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.

Liber Qvintvs

Oh luckless human kind, to grant the gods such powers, and top them off with bitter fury! – Liber Qvintvs, 1194-1195

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is lucretius_de_rerum_natura.jpg I’ve had the pleasure of reading Copley’s translation of De Rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) at least twice now. I’m not the first one to notice that DRN is as much about the ethics as it is about the physics, as both are connected in Epicurean philosophy. I’ve also noticed that the Fifth Book of DRN is the most complete extant compendium of ancient Epicurean anthropology that we have.

The main ethical goal of the Liber Qvintvs is to replace the inherited ancient myths about the gods handing down laws, language, writing, weapons, arts, crafts, and other “gifts of civilization” with non-supernatural explanations for all these phenomena based on the study of nature. Ancient people used to believe that Dionysus gave us wine cultivation, Athena gave us the arts and crafts, Hermes gave us language and writing, Urania gave us astronomy, etc. Today, many still believe that the tribal god of the Jews gave us all the languages (via the Babel myth) and that he created all things … but since we see that nothing comes from nothing, there is no need for a Creator of all matter.

That this process of replacing myth with natural theories concerning the “gifts of civilization” is the over-arching theme of Liber Qvintvs is evidenced by how it ends, as if summarizing: “Thus, step by step, time lays each fact before us, and reason lifts it to the coasts of light; for men saw one thing clarify another till civilization reached its highest peak“. Here, Lucretius seems to be saying that we become properly civilized by dismissing supernatural explanations for phenomena and learning, through the study of nature, about the way things work.

Earth the All-Mother is also our common tomb: she gives, but takes away, and grows again. – Liber Qvintvs, 259-260

In Liber Qvintvs, Lucretius beautifully exemplifies how we may use the Epicurean canonin order to investigate questions in the realm of culture and anthropology. The most interesting case study for this is the origin of language (1028-1090). Of course, we can not go back in time and observe how it emerged, so here we are forced to apply the Epicurean method of inferring by analogy about the non-evident based on the evident. Since the last Twentieth message was about how we use the canon, I wish to point out how Lucretius applies this method of inference by analogy to the origin of language. The passage begins by stating what the theory says: that there is no teleology. Instead, nature first randomly produces certain faculties in our bodies, some of which then prove to be advantageous, and then later culture and artifice perfect the use of these faculties. A curious insight is provided here:

All creatures sense their powers and how to use them. – Liber Qvintvs, 1033

This deserves further elaboration elsewhere, as it is profoundly intuitive and insightful, but for now let us focus on the issue of language. Lucretius points to a few signs from nature in his investigation of the origins of language. Citing examples from many species (calves who attack with their yet-to-develop horns, lion’s kittens who play with their claws and fangs in order to hone their skills, tiny birds who flutter their wings), Lucretius argues that we see that human children use gestures to point at what they see, which seems to demonstrate a natural instinct to communicate. He ridicules the idea that one single person in remote antiquity (to the ancients, a God like Hermes or Thoth) could invent all the words of an entire language, since communication requires more than one person who must all understand and use words with an agreed-upon meaning.

Lucretius cites how various species make different noises to effectively communicate at a rudimentary level according to necessity. Hounds bear their teeth as a threat, lick their pups to comfort them, and cry when in pain. A stallion squeals, his nostril gapes, when he is in his prime. Birds make different noises when they fight over food or battle their prey. Having cited these concrete examples, and citing feeling as a guide of sentient beings, Lucretius then infers (by analogy) that

if varied feelings, then, force animals, dumb though they are, to utter varied cries, how much more likely that in those days men could use one and another term for different things.

And in this manner, Lucretius exemplifies how we apply our canonical methods of reasoning by analogy (here, inferring about the non-evident based on that which is evident) in the realm of anthropology. Furthermore, Liber Qvintvs includes a natural explanation of the origin of friendship and compassion for the weak and vulnerable in our communities, insightful thoughts on the origin of government, and in one sci-fi passage it even describes a war that involves great beasts in the innumerable worlds. He describes the origins of religion and the arts, as well as the beginning of the historical era (the writing down of events). The origins of music are described in a beautiful passage about the “people of the forest” (silvestre genus) who are the “children of the Earth” (terrigenarum)–perhaps the first-ever example of Epicurean primitivism.

We find assistance for interpreting the Golden Words passage, where Lucretius praises the words of true philosophy, epitomized by Epicurus’ doctrines, and names them “golden, and most worthy of eternal life“. In a passage on the evolution of metalworking (line 1280), Lucretius compares gold favorably to iron, saying that while iron exacerbated the problem of warfare, men increase daily their search for gold, praise it and grant it honor beyond belief. We must assume that this, too, is the attitude we should have towards the Golden Words of true philosophy. He seems to be saying: look for gold, not iron–which is to say, perhaps, “make love, not war“, or maybe “seek pleasure and prosperity, not conflict” but he says this without ignoring the nuances. Lucretius does not idealize gold, and in fact he warns people about incessant desires for more, about greed as the “dark side” of this choice of wealth over violence / gold over iron. He also recognizes that the tools made from iron are useful in farming and technology.

People in antiquity believed that all these “civilizing gifts” or decrees were handed down by the gods at the dawn of creation. Some cultures, like the Sumerians, had very elaborate and politically interesting myths concerning the Més (the “divine decrees” by which the gods civilized humans), control over which was ludicrously fought over by gods from different cities according to Sumerian myth. In Liber Qvintvs, Lucretius demystifies each Mé, revealing each to be the natural product of culture and nature taking their course. He proved that Athena did not give us olives (or law, or philosophy, or weaving), that Dionysus did not give us wine, that Aristos did not give us cheese-making, etc. It is mortals who have fashioned the Més, and since (like the laws of human society) they are not divine but natural, these techniques, practices, or wisdom-traditions can be perfected or updated over long spans of many generations … and, most importantly, they do not serve gods. They serve mortals.

Overall, although DRN has many inspiring and moving passages, Liber Qvintvs is my favorite of the six books of De rerum natura, a treasure-trove of wisdom, an intellectual feast. If you do not have time to read the entire work, I recommend that you focus only on Liber Qvintvs so as to get a feel for why Lucretius (together with his Hegemon, Epicurus) is such an essential foundational figure in Western thought.

PD 20: a Six-Part Doctrine

In recent months, a few of the members of the Society of Epicurus have been systematically studying all the Principal Doctrines of Epicurus as part of a process of gaining a concise understanding of all the pragmatic repercussions of each one. This has been a very gratifying process, and has created many new insights into the tradition.

When one systematically studies the PDs, the flow of the Doctrines becomes evident, as does the fact that they are the conclusions of long discussions among the founders which were found to be the most advantageous teachings for our happiness. Epicurus was saying: “If you don’t have time to study my 300 scrolls, at least study these 40 short Doctrines and be happy!”.

The first four (the Tetrapharmakos) are of great cosmological and ethical importance for the individual. The social Doctrines (on friendship, justice, and on the establishment of a “society of friends”) are towards the end. In between them, we find portions on the philosophy and ethics of science (PDs 10-13), on autarchy (PDs 15-16), the canonics (PDs 22-25), and the portion I am presenting today deals with the mental disciplines of pleasure (PDs 18-21). Principal Doctrine 20 in specific is a six-part formula, and although we’ve studied it before, I’d like to focus here on each one of the six parts of the Doctrine separately in order to extract new insights.

The flesh receives as unlimited, the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of the future, procures a complete and perfect life, and we no longer have need of unlimited time. Nevertheless the mind does not shun pleasure, and even when circumstances make death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life.

Epicurus’ instructions in our study of his Doctrines revolve around repetition and memorization. Due to the length of this Doctrine, repeating and memorizing may be a bit more daunting than is the case with other Doctrines. Let us therefore divide the Doctrine into six portions, so that we can more carefully repeat, memorize, and carefully study each assertion, and compare it to other sources, until we fully assimilate all the cognitive and pragmatic repercussions of the Doctrine.

The flesh receives as unlimited, the limits of pleasure.
To provide this pleasure requires unlimited time.
The mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, procures a complete and perfect life.
The mind, banishing the terrors of the future, procures a complete and perfect life, and we no longer have need of unlimited time.
The mind does not shun pleasure.
Even when circumstances make death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life.

The Flesh Lacks Self-Control and Discipline

The first two statements are not saying that pleasure in the flesh is bad: only that the flesh does not have a means to discern their limits. Epicurean Saying 37, which seems to associate pleasant states with vitality and health, reiterates this:

Nature is weak in the face of what is bad, not what is good; for it is kept whole by pleasures and broken down by pains.

Among other things, the 20th Doctrine is a cure for limitless desires of the flesh: that is part of its medicine. The first statement says that the flesh does not know discipline: only the mind does, thanks to the faculty of reason. The second one says that this could potentially result in being assaulted by an infinite number of desires. We see that an existential problem is being framed in terms of the distinction between the flesh and the mind, their different natures, and their different powers. As with all the Doctrines, we must understand this clearly in order to carry out our choices and rejections prudently.

The Mind Must Discipline the Flesh

I divided 3 and 4 into two sentences, although originally they were one, because there are two assertions being made. These assertions are tied to the preceding PDs 18-19: the Baseline Doctrine and the Doctrine that stresses the limits of pleasure in time. If you study them with attention, you will see that PD’s 18 through 21 “give a sermon” together and seem to have been compiled as the authoritative conclusions of a single ethical discussion, the point of which was to say that the mind is responsible for securing a stable life of pleasure.

What are these Doctrines saying together? PD 18 and the third portion of PD 20, together, explain that the mind is able to grasp the limits of the flesh, which are mentioned in PD 18. The mind is able to directly observe, with full enargeia or immediacy, that as soon as the belly is somewhat full, there are no more pangs of hunger. It is able to apprehend that we do not experience pain when we neglect sexual passion, that it is not necessary, and that we can be content without it. While the flesh is unconscious and unable to apprehend these natural limits, the mind is aware and capable.

Similarly, PD 19, and the fourth statement of PD 20, together teach the superiority of reason over time, and how the mind is able to choose and reject how to reason about the past and future in such a way as to experience pleasure, and procure “a complete and perfect life“, a content and satisfied life that lacks nothing, that needs nothing. The point here is that we must think correctly about the past and future, rather than avoid thinking about them or think only of the present (as the Cyrenaics recommended). This is done by pleasant expectation and grateful recollection, two practices that Epicurus encouraged. PD 21 will complete these considerations, empowering us to question the amount of effort or sacrifice we dedicate to needless pleasures.

The Mind Must be Made an Ally

The fifth assertion, on its own, is of profound significance. It reminds me of Vatican Saying 21’s assertion that “We must not violate nature, but obey her“, or in some translations “We must not force nature, but gently persuade her“. This is essential to help us understand Epicurean ethics. If the mind does not shun pleasure, this means–again–that the mind is an ally in our practice of philosophy and in our pursuit of happiness; that our approach should be gentle; and that we do not have to fight against it, but work with it.

In cases where people have bad habits or insatiable desires that produce unwanted consequences and no longer passes hedonic calculus, they are often able to find a higher or healthier pleasure. When I found that coffee was harmful to my health, I opted for yerba maté, a herbal drink with stimulating properties that does not give me jitters. Similarly, the current globalized market furnishes a near infinite variety of culinary products that are guilt-free, fat-free, gluten-free, alcohol-free, fair trade, etc. This allows opportunities for moral agents to avoid feeling like we are punishing ourselves whenever we attempt to make healthier or more prudent choices. The thing to keep in mind is that there is usually a healthier pleasure available.

The final assertion reminds me of research on NDE’s (near-death experiences), which shows that, as soon as the brain realizes that we are dying and that it’s not getting the oxygen it needs, the brain immediately starts releasing blissful hormones. The body has the wisdom to die pleasantly. Epicurus’ manner of death is the prime example of this, but there may be other empirical sources of data by which we can glean further insights into the sixth assertion of this Doctrine. One that comes to mind involves the studies of meditating monks who are able to control their body’s temperature and to reach blissful states of mind at will. While the first skill may only be useful in cold environments, the second skill–if gained–is useful as a daily practice, and constitutes a pragmatic encounter with this Doctrine of great educational value. One way to practice PD 20 is by nurturing contemplative practices that reliably lead to blissful states.

The main intention of this final assertion is to show an extreme example of how the mind, once made an ally in our pursuit of pleasure, is indeed a reliable source of happiness (and of confident expectation of continued happiness). But in order for the mind to play the ethical role it’s supposed to play for an Epicurean, it must be kept healthy, ethically educated, and disciplined.

The flesh is unconscious; the mind is not. Protecting our mental health and cultivating disciplines of mental pleasure helps us to manage the quality of our sentience.

Laughter as a Philosophical Practice

At the same time we must laugh and philosophize, do our household duties and manage our business, and never cease proclaiming the sayings of the true philosophy. – ES 41

Recently, a fellow SoFE member cited this saying to me, stressing that we MUST laugh, that it is an order, not a suggestion. This was in the context of a discussion on how, of all the attributes that a person needs in order to be able to profit from the study of philosophy, the person’s attitude or disposition (diathesis) is surprisingly more important than many other attributes. Yes, we want students of philosophy to be knowledgeable, and ideally happy, but even if they’re beginners with little more to offer, so long as they have a good disposition, slowly they will profit, learn, and become happy with the use of the tools that philosophy gives. If they have the wrong attitude, they will not profit.

Epicurus expressed this by saying that his Doctrines are not for everyone, but only for those who are “armed for happiness“. We are left to determine what it means to be armed, or prepared, for happiness. It seems to imply that a certain attitudinal training, or the cultivation of healthy and happy dispositions, is required. Later Epicureans (like Philodemus of Gadara and Diogenes of Oenoanda) also stressed the importance of diathesis in their writing, with Diogenes stressing that our dispositions are under our control.

But why must laughter be part of our practice of philosophy, and part of our art of living (techné biou)? Laughter is a concrete instance of pleasure, manifesting and asserting itself as sound vibration, as tremor and movement in the body and mind, making itself concrete. Some specific object of our attention produces a concrete joy. Our disposition or attitude can not be known by others, except if it produces concrete instances of pleasure, the signs of which are laughter and other behaviors. If we cultivate a certain disposition, if we are armed for happiness, there have to be “fruits”, signs, observable expressions of this in our behavior: our willingness to laugh at ourselves and at events, an ease of enjoying simple things, our gratefulness, etc.

Furthermore, the cultivation of a sunny disposition creates a positive feedback loop or virtuous cycle. Studies suggest that just as people who are always angry, look mad and ugly, similarly people who are happy and confident are also more attractive. Laughing makes us radiant, and is contagious.

The Laughing Philosophers

It makes sense that laughter should be one of the basic philosophical exercises in our school. Epicureans fall within the lineage of the laughing philosophers, which begins with Democritus–the inventor of atomism–who was called the “laughing philosopher” because he made cheerfulness his cardinal virtue, and because he laughed frequently at the folly of human nature. I delve a bit more into the relation between laughter and materialism in this essay about the history and utility of comedy.

Friederich Nietzsche, in Thus Spake Zarathustra, elevated laughter to the status of a holy practice.

Laughter is holy. All good things laugh. – Nietzsche

But he went further. You see, Nietzsche specifically chose the prophet Asho Zartosht as the mouthpiece for his own philosophy for a reason. (I am using the Persian name in order to differentiate the historical Zartosht from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra). It may surprise some that the Iranian prophet Zarathustra himself was a laughing philosopher: there’s a legend that says that he was born laughing. The first monotheistic prophet appears at the dawn of recorded history, is pre-Abrahamic, and therefore not yet tainted with the asceticism or with the Platonist hatred for the world that we would see in later “prophets”, and which would find its most sick expression in figures like the “prophet” Mani–who blended Platonism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism into what seems like a mishmash of world-hating ideas.

In contrast, the Persian philosopher and moral reformer Zartosht was not at all a world-denying philosopher. He said: “Happy is the one who brings happiness to others“, and one of the main mantras of Zorostrianism (the Ashem Vohu) equates Asha (righteousness, truth, or justice) with Ushta (pleasure, happiness). Ushta (happiness), then, became the sign that righteousness was being properly honored and practiced in the world. This reminds us a bit of Epicurus’ Principal Doctrine 5.

Nietzsche chose Zartosht as his spokesperson because he considered him a worthy philosophical enemy, one whose ideas could still be reformed and useful. Like Zartosht, Nietzsche conceived of a cosmic battle–but not between “good” and “evil”. Nietzsche’s Neo-Zoroastrian battle is a battle between Laughter (light, lightening up, dancing, leaping) and the Spirit of Gravity, which pulls us down and represents a regressive instinct. Nietzsche’s “Ahriman” (“evil” “spirit”) is recognized for its inability to laugh.

I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity. Through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!

When Asho Zartosht spoke of “spirits”, the word he actually used was Mainyu. This translates into “mentality”, or “disposition”. Spenta Mainyu translates as something like “Progressive, or Constructive Mentality”, while Anghra Mainyu is “Regressive, or Harmful Mentality”. Another name for Anghra is Aka Mainyu (the “Sick, or Evil, Mindset”). Asho Zartosht taught that these two basic dispositions are “twins” congenital to human nature, born together in our souls, and the more we “feed” them, or “sacrifice” to each, the more they strengthen. He taught that we co-create our worlds through these two basic mentalities by our choices and rejections of concrete thoughts, words, and deeds.

However, as his philosophy evolved within the context of its religious trappings, these “Mainyu” became mystified. Spenta Mainyu evolved into the Christian Holy Spirit, while Anghra Mainyu evolved into the Devil. People adopted an obscure and superstitious interpretation of them, moving away from the original psychological insights.

As Epicureans, we reject the mythologized and absolute understanding of Regressive and Progressive Mentality as two cosmic forces. Instead, we may look at our choices and rejections in terms of what type of mentality is behind each impulse we feel, perhaps by naming them “the better” and “the worse” mentalities at the time–since our cosmological model is not absolute, but always relative or relational. This would help us to practice paying closer attention to our choices and avoidances, and to our dispositions, cultivating the healthier ones (which are advantageous for our happiness), and rejecting the sick ones (which are harmful to our happiness).

Laughter as a Practice

I’ve written an introductory set of considerations for how to practice Epicurean Saying 41, which is the most overt call for laughter as a philosophical practice in our extant Epicurean writings.

Laughter yoga has demonstrated effectiveness in reducing pain and is used in therapeutic settings with cancer patients. Ultimately, it is up to us as individuals to choose to develop a regular practice of laughter, and to incorporate it in concrete ways into our hedonic regimen. This can be as simple as a weekly gathering of family or friends, a funny movie, or a formal session of laughter practice.

“Life is not serious: only graveyards are serious“. – Atheist Indian guru Osho, in his sermon against the repression of laughter

Nature has no masters: Lucretius, Epicurus, and Effortless Action

“Nature does nothing, and yet nothing remains unaccomplished.” – Tao Te Ching, with “nature” replacing the Tao

Wu Wei (Doing Nothing 無爲) is a key concept in Taoism and in Chinese philosophy. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines wu wei as:

the practice of taking no action that is not in accord with the natural course of the universe.

Which reminds us of the Epicurean insistence of living in accordance with nature, defined as living pleasantly (rationally and pragmatically following the pleasure impulse and evading the pain signals). According to The School of Life,

It means being at peace while engaged in the most frenetic tasks so that one can carry these out with maximum skill and efficiency. Something of the meaning of wu wei is captured when we talk of being ‘in the zone’ – at one with what we are doing, in a state of profound concentration and flow.

… so that it seems that wu wei is a way of acting that does not interrupt the natural flows, including those of sentience and attention. Wu wei also is associated with the enjoyment of things without clinging or yearning. A metaphor for this is the bee which goes from flower to flower, enjoying the nectar freely, and moving on. We also see the logic of wu wei in the Lathe biosas (Live unknown) teaching, and in the focus on natural and necessary pleasures which are easy to get.

In Taoism, the focus is less on accepting that which you cannot change (as the Stoics do), and more on acting efficiently and effortlessly. A clear, non-mystical understanding of wu wei helps to remind us of the wisdom of choosing our battles, and choosing the most efficient and opportune moments and circumstances in which to act. According to this essay by LR:

A better way to think of it, however, is as a paradoxical “Action of non-action.”

This is very problematic for us, since Epicurean philosophy frowns upon unclear speech. But wu wei is far from a mystical and unpragmatic idea. It’s applied effectively in many fields, including business, politics, and martial arts.

Over 20 years ago, when I studied tai chi under an instructor who had been trained in China, he explained wu wei to me by teaching me that in addition to evading or dodging a blow and allowing the opponent to tire and hurt himself in various ways, we can also use the momentum from our own bodies and the strength of our legs when we counter-attack. This, too, is wu-wei, and it’s not just effortless: it’s efficient. He struck a blow once from a position of being steady on his feet, and then another one with a dancing motion, using his legs to add momentum to the blow. This second blow was, naturally, much stronger than the first (because he used momentum and I felt the weight of his whole body), and it pushed me back. He then said: “THAT is wu wei”. I was planning to move to Chicago in a month, so my tai chi classes were brief, but I always remembered this encounter, and the sense that the Sensei was on to something.

Sometimes wu wei is about the use of observable factors over which we may have no control, and sometimes it’s about the employment of the few other factors over which we DO have control, but that when applied at the right moment and in the right way, create much more effective ways of acting in the world thanks to the assistance of nature. According to this essay,

Another example of Wu Wei is the cutting of wood. If you go against the way the tree grew, the wood is difficult to cut. The wood, however, splits easily if you cut against the grain. When sawing wood, many people are in a great hurry to power through the block and do not realize they are splintering the back edge. Instead, a skilled carpenter will let the saw do the work, patiently allowing the blade to glide across the wood without causing any splinters or tiring themselves out.

Wu wei reminds me of the way in which sleep assists in neuroplasticity and in the process of memorizing and learning. Before we are able to perform a task thoroughly and subconsciously, without even thinking about it, many neural connections must happen in our brains, and these neurons do their repair work at night while we sleep. We do our active memorizing and learning while we’re awake, but (arguably) the most important work happens at night, when the brain really goes to work on learning. We must give up the power over the tasks or information that we’re learning, and allow the brain to rest, in order to learn. Without this effortless aspect of the process, learning does not happen. According to this study:

… during sleep, the brain must also stabilize key synapses to prevent what was learned the previous day from being eliminated by new learning experiences…

… the REM stage may make learning before sleep more resilient to interference from subsequent learning.

Unlike non-REM sleep, the sharp fall in plasticity during REM sleep was only seen among the volunteers with a task to learn.

This suggests that the stabilization that occurred during REM sleep was focused exclusively on synapses involved in learning this task.

Darwinian natural selection provides us another example where, without much effort on the part of sentient beings, things continue along their course, and even evolve into a magnificent variety of lifeforms. If some mutation, or some instinctive behavior, results in advantage for a creature, then that creature is more likely to survive and pass on their genes while others do not. Over time, only the better adapted creatures will remain. Like water, nature in all things takes the path of least resistance.

Another application of wu wei happens in communities where engineers of the beaver species have interfered with human communal engineering decisions. Scientists have figured out that if you play the soundtrack of running water, upon hearing it, beavers will begin to build dams by instinct. So they are using this to manipulate beaver behavior as needed. Rather than fight the critters, rather than make countless efforts, rather than be in control, humans simply need to encourage the creature to do what it’s programmed by nature to do whenever it hears running water.

We must not force Nature but persuade her. We shall persuade her if we satisfy the necessary desires and also those bodily desires that do not harm us while sternly rejecting those that are harmful. – Epicurean Saying 21

I have long considered that pleasure ethics often involves a practice of applying the same technique that we apply with the beavers, with ourselves; a practice which–in my view–requires insight, wisdom and self-compassion.

Epicurean Effortless Action

I have shared all these case studies on effortless yet efficient action in order to show that, while sometimes our instincts are triggered in vain, most of the time it does make sense to trust the wisdom of nature. A clear insight into wu wei may help us in our choices and avoidances, to more efficiently choose our efforts, and to act in a manner that is more confident, more efficient, less anxious, and yet paradoxically less in need of control. But what does Epicurean philosophy say concretely concerning effortless action? Epicurus’ Principal Doctrine 26 says:

The desires that do not bring pain when they go unfulfilled are not necessary; indeed they are easy to reject if they are hard to achieve or if they seem to produce harm.

Epicurus offers us two criteria in our choices and avoidances that justify not pursuing unnecessary pleasures: if they’re hard to achieve, or if they’re harmful, then it’s easy to dismiss them. This first criteria, of course, reminds us of wu wei (effortless action), and also the Doctrine seems to imply that it is desirable to live in such a way that our choices and avoidances tend to produce pleasures that generally require little effort.

Principal Doctrine 30, on the other hand, offers us two criteria to classify some natural desires as arising from groundless opinion:

Among natural desires, those that do not bring pain when unfulfilled and that require intense exertion arise from groundless opinion; and such desires fail to be stamped out not by nature but because of the groundless opinions of humankind.

Notice the second criterion involves the desires that require intense exertion. Here again, we find an ethics of effortless (or low effort) action in Epicurean Doctrines, tied to the accusation that the justifications for exertion involve faulty thinking not based on the study of nature.

We see in Epicurean pleasure calculus and in wu-wei a tendency to affirm nature, as well as some distrust of culture or artifice. We also see a tendency to follow the path of least resistance. But when we read Lucretius and consider Epicurean physics, wu wei comes into a different relief.

Effortless Action and Epicurean Atheology

The fullness of the pragmatic repercussions of these considerations, ordinary and seemingly unrelated as they are, is carried to its conclusion by Lucretius. This is the beauty of Epicurean philosophy: it rationally and pragmatically weaves cosmology, physics, epistemology, and ethics into a single, coherent tapestry.

If you grasp these points well and hold to them,
you will see at once that nature is free,
liberated from her proud possessors,
doing all things on her own initiative,
without divinities playing any part.

Lucretius, On the nature of things, Book II

… which, of course, has repercussions for how we should live our lives (the ethics). The gods do not govern, create, or interrupt the workings of nature. Therefore, even if we attribute an artistic-aesthetic or ethical role to the gods in our lives, we need not worry about appeasing them. This, too, allows us to engage in more effective action in our environment, as it protects us from the degrading superstitions of the mobs who are forever appeasing gods out of unwarranted shame or fear.

Without gods managing everything, nature is free. Nature acts according to its own laws and cycles, which are unconscious and impersonal, and it is by prudently acting in accordance with (or not against) these cycles and laws that we act most efficiently.

How Do We Memorialize our Fallen?

The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter an immortal one. – Vatican Saying 78

“Of all the things that wisdom provides for a happy life, by far the greatest is friendship.” – from Jesús’ instagram feed

By now some of you will be aware that our friend Jesús (SoFE member and one of the admins of the Spanish SoFE group) passed away around the 20th in a bicycle accident. Jesús was a professor of political science in Venezuela. His way of dealing with all the things that have been happening in his country was through the frequent use of comedy and cynical commentary. He was instrumental in the last two years in translating many writings for the Spanish page of the Society of Friends of Epicurus. He often carried a copy of Epicurus’ Doctrines with him for study and remembrance, and some of his friends and/or students reported that he had been sharing the Epicurean Gospel with them. He was a very smart and sincere Epicurean, and thanks to his steady participation in our monthly zoom meetings, our Eikas had become a bilingual event. We’re going to miss him.

This is not the first time we lose an Epicurean in our circle. It leads us to philosophize about these questions: How do we properly mourn our Epicurean Friends? How can we remain considerate and respectful of family members who do not share our values, while also properly honoring the memory and the sincerely-held beliefs of our Friend? What funerary and/or memorial traditions will we implement? Principal Doctrine 40 reminds us that we should “not grieve the early death of the departed, as though it called for pity.” The practice recommended for remembering our fallen is known as “pleasant remembrance”. Initially, this may be difficult to achieve, but over time we should fill the hole in the world left by the departed with pleasant memories.

The celebration of Eikas on the Twentieth of every month was originally a memorial service honoring the Epicureans who have passed, and furnishes a great opportunity to pour our libations and remember him. Therefore, we did a private memorial toast to the memory of Jesús during our Eikas zoom meeting this weekend.

The Reemergence of the Roman Epicurean Burial Tradition

Maybe this may teach us something about the utility, in times like these, of having healthy ecumenical relations with Christians. When we learned of Jesús death, we also learned (from his brother) that his mother would probably not allow a non-Christian funeral. After all, she named him after Jesus Christ and is very Catholic (and devastated). One of the first things we are learning from this is that funerals are for the living. They help bring closure and comfort to the survivors. As Philodemus the Guide reminded us in his scroll On Death, the person who has died is not there, and does not benefit in any way whatsoever from funeral rites.

Therefore, we must consider that, for the Christian survivors, it is normal that they will want to remember him according to the rites and traditions of Christianity, and that for the Epicurean survivors, it is normal that we will want to remember him according to our own traditions. For this reason, after speaking to his brother, it was important for us to respect the Christian family’s ways of mourning, and we figured we would simply mourn and remember Jesús in our own way privately, but our friend Alan did share imagery inspired by the inscriptions that were used by Roman Epicureans on their tombs with some of the friends and students of Jesús, and some of them expressed that it would be a nice gesture to honor his sincerely-held Epicurean beliefs in some way. After all, his beliefs were a big part of what made him who he was, and part of why people loved him.

He was loved by many in his community. One of his friends said: “He will be immortal to us“.

So we were very pleasantly surprised when, after the funeral, we received an image of Jesús Guevara’s tomb. Someone who saw our post (perhaps one of his students?) had traced the image that our friend Alan had made to memorialize him over the fresh cement on his tomb. As you can see, it’s very crude, but it’s an authentic expression of the resurgence of Epicurean culture in the 21st Century in a part of the world that is deeply Catholic … and (we must acknowledge) it’s also a token of comfort, solidarity, and compassion on the part of people who are (in all likelihood) Christians, but who respect us enough and have enough compassion, kindness, and tolerance, that they prefer to honor the sincerely-held beliefs of our fallen rather than erase them, or sugar-coat them. For this, we are deeply thankful.

We only get one life, it’s very short, and sometimes we don’t get a chance to articulate our love for each other. If Jesús was still here, I’d just want to say thank you, I love you, and we will not forget you. I invite my readers to take the time to call your friends that you haven’t seen in a while–for (as the Havamal says) “a path that is neglected, slowly fills with weeds”. Peace and Safety.

Passages on the Soul, from Epicurus’ Epistle to Herodotus

The Letter to Herodotus is available here in its entirety. A commentary on the Epicurean Doctrine of the Psyche is here.

On the Occasion of the Birth of the Hegemon

For many years, we have had difficulty establishing with certainty the date of the birth of Epicurus. This is because the Attic calendar–whose months were mentioned in Epicurus’ Last Will and Testament–was not widely used. It was very much a local calendar, and was lunisolar, which adds great confusion for us who are used to our (solar) Gregorian calendar. The Birth of the Hegemon should naturally be our biggest holiday, our equivalent of Christmas, Mawlid, or Buddha Purnima, so at the SoFE we decided it was time to fix the date and to start developing traditions around the holiday of the Birth of the Hegemon.

The Lunisolar Calendar Discussion

We looked into various possible solutions. I considered adapting the Attic calendar into a simplified lunisolar calendar, abandoning the traditional and difficult-to-pronounce Greek month names and replacing them with the generic “First Moon”, “Second Moon”, etc. as names for our months. Some years would have twelve moons, and others would have thirteen. According to Wikipedia:

The year was meant to begin with the first sighting of the new moon after the summer solstice.

This would have been easy enough, as there are plenty of lunar calendars online we can consult. In his final will, Epicurus describes “the customary celebration of my birthday on the tenth day of Gamelion in each year“. Gamelion was the seventh month, which typically falls in January-February. But in 2020-2021, the summer solstice coincided with the new moon, and therefore the lunisolar months came very early. According to space.com, there was a new moon on June 21st of 2020, which is right at the solstice, so the solstice coincided with the New (Lunisolar) Year.

If we count seven new moons from there, we will see that space.com sets the seventh new moon of year 2,361 of the Age of Epicurus as December the 14th.

Therefore, the tenth day of the seventh moon in this simplified lunisolar calendar, counting from December 14th, would have been the 23rd day of December of 2020–which would have been the Birth of the Hegemon in our simplified lunisolar calendar. However, in the ancient Attic calendar, each month began with the “first sighting of the new moon”, which in this case was probably one or two nights after the New Moon of the 14th of December of 2020. We are beginning to see how difficult it is to plan ahead for this, which creates many disadvantages.

When we say that we are in the Year of Epicurus 2,361, we calculate that from 2020 (current year in the Gregorian calendar, which begins the lunisolar cycle of 2020-2021), plus 341 (Before Common Era, the year of his birth).

When I consulted with the other members of the SoFE concerning the problem of the date of this holiday, we considered the possibility of adopting a private lunisolar calendar merely with the intention of clearly calculating the Birth of the Hegemon every year, and we had to carry out hedonic calculus between this option and sticking to our familiar Gregorian calendar for the sake of simplicity, ease, and custom. The idea of fixing the Birth of the Hegemon to the Gregorian calendar prevailed. While I am not averse to the idea of a lunisolar calendar, the utility of this is limited, since the only major lunisolar holiday we celebrate is the Birth of the Hegemon.

Also, we customarily have zoom gatherings on the Twentieth of every month (or sometimes on the most convenient date close to the Twentieth), which makes it advantageous to merge the Birth of the Hegemon and the Twentieth on its given month, and also helps us to respect and to make the best use of each other’s time.

Therefore, the Society of Friends of Epicurus has officially set the holiday of the Birth of the Hegemon to be henceforward celebrated on the 20th of February every year.

Meaning of Hegemon

Epicurus was known as the Hegemon by his disciples. We pronounce this word according to the US conventional pronunciation found here. This word is related to “hegemony”, which translates as:

preponderant influence or authority over others. – Webster Dictionary

Other translations of the word are political, and do not apply to the ancient usage. This does not mean that he is infallible, or a prophet. He’s the founder of our School, our moral example due to his empirical thinking, clear and frank speech and clear thought, freedom from superstition and harmful beliefs, his pleasant disposition, his autarchy, his friendliness, and his kindness. He was the first Epicurean, the one whose name (and a portion of his identity) we make our own when we call ourselves Epicureans. The name Epicurus means “Friend” or “Ally”, and we know that friendship was holy to the first Epicureans, so in our Koinonia we strive to be true Friends and allies to each other.

We recognize only Epicurus of Samos as our Hegemon. His successors (diadochi) of direct lineage in the Garden of Athens were known as Scholarchs (Hermarchus, Polystratus, Zeno of Sidon, etc.) The Age of the Scholarchs lasted over five centuries. No one today can claim direct lineage, and so there are no Scholarchs today.

Under the Scholarchs, were the kath-hegetes (Guides)–people like Philodemus of Gadara, Philonides of Laodicea, Diogenes of Oenoanda, etc. In our SoFE lineage, this is the only office that we recognize as still potentially existing today.

In Celebration of the Birth of the Hegemon

Today is for remembering some of the key events in the biography and some of the key features of the character of Epicurus of Samos through poetry, declamation, and other art forms. We encourage all followers of Epicurus to write their own poems and statements in memory of the Hegemon for this day and to publish them on social media, or to share Lucretian and other relevant sources.

Today, we Hail the Hegemon and we invite all followers of Epicurean philosophy to learn about, toast, celebrate, and remember Epicurus in your own way. We wish you a pleasant Hegemon Day. Peace and Safety!

This is by Matt:

Hear these words O children of Nature’s swerve.
Let us rejoice in the freedom we desperately deserve.
Of prudent wisdom long obscured by shame.
Professed by Epicurus of noble fame.
Lucretius penned in days of old.
Across the gap of time, a truth so bold.
Arise the days of hedonic measure.
Restoring the truth of humankind’s pleasure.
Dispel the fears of death’s illusion.
Release humankind from all confusion.
Again I say, O children of Nature’s swerve.
Be frank in speech and keep your nerve.
Be ready now to strike your blow.
For Epicurus, his Garden and all who know.
The days shall come when the world will extol.
That pleasurable living was indeed the goal.

Practicing Offa: Epicurean Saying 41

One must laugh and philosophize and tend to one’s home life and use one’s other goods, and always recount the pronouncements of true philosophy. – Epicurean Saying 41

γελᾶν ἅμα δεῖ καὶ φιλοσοφεῖν καὶ οἰκονομεῖν καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς οἰκειώμασι χρῆσθαι καὶ μηδαμῇ λήγειν τὰς ἐκ τῆς ὀρθῆς φιλοσοφίας φωνὰς ἀφιέντας.

ES 41 contains instructions for an active, engaged way of practicing Epicurean philosophy. The purpose of this essay is to place this practice before our eyes so that we may better understand what it consists of.

As for the translation of this passage, οἰκονομεῖν (oikonomein, or governing the house, from nomein, which relates to law / nomos, and oikos, which relates to home; it relates to economics and in general to managing one’s household); μηδαμῇ λήγειν (medamé légein) translates as “never ceasing”; ὀρθῆς (órthés, the suffix of “orthodox”) means “right” or “correct”, and paired here with φιλοσοφίας (filosofías) it refers to the right philosophy; φωνὰς (fonás) refers to voices or utterances, and shares semantic roots with words like “telephone”; and finally ἀφιέντας (áfiéntas) has to do with emitting, or sending out in all directions. I started using the acronym offa to refer to “órthés filosofías fonás áfiéntas” when I first realized this passage referred to a way of practicing Epicurean philosophy that deserved further exploration, and I now refer to the act itself of cheerful repetition of the Doctrines while engaged in other activities as offa practice. Notice that fonás áfiéntas implies an out-loud repetition, not a silent or inward, meditative repetition. Offa is a cheerful, active, assertive practice.

So the image we get from this passage is of a votary of Epicurean philosophy who is practicing memorization and repetition while managing his household and business, all the while laughing and enjoying himself. Laughter is, in fact, the first requisite of the practice. If we’re not enjoying ourselves, we’re not doing it right. Also, this particular practice is carried out in the midst of our ordinary activities.

This practice was likely established during the generations after the foundation of Epicurean philosophy. We know this because it’s found in the Epicurean Sayings (sometimes still known as the Vatican Sayings), and we know that this collection was published after the death of the Hegemon because it mentions Epicurus in the third person in ES 36, praising his gentleness and autarchy. We also know that Epicurus himself encouraged people to repeat and memorize outlines of his teachings, and we know that repetition and memorization are universally considered the most prevalent and well-known practices among Epicurean disciples, but we do not know of any specific methods or contexts for chanting, repeating, or memorizing, other than the description we find in ES 41.

This is not to say that we are not to have a shrine before which we memorize and repeat: that is another way of practicing. But in the case of offa / ES 41, the idea is that we are to repeat out loud in every direction (fonás afientas) whatever Epicurean Doctrines we’re in the process of learning that day, or that week, or that month. Each practitioner may have or develop his or her own way of happily weaving the Doctrines into their casual self-expression.

Singing while working can be disruptive to our co-workers in some environments. If this is the case, then use prudence and only practice when you’re not generating annoyances for others. But in most cases, singing while engaging in other activities generally raises our spirits. I often sing while I shower, as my grandfather did (very happily, and his happiness was contagious).

Singing while working–studies suggest–is good for your happiness and productivity. One of my previous employers (in a call center) used to always have pop music playing in the background in order to lift our moods (and I think it mostly worked). Many cultures and tribes have particular songs that they use while making bread, pounding yam, gathering foods, or cooking. In this way, unavoidable labor that might otherwise feel harsh is softened and made more enjoyable.

There have been many questions (which sometimes come off as accusations, when coming from enemies of our School) concerning what practices the Epicureans actually engage in. It seems like, to some people, studying and reading philosophy is not enough to be considered a “practice” of philosophy. This is the reason why I wrote an essay introducing meleta some time ago, and why I’m discussing offa now. To some people, praxis requires either meditative or contemplative practices, or chanting, or rituals. In truth, KD-Praxis (Practice of the Kyriai Doxai, or Principal Doctrines) may include all of the above. In my book Tending the Epicurean Garden, I dedicated a whole chapter to how to develop your hedonic regimen, and another one to the science of contemplation, both of which cited relevant scientific studies.

Offa is an engaged way of practicing the Doctrines. We may become a votary of Epicurean Saying 41 by vowing to repeat a particular Doctrine that we are trying to memorize, by repeating it frequently in song or chant for a day, or for a week, or for a weekend, or for a month. In this way, we memorize and become experts in the Doctrine we choose to repeat. For instance, I’ve often repeated in recent months the second part of PD 3, and it has yielded many great insights:

Whenever and wherever
Pleasure is present
there is neither pain in the flesh
nor anxiety in the mind.

Choosing a short, easy passage such as this one allows us to cultivate our attention, to focus only on that passage. Sometimes when we chant rhythmically, we may enter into a trance. This can be quite enjoyable, and benefits specific parts of the brain (see Note 1), inducing the emission of delta waves. Delta waves have a role in sleep, and–accoding to this essay–“delta wave activity has also been purported to aid in the formation of declarative and explicit memory formation“. Therefore, offa (and other forms of repetition or chanting) may have a role in the type of neuroplasticity that Epicurus posited as part of his materialist conception of moral development.

Philodemus of Gadara argued that the medicine of the Doctrines is in the words, and–while music and rhythm are not themselves without utility–sincere Epicurean practitioners should pay attention to their (subconscious or conscious) reactions, associations, or any other insight that emerges from their minds while chanting, and be aware of them. I have found that mindful repetition often discloses connections with other teachings in our minds, or other pragmatic repercussions of the Doctrine, and in this way it aids in the acquisition of full cognitive assimilation of the Doctrine. For instance, “Death is nothing to us” (PD 2) says (implicitly) that life, to us, is sentience, not only that death is non-sentience. We can gain insight from the things the Doctrines do not say, but imply, in addition to the things that the Doctrines say.

We do not know how the ancient Epicureans practice repetition and memorization, only that they did. We also do not speak their languages. Therefore, modern Epicureans would have to develop our own authentic ways of practicing in our native languages. For all these reasons, I think we should pay close attention to the words in ES 41, and carry out experiments while finding ways to incorporating offa into our Epicurean practice.

Note 1:

In my book, I cite a study by Marian Diamond that shows that chanting lowers blood pressure and slows the heart rate, generating a state of relaxation. However, the studies on chanting, and of meditation in general, have advanced a bit. This study shows that religious chanting affects a different part of the brain than prayer and various kinds of meditation, and that it has its own psychotherapeutic benefits. This study reveals that chanting help the brain to emit delta waves and affects the posterior cingulate cortex, which has many functions. This other study–specifically on Vedic chanting–shows that it helps in the treatment of anxiety and induces relaxation. This other study says:

prayer/religious practices may have cross-cultural universality in emotion regulation. This study shows for the first time that Buddhist chanting, or in a broader sense, repetition of religious prayers will not modulate brain responses to negative stimuli during the early perceptual stage, but only during the late-stage emotional/cognitive processing.

These studies are useful, but since the canon is empirical and based on enargeia (immediate experience), with repetition and memorization, the proof is in the pudding, and we will only learn what works for us once we experiment with it.

The Four Foods Epicurus Enjoyed

To the Epicureans, the Twentieth of every month is a time for friends and for feasting. There are no traditional recipes (yet) for modern Twentieth celebrations. We encourage individuals to develop their own culinary traditions around the Twentieth, but a generally good guideline is to follow the Mediterranean diet, which has been declared by UNESCO an “intangible heritage” of all of humanity. Here are some guidelines for how to incorporate the Mediterranean diet into our cuisine. Epicurus and his companions must have enjoyed most of the foods that were part of the Mediterranean diet in his day, but there are four foods that are mentioned in the chronicles that we know with certainty they enjoyed.

Water

When guests walked into the Garden, Seneca reports that they were welcomed with bread and water. This is typically treated as a testament in favor of a simple lifestyle. But let’s apply the canon to this: what evidence do we have for the usefulness of drinking plain water? I can speak for myself. Drinking one large glass of very cold water, first thing in the morning, is extremely refreshing and energizing. Not Gatorade. Not Yerba maté (as much as I love it): just plain water. Citing multiple studies, this article on the importance of hydration by Healthline says that lack of hydration

can lead to altered body temperature control, reduced motivation, and increased fatigue. It can also make exercise feel much more difficult, both physically and mentally … can impair many aspects of brain function … impaired both mood and concentration. It also increased the frequency of headaches. … fluid loss of 1.6% was detrimental to working memory and increased feelings of anxiety and fatigue.

Notice that both physical stamina and mental health were affected by lack of proper hydration, according to the studies cited. It’s estimated that about 60 % of our body is made up of water. It also helps to avoid constipation and hangovers.

So perhaps offering water to everyone at the Garden was a way to ensure that not only did people have access to at least one non-alcoholic beverage, but also that people remained hydrated and healthy.

Bread

Bread is so common that, in the Bible, it’s a euphemism for food. Many ancient mystery religions either involved “barley cake” (which was enjoyed at Eleusis) or worshiped gods who made themselves useful to humanity in the form of communion bread (Orpheus, Osiris, Dionysus), and the Christian eucharist is a modern version of this belief and practice. To us Epicureans, bread is simply a particular combination of atoms and void, but it was also enjoyed by everyone who was welcomed in the Garden, and so we can imagine that the first Gardens would have had their bread recipes and traditions.

I grew up eating soft, still-warm French bread, a tradition that the French brought to Puerto Rico and which evolved into two forms of French bread that we call “pan criollo” (Creole bread) or sometimes “pan sobao” (kneaded bread): one is a hard, long loaf of bread (has a harder exterior) and the other looks similar but is soft bread, which is sweeter and has no hard exterior. This last one was by far always my favorite, eaten warm with requesón (soft cheese) or Gouda cheese, or in a sandwich. Every region has its own local variety of bread made with local yeast and local ingredients, which is why I have not been able to find this type of bread in all my years in Chicago.

The art and history of bread-making (tied to the history of beer, which is really liquid bread) is fascinating, and I’ve had many adventures over the years with both beer-brewing–including gluten-free quinoa beer, which was my best and healthiest homemade beer ever–and bread-making at home. I’ve made naan bread, cricket bread, and yuca bread (or tortillas) with yoghurt, and also made pizza, which is just bread with cheese and a sauce and other ingredients.

Ancient Greeks had a huge variety of breads, and some were made specifically for some holiday or religious occasion–like they still do for Easter and Christmas. When the Vesuvian eruption happened in the year 79, there was a baker who left his bread in the oven in order to escape the cataclysm. Almost 1,900 years later, this bread (which would have likely been similar to the bread that was enjoyed by the Epicurean Guide Philodemus of Gadara and his associates) was re-discovered in the remains of Herculaneum. This video shows us how to make ancient Herculaneum bread. It was likely enjoyed with olive oil.

Of course, we do not have to try to replicate the ancient way of making bread, although it would be a fun experiment. Bread can be made from a wide variety of roots and grains. It’s truly one of the most universal foods, and fun to make (even if it takes patience), particularly if the finished product is tasty and becomes a source of pride. Perhaps in the future some Epicurean communities will celebrate the Twentieth by developing their own bread-making traditions.

If bread was made from scratch on the Twentieth in the Gardens, it’s possible that the preparations for the holiday started the day prior to the Twentieth, where bakers would have made sure to have a sourdough starter for the next day. They may also have fermented grapes or other fruits overnight together with a portion from a previous batch of bread, or used beer-foam or beer as a starter. If there were children in the Garden, this would have been a great educational experiment in chemistry for them, as well as in the culinary arts. They could have provided additional hands for kneading.

Cheese

According to this page in celebration of Greek gastronomy,

Greek cheeses are a plenty. I am almost certain that Greece consumes more cheese than any other nation. Cheese is such a rich part of Greece’s history; the ancient Greeks even designated a god to this wonderful food.

Aristaios (Αρισταιος), the son of Apollo, was the god that brought Cheese making (and honey, olive growing, medicinal herbs) to ancient Greece. No wonder his name is a derivative of the Greek word “aristos,” meaning “most useful.”

Notice that the god was associated with medicinal herbs and honey (which also has antibacterial properties), and we will begin to understand how, in the Mediterranean diet–as Hippocrates said–we let food be our medicine and medicine be our food. There is no boundary between the culinary and the medicinal. In order to understand why Epicurus loved his cheese so much, it may help to understand the history of cheese-making in Ancient Greece. According to this webpage on the history of Greek cheese,

The single most distinguishing characteristic of Greek cheese is that most of it is made with sheep’s milk, goat’s milk, or a combination of the two. Cow’s milk cheeses exist but only a handful of Greek islands.

The page also explains that Greek cheeses went well beyond feta and were incredibly varied (including “cheeses that are sun-dried; aged in lees; and those that are preserved in olive oil“, pastries that incorporated cheese, and “roasted cheesecakes“), and made a great offering to the gods. It also says:

Cheese played a role, not only as a staple, but also as a luxury item in ancient Greek gastronomy.

… which reminds us of the autarchy (self-sufficiency) portion of Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus where Epicurus explains that, in order to better enjoy the occasional luxury, it’s good to save those luxuries for special occasions.

We regard autarchy as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when one the pain of want has been removed, while bread and water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate oneself, therefore, to a simple and inexpensive diet supplies al that is needful for health, and enables a person to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.

Hence, when Epicurus told one of his friends in a letter:

Send me a pot of cheese, that I may feast.

it is understood that this was not an everyday luxury for Epicurus. Each island and region of Greece made its own cheese varieties, so this friend probably brought a luxury (or rare, local) item from afar, from wherever he was from or from wherever he visited.

Since we use the canon, let us look also at the science behind cheese, and how it relates to happiness. Fermented foods in general (like cheese and yoghurt) are good for keeping a healthy balance of gut bacteria. Gut flora has been tied to mood regulation / mood disorders. Only recently have scientists been able to identify and isolate the specific bacteria in cheese and other products that aid with happiness, digestion, and mood regulation. According to this essay,

Not all cheeses contain live bacteria, as they can be killed off during the making process but those that pack the biggest probiotic punch include brie, cheddar, cottage cheese, edam, feta, roquefort and stilton.

The gut needs a variety of bacteria, which is why fermented foods do not need to be eaten daily, or even frequently. Epicurus’ choice of enjoying cheese only on occasion shows that he had a healthy, intuitive approach to listening to his belly.

Wine

In the chronicles, we learn that Epicurus had casual discussions with Polyaenus about the nature of the particles that were in the wine that they were casually drinking. At the time of his death, Epicurus also had a bit of wine mixed with water in order to help him manage his pain. Wine is tied to Dionysus–whose cult, according to anthropologists, include rich and poor, men and women, and encouraged temporary liberation from the restrictions of cultural conventions through drunkenness.

However, most wine consumption was not for the sake of drunken stupor. That was only on special occasions. Typically, Greeks mixed wine with water so that it was more like a grape juice. According to Lemon & Olives,

The oldest Greek wine (2,000 years old) served today is the famous white wine, Retsina. The very same wine that the ancient Greeks drank can be tasted today. To be honest, it kind of taste like a pine tree. The reason for the pine taste was do to the ancients and their method of sealing wine barrels with pine resin to keep air out. It is good but an acquired taste. Best served cold with sharp cheeses.

As for the health benefits of wine, so long as it’s not consumed in excess: we know that the benefits are similar to those of grapes (and raisins), and berries, which have a very high anti-oxidant value. This helps to fight cancer and other degenerative diseases, and helps to slow aging and the general deterioration of the body.

If our readers develop particular culinary traditions for the Twentieth, please let us know via email or in our FaceBook group. We’d love to document the emergence of these traditions.

Also, a big thank you to my supporters on Patreon and Substack.

On the Evolution of Language

The following is a commentary on the essay titled New Evidence for the Epicurean Theory of the Origin of Language: Philodemus, On Poems V, by Jacob Mackey and Epicurus, On nature, Book 28 by David N Sedley.

As we have seen before, the founders of Epicurean philosophy were deeply concerned with the role that language plays in our apprehension of the nature of things. The canonical faculty of prolepsis (anticipations) is tied to the use of language, and its place in the canon implies that language can be a shortcut to recalling things that were at one point empirically available to our other faculties. But language conventions can betray prolepsis, sometimes purposefully, as we see in the case of metaphors.

We are not necessarily against poetry. Philodemus says that poetry gives pleasure through excellence of diction and content. We may say that “mountains vomit clay into rivers”, and by context most people will know that we are speaking metaphorically. But we must never forget the utility of words in their context. This expression is fine when we speak poetically, but in his Epistle to Herodotus, Epicurus starts by saying that words are only useful if their clear meaning is kept in mind.

Epicurus clashed with Dialectitians from Megara. Among them, Diodorus Cronus (who was an extreme conventionalist), said that language isn’t natural. From these facts, we can imagine that Epicurus was arguing against them that language (and other phenomena) do exist and are natural.

Epicurus’ views concerning language evolved. He had begun adopting Metrodorus’ process of using conventional words (rather than the pedantic practice of some philosophers, who are very particular about their choice of obscure language) by the time he wrote On Nature 28:

“I now see, as I did not then, the particular difficulties concerning this class, of having correct names for individual things … as you (Metro) also used in those days to assign names without adapting certain conventional usages, so that you should not make plain the principle that by assigning any name one expresses an opinion, and see and reflect upon the indiscriminate treatment of words and objects.”

We see a distrust of words, and we see their preoccupation with avoiding the addition of opinion when we express ourselves, and a recognition of the great difficulty of this in our choice of words. We know that Lucretius mentions “opinion” as a category that does not belong in the canon. The argument here is that to name something is to express an opinion, which may be true or false. So the addition of opinion is a sign that a definition of a word is non-canonical, has no empirical basis, and is not based on true prolepsis.

In addition to these concerns, Epicurean anthropology recognizes three stages of the evolution of language.

First Stage: Nature teaches words

The founders believed that initially, language started by ananke (necessity) as a reaction to external stimuli. This view is held today by people like linguist Noam Chomsky, who has argued that there exists in the human brain an “inborn universal grammar”. But the ancients didn’t have a scientific field of linguistics. They only had empirical attestations from nature. They likely observed the role that certain calls have in certain communities of monkeys (if they came across them in their travels) or birds, who use calls to warn each other about the presence of predators, for mating, for warning enemies who enter their territory, and for other rudimentary uses. Award-winning studies of human reaction to the noise made by nails on a chalk board seem to indicate that this may an ancestral vestige of primate warning calls:

The authors hypothesized that it was due to predation early in human evolution; the sound bore some resemblances to the alarm call of macaque monkeys, or it may have been similar to the call of some predator. This research won one of the authors, Randolph Blake, an Ig Nobel Prize in 2006.

Second Stage: Reason develops language

So, the initial sounds and grunts made by our ancestors were wild, that is, invented by nature. Later, as humans became civilized, the founders argue that language was developed further by logismos (reason), which refined the first words. Since this stage is distinct from the third stage, I imagine that this stage did not involve an intellectual class, but emerged naturally from the intelligence of average language-users and from the pragmatic necessities of their interactions with each other and their environment.

Third Stage: Reason adds new discoveries

It’s in this final stage that the philosophers of the first Garden believed to be operating when they engaged in the practice of reassigning names. This is a practice that Confucian philosophers have also, interestingly, engaged in for the sake of clarity. It’s possible that this is a widespread practice among the intellectual classes of many cultures, and responds to real, universal problems of sophisticated human communication.

It’s also here that poets get to work on inventing novel ways of utilizing words, and sometimes these innovations end up having great utility, while at other times this creates confusion and obscures speech for the entire community.

Epicurus generally doubts the utility of definitions and insists that people use words as they are used commonly–and yet sometimes (as in Principal Doctrine 1, which uses the definition of the word “gods” rather than the word itself) it’s clear that he trusts the definition more than the word, because the word has been so corrupted by the culture that it’s best to clearly define it in conversation.

To the first Epicureans, the legitimate practice of word-coining was born from utility, rather than for aesthetics. When I wrote Tending the Epicurean Garden, my editor insisted that I avoid using Greek terms that no one was familiar with, and this has been a recurrent problem in the teaching mission of the Society of Friends of Epicurus, and in many of my projects of content-creation for many outlets. Rather than kinetic and katastematic, I had to refer to dynamic and abiding pleasure. Many emerging fields of scientific inquiry, new inventions, and modern media and technology, have also produced the need for many new words. This process of word-coining will never end, for as long as there is human civilization.

Further Reading:
Against the use of empty words