapter on the topic of ‘Epicurean priests’.

Marcus. Yes, there were Epicurean priests! Ancient polytheism was no monolith.

Hiram. I don’t have that book so look forward to your report on that. I’m very interested in what that chapter says.

Epicurus establishes, according to Philodemus’ Peri Eusebeias, a cognitive purity code (he says: “Believe anything of the gods so long as it doesn’t violate their incorruptibility and blessedness”), so the role of the “reformed” faith with Epicurean priests would have been, in part, to ensure that this doctrinal purity code was applied while carrying out whatever their religious techniques were.

Alan. Here’s what they have to offer:

“Epicurean Priests

Given this picture [of the intense Epicurean critique of providential order in the universe], and in view of the latter position in particular [that followers of Epicurus are exhorted to revere the traditional gods but stripped of their Homeric qualities], it will come as no surprise that there are attested (especially through epigraphy) Epicureans in priestly offices. We limit ourselves to noting: (1) Tiberius Claudius Lepidus (second century ce), an important representative of the Epicurean community in Amastris, a coastal city in Paphlagonia, who was priest and head of the College of Augustales in charge of the imperial cult (see the testimony of Lucian of Samosata in his Alexander or the False Prophet); and (2) Aurelius Belius Philippus, who in an inscription (dated to the time of Hadrian or a little later) appears as “priest (hiereus) and diadochus of the Epicureans in Apamea.” As one may readily imagine, the question is as delicate as it is controversial, and hence widely debated. One plausible answer—which takes account, on the one hand, of the blessed and incorruptible life that is led by the gods and, on the other hand, of the Epicurean rejection of any divine activity and, connected to this, their denial of providence and of prophecy—may be found in the idea that the gods are models or regulative ideals to which all people (but especially the sophoi, the wise “friends of the gods”: see the third passage of Philodemus, gathered under Usener 386) should (or at least try to) conform.

Maintaining that the gods are models does not at all mean diminishing the role that they play, especially if we bear in mind that “conforming” in this world and to the extent possible to the blessed and perfect life of the gods is not an “ideal” undertaking, lacking any relation to reality. The conclusion to the Epistle to Menoeceus invites the addressee (who is simultaneously individual and general) to meditate on the central ethical issues in the letter; in this way it will be possible to avoid perturbation and to live like a god among men (hōs theos en anthrōpois), and thus to achieve in practice the highest realization of happiness (eudaimonia). We find the same idea expressed in the Epistle to Menoeceus also in Lucretius, where he affirms that it is not impossible, here and now, to lead a life like that of the gods (Lucr. DRN 3.322: dignam dis degere vitam).

The expression employed by Epicurus in the letter is quite strong and, if Epicurean theology has any meaning at all, it should be found just here in the conclusion to the Epistle to Menoeceus: to live like a god among men means to envision divinity not as something distant (although it is so, in fact, from a strictly physical and local point of view) and so insignificant, but rather as representing a practical possibility of realizing here and now the ideal of life proposed by Epicurus and of attaining happiness in a lasting way, enjoying in this life (the only one we have) pleasure (understood as the absence of pain: cf. Ep. Men. 131). Thus, the role played by the gods cannot be other than ethical, and it is significant that Epicurus very likely again justified this “function” in physical terms.”

Hiram. Ok, so this is only tangential: priests here is “hiereus”, and also these are priests outside of the Garden who happened to be Epicurean, not the “Kathegemones” that he instituted … except for Aurelius Belius Philippus.

Michael. For what it’s worth, Kathegemon is a pretty general word. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have religious overtones generally.

Eileen. Lucretius often uses the gods’ names metaphorically so I’m not sure that we should assume a belief in literal gods. But even if we do, what is the relevance of gods that don’t pay any attention to humans? Who can’t be propitiated or angered by anything we say, do, fail to say, or fail to do? Functionally speaking, this outlook strikes me as no different from atheism.

Alan. You may also find an answer to your question in the Oxford Handbook.

“Clearly, one place where someone might push the Epicureans’ theory is on the question of why they are so confident that some of their views, for instance in atomism and in theology, are not similarly susceptible of multiple explanations. The threat to their atomist theology seems especially strong, as Seneca was to insist in defending the providential and teleological views of Stoicism. But Epicureans were adamant in maintaining their view of anthropomorphic gods that are physically incorruptible, live in a state of psychic blessedness, and have absolutely no concern for human beings. This latter claim opened them to the charge of atheism from early on, and along with their denial of the immortality of the soul, was a key reason why, unlike Aristotle and Plato, Epicureanism seems to have completely disappeared from the Islamic and Byzantine philosophical traditions. Interestingly, Epicurus held up the life of the gods as an ethical model in many areas of his philosophy (e.g. friendship) and insisted that mortals can aspire to similar states of untroubled blessedness, all the while emphasizing our mortality and the fact that after our deaths we will be nothing.”

And elsewhere:

“Alongside the passages from Cicero and Lucretius, we may add an important text of the middle Platonic philosopher Atticus, recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea (des Places fr. 3 p. 48.63–65, ap. Eus. PE 15.5.7 = Usener 385), who deemed the absence of providence in Aristotle more impious than the same doctrine in Epicurus. In this passage, Atticus writes that, according to Epicurus, human beings derive a benefit (onēsis) from the gods: their better emanations (beltionas aporrhoias) are accessory causes (or “co-causes”: paraitias) of many good things for those who partake of them. Atticus is right not to attribute to the Epicurean gods any “pure” or “absolute” causality—that would result in a patent contradiction with Epicurus’s philosophy—but to speak more modestly of “co-causes” or paraitiai, although in the Epicurean tradition itself there are not lacking those who regarded the divine nature as a cause. This is the case with the Epicurean Polyaenus (Tepedino Guerra fr. 29) who, in the first book of his On Philosophy (Peri philosophias), maintained, according to what Philodemus reports in the De pietate, that the divine nature (theia physis) is the perfect cause (autotelousan . . . aitian) for us (hēmin) of the greatest pleasures (hēdonōn tōn megistōn). In any case, Atticus reports that the better emanations of the gods (the reference is, of course, to the divine simulacra) are able to provide a benefit, that is, a profit directly bound up with that imperturbability that the gods enjoy eternally and which, for those who adopt the philosophy of Epicurus, is an actual and real possibility that they are called upon to realize in practice, if they wish to achieve a truly genuine and lasting happiness.

On the basis of Atticus’s testimony and the other parallel sources, the veneration of the gods acquires an ethical value of the highest order, even as it coexists with the inactivity of the divine and the absence of providence. The simulacra of the gods, then, bring benefits, and thus to participate in prayers and in religious ceremonies (cf. Diog. Oen. fr. 19 II 6–11 Smith) means to “interiorize” in an effective way the (pleasurable) divine simulacra and to put into practice the commitment to become like a god among men.

In this sense, the gods are not only ethical models and regulative ideals, introduced by Epicurus solely in order to render his philosophical system consistent with his recognition of beings that are eternally and genuinely imperturbable. Epicurus’s gods also become figures highly relevant to our ethical life, playing a role that is at least indirectly active (although without any deliberate intention on their part), in virtue of the benefits that their simulacra bring us in practice on the not always easy road toward assimilation to god (homoiōsis theōi), which has a Platonic pedigree (cf. Theaet. 176a–b) but is totally of this world and bounded by the limits of this life. This is why, in Epicurus’s philosophy, veneration (sebasmos) of the gods is often confused with veneration of the Epicurean sages (at the head of the list are the kathēgēmones or andres of the Kepos: Epicurus, Metrodorus, Polyaenus, and Hermarchus), as happens, for example, in the anonymous treatise on ethical matters contained in P.Herc. 346.”

And another:

“Epicurus’s and the Epicureans’ interest in theology and their admission of the existence of divinities is indeed well attested in Epicurus’s own fragments and in Philodemus (On Gods 3, col. 10.34–38). Epicurus thinks that simulacra come to human beings from the divinities, composed by finest and subtlest atoms, which constitute a “quasi-body,” endowed with a “quasi-blood.” These simulacra come from the intermundia and can reach humans while they are awake and while they are asleep; thence comes the human notion of the divinities, a “clear” or “manifest” (ἐναργής) pre-notion.

Due to the fineness of those simulacra, human beings cannot grasp them by means of their sense-perception, but by a representative intuition of their mind (ἐπιβολὴ φανταστικὴ τῆς διανοίας). Pre-notions of the gods are common to all human beings, independently of their culture and race. Epicurus even produces a proof of the existence of the gods in Usener 352, preserved by Cicero ND 1.16.43, who translates πρόληψις by anticipatio: the very universality of these pre-notions of the divinities proves the existence of the gods.

Another way to arrive at the deities, according to Epicurus, is by inference: on the basis of the principle of isonomia or equivalence in the universe, human beings in the world(s) must correspond to the same number of divinities in the intermundia. The loss of atoms due to the continual emanation of simulacra is compensated by an uninterrupted inflow; this is why the deities are never destroyed (Cic. ND 1.19.50, 39.109): they push away destructive atoms (Arrighetti fr. 183). 28 The gods not only exist, according to Epicurus, but they are also models of happiness, and therefore they serve as ethical models for human beings.

However, since their perfect happiness rests on their ataraxia (Arrighetti fr. 184), 30 they cannot care for humans and their vicissitudes. Hence the Epicurean doctrine of the absence of providence and of teleology, as well as the denial of Fate and divination.”

Hiram. Some perspective: Epicurus always employed clarity in his speech, so when he says at the closing of Menoeceus that we will live like immortals among mortals, he must have placed before the eyes of his disciples the lifestyle and life state of these immortals, what their relations are like, what their blissful lives are like. He would not have used empty words. So this contemplative exercise has an ethical and educational utility. Regardless of an individual’s stance on either of the three interpretations of the Epicurean gods, a sincere student should not dismiss the intended utility and medicine of the First Doctrine, or his ethical education will be incomplete. (In LMenoeceus this is mentioned first among the elements of right living, so placing this before our eyes if of great importance).

Richard. Did Epicurus believe that he and his followers could become immortal?

Hiram. No. Epicurus taught his followers that immortality, for us, is neither natural nor necessary. So for example Philodemus said we should try to be harmless like the gods and imitate their blessedness “insofar as mortals are capable of doing so”. They’re just ethical models that point to the highest standard of living that is naturally available to sentient beings. We can also think of them as an early example of science fiction, since we don’t believe in the supernatural. Sometimes I think of religion as art, and gods / imagery in religion as poetry. In fact, the word for placing before the eyes in modern Greek (“visualization”) is optic-poeisia, which sounds like optical poetry.

Richard. I couldn’t agree more. So, when he used the word ‘immortal’, he wasn’t literally saying, “We can be immortal”, he was using the word in a poetic, open-minded way, to invoke ideas. I would suggest that he could have been doing the same with the notion of ‘divine natural beings’. I’m not saying that he did; I don’t know. But I see no reason to be negative towards someone who sees it this way.

Hiram. If you read Peri Eusebeias by Philodemus (“On piety”) you see that their level of sophistication in speculating about extraterrestrial life is considerable. There, Metrodorus seems to have been entertaining an idea of a colonial organism being godlike and potentially immortal. Our theology is basically science fiction.

Alan. If we ground ourselves in historical context, all of the players who considered Epicurus an advocate of atheism were his detractors from neo-Platonism, Stoicism, and Christianity, etc. Nobody in this group minds if any of us today profess atheism. It is totally compatible with our expanded interpretation of Epicureanism that unshackles itself from the most dogmatic ancient version of itself. What doesn’t really seem up for debate, and what both the quoted scholars and the consensus here now support, is that an innocent/non-cynical/non-malicious, plain-faced reading of the Epicurean sources indicates that Epicurus wasn’t an atheist. “For gods there are, our knowledge of them is clear” are not the words of an atheist.

We can never know, as the above quote admits, what Epicurus’ secret thoughts were. However, there is a methodology, grounded in textual analysis and exegesis, for establishing what positions ancient authors held. All we have to characterize Epicurus’ beliefs are the texts, which incontrovertibly lead us to the conclusion that he believed in gods and wasn’t an atheist by the contemporary historical understanding of the word. (And, if I myself would say publicly “there are gods, our knowledge of them is clear” yet privately considered myself an atheist, in the sense of ‘there are no gods’, then someone would be correct to label me insincere.)

Now, if we want to argue that, using the modern understanding of the word ‘atheist’ as someone who rejects the God of traditional theism, Epicurus could effectively be an atheist, well, that’s possible but it would be an anachronistic characterization and we’d really just be debating semantics and the modern definition of atheism at that point (something Epicurus wouldn’t want us to waste our time doing, hence his proleptical definition of gods as ‘immortal and blessed beings’). If that still doesn’t clear up our misgivings then I would direct you to VS 62 and would request that we turn this conversation around for the sake of fostering good will.

Hiram. It is the official position of the SoFE that the atheist interpretation is one of the three acceptable opinions that we may hold today and still be part of the SoFE. But it’s another thing to say that Epicurus held this view secretly, which raises questions about his character and the character of his friends that we have no reason to raise based on what we know, particularly considering that Epicurus himself called several atheists, by name, Dionysian revelers, and had to defend himself from their insults and attacks. So we may be atheists, but we’re not historical revisionists. It’s possible to state that _Epicurus_ held the realist view and that _we_ hold the non-realist or atheist view.

Theodorus “the Godless” was not an atheist in the modern sense also, or even in the ancient sense (in spite of the epithet he was given), in fact he was more like Epicurus 🙂 and Epicurus’ theology is said to be based on Theodorus’ doctrines. This is why we should invest less passion in this subject, because our definitions of gods and of atheism are different from theirs back then. That’s why the founders used the definition of the gods rather than the word “gods” in Principal Doctrine 1: they trusted the definition more than the word, which would have been misinterpreted. In the Theodorus essay I say:

“Diogenes Laertius claims that Epicurus took most of what he said about the gods from Theodorus the Godless, who apparently wrote a scroll (lost to us) titled “On the Gods”. His later followers, the Theodorans, were known for their polemics and attacks on other philosophers.”

Richard. Out of curiosity, if Epicurus was alive now and still held to his position of ‘advanced natural beings’ elsewhere in the universe, would you call him an atheist?

Hiram. Yes. If he was alive today, his theology would be considered science fiction and/or astrobiology.

Richard. So, even though his naturalistic views haven’t changed, you wouldn’t see him as an atheist because he lived in the past?

Hiram. I’m not as concerned about adopting the atheist label as you seem to be, although I am one. Your question was a hypothetical, saying: “IF Epicurus lived TODAY”. If that had been the case, my opinion is that he would not have been calling his theory theology but astrobiology.

But since he lived 2,300 years ago, he called it theology, as speculation about alien life was not mainstream and seems to have been limited to the atomists. So he found the words in his culture and used them. Gods were the denizens of heaven (today it might be angels maybe, and in fact there are Christians who theorize that angels are our “big brothers” in other planets).

Matt. I usually stay away from the gods discussion, since that is what originally caused me depart from the Epicurean discussion groups a few years ago. This topic is probably one of the more divisive ones and often generates significant commentary … which amazing since so little is known about the fullness of Epicurus’s theology. The Epicurean gods, no matter how you slice it, are VERY different from most other deities whether Greek, Hindu, Northern European or Middle Eastern in their role and lack of administration. Someone coming from a modern Islamic or Hindu background (as an example) would find the ideas to be rather alien. It may have been an easier transition for the pagan believers of that era to accept Epicurus’s ideas as opposed to modern religions today that have very specific qualifications as to what a god is or is not.

Alan. The common thread among other religions’ ideation of divinity is in their willingness to intervene on behalf of humans and participate in their events. That is a commonality that you could easily draw between the Homeric gods of Olympus and the Hindu pantheon. (So the purified gods of Epicurus would likely have seemed as foreign to the Greeks as to Hindus if they could have heard his message). The error in all of these ‘religios’ would be that their assent to the idea of interventional gods ultimately results in paranoia and fear, preventing ataraxia. It seems established beyond a doubt (by consensus of academic scholars of Epicurus and by our own koinonia, or tradition of practitioners) though that the study and integration of theology was necessary for the moral development of followers of Epicureanism.

Matt. I very much agree. The issue of intervention is one of the lynchpin issues I think that really drove the wedge between the theology of Epicurus and the religions of the time. In many of these religions, God is known by his positive or cataphatic qualities and acts with energy, and is a causal agent. Whereas, EP’s divinities are not, even though they are “real” but hold no administration. This is why it is so difficult to convince a religious person who holds the truth of the divine to be one that god acts and is the cause, that EP’s gods are relevant.

For the pagan of that time, it probably was an easier transition. It wasn’t a terrible leap to see the gods as inaccessible role models that sacrifices were made to in the temple. The pious continued to be pious by making propitiations that may or may not ever be answered.

But for the zealous Christian, who believed Jesus was God incarnate and performed all that was written and testified about him, would find Epicurus’s position to be a dressed up form of atheism, from a deeply theological perspective. The Christians of the time would’ve found more similarities in Stoic and Neoplatonic concepts, and used their philosophical attacks on Epicurus as their own … though even Stoicism and Neoplatonism themselves weren’t safe or off-limits for condemnation from some apologists.

This is why the Al-Ghazalis and Tertullians railed against all forms of Greek philosophy, not just Epicureanism….in fact Epicurus wasn’t even the main person being attacked or even thought of.

Alan. My ultimate intended point here was just that we should not be afraid or intimidated by the anticipated difficulty of the discussions that attend and surround issues of divinity, especially in this group. Those with an open mind, who are soft rather than rigid, will be able to hear what is being said and evaluate for themselves the utility of its integration.

David. There are many who feel a genuine need for a god figure in their lives. When studying, what are often alien cultures and beliefs, they try desperately to weave a god figure into that which they are observing.

Alan. The projection of human frailties on the divine is one of the first errors made by the impious.

Hiram. But humans also project their strengths and faculties on the Gods, so Epicurus May have been saying “we should not force nature but gently persuade her” as in VS 21, and taming this tendency to extract ethical utility.

David. As a Taoist I can totally agree that we should not force nature, I can even go further and say the very idea of forcing “nature” is preposterous.

Alan. By what means they acquired the attributes of indestructibility and immortality, I do not know.

Michael. I’m not aware of anything on the creation of the divine. Demetrius Laco, in the treatise called “sulla forma del dio” (“On the Shape of God”) by its Italian editor, seems to try to explain their indestructibility and immortality as a result of their very fine atomic constitutions, but the text is badly damaged and it’s not clear how exactly that’s supposed to work.

Marcus. Based on everything I’ve read from ancient sources and scholars, it seems like the early Epicureans were never the victims of accusations of impiety and were more criticized for their hedonism. By the time of Philodemus and Cicero, Epicureans were being accused of atheism which led to philosophers like Philodemus to defend Epicurus’ piety as he does in On Piety.

I guess the relevant debate for modern Epicureans is less about the existence of the gods and more whether or not Epicurean religious practices today can be of any psychological benefit, as Epicurus thought. After all, Buddhist meditation is connected to all kinds of superstition and can still be beneficial to people. Could Epicurean exercises of contemplation of divine beings as models of perfection (even if imaginary) be of any use?

Michael. I think not just the religious practices, however they’re understood, but also the community around them is important: if nothing else, church services and Epicurean feasts on the 20th are both social, communal gatherings. There’s importance in that as well.

It certainly seems that for Epicureans, the gods did serve mostly as an ideal, that’s true. But it also doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist. We have an awful lot of description from Philodemus about them (e.g. they speak Greek to each other, are friends, and have no desire to commit adultery) and Demetrius Laco seems to tie himself into knots trying to explain the physics of their bodily constitutions. (A die-hard believer in the “thought-construct school” could dismiss that as later Epicureans misunderstanding Epicurus, but that seems pretty difficult to me.)

Alan. To add more context to this conversation, the text in the Handbook after the Philodemus quote continues:

“The passage in Philodemus constitutes a further argument against the hypothesis that the Epicurean gods were projections or mental constructs: it would be illogical and indeed inconsistent to treat the gods as thought constructs and at the same time reproach atheists for their denial of the real existence of divinities.”

So it seems that the ancient Epicureans would have rejected the atheist and idealist interpretations and instead insisted on the realist interpretation.

For a treatment of how the Epicureans justified their knowledge of the gods (remember the letter to Menoeceus: “For the gods exist (theoi men gar eisin): our knowledge of them is evident (enargēs gar autōn estin hē gnōsis)”), let’s examine this passage from the Handbook:

“Epicurus’s and the Epicureans’ interest in theology and their admission of the existence of divinities is indeed well attested in Epicurus’s own fragments and in Philodemus (On Gods 3, col. 10.34–38). Epicurus thinks that simulacra come to human beings from the divinities, composed by finest and subtlest atoms, which constitute a “quasi-body,” endowed with a “quasi-blood.” These simulacra come from the intermundia and can reach humans while they are awake and while they are asleep; thence comes the human notion of the divinities, a “clear” or “manifest” (ἐναργής) pre-notion. Due to the fineness of those simulacra, human beings cannot grasp them by means of their sense-perception, but by a representative intuition of their mind (ἐπιβολὴ φανταστικὴ τῆς διανοίας). Pre-notions of the gods are common to all human beings, independently of their culture and race. Epicurus even produces a proof of the existence of the gods in Usener 352, preserved by Cicero ND 1.16.43, who translates πρόληψις by anticipatio: the very universality of these pre-notions of the divinities proves the existence of the gods. Another way to arrive at the deities, according to Epicurus, is by inference: on the basis of the principle of isonomia or equivalence in the universe, human beings in the world(s) must correspond to the same number of divinities in the intermundia. The loss of atoms due to the continual emanation of simulacra is compensated by an uninterrupted inflow; this is why the deities are never destroyed (Cic. ND 1.19.50, 39.109): they push away destructive atoms (Arrighetti fr. 183). The gods not only exist, according to Epicurus, but they are also models of happiness, and therefore they serve as ethical models for human beings. However, since their perfect happiness rests on their ataraxia (Arrighetti fr. 184), they cannot care for humans and their vicissitudes. Hence the Epicurean doctrine of the absence of providence and of teleology, as well as the denial of Fate and divination.”

So there are three arguments outlined in support of the real and clear existence of divinities, in descending order of importance:

1) The self-evidence (enargeia) of the simulacra or eidola that emanate from the quasi-bodies of the divine in the metakosmia, striking us while awake or sleeping. The atoms of their emanations are so fine as to be imperceptible to our senses, but graspable only in prolepsis.
2) An appeal to the universality of the prolepsis of divinity (is this not similar to the argumentum ad populum?)
3) The isonomic (iso=equal, nomos=law) argument, a kind of analogical inference based on the tendency of nature to produce uniformity. Isonomic arguments are also how the atomists justified the innumerable worlds doctrine.

… Would you reword the Letter to Menoeceus (the only complete work on ethics remaining in Epicurus’ own words) or just not accept the treatment of the gods contained in it?

Richard. I would place it in the context of the time. “Our knowledge of them is evident” seems a direct contradiction of Epicurus’s position about knowledge.

Jason. Inference carries great weight in the pleasure principle. We only study nature to decrease fears about the unknown. It is easy to reject gods wholecloth today with the effective separation of church and state. Religion is a private matter. Not so in Epicurus’ time. One was expected to participate in public ritual or face exile. There is little existential motivation to square one’s disbelief in the supernatural with continued participation in public worship today if you are a naturalist.

If we start from first principles and explore the universe in our minds, as we know Epicurus did in the descriptions we have of his volumes On Nature, we might arrive at the same sort of conclusion that Carl Sagan did. Superior beings must live in the universe and to call them superior to humans they must have none of our vices and all of our virtues. Take this as close to perfection as you can conceive in a material universe and you have natural gods, the only creatures worthy of the name in a material universe. Carl Sagan was a huge advocate of adding a contact mandate to SETI because he believed that any alien race capable of contacting us MUST be superior to us in just about every way. He’s the reason for the golden plates on the Voyager probes.

Epicurus arrived at their “existence” the same way we arrive at the existence of aliens today. Given the vastness of space and time, it is a certainty that they exist. A universe without them would be preposterous. If we maximalize an alien race’s bliss, they would appear god-like to us as Epicureans and would be worthy of admiration. Admiration of the good is a pleasant activity and can have a blissful effect on the one who practices it regularly.

Richard. Carl Sagan also thought that it was possible that we are the only intelligent life in the universe, as we could be the first or the last. We just don’t know. We have no knowledge of such a species.

Alan. Jason, this is an excellent rendering of the isonomic argument for the existence of gods, a line a reasoning Epicurus himself likely used. The way you present it makes it sound more compelling than at first it seemed (in the Handbook, they only presented it as inferred by analogy that because there are so many humans, there also must be so many gods, which I think doesn’t bring the full force of the atomistic cosmology to bear on the subject.) In an infinite universe with unlimited arrangements of matter within, we can conceive of such arrangements as would produce beings sufficiently advanced from us as to be indistinguishable from the divine, to put a spin on Clarke’s aphorism.

Jason. And you have extended it beautifully with your twist on Clarke. A worthy addition to the modern meleta on the gods.

The Epicurean method of multiple explanations lands squarely on pleasure as the end and aim. It pleases me more to think that humanity is not alone in the universe. It pleases me more to say that the supernaturalists are hurting themselves in their confusion and the only creature worthy of adoration is that which is actually possible, material beings who have shucked off their vices and live like sages. A race of people whose choices and avoidances have led them to perpetual bliss.

Supernatural gods don’t exist. Epicurus was explicit that belief in them is impious. We don’t have his book On Gods but we can take a stab at what it might have contained given the fragments we have available to us. Our arguments might not be convincing but I’m certain Epicurus’ were, given how widely they were adopted, even into the priesthood of Herod’s temple.

Michael. As for your two, an argument from the consensus omnium (“Agreement of everyone”) and one from the prolepsis can look awfully similar, even though only the second really has probative force for Epicureans. But if everyone believes something, there’s likely to be some kernel of truth in it somewhere.

(Dirk Obbink (yes that Dirk Obbink) has an article in Oxford Studies in…1992? 1992-ish?…about arguments from the consensus omnium in Epicureanism and other schools.)

Alan. To be clear, are you saying that there is a distinction between a consensus omnium with regards to divine prolepses and the informal fallacy of argumentum ad populum? If we are relying on an appeal to a universal consensus to establish the real existence of something, it seems to be a rather weak argument (at least by the standards of empirical evidence that we are accustomed to employing in other areas of investigation).

Michael. No, I’m saying that the consensus omnium, in its pure form, simply is an argumentum ad populum, but that because of the way the prolepsis works (i.e. that it is universal, at least within a culture), it takes some careful phrasing or interpretation to tell an appeal to the prolepsis from an appeal to a consensus omnium. An appeal to a prolepsis is, after all, an appeal to something that *everyone* has in their head (a belief or idea or something like that, depending on what you take a prolepsis to be).

Jason. Dirk’s article is really quite good reading and clears up a LOT of misconceptions about Epicurean prolepses of the gods. Thanks for the cite , Michael. Cicero is the cause of a lot of confusion for earnest learners. Philodemus was right to condemn the lawyers.

Michael. Yeah, there’s a reason he’s had the career he’s had.
We have to use Cicero carefully: he’s usually polemical, and he’s usually writing for Roman beginners as well, whom he hopes will graduate to reading the originals in Greek. But he does have a good eye and sometimes lands a criticism or preserves a point of doctrine we wouldn’t otherwise know about.

Richard. So it’s possible to believe in more advanced life forms elsewhere in the universe AND be an atheist, right?

Alan. Yes, sure. You can reasonably hold both views.

Hiram. At SoFE we accept all three interpretations as legitimate. The founders were realists, but today Epicurean theology falls in the realm of Sci fi and speculation about astrobiology.

It is one thing to say Epicurus believed in the realist interpretation … it is a different thing to say that we believe in the same interpretation. We can have the second or third view while recognizing he adheres to the first. What we at SoFE are saying is that all three could be justified as reasonable by reasonable people.

Richard. If he saw ‘gods’ as another natural species somewhere else in the universe, was he really talking about ‘gods’ as most people would understand the word, or is he just redefining them as a get-out-clause for any accusation of heresy?

Hiram. This is an accusation–that he was insincere–made by anti-Epicureans, that we do not endorse.

If you read Epicurus’ sermon “Against the use of empty words” (or watch our youtube video on it) you’ll see that the Epicureans (like the Confucians) have a method of redefining words according to the study of nature, so that the words would be as closely aligned with the objects of our investigation as was empirically possible. THIS method was used by the first Epicureans with regards to the gods.

So the gods of supernaturalism became natural beings, the most blissful beings in the cosmos that the Epicureans were able to imagine based on their methods of studying the non-evident based on that which is available empirically.

If you read the wording of the first Principal Doctrine, you will find that the words used by the founders are not “the gods” but “blissful and immortal beings”–they use the Epicurean DEFINITION of the word “gods” instead of the word, which I think accentuates the fact that they trusted their DEFINITION of the word more than the word itself. They didn’t trust that the word accurately conveyed what they meant, so they used instead the definition. This was an ongoing issue with this and many other words, as we see in “Against empty words”. I think this attests to the fact that part of the way in which Epicurean theology came about was by attempting to apply their rules on redefinition of words according to nature to the word “gods”, so as to demystify the word and purge it from its supernatural trappings. If you consider this, you’ll begin to see some of the value that some of us see in this Doctrine.

Richard. Why would it be a problem for Epicurus to be an atheist? It all points to him not believing in ‘gods’ as most theists would define them. Why is that an issue?

Hiram. Epicurus was saying these ARE the real gods, the only gods that nature may produce. There was a _legitimate_ interest in the question of what is the life form with the highest quality of life in the cosmos, because this points to the highest ethical model achievable naturally.

Alan. Why does one have to believe in supernatural deities to be a polytheist?

As Hiram just explained, to cut the ambiguity away, Epicurus appeals directly to the proleptic intuition about the nature of the divine, giving them three essential attributes: that it is a zōion or a living entity, incorruptible (aphtharsia), and blessed (makariotēs) (which is even higher than eudaimonia).

It seems you are walking closely by Posidonius’ anti-Epicurean argument, explained in the Handbook:

“According to Posidonius, Epicurus was an atheist because at bottom he did not believe in the existence of the gods; if Epicurus allowed that the gods existed, he did so solely for the sake of convenience, that is, to deflect hostility and in particular the accusation of atheism from himself. It is obvious that Posidonius’s testimony is polemical and malicious in respect to Epicurus; but Posidonius expresses in nuce the basic features of Epicurus’s bad reputation in matters of theology, which, as we have said, were to cast a long shadow well beyond the chronological limits of the ancient world. It is obviously impossible to determine whether Epicurus, the “coryphaeus of atheism,” as Clement of Alexandria dubbed him (Strom. 1.1), was at heart an atheist; nevertheless, it is certain that, basing ourselves on what his texts say, Epicurus believed firmly and with conviction in the existence of the gods.”

The consensus is that upon taking the Epicurean texts innocently and sincerely, the only possible reasonable conclusion was that Epicurus did believe the gods to be real. Any suggested secret convictions or deception could cast into doubt the sincerity of Epicurus’ entire salvific project.

*

Closing on an intellectually humble note, we share a quote by the Guide Philodemus of Gadara from his scroll On Piety:

“It would be fitting to describe all men as impious, inasmuch as no one has been prolific in finding convincing demonstrations for the existence of the gods” – Philodemus of Gadara

Further Reading:

For there ARE Gods

Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods

Principal Doctrine 1: On the Utility of the Epicurean Gods

Happy Eikas: Prometheus Unbound

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Happy Twentieth to Epicureans everywhere! The book Epitome: Epicurean Writings is now available in paperback. It’s a collection of the main writings of the founders with some commentaries by myself. Ancient Epicureans always carried a Little Epitome (The Letter to Herotodus, included), and later graduated to more advanced content. The SoFE Epitome is meant to replace the utility of those ancient works for a modern reader. More literary updates:

Unbinding Prometheus

“It is unworthy of the truthfulness of a philosopher to use fables in his teaching.” – Colotes, a first-generation disciple of Epicurus

I am writing this in refutation of Colotes and in the tradition of Lucretius, who would strongly disagree with Colotes. In the past, I’ve written about the myth of Venus as an ethical guide. This Twentieth, it was my turn to facilitate the Eikas zoom discussion, and I chose to discuss the myth of Prometheus, re-interpreted from an Epicurean perspective. Here are some highlights:

The Fire-Giver

Fire is associated with civilization, creativity, and enlightenment, as opposed to uncivilized wilderness. In fact, fire scares wild beasts. It also helps us to cook, gives us warmth during the winter, and serves as a ritual technology.

Epimetheus and Prometheus

Prometheus’ name means Forethought or Foresight, whereas his brother’s name (Epimetheus) means Afterthought, or Hindsight. It seems like Prometheus is meant to represent progressive, future-looking Prudence, while Epimetheus represents the regressive mentality that looks to the past.

All creatures sense their powers and how to use them. – Lucretius, in Liber Qvintvs

Epimetheus gave animals their faculties, but forgot to include humans, therefore Prometheus endowed humans with civilizing gifts. In this story, we are reminded of Lucretius’ arguments (against creationism) that faculties arise blindly (in hindsight, or as non-guided legacy from the past through evolution by natural selection), and are only later utilized and refined by culture.

A Promethean View of History

Prometheus (as the instinct for progress) helped the Olympians against his own people, the Titans. He hated tyranny and helped to castrate and depose Uranus. He also participated in the rebellion against Chronus, and held inside him knowledge of who would eventually replace Zeus (the Orphics believed Bacchus would eventually sit on the right side of the throne of Zeus as co-ruler, but we know that Christians eventually appropriated this theme).

When given the opportunity to release the name of who would replace Zeus in exchange for his liberty, Prometheus refuses. It seems like his knowledge that the current regime would be replaced was enough to give him mental resilience through his trials.

The Bull Sacrifice Scene

Prometheus tricks Zeus out of the better part of his sacrifice, but this is also the foundation myth for how all sacrifices were made in ancient Hellenistic religion, and established a new ritual order. The Olympian cult was Promethean in origin.

“Yet who but I assigned clear rights and privileges to these new deities?” – Prometheus

What does this mean? It indicates a strong tension, from the outset, in Hellenistic culture between humanist tendencies and fear of the gods (or of the political and social powers that wielded these gods).

This reminds me of the Lucretian image (in Liber Primvs) where religion is trampled underfoot by mortals thanks to philosophy. The moral of the story is that religion should serve the people who utilize it, their communities, and their shared projects. It must serve humans, never the other way around. In the case of the bull sacrifice, the meat went to the people, and the bones and fat went to Zeus.

The Betrayal and Passion of Prometheus

Hephaistos (The God of Technology) had been closely related to both Prometheus and Athena, and in fact they were all three worshiped together (they are all tied to progress, civilization and science). However, in Prometheus Bound, Hephaistos betrays his friend and–even while expressing sadness for his friend–he’s the one who built the chains and bound Prometheus, against his own will, out of obedience (and/or fear?) of Zeus.

Throughout Prometheus Bound we see Zeus impiously referred to as a tyrant. The ethical problem of blind obedience to tyranny (the problem of the “good German” during the Nazi era), and the remorseless cruelty it produces, is seen in the Prometheus myth.

Hephaistos’ role also raises questions about the ethical utility of science and technology. In Principal Doctrines 10-13, Epicurus establishes an ethical purpose for science, however Prometheus Bound raises questions about what can happen when Technology serves the interests of power rather than ethical values.

A Herculanean Task

Hercules is the only one who is able to save and liberate Prometheus. This may indicate that liberating our Promethean instincts and potentials is a Herculanean task. It may also be indicative of the legacy of future generations, since Hercules is a son of Zeus: frequently the following generation inherits the sins or mistakes of the previous generations, and must atone for them.

Additional Notes

When Zeus tried to destroy the entire human race–as happens in the Bible–it is Prometheus who saves humankind from total annihilation.

“Power” is personified in Prometheus Bound as a character (or a choir) that is ever-present and/or on the sidelines, or in the background. This is a theatrical device to help us imagine that the structures of power are ever-present, and that this is part of the psychological background for the Prometheus myth. Perhaps these structures of power are embodied in royal servants, or in the mobs or groups of people who enforce conformity.

There are many other ethical and philosophical points that can be made about Prometheus (he has particular moral flaws and undergoes psychotheraphy while bound; he must tame his eagerness and zeal; and provides insights into Principal Doctrine 4 and on mental endurance while suffering in the flesh). The myth is an interesting exploration of many issues concerning power, the importance of choosing our battles wisely, the different types of ethical challenges that come with looking to the past versus looking to the future, and other philosophically interesting questions.

Please leave your comments below, or join us at the Garden of Epicurus FB group for further discussion. Also, please consider supporting me on Patreon if you like the content that we’re creating at SoFE. It’s good for my morale, and it keeps the Promethean fire of Epicurean philosophy burning!

Further Reading:
Prometheus Unbound

Happy Twentieth: On “Love Your Neighbor”

Happy Twentieth to all the disciples of Epicurus! Psyche Magazine published an essay titled Sprinkle a little ancient philosophy into your daily routines, and the Ad Navseam podcast published an episode titled The Whole Enchilada: Epicureanism and Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. Unfortunately, midway through the episode the authors cast doubt on whether Epicureans can be good citizens–never mind the historian Diogenes Laertius’ testimony about the character of Epicurus. To balance this, I would invite the student to read John Thrasher’s essay on Epicurean contractarianism.

This month, the latest episode of the Newstalk podcast “Talking History” is titled “Epicurus: a Life”. Several scholars were interviewed.

Love Your Neighbor

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. ’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

– Jesus the Nazarene, in The Gospel according to Mark 12:28-31

Having been raised in a Christian household has made me aware of both the utility and the futility of Christian ethos–whether we delve into the details, or stick to the basics. Christianity provides a formative ethical framework for almost all of my family members and a large portion of the society I live in. Even after people leave Christianity behind, or stop taking most of its claims seriously, many still consider themselves Christian Humanists and frequently still unquestioningly accept the wisdom of “Love your neighbor“. Not wanting to embrace it or dismiss it without careful consideration, I decided to take a second look at the second of the two Christian commandments through the lens of my Epicurean ethical framework to see if “Love your neighbor” still works.

I believe that Epicurus would argue that a commandment to love God is a bit strange: if one is commanded to love someone, is it love or is it fear? Can sentient beings be ORDERED to feel an emotion? Furthermore, the Principal Doctrines on justice recognize the personal sovereignty of the individual, and so we do not have “commandments”, only doctrines and adages.

So the first Christian commandment is irrelevant to us, but I believe the second commandment is not only sound, but also that Epicurus and most of the Epicurean Guides might argue that it’s generally advantageous to love our neighbors–maybe not as much as we love ourselves, but we can still argue that it’s advantageous to let our brain brew its oxytocin and endorphin rush for them. I believe that they would argue this from the perspective of the safety and the advantages it brings, rather than merely virtue-signal around the teaching, as a sign of respect for the intelligence of their pupils. In fact, Lucretius, in De Rerum Natura 5:1015-27 includes compassion for the weak among the foundational cultural traits of human societies listed in Liber Qvintvs:

Then, too, did neighbours ‘gin to league as friends,
Eager to wrong no more or suffer wrong,
And urged for children and the womankind
Mercy, of fathers, whilst with cries and gestures
They stammered hints how meet it was that all
Should have compassion on the weak.

But first, let us clarify what the second Christian commandment says and what it doesn’t say. “Love your neighbor”, on its face, does not mean that we should love everyone everywhere and always. No one has the attention span or time to love everyone. It’s naturally impossible to love everyone. Love, if it’s true, if the word has any real meaning, is a time-consuming pleasure. Two individuals must have wholesome exchanges and get to know each other with some level of depth, which takes some time. They must take time to communicate, and to demonstrate care with concrete tokens of friendship.

Notice that the word chosen in English to translate the Gospel teaching is “neighbor”–which in its prolepsis implies physical proximity. In Spanish, the word chosen is “prójimo”, which is related to words like proximity and also implies nearness. Our friend Nathan adds:

Within the ancient Hebrew context of Leviticus, ‘neighbor’ does not refer to ‘humanity’, it only refers to ‘other members of our tribe’. The full quotation from Leviticus is important for context: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” (19:18 NRSV)

PD’s 27 and 39-40 argue for the benefits of loving our neighbors and keeping them near. The Doctrines seem to argue that it’s advantageous to love those who are in our proximity, for the sake of our safety and happiness. Although PD 39 is often used to justify the exclusion from our circles of people who bring trouble or conflict, it starts by spelling out the following ideal scenario:

The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can. – Principal Doctrine 39

Other issues we must discuss are the feasibility argument and the argument for a complete ethical education. We don’t know to what extent it’s possible to TRULY love all of our neighbors. It’s impractical for a community to set up a rule in its social contract that is impossible to follow, however, it’s not irrational to expect an agreement of harmlessness (rather than love) from relative strangers. While the Christian commandment is noble, it potentially imposes and breeds hypocrisy, whereas the Epicurean conception of justice founded on an agreement to neither harm nor be harmed is much more realistic and practical.

That is the feasibility argument. The argument for a complete ethical education, on the other hand, says: while a commandment by a god to love him makes that god sound narcissistic, and while his commanding us to love others sounds authoritarian, Epicurus’ approach of expounding arguments for the advantages and benefits of befriending and loving our neighbors constitutes a more complete ethical education, and appeals to both our self-interest and our prudence. Most importantly, it does not produce false reasons to love our neighbors, and respects the intelligence and autarchy of the practitioner of philosophy.

Some enemies of Epicurean philosophy have argued that Epicureans would not make good citizens, or have concern for others outside of their immediate circle, however:

  1. Epicurus took care of orphans: he adopted and provided for the daughter of his best friend Metrodorus when she was orphaned. She must have been very young when Metro died, as he died eight years prior to Epicurus’ death and, as of the writing of his final will, Epicurus had not yet made arrangements for her to get married. Therefore, Epicurus had assumed responsibility for her and helped to raise her into adulthood
  2. Epicurus taught his friends how to live properly and pleasantly: he had a concrete and useful curriculum that provided an ethical and philosophical education for both young and old in his community which specifically contributed to their happiness and to living correctly
  3. The practice of friendship (philía) was a central aspect of the teaching mission. Each friend furnishes a concrete instance of loving our neighbor
  4. Epicurus fed the people every month in a feast: his Kepos functioned like what we would think of today as a communal non-profit organization. The welcome sign at the gate in the garden said “_STRANGER_, here you do well to tarry”. Since strangers were welcome in the garden, this means that Epicurus fed strangers, which sounds like near-universal charity

Epicurus, I would argue, was an exemplary citizen by any measure who sought to make into one tribe all the creatures that he was able to befriend. When asking about this subject in our FB group, one of the group members Shahab had this to say:

I think showing affection toward a neighbor makes you feel more safe beside them. Nothing is guaranteed, as men wish more harm upon each other. In any case, your neighbor may be a religious, a superstitious family, or they may be from people working for the government (as in authoritarian regimes). In these cases you wouldn’t feel safe if you don’t show them friendly feelings, or once upon a time, inviting them for a party where they can find, at least, Epicurean friendly attitude, reassuring for a healthy happy life. Malevolent neighbors can sabotage your reputation, making you feel unsafe in the neighborhood. So, as long as it benefits an Epicurean, showing a well-calculated love and friendliness toward one’s neighbor is, to me, a wise thing to do.

Not everyone considers “Love your neighbor” as being useful. Jason says:

PD 39 sums it up for me. Enroll everyone possible into the social contract. Benevolence meets benevolence. If they cannot or will not keep the contract, avoid them and their disturbance. If they cannot be avoided, expel them. The English word love is too much of a catch-all term for all of the varieties of positive feeling I experience to apply it universally to all sentients.

The biochemistry of my brain responds differently to different people and circumstances. Putting all those feelings under one word makes for vague speech, something Christianity, out of all the Abrahamic faiths, excels in. It is precisely that vagueness that makes it incompatible with Epicurean philosophy.

Nathan also says:

“He who best knew how to meet fear of external foes made into one family all the creatures he could; and those he could not, he at any rate did not treat as aliens; and where he found even this impossible, he avoided all association, and, so far as was useful, kept them at a distance” (Principal Doctrine 39).

I invite everyone to heed scientific research, get vaccinated, and wear a mask. To those who are unable to get vaccinated, I understand and encourage safe practices. To those who take unnecessary risks, I’ll avoid like the plague.

To answer your original question: no, Epicurus would not have endorsed (Love thy neighbor), because that proposition is justified by devotional worship of a Creator and does not consider any negative consequences of unconditional love.

From PD 39, and from the above discussion, we conclude that he wisdom of setting boundaries must be balanced with making into one tribe everyone we can … and it’s up to each one of us to determine the extent of each.

Therefore, I believe Epicurus loved his neighbors just as well or better than any good Christian, because he demonstrated life-long love for those who were near him (and taught them by example how to love each other) not with naive, religious idealisms but with concrete tokens of benefits, and for the right reasons.

The Epicureans on Abortion

The abduction over the years of very religiously conservative judges into the Supreme Court of the US–seven of the nine Justices are Catholic and many are religious and conservative at a time when over a third of millennials identify as “nones–, and the recent events in Texas (where restrictions to legalized abortion inspired by particular interpretations of Christianity are now being imposed in a manner that is difficult to challenge) are scary for many of us who have for years feared the ongoing encroachment of Dominionist ideology and theocracy in America, both in the public square and in our private lives. Recently, we discussed the issue of abortion from an Epicurean perspective. I wanted to get the opinions of several of the members of the Garden of Epicurus FaceBook group, to ensure that my opinion is not the only one being expressed here and that the discussion remained as objective as possible. Below is the (edited) dialogue we had concerning abortion as an ethical problem from an Epicurean perspective.

Hiram. Concerning the Texas abortion law: do others see good Epicurean arguments for / against? I’m curious to see what others make of this.

My first instinct is to acknowledge that unborn babies, particularly in the first few weeks, are just “goo in a petri dish” (to cite comedian Bill Maher). They lack the neural complexity for sentience, and so are not yet human beings from the Epicurean perspective (Epicurus’ Principal Doctrine 2 ties living to sentience). A certain amount of neural complexity is needed to produce the actual experience of being human.

My second reaction is that forced motherhood creates more unwanted children (and, in the case of incense or rape, particularly when the mother is herself a child, compounds the trauma), and these unwanted children later go on to contribute significantly to virtually all the statistics of societal dysfunction. It also keeps families in poverty if they’re not prepared for the huge responsibilities of another child (it costs $ 250,000 to raise a child in the US outside of the cycles of poverty)

Jason. PD38 says it all, for me.

When circumstances have not changed and things that were thought to be just are shown to not be in accord with our basic grasp of justice, then those things were not just. But when circumstances do change and things that were just are no longer useful, then those things were just while they brought mutual advantage among companions sharing the same community; but when later they did not bring advantage, then they were not just.

We’re not the same community. This is a religious community trying to impose their values on people who are not in their community. It’s fundamentally unjust on the face of it.

If they want to virtue signal they can do so voluntarily. It ceases to be virtuous when the behavior is forced. Their own actions aren’t in alignment with their religious doctrine. Choice and avoidance is as important a part of Christianity as it is in Epicurean philosophy.

Hiram. The accusation of virtue signaling reminds me of our third Scholarch Polystratus, who argued that when people pursue virtue but fail to study nature, their virtue comes to nothing and degenerates into superstition and arrogance (fanaticism). And so true virtue is impossible without it being rooted in the physics. In this case, the neural complexity of the newborn child is what renders it sentient enough to eventually feel pain and pleasure, which is what dignifies a soul in our ethics. But Christians do not care about that. They magically attribute even “personhood” to an undeveloped fetus without considering its neural complexity.

Going back to our discussions on slavery, this policy is an instance of denial of consent: people who did not participate in articulating the terms of a particular “social contract” are being forced into it against their will (and in the case of forced motherhood, this also includes the unwanted child who is brought forcefully into the world against the will of parents, who may later also abuse or neglect the unwanted child).

Doug. The debate would likely seem bizarre to an ancient Greek Pagan. They practiced infanticide. The father had several days after the birth to decide whether the child should be allowed to live. If he thought so, then there was a ceremony to welcome the child into the family.

What does the Bible say about Abortion?

Jason. The debate is bizarre to everyone outside of the noisome group making it the center of their politics. It isn’t even in alignment with their own other anti-regulatory beliefs.

Eileen. Abortion bans are about a Christian belief in ensoulment at the point of conception, but I’m not clear on Epicurus’s stand on this. I do know that abortion was by turns tolerated and vilified in the ancient world, its fortunes seeming to rise and fall with society’s perceptions of their population status at any given time.

Ilkka. We must also remember that these are the same people who oppose factual sex education and easy availability of contraception. The actual methods of preventing abortions … An Epicurean might answer that legislation that is motivated by superstition is automatically unjust.

Beryl. There is something for me here about abortion or “killing one’s own whilst in the womb“ which seems strikingly unfriendly to human life. That said it’s also extremely unfriendly to legislate for fully adult people how they can use their own bodies.

Whilst science tells us when a fetus may be human and religion tells us when a human fetus has a soul, hedonic calculus tells us clearly that knowing that unprotected sex–despite the pleasure–can cause untold suffering of the life created if brought into poverty, servitude, or life situations that cause early infant death, is itself a hostile unfriendly act. Where are the legislators taxing men named and proven by DNA tests as progenitors of offspring that may suffer hardships in life?

So on one hand one could say that the Texas legislators are preventing suffering by preventing late abortion. This though when examined further is a lie since the legislation will overwhelmingly affect poor women, especially minority women, and their unwanted children who may have entire lives suffering psychologically from the impact of poverty. Essentially the ruling is a hostile act and unfriendly towards both women and their unborn children whilst masquerading as the opposite. This level of hypocrisy needs to be avoided and be unsupported as toxic anti-woman and -child rhetoric. This legislation further does not look at the true causation of maternal and infant suffering–namely poverty, and neither does it address issues such as free contraception access which could decrease suffering overall. So if happiness is to be the greatest good, legislation which harms women and children is not Epicurean, nor is is compatible with the concept of friendliness.

From my own experience as a mother and as a witness to folk who have undergone these surgeries, the love of our own children brings great happiness and is an immortal good, as remembrance of times past being the most delicious memories. Even early morning feeds are remembered fondly. From talking to folk who have opted for the path of abortion there is deep sadness for some and poverty, lack of love for the partner, youth of the mother, or illness, along with in ability to self-reflect and manage desires, are amongst the reasons that unwanted pregnancies arise. A friendly act would be to fund contraception, teach folk about consent, educate our young on respect for human life, and how we conduct ourselves, especially when desire pulls us in directions that can cause harm to others. The spotlight needs to be put equally on men and women as co-creators of human life, and as such equally responsible for the suffering they inflict on their unwanted children.

Marcus. They often say that science is amoral and morality is a separate field all together. Here is an example where science is very relevant to morality. At what point of its development does the fetus experience pain? How can we tell if the fetus is viable? Does it represent a health risk to the mother? Etc. Only science can bring any resemblance of an answer to these questions. Or at the very least, bring us to a place where we can start any reflection on these subjects. For a more scientifically-minded contribution to the debate, here is an article from Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.

The Doctrine of Immortal Goods

“For people lose all appearance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal goods (athanatoi agathoi).” – Epicurus in his Epistle to Menoeceus

“I’ll think of you as an immortal, and you think of us as immortals!” – Epicurus, to Colotes

As we continue our deliberations about the meleta portion of the Epistle to Menoeceus (about which I’ve already written two essays here and here), the concept of “immortal goods” has come up for deepening.

Furthermore, the passage links the immortal goods to the “surroundings” or “ambience” of someone who is living a godlike lifestyle. This is because the life state of each sentient being is contextual to its environment. What are the surroundings of one who lives like an immortal?

Friends as Immortal Goods

The first and least controversial item that belongs in the official list of immortal goods is our friends. We know this with certainty because:

The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship; of these the one is a mortal good, the other immortal. – Epicurean Saying 78

VS 78 says that friendship is immortal, and wisdom is not. Therefore, in our sources, friends are the only thing that are clearly included among the “immortal goods” mentioned in the Epistle to Menoeceus, and each one of our true friends may therefore serve as a case study to better understand the doctrine of immortal goods.

So following this interpretation, we live like gods if we are surrounded by our friends, each of whom is an immortal good, and we should treat our Epicurean true friends as immortal goods–so long as we remember them with gratitude, they ARE part of us and, in some way, immortal.

Worthy of Immortal Life

The idea of “Athanatoi agathoi” is expressed differently in De rerum Natura. Rather than say there are eternal goods, Lucretius mentions that some things are or aren’t “worthy of immortality“, attaching an “immortal quality” to the worth or value of the thing it describes, as if there was a transcendental quality that makes some things have more value than others.

Philodemus also laments that people give worship to things that are not at all “worthy of immortality and blessedness”. It’s clear that, to the Epicurean Guides throughout history, the Doctrine of Immortal Goods has served as an invitation to deliberate about what things are worthy of immortality, and to deliberate about values. What do you think is worthy of immortality?

If each one of our true friends is, to us, either “worthy of immortal life” or an immortal good (“athanatois agathois“), and if we wish to place before our eyes the ways in which our truest friends are immortal, we should consider what makes them our closest friends. What advantages and pleasures do we share with them? The two undeniable attributes of the Epicurean gods in our writings are invulnerability and bliss: how do our friends contribute to this?

The Pleasures and Fearlessness of the Gods

When I asked about possible interpretations of “athanatoi agathoi” in the Garden group on FB, one of the members (Beryl) said: “I saw this phrase as pertaining to the letter as a whole as meaning (that) when one has rooted out fear of death then it’s as if one is immortal. When one has understanding of nature, one can simply (be) satisfied so as to enjoy life with no suffering as if one is immortal. When one has retired from the hurley-burley of the throng or understands one’s true reasons for involvement, one’s mind is peaceful even amongst storms like an immortal being. I thought the important word is appearance. Folk are still mortal, however, releasing fear and creating an ease full path for satisfying one’s necessary needs gives the peace of mind of an immortal.”

So in this interpretation of “immortal goods”, it’s the mental state and the existential achievement of calm and tranquil abiding that gives mortals the appearance of godliness.

The Theory of Pleasant Remembrance

In Epicurean ethics, visualization (the “placing before the eyes” exercise) and the use of happy memories (the “pleasant remembrance” exercise) are useful ethical practices. The full theory behind them is beyond the scope of this essay, but it is clear that memory plays an important part in how we practice them.

One way to unpack why true friends are considered “immortal” is to think that they are sources of ongoing bliss and pleasure, at least for as long as we remain grateful and remember them. In fact, any object of enjoyment that we practice “pleasant remembrance” with is, to some extent, experienced as immortal or undying.

Experiences and friends around whom we have built pleasant memories are, by definition, memorable, and since the pleasure continues for as long as we are grateful, they are in some way “immortal goods”.

Once we have carried out the exercise of placing before our eyes our friends and the ways in which they are immortal, we may consider other possibly immortal goods–for instance, the Doctrines of true philosophy, or the Four Sisters mentioned in PD 5. Reasons to include them among the “immortal goods” have been sufficiently expounded in our reasonings and video about PD 5. They are important points of reference in our ethics, and in our expectations of each other and our social contract–and since the LM mentions that these “immortal goods” must be a feature of our surroundings, and it’s hard to imagine a godlike lifestyle without them, The Four Sisters (Pleasure, Nobility, Justice, Prudence) must also be “athanatoi agathoi“.

If we apply this criterion of “memorability” to the immortal goods, we must also recognize that practices that produce blissful or pleasant states (even if not anchored in a past memory) can also be counted among the immortal goods if they have a similar transcendental quality as our remembered pleasures. I would argue that anything that helps us to feel fresh pleasures without fail (whether it is yoga, exercise, laughter practice, etc.) can also be counted among our immortal goods for a long as the enjoyment persists.

If Wisdom Dies …

We must also consider why wisdom (sophia) is mortal–but not phronesis (“practical wisdom”)–while friendship is immortal, as per VS 78. If Wisdom dies, if she’s not immortal, this is an interesting philosophical statement.

It may be that the statement that Wisdom is mortal is meant to diminish our sense of pride in our intellectual achievement, and to cure the pedantry that is often part of how other schools practice philosophy.

Might it also be that knowledge (or wisdom) does not produce the memorable feeling of pleasure that friends and salient experiences produce? Maybe this refers to cognitive decay: our brain’s abilities decay as we age, so that wisdom is seen to fade. If the first is the case, then the “memorable” criterion for things that are “immortal goods”, or at least “worthy of immortality”, is accurate.

Furthermore, we must consider Lucretius’ passage that calls the Doctrines of Epicurus “golden, and worthy of immortal life” in light of these considerations. It seems like he, at least, considered the words of true philosophy (epitomized in Epicurus’ Doctrines) to be among the immortal goods, incarnations or instances of phronesis (practical wisdom).

Memorable Experiences and our Hedonic Regimen

If memorable experiences are what characterizes immortal goods, then we may survey what memorable experiences we carry in our souls, so as to cultivate them. If it is true friends, then we may seek them out. If it’s the virtues mentioned in PD 5, then we may seek to find orientation in our choices and avoidances so as to ensure the presence of those virtues in our environment.

What goods do we consider worthy of immortality? How do we gain a godlike appearance, or create a godlike lifestyle and godlike surroundings? And, finally, how can we plan our life so as to live surrounded by immortal goods? These are some of the questions that may help us to gain clarity concerning the “athanatoi agathoi“. Of course, these considerations are meant to bear on our choices and rejections, so that we may swerve in the direction of these immortal goods.

Epicurus’ Instructions on Meleta, Part II

The following is a continuation of the essay Meléta: Epicurus’ Instructions for Students. Upar and Onar: on correct and incorrect modes of leisure and activity is the sequel. Please read them in order for maximum benefit.

During our last Eikas meeting, we discussed the Meléta portion of Epicurus’ Epistle to Menoeceus, with is found towards the end of the letter and contains instructions for his true and sincere disciples, and some theory to help us understand what the final outcome of our practice should be. One of our SoFE members lamented his being unable to attend the meeting, and so for his benefit (and that of other students of EP), I am posting some of the notes from our discussion.

Both Private Learning and Communal Transmission

In the previous essay, we learned that there are two fields of practice. In our last Twentieth discussion, we brainstormed some ideas for what constitutes Meléta:

  • “Meleta by oneself” (introspection), which includes things like repetition, memorization, inner work on our character usually meant to remove bad habits and form new ones, (this can include journaling), and being informed by the Doctrines while carrying out our choices and avoidances, and
  • “Meleta with others of like mind” (philía, or Epicurean friendship), which involves studying together, practicing friendship, kindly giving and accepting frank criticism, practicing suavity and clear speech, teaching and collaborating and creating educational content together, observing Eikas with other Epicureans, carrying out autarchy projects, piety projects, and other experiments by which we may have pragmatic encounters with the Doctrines, looking at case studies for the Doctrines, and other ways to deliberate together.

This second field of Meléta creates an oral tradition, and opportunities for direct, interpersonal transmission of the philosophy. This is not an accidental feature: I believe this is essential, and that it helps to make philosophy tangible and to keep it relevant for practitioners.

After several years of practice, it’s clear to me that this second field of praxis contains an intangible curriculum of human values that is not found in the texts, and can only be acquired through the process of having Epicurean friends who are invested in our happiness and have noble expectations of us. When Epicurus says that we must practice both by ourselves and with others, he is giving us the additional social, intellectual challenges that come from friendship, and which contribute greatly to our moral development, and provide necessary checks and balances in our practice.

“Imeras kai Nuktos”: the Case for a Morning Practice and an Evening Practice

Epicurus is making a promise (that we will not be disturbed whether waking or sleeping), but if we read it within its context, we see that it’s contingent on carrying out proper Meléta. The practice must include both fields (introspection and friendship), as well as either a constant practice (one possible reading of “day and night”), or two separate instances of daily and nightly practice (imeras kai nuktos).

The portion “whether waking or sleeping” (úpar out ónar) seems to indicate that there are two types of perturbations that philosophy helps us to overcome, otherwise why would the Hegemon speak specifically of not being perturbed either while awake or while sleeping? We discussed how this might indicate the recognition of the existence of the unconscious / subconscious part of the psyche.

Waking perturbations could be interpreted as the conscious ones, which we are aware of and we can argue with / against in order to transform our habits of thinking or acting. It may be that we are aware of our tiredness or laziness, of our excessive cravings for food or some other pleasure, of some irrational fear, or maybe we’re deeply aware of some other aspect of our daily disposition that perturbs our happiness.

Epicurus’ mention of perturbations while we sleep may indicate the unconscious ones that we are not fully aware of due to lack of introspective and philosophical hygiene, or perhaps dormant ones. Ignored or repressed feelings of guilt often perturb people and keep them up at night. Epicurus does mention that some of our dispositions, tendencies, or habits are like germs or seeds in his “On Moral Development”. By using these words he is recognizing that we carry certain unrealized potentials within us that, under certain conditions, may become realized. These may be part of what the Hegemon calls our “initial constitution” (genetic, physical and/or natural), or “seeds” acquired through upbringing. As we mature and develop morally, Epicurus teaches that we are in charge of transforming the content of our character, and even the physical structure of our psyche … but we cannot do that if we do not become aware of what these “seeds” are that keep us up at night. Here, we must carry out psychotherapy, introspection, expose ourselves to parrhesia (the frankness of our friends), or figure out other techniques to uncover and treat these perturbations. Epicurean philosophy requires its disciples to manage their mental health diligently so as to be–as Epicurus says–“armed for happiness”.

If we place before our eyes what a morning practice and an evening practice look like, immediately it becomes clear that most people who have morning rituals are attempting to prepare for the day ahead, and most people who have evening rituals are preparing for sleep. ES 11 helps to clarify the utility of both imeras meléta (a day practice) and nuktos meléta (a night practice).

For most people, to be quiet is to be numb and to be active is to be frenzied. – Epicurean Saying 11

Here, ἡσυχάζον ναρκᾷ (hesuchason narka) uses a form of the word used in Principal Doctrine 14 (hesuchía) for the technique of “retreating from the crowd”, which can be done alone or with friends … but could also refer to preparing for bed. Here, (since we are not “most people”, and they are other-ized in this Saying) the Founders of our tradition (for ES is a post-Epicurus compilation) are saying that this Epicurean art of retreat involves real and sober pleasures, not numbness or narcotic-like states (narka). Similarly, the words κινούμενον λυττᾷ (kinóumenon lytta) set the standard for the utility of a morning practice: just as rest should not be numb, similarly we should prepare for our day so that activity or productivity will be pleasant, and not frenzied or mindless. The first word here reminds me of kinetic, or active, pleasures, while the practice of retreating for the evening reminds me of katastematic, or calm, pleasures.

Epicurean Saying 41 elaborates further on what repetition and memorization looks like if the practice is constant or daily, or while we are working (managing our household and business). Some students dismiss practices of repetition or anything that feels like chanting, but this is in my view a mistake. Many insights in the Doctrines remain unexplored if we arrogantly dismiss them, thinking we already know them. We must not dismiss the actual practice of repeating and memorizing the Doctrines, because there are habitual patterns in our subconscious that require treatment, and also associations in our mind with certain ideas that are unanalyzed or that we may remain unaware of. Using the technique of offa, as described in ES 41, requires that we utter the words of true philosophy out loud (fonás afientas), and produces an instant encounter with the Doctrine that allows the mind to seek out whatever subconscious associations and pragmatic repercussions the words bring up in our minds.

Epicurus taught that the words of true philosophy are medicines (pharmakos). Studying and assimilating the Doctrines constitutes the taking of some dose of these Doctrines so that they may bring health to the soul (psyche).

“Diataraxthesi”: Perturbations

Let us now put aside the possibility of different kinds of perturbations while waking or sleeping, and let us look at the prolepsis of the word used. The first definition of this word “diataraxi” (to which “diataraxthesi” points) is “anxiety, mental uneasiness“. The second one I found was “a deviation of a system or process from its regular or normal state or path, caused by an outside influence“. Some of the synonyms are: disturbance, perturbation, maze, agitation, riot, turmoil, scrimmage.

Similar Things: our Expanding Discourse

The words “similar things” (τούτοις συγγενῆ, toutois syggeni) open the door to the expansion of meléta beyond the words of Epicurus, so long as the object of our study qualifies as things that are “similar” to the contents of the Epistle to Menoeceus. This is where we can bring into our studies many case studies and intellectuals from our own tradition, or even from other traditions, so long as the ethical framework for meléta is Epicurean. We see that during the days of Diogenes of Sidon and Philodemus, the Epicureans were commenting on many works by philosophers like Theophrastus (Peri Oikonomias) and others who were well known in their day. This is how new arguments were able to emerge to defend against attacks from the other schools, and it’s how we adapt philosophy to new and highly particular situations.

It is up to us to determine what falls under “similar things” for the purposes of meléta. My theory is that the matters being studied should be approached with epilogismos (that is, we must apply empirical methods, as per Principal Doctrine 24) and should be beneficial to our happiness (Principal Doctrine 28). We must apply the canon and derive utility from the practice of philosophy. If we speculate endlessly and pointlessly, neglect the study of nature, and/or make ourselves miserable instead of happy by how we practice philosophy, this is clearly not meléta.

Gods Among Men: an Epicurean Transhumanism?

If we carry out meléta in the way Epicurus advises, and take the recommended doses of philosophy’s medicine, we will start living like immortals and we will be surrounded by “athanatois agathois” (immortal goods). This doctrine of immortal goods deserves further elaboration, since these goods are the necessary features of the ambience, environment or context within which we live like immortals. If a person lives like a god among mortals, there have to be god-like inner states (of varied pleasures) as well as a god-like field of action because, in Epicureanism, all things are relational and contextual. There is one other instance where an immortal goods are mentioned, and it refers to philía (holy friendships).

The noble soul is devoted most of all to wisdom and to friendship — one a mortal good, the other immortal. – Epicurean Saying 78

This is probably because friendships help us to build memories, and that which is memorable stays with us over the long-term, providing us with happy memories, thoughts, and feelings as frequently as we revisit these memories. If we cultivate a grateful disposition, we can strengthen and extend these grateful memories. What other things in our lives carry a similar power to help us abide in pleasure easily? These things could serve as considerations for our exploration of the Doctrine of Immortal Goods.

It is up to us to determine how we can best live like immortals based on Epicurean teachings. This is where Epicurean theology serves ethical purposes. Epicurus invites us to place before our eyes the Gods so that they may serve as images and carriers of our destiny, our happiness, our healthy soul, and our future self. This is because we are invited to carry out our choices and avoidances so that we live like gods among mortals; our life-state and the goods we surround ourselves with are a conscious imitation of the gods. Our practice is an attempt to sculpt ourselves in their image. By setting up the gods as our ethical models, Epicurus is calling us to a transcendental life-state, lifestyle and environment.

Let us look at the specific qualities that Epicurus says we must attribute to the gods: he says we may believe anything about them so long as it does not contradict their blessedness and their immortality. This involves invulnerability (autarchy) and ever-blissful states.

During our Eikas meeting, we speculated: “Can this be interpreted as a transhumanist manifesto?“, however we did not have time to delve into this question in enough depth. Transhumanism is a worldview that calls for the enhancement of human beings in order to advance a longer life-span, together with the enjoyment of health, and a variety of mental and physical enhancements. However, since any modern or future transhumanist  technologies were not in existence when Epicurus wrote his Epistle to Menoeceus, these questions–while interesting and worthy of further consideration–are not immediately relevant to meléta and its benefits.

We therefore assume that the first Epicureans proved to themselves and to each other that it was, indeed, possible to live transcendentally, like a god among mortals, regardless of the current or future state of science. Through meléta, we train ourselves to do the same.

Upar and Onar: on correct and incorrect modes of leisure and activity

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