Category Archives: books

Review of The Happiness Diet

The Happiness Diet: A Nutritional Prescription for a Sharp Brain, Balanced Mood, and Lean, Energized Body, by Tyler Graham and Drew Ramsey, is full of useful bits of information that are essential for making good, informed dietary decisions. It also covers the history of  how processed foods are made, and uses plain scientific facts to explain why whole foods are usually superior sources of the nutrients we need.

The most important part of the book, in my opinion–and the reason why I chose to review it–is the “elements of happiness” portion. In addition to the essential nutrients that our body cannot produce and must acquire from our diet, the book adds a list of nutrients (like folate, vitamins D and B12, and others) that the body needs in order to synthesize happiness. This, of course, reminded me of a passage in the Letter to Menoeceus where Epicurus is expounding the hierarchy of desires:

among the necessary desires some are necessary for happiness, some for physical health, and some for life itself.

While the food industry does not consider nutrients necessary for happiness to be essential in the same way that nutrients necessary for health are essential, an Epicurean who is interested in applying the knowledge in this book will likely consider the “elements of happiness” to be as important as the nutrients needed for health, since both are considered natural and necessary in Epicurean doctrine.

In Tending the Epicurean Garden, I suggested that we know more about the science and diet of happiness now than the ancient Epicureans did, and that it might be possible to start considering what an Epicurean diet might look like for us–one that considers happiness, moods and pleasure, as well as health, in its calculus. For those who are serious about reassessing their dietary choices along Epicurean lines, the book The Happiness Diet fills the knowledge gap that must be filled to pursue this project, and invites a deeper study into the foods and ingredients that contain the essential elements of happiness. If you’d like to conduct your own research online on the essential elements of happiness, and what the best food sources are for each, they are:

  1. Vitamin B12
  2. Iodine
  3. Magnesium
  4. Cholesterol
  5. Vitamin D
  6. Calcium
  7. Fiber
  8. Folate
  9. Vitamin A
  10. Omega 3 oils
  11. Vitamin E
  12. Iron

These are the vitamins, molecules, and natural elements that the body requires from a dietary source in order to be able to synthesize happiness and good moods. Because these ingredients are required for happiness (one of the three “necessary” goods in the Letter to Menoeceus, and a separate priority from “health”), they fall within the “natural and necessary” category in our hierarchy of desires, even if only a small measure of them is needed for happiness.

It’s my view that the dietary science of happiness invites a reform, or at least the addition of specificity, to Epicurean ethics. Epicurus argued that we only need a little food, not much more, to sustain our bodies. But the three categories of what is considered natural and necessary add nuance to this natural measure of food: we now know that our intake of food must contain enough of certain essential nutrients (for health) and enough of the elements of happiness in order to enable our bodies to experience health and happiness.

Therefore, we know that we don’t just need enough food: we need enough of these particular nutrients.

The Happiness Diet reminds us that happiness and moods are physical, natural things. Somewhere encoded in the molecules of our bodies there are hormonal changes and chemical reactions that account for our moods and states. As an Epicurean, the physicality of happiness makes sense to me. It rescues happiness from speculative discourse, and helps to ground our dietary and lifestyle choices and rejections in concrete, scientific, empirically-informed data.

The book does more than provide guidance concerning how diet relates to happiness, knowledge which is useful in our dietary choices and rejections. It also warns us–with many examples–of the dangers of processed foods to our health and moods.

The Happiness Diet is not preachy, or vegan, or very restrictive. It supports, for example, the consumption of some measure of pork, lard, and dairy products. The book presents hard scientific facts. The science lends the book authority, and the reader is left to decide what to do with all the information provided. Many recipes and ideas for using the ingredients it recommends are provided towards the end of the book.

Overall, I strongly recommend this book. It presented my mind with new and useful perspectives concerning my choices and rejections at the table, it influenced my culinary adventures in a positive way, and gave me the power of knowledge.

Further Reading:
The Four Foods Epicurus Enjoyed

Victor Frankl and the Search for Meaning

False Dichotomies

We recently read the essay There Are Two Kinds of Happy People, which compares Stoic and Epicurean philosophies. The essay makes some good points (we can borrow from each other yet remain grounded in our own traditions), but essays like this create false dichotomies: you almost never hear people saying “Buddhists meditate and Christians pray, and maybe they should try each other’s techniques“. In reality, Buddhists also pray and Christians sometimes also meditate. The essay assumes that Epicureans do not seek meaning, or create meaning, and it perhaps even assumes that meaning and pleasure are mutually contradictory, but there is no reason whatsoever to think this is the case.

I want to resist the tendency to antagonize Stoics because that produces a situation where it seems like Epicureanism frustrates the search for meaning or the ability for resilience, and that is not at all true. Epicurean philosophy provides various different pathways to meaning and resilience.

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. – Nietzsche

I finally recently finished reading Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, which is highly recommended among proponents of philosophy as therapy for the soul. It argues that human beings require meaning in their lives, and that the best way to deal with boredom, existential ennui, depression, or suffering, is to make it meaningful. He particularly favors three ways of doing this: through work (doing something significant), through loving someone, or through courage during difficulties.

As a psychoanalyst, Frankl proposes “logotherapy” (a therapy of meaning). Our Friend Nathan says:

It’s a powerful story of someone who survives grotesque circumstances. His themes seem to me to be within the existentialist genre, primarily, defining value and meaning in a violent and unforgiving world. He largely demonstrates how having an appropriate mental disposition can help people manage seemingly-hopeless circumstances.

Meaning-making is contrasted with nihilism and a depressing sense of defeat in life. This is from page 72

Regarding our “provisional existence” as unreal was in itself an important factor in causing the prisoners to lose their hold on life: everything in a way became pointless. Some people forgot that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself. Instead of taking the camp’s difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless.

This other quote, from the following page (73), reminds us of our past meleta concerning Epimetheus (who only looks to the past) and his brother Prometheus (who looks to the future). To Frankl, redemption is found in the Promethean approach.

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.

… which remind me of Epicurean Saying 48:

While you are on the road, try to make the later part better than the earlier part; and be equally happy when you reach the end.

Frankl mentions laughter as a technique, and as a sign that one is healed. In Tending the Epicurean Garden, I mentioned that the Epicureans follow the lineage of the laughing philosophers, and that laughter helps us to feel superior to the thing we are laughing at / about. Frankl says this differently: being able to laugh at yourself and your situation is a sign that you have already begun to overcome.

At one point in page 130, Frankl seems to accuse materialist reductionism of producing nihilism. In Epicurean philosophy we see that that is not necessarily the case. Other materialists may be nihilists, but in our tradition we have methods of drawing values and meaning from the study of nature. Here, he attacks:

the danger inherent in the teaching that man is nothing but the result of the biological, psychological, and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment … This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies that man is free.

I applaud that Frankl is drawing a connection between nihilism and materialism, as this is one of the main knots by which people who are suffering entangle themselves into harmful patterns of powerless thinking. To me, this accentuates the need for rejecting scientism (=the “excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques“), and for studying philosophy as a separate and equally important field of knowledge alongside science.

“Embracing the Exile”: a Case Study

In my college years when I confided in a University social worker and mentor (whom I greatly respected and loved) concerning my struggles to reconcile my Christian upbringing with my gay sexuality, he kindly lent me the book Embracing the Exile – Healing Journeys of Gay Christians. Back then, this book had a great impact on me, since the religious and psychological abuse of homophobia were strongly imprinted in my mind and affected me in very real ways.

Embracing the Exile is my most familiar case study for logotherapy. It argued that as Christians, gay people should embrace their exile, and carry their particular cross, with acceptance. It also taught that we should love our enemies anyway, regardless of what they do to us or say about us, and it even treats Queer identities as a form of “chosenness” where we are left to make sense of our way of being different. The book meant to soften the passions of a bruised soul, and it succeeded, but in the end, Christianity was definitely not for me. Many LGBT Christians feel that they are able to lovingly engage in LGBT activism, and at the same time confront other Christians with the evil that is done in the name of their religion from inside their churches. I’m torn between my solidarity and support for the struggle of LGBT people who choose to remain Christian, and the need to address the profound epistemological errors (and cruelties) of Christianity.

Embracing the Exile might be particularly helpful for people who might be struggling with suicide ideation, or who have recently come out and who come from a Christian background and are still attached to it, or for LGBT people who wish to return to Christianity. It provides a few “technologies of the soul” for that specific population.

But the book is not without its potential dangers, even if it came from a place of love and sincerity. Church leaders are experts at softening the blows of their emotional and psychological acts of aggression and dressing things that are deeply worthy of objection in the disguise of innocence and sanctity. Furthermore, if we decide that our policy towards our abusers is to “love them anyway”, does this not risk neglecting the possibility of moral development for our abusers? It can be a difficult balance to maintain, particularly when those who are most likely to harm LGBT youth in a church are also the same people who find themselves most entangled in their ideological errors and are least likely to think they might be wrong. The idea of gays embracing Christianity reminds me of a commentary about the colorful cow in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra that I came across recently:

In the town called the Pied Cow, the people are extremely content. They exemplify the concept of decadence. As Nietzsche says in Thus Spake Zarathustra to a citizen of the town of Pied Cow: “thy cow, affliction, milkedst thou—now drinketh thou the sweet milk of her udder.” His language shows that the cow’s milk is pleasurable and sweet, but it is an affliction that causes us to forget our real purpose. It is analogous to soma in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, an orgasmically pleasurable drug that causes the citizens of a fascist regime to forget their suffering and keep working.

One of the main dangers of the logotherapy approach is that, by choosing a false refuge or a false sense of meaning, we may end up harming ourselves and wasting opportunities for moral reform, freedom, creativity, and true happiness. Meaning must therefore be secondary to our impulse towards truth and towards the sober pleasure that Epicurus mentions in his Epistle to Menoeceus.

Some Epicurean Ideas

Life is not obligated to make sense to us. We are the ones who seek to make sense of it willfully, using our creativity and resources, our art of living (techne biou), and with the help of the study of nature. In this, Lucretius, Epicurus, and others are role models to us.

We are able to create meaning through the process of hedonic calculus: by choosing and rejecting in a manner consistent with our values, our pains or sufferings are redeemed and made valuable by the greater pleasures that they gain.

When I recently shared 3 Brain Systems That Control Your Behavior: Reptilian, Limbic, Neo Cortex, by Robert Sapolsky, our Friend Nathan commented that these three parts of the brain reminded him of “sensations, feelings, and preconceptions”–the three sets of faculties that exist within the Epicurean canon, which are our connection with nature.

The video makes the argument that the most primitive part of the brain (the reptilian part) involves the most basic instincts. This includes the senses, but also the sense of time, the circadian rhythm–a set of faculties that require that animals attune themselves to the day and night cycles, and require cold-blooded animals to regulate their body temperature by various means. Then, our ancestors evolved the mammalian brain, which involved complex fight-or-flight mechanisms, panic instincts, and other powers that Nathan associates with the canonical faculties involved in feelings. The final evolutionary stage is where animals evolved the cortex of the brain that facilitates complex thinking and language. Of all the highest animals (mostly the primates), the humans are the ones who have evolved the most complex “prolepsis” cortex. The parallels noted between the canonical faculties and the layers of brain cortex are interesting, and it had never occurred to me to think of it this way.

I am particularly interested in this third set of faculties in our discussion of meaning because the prolepsis faculty facilitates language, and it seems to me that our discussion of meaning is a discussion of language, and that the creation of meaning is therefore mainly a function of the prolepsis faculty. We are perhaps translating our experiences into something that our rational brains may apprehend, and doing so helps us to process our ideas and emotions.

Seen this way, the thirst for meaning becomes an impulse toward naming our own narratives, our lives, our selves, our relations, our life cycles, the projects that “give” our lives “meaning”, our technologies of the soul, etc. How else do we create meaning? Nietzsche suggested (and I agree) that we may do this through art, poetry, dance, ritual. The technique of relabeling (as we’ve discussed before) is another method for this.

In the search for meaning, it often seems like self-expression has been frustrated and seeks an outlet. The prolepsis of self-expression (Self-Ex-Pression) reminds me of a process of pressing-out parts of the self into some external form. The faculty of prolepsis allows us to clearly conceive an idea, which is necessary in the first place if we are to “press it out” of our psyche. Prolepsis helps us to conceive, which reminds us of seeds, of germination. Conceiving an idea carries creative potential.

Conclusion

Some people say Frankl’s Man’s Search of Meaning is a Stoic book, but it’s more nuanced than that. Yes, Man’s Search for Meaning has a strong Stoic influence. It teaches that the “only” thing that others can’t take away is how we respond to a situation, and focuses on the realm of possible therapies available to someone who is powerless to change their fate. But it also elsewhere criticizes key aspects of Stoicism. In page 56, we find:

The camp inmate was frightened of making decisions and of taking any sort of initiative whatsoever. This was the result of a strong feeling that fate was one’s master, and that one must not try to influence it in any way, but instead let it take its own course. In addition, there was a great apathy, which contributed in no small part to the feelings of the prisoner.

The book is a bit depressing, but this is not necessarily a bad thing, as suffering does have the power to make us better people. My recent anecdote on this has to do with a particular co-worker who for many months did not greet me, or smile at me, or acknowledge me at all at work. Some people (particularly people who have money or power) can afford to be quite stand-offish; others are simply introverted by nature. This co-worker was a cancer survivor and, upon getting a second diagnosis of cancer, he changed. Perhaps he realized that life is short and shifted his conception of the things that matter. He began to greet me with a smile. He became more personal. I think his suffering as a result of his health, and his sense of vulnerability, is what made him a better, gentler, more caring person.

This anecdote confirms, to me, the power of suffering to purify our character–even if we rebel against the idealization and sacralizing of suffering that we see, for instance, in Catholicism.

Frakl says “man is ultimately self determining”, meaning that we are subjects, not objects or machines. One of the main virtues of this book is that Frankl humanizes his patients. He at all times refuses to diminish or humiliate or mistreat his patients. His years of suffering during World War II make Frankl a wounded healer: he had been through hell, and could now help others in a similar situation. For this reason, many people who are experiencing great suffering and who are truly powerless in their situation would benefit from critically engaging the insights of this book.

Further Reading:

Man’s Search for Meaning

 

Happy Eikas! On Language, Creativity, and Power

Happy Twentieth to Epicureans everywhere. We are grateful to our friend Alan, who devoted many hours of work to the script and video for Parable of the Hunter, which places before the eyes Epicurus’ Principal Doctrine 5. Please watch, like, comment and share the video. We also published Vegetarianism as a Life Choice for Epicureans, based on our discussions in the Garden of Epicurus group.

We also became aware of the We Are All Epicureans Now episode of “Young Heretics”. He’s not Epicurean, and fails to grasp the idea of pleasure as a faculty, but he does invite people to a deeper study of Epicurean ideas.

This Lucretius lecture by David Goodhew, titled ‘Life, love, death and atomic physics’ was quite enjoyable. It focuses on a few particularly brilliant passages by Lucretius, to show his genius and the many layers of art in his poetry.

I’d like to thank my Patreons Anthony Adams, Steve & Carmel, Roberto Kingsley, Tom Samuels, Ron Warrick, and my dear friend Jason, whose support has been a great morale booster and who has been a steady presence in SoFE for many years. If you’d like to support the work I do, please consider a one-time donation or a Patreon subscription.

On Language, Clarity, and Power

In recent weeks, I had the pleasure of reading The Book of Sh_zd_r, a work by a SoFE member (Nathan) who also authored the Dude’s Letter to Menoeceus, which was published back in May of 2020. He’s also an admin in the Epicurean memes for hedonistic beings Facebook group.

“The beauty of our poetries flows from sincerity” – Book of Sh_zd_r

The book is an artist’s manifesto on the use of language for creative self-expression, and a critical evaluation of the many ways in which language and power are intertwined. This, plus the Hermetic-like undercurrent that runs throughout the work (Hermetic as in the tradition of Hermes, the Divine Scribe), was my favorite part of the Book of Sh_zd_r. 

The first half of the book is (appropriately) written in a beautiful conlang (constructed language)–an artlang (artistic language) from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, and the second half is in English, but still uses multi-colored fonts and other artistic devices. The Book of Sh_zd_r is a work of art, first and foremost.

The latter part of the book includes some musings on grammar, and historical notes that accentuate the connection between power and language. The use of language as art, and the deconstruction of some of the trappings of language and power, makes the work disruptive and subversive. It reminded me of ideas I encountered while reading Black Orpheus and learning about the Négritude movement:

Sartre argues in Black Orpheus that liberating literature for Africans must be poetic, and that prose can’t be used because the French language evolved elsewhere, is too analytical, and can’t express the Black reality and psyche well. There are also the problems of inherent bias: we see examples of how whiteness is associated with innocence and virtue, while Blackness is associated with brokenness or with crime, with being soiled (so that Sartre says that “As soon as (the Black man) opens his mouth, he accuses himself“). Language is power, and Négritude calls for the wielding of power by these “Black Evangelists” to make the French language theirs and make it express the Black reality–so that Sartre says that “to build his truth, (the Black philosopher-artist) must first destroy others’ truth”.

Relabeling: a Technique of Empowerment

One of the therapeutic practices in Epicurean tradition is that of relabeling (renaming, or re-categorizing). In modern psychotherapy, this is sometimes known as cognitive restructuring, and is used together with other techniques to help people diminish their catastrophic or harmful thinking patterns.

Relabeling is an empowering practice whose power dynamics becomes most obvious when seen in action and placed before the eyes. For instance, Lucretius uses this technique to take back power when passionate love has power over him (or perhaps over some other patient of passionate love). We must imagine that, in the initial stage, the patient would have felt crushed and overpowered by his infatuation with the object of his desire or passion, but through re-labeling said object in many unflattering ways and re-imagining it as ugly, old, dirty, smelly, or with other undesirable attributes, the passion subsides and the patient slowly regains power over his mind, emotions, and states.

That (re-)naming is an act of power is an ancient idea that mystified many ancient peoples. Ancient Egyptians believed that hieroglyphs had magical power because they are “words that stay”, and they divinized the concept of magical words in the deity of magic, Heka (who represents words of power). Later, authors of the Bible attribute the power of naming all the animals and all of nature to Adam, the mythical first member of the human species, so as to say that this linguistic faculty of naming is one of our “superpowers”. But we do not need to be mystified by the power of language, simply to understand it and to employ it for our ethical purposes.

“Leaving the Chorus”: the Doctrine of Hesuchia

Principal Doctrine 14 gives us another layer of commentary on the relationship between language and what Foucault would have called pervasive, or dispersed, power:

Although some measure of safety from other people is based in the power to fight them off and in abundant wealth, the purest security comes from solitude and breaking away from the herd.

Here, Peter St. Andre translates hesuchías (ἡσυχίας) as “solitude” (I may have translated it as “retreat”, since this is the same word used in orthodox Christianity for the tradition of the desert fathers), and he translates exchoréseos (ἐκχωρήσεως) as “breaking away from the herd”. But let us look at the prolepsis of this last word: it implies exiting or leaving (ex-) the chorus.

What is a chorus? A chorus is a group of people who (in theater, or in some event) are all saying the same thing in unison. The implication is that all the members of the chorus think alike, so that “chorus” comes to imply convention and peer pressure, as well as the erasure of the individual and his private ideas. “Exiting the chorus”, in this context, means leaving the power dynamics of societal peer pressure, and not blindly repeating what others are saying–or taking it as truth–until we have chosen and applied the criteria for truth to those propositions. It means thinking for ourselves, rather than being circus seals trained to clap mindlessly as part of the show.

Doxa 14 is the first of three Doctrines that focus on autarchy (15 focuses on economic autarchy, and 16 on existential autarchy). It sets the stage for these other two Doxai by inviting us to separate ourselves from the crowd, and it cites safety as one reason for this. Now, we all have to give up some level of personal sovereignty in most of our relations and in the execution of our responsibilities, but by expressing their invitation to avoid giving up our autarchy in terms of exchoréseos in a Doctrine that introduces autarchy, the founders are inviting us to a more dignified life of self-sufficiency and self-rule by specifically evading the power dynamics that are expressed verbally and collectively, which are represented as “a chorus” (a group of drones that all think and say the same thing).

The “diffused power” in the chorus is expressed via language, and in concrete words. The chorus represents here the degrading loss of our safety and personal sovereignty, and so leaving it is a pre-requirement for our enjoyment of a dignified level of autarchy and for our ability to free our practice of philosophy from the demands of the polis and of mindless collectives. There is a different type of safety in being part of “the herd” (as we see in nature), but this safety is accused as false and degrading by this Doctrine.

Philosophy requires withdrawal from “the crowd” so that we may be able to think for ourselves rather than blindly repeat what people in our social circles are saying (and blindly believing the underlying and expressed premises of whatever they are saying). By virtue of PD 14 being an authorized Doxa, the founders were saying that this act of autarchy, of personal sovereignty, of “exiting the chorus”, is necessary for the practice of philosophy.

But if we are robbed of our power by the collective voice of “the chorus”, this also seems to imply that we retain, regain, and express our power by the willful and skillful use of our individual voices. So I believe this Doctrine means (among other things) to restore our voice (which is to say, our authority) as individuals who enjoy autarchy / personal sovereignty.

Meleta on Definitions

At the Society of Epicurus, we’ve been delving into in-depth meleta (study and deliberation) of the forty Principal Doctrines of Epicurus for months, and deriving great pleasure from the new insights we have gained.

I noticed that when one reads the 40 Principal Doctrines systematically, the very first thing one finds in the very first words of the very first Doctrine is distrust of words. The editors of the Doctrines chose the definition of “gods” (immortal and blissful animals) for the sake of clarity, rather than the word “gods” to convey their meaning.

This is because we sometimes do not trust words as much as their clear definitions.

This issue of mistrusting words is one of the first problems addressed in Epicurus’ Epistle to Herodotus (beginning from Fragment 35 of Book X of Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers), where he instructs his disciples to always clearly define words prior to any philosophical investigation in order to avoid being carried into error by the use of empty words. 

The founders sometimes found words that were simply inadequate, and felt the need to reform their expression for the sake of clarity in their study of nature. They had a practice of re-defining words according to the evidence of nature, so that their expression would always be aligned with nature. We know, for instance, that the Epicurean Guide Polyaenus wrote a treatise “On Definitions” which is not extant, and one of the 37 books On Nature by Epicurus is titled “Against the use of empty words“. Here, it is revealed that Metrodorus and Epicurus had been discussing the best rules by which it is possible and advantageous to re-define words, with Epicurus insisting that using common words as they are commonly used is the best policy, although they had gone back and forth over the years on this, and Epicurus in this book admits that his thinking has evolved on the matter. The ancient Guides’ preoccupation with the adequacy of language, and insistence on clarity, was not unique. Two millenia later Wittgenstein (who championed and insisted on clear speech) said:

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

The second and third phases in the evolution of language, according to Epicurean anthropology, is where philosophers, inventors, cultural creatives and others coin new words and lead the ongoing process of rationally perfecting the shared language. Wittgenstein says that each language, dialect or jargon is a “game” into which are embedded rules and notions that act as a social contract for the users of the language. We could say much more about this, but we risk going on a tangent, and this deserves a separate discussion.

And here is the intersection between the worries of the Kathegemones (Epicurean Guides) and these considerations concerning the entanglement of language and power: was clarity the only criterion in language reform? Can we identify clear patterns in whatever confusing tendencies were they fighting in their native Greek language? Were they fighting Platonic, or political, webs of power that had gotten entangled in common (koine) Greek language?

To what extent might it be advantageous and practical for modern speakers of English, Spanish, and other languages who practice Epicurean philosophy together to go through a similar process of purging or perfecting our own languages, for the sake of clarity–the only rhetorical requirement we have–and in order to embed and will our own social contract into our jargon?

From the third stage in our doctrine on the evolution of language, we know that the founders believed that philosophers have to be actively engaged in the natural and inevitable process of language evolution, otherwise the vehicle of expression will always be mediocre and the utility of language will be limited. The fact that they established this Doctrine, we imagine, served to justify their linguistic projects, which meant to purge their language game of unwanted traits and steer it in an ethically correct and choice-worthy direction. I imagine they did this, concretely, through a slow and organic editorial process that involved all communication and content, since they were always known to be careful in their expression.

But, did the founders create a basic naming language, a type of conlang (as some modern Epicureans have speculated) made up of a small number of concepts that were unavailable in the culture? Or did the Guides simply coin a few expressions and words? Since language is inherently communitarian and collective, I wonder to what extent they saw these projects as a natural extension of their self-concept as a sect, as an ethically and culturally autonomous philosophical tribe with its own mores.

Did clarity become the only requirement in our rhetorics after failed experiments to communicate efficiently, or was it so from the onset? How did this preoccupation with clear speech evolve? We know that Epicureans were known for their suavity, or sweet speech, as well as their clarity and conciseness, and that this served their ethical purposes. Are there any additional criteria for perfecting our communication?

From reading Epicurus’ insistence (in “Against the use of empty words“) that people should use common words as they are commonly used, we may infer that he believed that some of the other Kathegemones may have previously gone too far in their language-reform experiments. However, it is difficult for us today to gauge exactly the extent to which Epicureans reformed koine Greek.

In our circle, we have for many years discussed the need for taking back words that have been monopolized by Christianity and other Platonized religions and ways of thinking (words like gods, soul, salvation, virtue), and we’ve discussed the inadequacy of some words, and whether we should use Greek terms that are obscure, or words from our own language. When I wrote Tending the Epicurean Garden, my editor insisted that I coin an English translation for katastematic (I ended up coining the term “abiding pleasure” for the book), and to avoid obscure Greek terms in general. Curiously, Epicurus himself might have agreed, since he established clarity as his only rhetorical criterion.

In recent years, there have been efforts from some feminists, and some in the LGBT community and allies, to reform English to make it more gender-neutral and to move away from patriarchal language conventions. Many Churches and synagogues are moving towards gender-neutral language for God. English is a great language for this, since–unlike Semitic and Romance languages–it does not use gendered nouns. These efforts are, to some extent, praise-worthy (and also natural, because language naturally evolves) … but they also reach what some of us may consider ludicrous excesses, and make it seem prudent to be pragmatic and generally conservative in our efforts to perfect our native languages.

Further Reading:
Wittgenstein: A Wonderful Life (1989)
PHILOSOPHY – Ludwig Wittgenstein
The Book of Sh_zd_ar

Happy Eikas: Prometheus Unbound

Leave a reply

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

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.

Isle of the Blessed

The following is the “Isle of the Blessed” portion of Lucian’s True Story, which is available in its entirety at Gutenberg.org. True Story has continued relevance to our generation because it is a parody and commentary on “fake news”, on popular resistance against empirical thinking, and on people’s frequent inability to discern truth from falsehood. 

The King of the Isle, Rhadamanthys, was believed to be the Underworld judge of the souls from the East (due to being famed for his inflexible integrity), and Lucian was making an ethnic joke here concerning his own eastern/Syrian origins. Although this work is a comedy, it’s not without educational value. In it, Lucian places before our eyes an Epicurean paradise, complete with a city of Seven Gates and the Elysian fields.

Within a while after many islands appeared, and near unto them, upon our left hand, stood Phello, the place whereunto they were travelling, which was a city seated upon a mighty great and round cork. Further off, and more towards the right hand, we saw five other islands, large and mountainous, in which much fire was burning; but directly before us was a spacious flat island, distant from us not above five hundred furlongs: and approaching somewhat near unto it, a wonderful fragrant air breathed upon us, of a most sweet and delicate smell, such as Herodotus, the story-writer, saith ariseth out of Arabia the happy, consisting of a mixture of roses, daffodils, gillyflowers, lilies, violets, myrtles, bays, and blossoms of vines: such a dainty odoriferous savour was conveyed unto us.

Being delighted with this smell, and hoping for better fortunes after our long labours, we got within a little of the isle, in which we found many havens on every side, not subject to overflowing, and yet of great capacity, and rivers of clear water emptying themselves easily into the sea, with meadows and herbs and musical birds, some singing upon the shore, and many upon the branches of trees, a still and gentle air compassing the whole country. When pleasant blasts gently stirred the woods the motion of the branches made a continual delightsome melody, like the sound of wind instruments in a solitary place: a kind of clamour also was heard mixed with it, yet not tumultuous nor offensive, but like the noise of a banquet, when some do play on wind instruments, some commend the music, and some with their hands applaud the pipe, or the harp. All which yielded us so great content that we boldly entered the haven, made fast our ship and landed, leaving in her only Scintharus and two more of our companions behind us. Passing along through a sweet meadow we met with the guards that used to sail about the island, who took us and bound us with garlands of roses (which are the strictest bands they have), to be carried to their governor: from them we heard, as we were upon the way, that it was the island of those that are called blessed, and that Rhadamanthus was governor there, to whom we were brought and placed the fourth in order of them that were to be judged.

The first trial was about Ajax, the son of Telamon, whether he were a meet man to be admitted into the society of the Heroes or not: the objections against him were his madness and the killing of himself: and after long pleading to and fro, Rhadamanthus gave this sentence, that for the present he should be put to Hippocrates, the physician of Cos, to be purged with helleborus, and upon the recovery of his wits to have admittance.

The second was a controversy of love, Theseus and Menelaus contending which had the better right to Helen; but Rh ad am an thus gave judgment on Menelaus’ side, in respect of the manifold labours and perils he had incurred for that marriage’ sake, whereas Theseus had wives enough beside to live withal—as the Amazon, and the daughters of Minos. The third was a question of precedency between Alexander, the son of Philip, and Hannibal, the Carthaginian, in which Alexander was preferred, and his throne placed next to the elder Cyrus the Persian.

In the fourth place we appeared, and he demanded of us what reason we had, being living men, to take land in that sacred country, and we told him all our adventures in order as they befell us: then he commanded us to stand aside, and considering upon it a great while, in the end proposed it to the benchers, which were many, and among them Aristides the Athenian, surnamed the Just: and when he was provided what sentence to deliver, he said that for our busy curiosity and needless travels we should be accountable after our death; but for the present we should have a time limited for our abode, during which we should feast with the Heroes and then depart, prefixing us seven months’ liberty to conclude our tarriance, and no more. Then our garlands fell off from us of themselves, and we were set loose and led into the city to feast with the blessed.

The city was all of gold, compassed with a wall made of the precious stone smaragdus, which had seven gates, every one cut out of a whole piece of timber of cinnamon-tree: the pavement of the city and all the ground within the walls was ivory: the temples of all the gods are built of beryl, with large altars made all of one whole amethyst, upon which they offer their sacrifices: about the city runneth a river of most excellent sweet ointment, in breadth an hundred cubits of the larger measure, and so deep that a man may swim in it with ease. For their baths they have great houses of glass, which they warm with cinnamon: and their bathing-tubs are filled with warm dew instead of water. Their only garments are cobwebs of purple colour; neither have they any bodies, but are intactile and without flesh, a mere shape and presentation only: and being thus bodiless, they yet stand, and are moved, are intelligent, and can speak: and their naked soul seemeth to wander up and down in a corporal likeness: for if a man touch them not he cannot say otherwise, but that they have bodies, altogether like shadows standing upright, and not, as they are, of a dark colour. No man waxeth any older there than he was before, but of what age he comes thither, so he continues. Neither is there any night with them, nor indeed clear day: but like the twilight towards morning before the sun be up, such a kind of light do they live in. They know but one season of the year which is the spring, and feel no other wind but Zephyrus. The region flourisheth with all sorts of flowers, and with all pleasing plants fit for shade: their vines bear fruit twelve times a year, every month once: their pomegranate-trees, their apple-trees, and their other fruit, they say, bear thirteen times in the year, for in the month called Minous they bear twice. Instead of wheat their ears bear them loaves of bread ready baked, like unto mushrooms. About the city are three hundred three-score and five wells of water, and as many of honey, and five hundred of sweet ointment, for they are less than the other. They have seven rivers of milk and eight of wine.

They keep their feast without the city in a field called Elysium, which is a most pleasant meadow, environed with woods of all sorts, so thick that they serve for a shade to all that are invited, who sit upon beds of flowers, and are waited upon, and have everything brought unto them by the winds, unless it be to have the wine filled: and that there is no need of: for about the banqueting place are mighty great trees growing of clear and pure glass, and the fruit of those trees are drinking-cups and other kind of vessels of what fashion or greatness you will: and every man that comes to the feast gathers one or two of those cups, and sets them before him, which will be full of wine presently, and then they drink. Instead of garlands the nightingales and other musical birds gather flowers with their beaks out of the meadows adjoining, and flying over their heads with chirping notes scatter them among them.

They are anointed with sweet ointment in this manner: sundry clouds draw that unguent out of the fountains and the rivers, which settling over the heads of them that are at the banquet, the least blast of wind makes a small rain fall upon them like unto a dew. After supper they spend the time in music and singing: their ditties that are in most request they take out of Homer’s verses, who is there present himself and feasteth among them, sitting next above Ulysses: their choirs consist of boys and virgins, which were directed and assisted by Eunomus the Locrian, and Arion the Lesbian, and Anacreon, and Stesichorus, who hath had a place there ever since his reconcilement with Helena. As soon as these have done there enter a second choir of swans, swallows, and nightingales; and when they have ended, the whole woods ring like wind-instruments by the stirring of the air.

But that which maketh most for their mirth are two wells adjoining to the banqueting place, the one of laughter, the other of pleasure: of these every man drinks to begin the feast withal, which makes them spend the whole time in mirth and laughter.

I will also relate unto you what famous men I saw in that association. There were all the demigods, and all that fought against Troy, excepting Ajax the Locrian: he only, they told me, was tormented in the region of the unrighteous. Of barbarians there was the elder and the younger Cyrus, and Anacharsis the Scythian, Zamolxis the Thracian, and Numa the Italian. There was also Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian, and Phocion and Tellus the Athenians, and all the Wise Men, unless it were Periander.

I also saw Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, prattling with Nestor and Palamedes, and close by him stood Hyacinthus the Lacedæmonian, and the gallant Narcissus and Hylas, and other beautiful and lovely youths, and for aught I could gather by him he was far in love with Hyacinthus, for he discoursed with him more than all the rest: for which cause, they said, Rhadamanthus was offended at him, and often threatened to thrust him out of the island if he continued to play the fool in that fashion, and not give over his idle manner of jesting, when he was at their banquet. Only Plato was not present, for they said he dwelled in a city framed by himself, observing the same rule of government and laws as he had prescribed for them to live under.

Aristippus and Epicurus are prime men amongst them, because they are the most jovial good fellows and the best companions. Diogenes the Sinopean was so far altered from the man he was before that he married with Lais the harlot, and was many times so drunk that he would rise and dance about the room as a man out of his senses. Æsop the Phrygian served them for a jester. There was not one Stoic in company but were still busied in ascending the height of virtue’s hill: and of Chrysippus we heard that it was not lawful for him by any means to touch upon the island until he have the fourth time purged himself with helleborus. The Academics, they say, were willing enough to come, but that they yet are doubtful and in suspense, and cannot comprehend how there should be any such island; but indeed, I think, they were fearful to come to be judged by Rhadamanthus, because themselves have abolished all kind of judgment: yet many of them, they say, had a desire, and would follow after those that were coming hither, but were so slothful as to give it over because they were not comprehensive, and therefore turned back in the midst of their way.

These were all the men of note that I saw there; and amongst them all Achilles was held to be the best man, and next to him Theseus. For their manner of venery and copulation thus it is: they couple openly in the eyes of all men, both with females and male kind, and no man holds it for any dishonesty. Only Socrates would swear deeply that he accompanied young men in a cleanly fashion, and therefore every man condemned him for a perjured fellow: and Hyacinthus and Narcissus both confessed otherwise for all his denial.

The women there are all in common, and no man takes exception at it, in which respect they are absolutely the best Platonists in the world: and so do the boys yield themselves to any man’s pleasure without contradiction.

After I had spent two or three days in this manner, I went to talk with Homer the poet, our leisure serving us both well, and to know of him what countryman he was, a question with us hard to be resolved, and he said he could not certainly tell himself, because some said he was of Chios, some of Smyrna, and many to be of Colophon; but he said indeed he was a Babylonian, and among his own countrymen not called Homer but Tigranes, and afterwards living as an hostage among the Grecians, he had therefore that name put upon him. Then I questioned him about those verses in his books that are disallowed as not of his making, whether they were written by him or not, and he told me they were all his own, much condemning Zenodotus and Aristarchus, the grammarians, for their weakness in judgment.

When he had satisfied me in this, I asked him again why he began the first verse of his poem with anger: and he told me it fell out so by chance, not upon any premeditation. I also desired to know of him whether he wrote his Odysseys before his Iliads, as many men do hold: but he said it was not so. As for his blindness which is charged upon him, I soon found it was far otherwise, and perceived it so plainly that I needed not to question him about it.

Thus was I used to do many days when I found him idle, and would go to him and ask him many questions, which he would give me answer to very freely: especially when we talked of a trial he had in the court of justice, wherein he got the better: for Thersites had preferred a bill of complaint against him for abusing him and scoffing at him in his Poem, in which action Homer was acquitted, having Ulysses for his advocate.

About the same time came to us Pythagoras the Samian, who had changed his shape now seven times, and lived in as many lives, and accomplished the periods of his soul. The right half of his body was wholly of gold; and they all agreed that he should have place amongst them, but were doubtful what to call him, Pythagoras or Euphorbus. Empedocles also came to the place, scorched quite over, as if his body had been broiled upon the embers; but could not be admitted for all his great entreaty.

The time passing thus along, the day of prizes for masteries of activity now approached, which they call Thanatusia. The setters of them forth were Achilles the fifth time, and Theseus the seventh time. To relate the whole circumstance would require a long discourse, but the principal points I will deliver. At wrestling Carus, one of the lineage of Hercules, had the best, and wan the garland from Ulysses. The fight with fists was equal between Arius the Ægyptian, who was buried at Corinth, and Epius, that combated for it. There was no prize appointed for the Pancratian fight: neither do I remember who got the best in running: but for poetry, though Homer without question were too good for them all, yet the best was given to Hesiodus. The prizes were all alike, garlands plotted of peacocks’ feathers.

As soon as the games were ended, news came to us that the damned crew in the habitation of the wicked had broken their bounds, escaped the gaolers, and were coming to assail the island, led by Phalaris the Agrigentine, Busyris the Ægyptian, Diomedes the Thracian, Sciron, Pituocamptes, and others: which Rhadamanthus hearing, he ranged the Heroes in battle array upon the sea-shore, under the leading of Theseus and Achilles and Ajax Telamonius, who had now recovered his senses, where they joined fight; but the Heroes had the day, Achilles carrying himself very nobly. Socrates also, who was placed in the right wing, was noted for a brave soldier, much better than he was in his lifetime, in the battle at Delium: for when the enemy charged him, he neither fled nor changed countenance: wherefore afterwards, in reward of his valour, he had a prize set out for him on purpose, which was a beautiful and spacious garden, planted in the suburbs of the city, whereunto he invited many, and disputed with them there, giving it the name of Necracademia.

Then we took the vanquished prisoners, and bound them, and sent them back to be punished with greater torments.

This fight was also penned by Homer, who, at my departure, gave me the book to show my friends, which I afterwards lost and many things else beside: but the first verse of the poem I remember was this: “Tell me now, Muse, how the dead Heroes fought.”

When they overcome in fight, they have a custom to make a feast with sodden beans, wherewith they banquet together for joy of their victory: only Pythagoras had no part with them, but sat aloof off, and lost his dinner because he could not away with beans.

Six months were now passed over, and the seventh halfway onwards, when a new business was begot amongst us. For Cinyras the son of Scintharus, a proper tall young man, had long been in love with Helena, and it might plainly be perceived that she as fondly doted upon him, for they would still be winking and drinking one to another whilst they were a-feasting, and rise alone together, and wander up and down in the wood. This humour increasing, and knowing not what course to take, Cinyras’ device was to steal away Helena, whom he found as pliable to run away with him, to some of the islands adjoining, either to Phello, or Tyroessa, having before combined with three of the boldest fellows in my company to join with them in their conspiracy; but never acquainted his father with it, knowing that he would surely punish him for it.

Being resolved upon this, they watched their time to put it in practice: for when night was come, and I absent (for I was fallen asleep at the feast), they gave a slip to all the rest, and went away with Helena to shipboard as fast as they could. Menelaus waking about midnight, and finding his bed empty, and his wife gone, made an outcry, and calling up his brother, went to the court of Rhadamanthus.

As soon as the day appeared, the scouts told them they had descried a ship, which by that time was got far off into the sea. Then Rhadamanthus set out a vessel made of one whole piece of timber of asphodelus wood, manned with fifty of the Heroes to pursue after them, which were so willing on their way, that by noon they had overtaken them newly entered into the milky ocean, not far from Tyroessa, so near were they got to make an escape. Then took we their ship and hauled it after us with a chain of roses and brought it back again.

Rhadamanthus first examined Cinyras and his companions whether they had any other partners in this plot, and they confessing none, were adjudged to be tied fast by the privy members and sent into the place of the wicked, there to be tormented, after they had been scourged with rods made of mallows. Helena, all blubbered with tears, was so ashamed of herself that she would not show her face. They also decreed to send us packing out of the country, our prefixed time being come, and that we should stay there no longer than the next morrow: wherewith I was much aggrieved and wept bitterly to leave so good a place and turn wanderer again I knew not whither: but they comforted me much in telling me that before many years were past I should be with them again, and showed me a chair and a bed prepared for me against the time to come near unto persons of the best quality.

Then went I to Rhadamanthus, humbly beseeching him to tell me my future fortunes, and to direct me in my course; and he told me that after many travels and dangers, I should at last recover my country, but would not tell me the certain time of my return: and showing me the islands adjoining, which were five in number, and a sixth a little further off, he said, Those nearest are the islands of the ungodly, which you see burning all in a light fire, but the other sixth is the island of dreams, and beyond that is the island of Calypso, which you cannot see from hence. When you are past these, you shall come into the great continent, over against your own country, where you shall suffer many afflictions, and pass through many nations, and meet with men of inhuman conditions, and at length attain to the other continent.

When he had told me this, he plucked a root of mallows out of the ground, and reached it to me, commanding me in my greatest perils to make my prayers to that: advising me further neither to rake in the fire with my knife, nor to feed upon lupins, nor to come near a boy when he is past eighteen years of age: if I were mindful of this, the hopes would be great that I should come to the island again.

Then we prepared for our passage, and feasted with them at the usual hour, and next morrow I went to Homer, entreating him to do so much as make an epigram of two verses for me, which he did: and I erected a pillar of berylstone near unto the haven, and engraved them upon it. The epigram was this:

Lucian, the gods’ belov’d, did once attain
To see all this, and then go home again.

After that day’s tarrying, we put to sea, brought onward on our way by the Heroes, where Ulysses closely coming to me that Penelope might not see him, conveyed a letter into my hand to deliver to Calypso in the isle of Ogygia. Rhadamanthus also sent Nauplius, the ferryman, along with us, that if it were our fortune to put into those islands, no man should lay hands upon us, because we were bent upon other employments.

Further Reading:

The Surprising Origins of Sci-Fi

Principal Doctrines 24 and 28 and the Utility of Conviction

In the days after the publication of this essay, it was announced that James Randi had died. Randi had been a champion of empirical thinking for most of his life, applying this Principal Doctrine (although he was not an Epicurean) to uncover frauds, magicians, and conmen. The Humanist featured an article in celebration of his legacy.

In our discussions of Epicurean philosophy, we sometimes come across people who claim to be Epicureans but fall short of clearly understanding and living many of the Principal Doctrines. As our recent discussions about Thomas Jefferson and his slavery practice demonstrate, there are and have always been bad or uninformed Epicureans out there, as well as arrogant ones who are set in their ways and whom Philodemus would’ve labeled “incurable”, as well as people who have their own intellectual and ideological commitments outside of EP, and we must judge their ideas by their connection to our sources as well as by their potential consequence–as Epicurus advised in his sermon against empty words, where Philodemus said:

Epicurus says that we think empirically concerning the actions based on the results observed from any course of action.

Concerning theories that do not seem to have empirical basis, they can be destroyed if they are false (whether rational or not), either if some other theoretical view based on it is false, or if when we establish a link with the action, this proves to be disadvantageous. If any of these things happen, it will be easy to conclude that theoretical arguments are false.

In the coming months, I will be delving into an in-depth study of various PD’s in order to help students to certify whether an opinion expressed in an online forum really represents an Epicurean doctrine or not. This will also constitute an invitation to a deeper study of the Principal Doctrines, as sometimes those who misrepresent EP will cite secondary, even hostile sources, but ignore the authoritative PD’s, of which Lucian of Samosata–writing in the Second Century of CE–had this to say:

The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon its readers, of the peace, tranquillity, and independence of mind it produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and marvels, vain hopes and inordinate desires, of the judgement and candour that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches and squills and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and frankness.

The Principal Doctrines are the closest thing we have to an Epicurean Gospel. They’re the conclusions of very long conversations that led to authoritative declarations by the founders. As students (and in the absence of all the sources), we should try to imagine the discussions that took place PRIOR to the establishment of the doctrines, so that we may understand the ways in which they are coherent with the entire system. What led the founders to consider these truths to be so important, that they became a dogmatic School and set them up as the 40 authoritative doctrines?

There are two key doctrines I’d like to start with. Principal Doctrine 24 creates the taboo of separating that which awaits confirmation (the non-evident) from that which is clearly present (the evident). I use the word “taboo” because this doctrine includes a clear prohibition against mixing them up. Without this doctrine–which clearly establishes that this is an evidence-based philosophy based on the study of nature–, our dogmatism can not be justified.

If you reject a perception outright and do not distinguish between your opinion about what will happen after, what came before, your feelings, and all the layers of imagination involved in your thoughts, then you will throw your other perceptions into confusion because of your trifling opinions; as a result, you will reject the very criterion of truth. And if when forming concepts from your opinions you treat as confirmed everything that will happen and what you do not witness thereafter, then you will not avoid what is false, so that you will remove all argument and all judgment about what is and is not correct. – Principal Doctrine 24

Notice here that “our feelings” (important as they are) are among the things that must be subjected to the checks and balances provided by the evidence of nature.

In Philodemus’ scroll On methods of inference we learn that it’s possible to infer about the non-evident based on the evident, but this applies only to phenomena that are considered similar enough to each other to warrant such inference by analogy. Outside of these (sometimes controversial) cases, the instructions here are to await confirmation (evidence) prior to issuing opinions or judgments. This Principal Doctrine is a precursor to modern scientific inquiry and the transgenerational human project of amassing useful knowledge by strict means of evidence.

So Principal Doctrine 24 is the doctrine of empirical reasoning (epilogismos) and of “awaiting confirmation”, and creates the taboo of separating the evident (that which is clearly present) from the non-evident (that which awaits confirmation). This doctrine justifies Epicurean dogmatism based on nature’s evidence. It is necessary to understand this doctrine prior to understanding PD 28:

The same judgment produces confidence that dreadful things are not everlasting, and that security amidst the limited number of dreadful things is most easily achieved through friendship. – Principal Doctrine 28

Here’s another translation:

The same conviction which inspires confidence that nothing we have to fear is eternal or even of long duration, also enables us to see that even in our limited conditions of life nothing enhances our security so much as friendship.

This doctrine is about friendship and about diminishing our existential fears, but it also specifically addresses our “convictions” or “judgments” as efficient means to acquire a confident expectation that leads to security–which is a mental pleasure, or perhaps at times an alleviation of mental anguish. This belief can be experienced as salvation if we’re ever on the verge of homelessness or danger and our friends come to the rescue, or it can simply create a stable sense of confidence.

Implicit in this doctrine is the view that certain beliefs or convictions are not only true, but are also efficient means to certain important and necessary pleasures. It’s not enough to have friends: one must also KNOW that they will be there in times of need. It’s not enough to have few desires: one must also KNOW, have a conviction, that we need few things to live pleasantly. It’s not enough to not fear death or chronic pain: we must KNOW that mental pleasure can be more potent than pain in the flesh and that death is not experienced by us. This is in line with Principal Doctrine 20, which says that the flesh does not know the limits established by nature for time, body and mind, while the mind can learn these limits, and so is in charge of securing our happiness.

And so dogmatism (the acceptance of certain premises which pass the test of the canon, and the taboo of separating the evident from the non-evident in PD 24) is a necessary feature of the practice of Epicurean ethics, and is necessary for us to abide in constant pleasures insofar as this is possible for mortals.

There’s this idea here that your beliefs should be carefully and empirically chosen, and also that your beliefs should do something for you, contribute to your happiness. Beliefs or doctrines can be tools that the mind uses to safeguard a life of pleasure. After all, the goal of an Epicurean ethical education is to give us confidence in our ability to live pleasantly, which is to say, to be happy.

I wanted to write this essay because I wanted to set a foundation for future exploration of the other Principal Doctrines, always coming back to these points. Peace and Safety!

Reply by Jordan:

Great article, Hiram. As always, I came away with a deeper understanding of EP, so thank you. One question: you write ‘It’s not enough to have few desires: one must also KNOW, have a conviction, that we need few things to live pleasantly.’ How do we, as comfortable Westerners, find out whether we really would be content with only natural and necessary goods? Are there any practices that might help give us a justified confidence that we could?

Reply by Hiram:

The Epicurean method is empirical so only by practicing living simply do we know these limits. If we have great comforts and have no memories to rely on of lacking our basic needs and still living pleasantly, we could diminish them temporarily, perhaps for a week, or once in a lifetime at least, or carry out other experiments, if we are devoted to the intellectual challenge of the Doctrines. Here is how Epicurus did it: he fasted from time to time.

 

 

Epicurus’ Epistle to Herodotus

Teachers of Epicureanism have always encouraged students to write down summaries of the doctrines for easy memorization, and outlines (often in the form of letters) were used widely as memory aids. Beginning-level Epicureans used to carry a Little Epitome with them, which was believed to be Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus. Once they assimilated the teachings of this epistle, which may have been a very short summary of Epicurus’ 37 books “On Nature”, they moved on to the Big Epitome where they were able to learn the advanced teachings.

The Epistle to Herodotus is a seminal work of natural philosophy and an important window into the history of early Western and scientific thought. It contains the earliest extant conversations between ancient atomists, and documents the progression of their arguments from the doctrine of atoms and void to their natural cosmology. It was preserved as part of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book Ten. In this translation, we have preserved the paragraph numbers used by most scholars for ease of reference.

Epicurus’ Epistle to Herodotus

35

“Epicurus to Herodotus, greeting.

On the importance of outlines and summaries

“For those who are unable to study carefully all my physical writings or to go into the longer treatises at all, I have myself prepared an epitome of the whole system, Herodotus, to preserve in the memory enough of the principal doctrines, to the end that on every occasion they may be able to aid themselves on the most important points, so far as they take up the study of Physics. Those who have made some advance in the survey of the entire system ought to fix in their minds under the principal headings an elementary outline of the whole treatment of the subject. For a comprehensive view is often required, the details but seldom.

36

“To the former, then – the main heads – we must continually return, and must memorize them so far as to get a valid conception of the facts, as well as the means of discovering all the details exactly when once the general outlines are rightly understood and remembered; since it is the privilege of the mature student to make a ready use of his conceptions by referring every one of them to elementary facts and simple terms. For it is impossible to gather up the results of continuous diligent study of the entirety of things, unless we can embrace in short formulas and hold in mind all that might have been accurately expressed even to the minutest detail.

37

“Hence, since such a course is of service to all who take up natural science, I, who devote to the subject my continuous energy and reap the calm enjoyment of a life like this, have prepared for you just such an epitome and manual of the doctrines as a whole.

Using the canon: anticipations, sensations, feelings

“In the first place, Herodotus, you must understand what it is that words denote, in order that by reference to this we may be in a position to test opinions, inquiries, or problems, so that our proofs may not run on untested ad infinitum, nor the terms we use be empty of meaning.

38

For the primary meaning of every term employed must be clearly seen, and ought to need no proving this being necessary, if we are to have something to which the point at issue or the problem or the opinion before us can be referred.

“Next, we must by all means stick to our sensations, that is, simply to the present impressions whether of the mind or of any criterion whatever, and similarly to our actual feelings, in order that we may have the means of determining that which needs confirmation and that which is obscure.

Nothing comes from nothing

“When this is clearly understood, it is time to consider generally things which are obscure. To begin with, nothing comes into being out of what is non-existent. For in that case anything would have arisen out of anything, standing as it would in no need of its proper germs.

39

And if that which disappears had been destroyed and become non-existent, everything would have perished, that into which the things were dissolved being non-existent. Moreover, the sum total of things was always such as it is now, and such it will ever remain. For there is nothing into which it can change. For outside the sum of things there is nothing which could enter into it and bring about the change.

Particles in space

“Further, the whole of being consists of bodies and space. For the existence of bodies is everywhere attested by sense itself, and it is upon sensation that reason must rely when it attempts to infer the unknown from the known.

40

And if there were no space (which we call also void and place and intangible nature), bodies would have nothing in which to be and through which to move, as they are plainly seen to move. Beyond bodies and space there is nothing which by mental apprehension or on its analogy we can conceive to exist. When we speak of bodies and space, both are regarded as wholes or separate things, not as the properties or accidents of separate things.

Bodies are either elementary or composite

“Again, of bodies some are composite, others the elements of which these composite bodies are made.

41

These elements are indivisible and unchangeable, and necessarily so, if things are not all to be destroyed and pass into non-existence, but are to be strong enough to endure when the composite bodies are broken up, because they possess a solid nature and are incapable of being anywhere or anyhow dissolved. It follows that the first beginnings must be indivisible, corporeal entities.

Universe is infinite

“Again, the sum of things is infinite. For what is finite has an extremity, and the extremity of anything is discerned only by comparison with something else. (Now the sum of things is not discerned by comparison with anything else: hence, since it has no extremity, it has no limit; and, since it has no limit, it must be unlimited or infinite.

“Moreover, the sum of things is unlimited both by reason of the multitude of the atoms and the extent of the void.

42

For if the void were infinite and bodies finite, the bodies would not have stayed anywhere but would have been dispersed in their course through the infinite void, not having any supports or counter-checks to send them back on their upward rebound. Again, if the void were finite, the infinity of bodies would not have anywhere to be.

Particles and primary elements have a limited variety of properties (1)

“Furthermore, the atoms, which have no void in them – out of which composite bodies arise and into which they are dissolved – vary indefinitely in their shapes; for so many varieties of things as we see could never have arisen out of a recurrence of a definite number of the same shapes. The like atoms of each shape are absolutely infinite; but the variety of shapes, though indefinitely large, is not absolutely infinite. [For neither does the divisibility go on “ad infinitum,” he says below; but he adds, since the qualities change, unless one is prepared to keep enlarging their magnitudes also simply “ad infinitum.”] (2)

Particles are always moving

“The atoms are in continual motion through all eternity.

43

[Further, he says below, that the atoms move with equal speed, since the void makes way for the lightest and heaviest alike.] Some of them rebound to a considerable distance from each other, while others merely oscillate in one place when they chance to have got entangled or to be enclosed by a mass of other atoms shaped for entangling.

44

“This is because each atom is separated from the rest by void, which is incapable of offering any resistance to the rebound; while it is the solidity of the atom which makes it rebound after a collision, however short the distance to which it rebounds, when it finds itself imprisoned in a mass of entangling atoms. Of all this there is no beginning, since both atoms and void exist from everlasting. [He says below that atoms have no quality at all except shape, size, and weight. But that colour varies with the arrangement of the atoms he states in his “Twelve Rudiments”; further, that they are not of any and every size; at any rate no atom has ever been seen by our sense.]

“The repetition at such length of all that we are now recalling to mind furnishes an adequate outline for our conception of the nature of things.

45

The doctrine of innumerable worlds

“Moreover, there is an infinite number of worlds, some like this world, others unlike it. For the atoms being infinite in number, as has just been proved, are borne ever further in their course. For the atoms out of which a world might arise, or by which a world might be formed, have not all been expended on one world or a finite number of worlds, whether like or unlike this one. Hence there will be nothing to hinder an infinity of worlds.

46

The nature of photons (films) and the speed of light

“Again, there are outlines or films, which are of the same shape as solid bodies, but of a thinness far exceeding that of any object that we see. For it is not impossible that there should be found in the surrounding air combinations of this kind, materials adapted for expressing the hollowness and thinness of surfaces, and effluxes preserving the same relative position and motion which they had in the solid objects from which they come. To these films we give the name of ‘images’ or ‘idols.’ Furthermore, so long as nothing comes in the way to offer resistance, motion through the void accomplishes any imaginable distance in an inconceivably short time. For resistance encountered is the equivalent of slowness, its absence the equivalent of speed.

47

“Not that, if we consider the minute times perceptible by reason alone, the moving body itself arrives at more than one place simultaneously (for this too is inconceivable), although in time perceptible to sense it does arrive simultaneously, however different the point of departure from that conceived by us. For if it changed its direction, that would be equivalent to its meeting with resistance, even if up to that point we allow nothing to impede the rate of its flight. This is an elementary fact which in itself is well worth bearing in mind. In the next place the exceeding thinness of the images is contradicted by none of the facts under our observation. Hence also their velocities are enormous, since they always find a void passage to fit them. Besides, their incessant effluence meets with no resistance, or very little, although many atoms, not to say an unlimited number, do at once encounter resistance.

48

“Besides this, remember that the production of the images is as quick as thought. For particles are continually streaming off from the surface of bodies, though no diminution of the bodies is observed, because other particles take their place. And those given off for a long time retain the position and arrangement which their atoms had when they formed part of the solid bodies, although occasionally they are thrown into confusion. Sometimes such films are formed very rapidly in the air, because they need not have any solid content; and there are other modes in which they may be formed. For there is nothing in all this which is contradicted by sensation, if we in some sort look at the clear evidence of sense, to which we should also refer the continuity of particles in the objects external to ourselves.

49

The objects we perceive are hitting our sensory receptors with particles

“We must also consider that it is by the entrance of something coming from external objects that we see their shapes and think of them. For external things would not stamp on us their own nature of colour and form through the medium of the air which is between them and us, or by means of rays of light or currents of any sort going from us to them, so well as by the entrance into our eyes or minds, to whichever their size is suitable, of certain films coming from the things themselves, these films or outlines being of the same colour and shape as the external things themselves. They move with rapid motion;

50

and this again explains why they present the appearance of the single continuous object, and retain the mutual interconnexion which they had in the object, when they impinge upon the sense, such impact being due to the oscillation of the atoms in the interior of the solid object from which they come. And whatever presentation we derive by direct contact, whether it be with the mind or with the sense-organs, be it shape that is presented or other properties, this shape as presented is the shape of the solid thing, and it is due either to a close coherence of the image as a whole or to a mere remnant of its parts. Falsehood and error always depend upon the intrusion of opinion (when a fact awaits) confirmation or the absence of contradiction, which fact is afterwards frequently not confirmed (or even contradicted) [following a certain movement in ourselves connected with, but distinct from, the mental picture presented – which is the cause of error.]

51

Various apprehensions of the same attestation produce checks and balances

“For the presentations which, e.g., are received in a picture or arise in dreams, or from any other form of apprehension by the mind or by the other criteria of truth, would never have resembled what we call the real and true things, had it not been for certain actual things of the kind with which we come in contact. Error would not have occurred, if we had not experienced some other movement in ourselves, conjoined with, but distinct from, the perception of what is presented. And from this movement, if it be not confirmed or be contradicted, falsehood results; while, if it be confirmed or not contradicted, truth results.

52

“And to this view we must closely adhere, if we are not to repudiate the criteria founded on the clear evidence of the senses, nor again to throw all these things into confusion by maintaining falsehood as if it were truth.

The nature of sound

“Again, hearing takes place when a current passes from the object, whether person or thing, which emits voice or sound or noise, or produces the sensation of hearing in any way whatever. This current is broken up into homogeneous particles, which at the same time preserve a certain mutual connexion and a distinctive unity extending to the object which emitted them, and thus, for the most part, cause the perception in that case or, if not, merely indicate the presence of the external object.

53

For without the transmission from the object of a certain interconnexion of the parts no such sensation could arise. Therefore we must not suppose that the air itself is moulded into shape by the voice emitted or something similar; for it is very far from being the case that the air is acted upon by it in this way. The blow which is struck in us when we utter a sound causes such a displacement of the particles as serves to produce a current resembling breath, and this displacement gives rise to the sensation of hearing.

On the material nature of smells

“Again, we must believe that smelling, like hearing, would produce no sensation, were there not particles conveyed from the object which are of the proper sort for exciting the organ of smelling, some of one sort, some of another, some exciting it confusedly and strangely, others quietly and agreeably.

54

The properties of particles are different from those of the bodies they compose

“Moreover, we must hold that the atoms in fact possess none of the qualities belonging to things which come under our observation, except shape, weight, and size, and the properties necessarily conjoined with shape. For every quality changes, but the atoms do not change, since, when the composite bodies are dissolved, there must needs be a permanent something, solid and indissoluble, left behind, which makes change possible: not changes into or from the non-existent, but often through differences of arrangement, and sometimes through additions and subtractions of the atoms. Hence these somethings capable of being diversely arranged must be indestructible, exempt from change, but possessed each of its own distinctive mass and configuration. This must remain.

55

Some properties (3) are inherent, others accidental

“For in the case of changes of configuration within our experience the figure is supposed to be inherent when other qualities are stripped off, but the qualities are not supposed, like the shape which is left behind, to inhere in the subject of change, but to vanish altogether from the body. Thus, then, what is left behind is sufficient to account for the differences in composite bodies, since something at least must necessarily be left remaining and be immune from annihilation.

Particles vary in size

“Again, you should not suppose that the atoms have any and every size, lest you be contradicted by facts; but differences of size must be admitted; for this addition renders the facts of feeling and sensation easier of explanation.

56

But to attribute any and every magnitude to the atoms does not help to explain the differences of quality in things; moreover, in that case atoms large enough to be seen ought to have reached us, which is never observed to occur; nor can we conceive how its occurrence should be possible, i.e. that an atom should become visible.

Bodies can not be divided infinitely, or else they would be of infinite size

“Besides, you must not suppose that there are parts unlimited in number, be they ever so small, in any finite body. Hence not only must we reject as impossible subdivision ad infinitum into smaller and smaller parts, lest we make all things too weak and, in our conceptions of the aggregates, be driven to pulverize the things that exist, i.e. the atoms, and annihilate them; but in dealing with finite things we must also reject as impossible the progression ad infinitum by less and less increments.

57

“For when once we have said that an infinite number of particles, however small, are contained in anything, it is not possible to conceive how it could any longer be limited or finite in size. For clearly our infinite number of particles must have some size; and then, of whatever size they were, the aggregate they made would be infinite. And, in the next place, since what is finite has an extremity which is distinguishable, even if it is not by itself observable, it is not possible to avoid thinking of another such extremity next to this. Nor can we help thinking that in this way, by proceeding forward from one to the next in order, it is possible by such a progression to arrive in thought at infinity.

58

We may infer about the minimal particles by observing the bodies they compose

“We must consider the minimum perceptible by sense as not corresponding to that which is capable of being traversed, i.e. is extended, nor again as utterly unlike it, but as having something in common with the things capable of being traversed, though it is without distinction of parts. But when from the illusion created by this common property we think we shall distinguish something in the minimum, one part on one side and another part on the other side, it must be another minimum equal to the first which catches our eye. In fact, we see these minima one after another, beginning with the first, and not as occupying the same space; nor do we see them touch one another’s parts with their parts, but we see that by virtue of their own peculiar character (i.e. as being unit indivisibles) they afford a means of measuring magnitudes: there are more of them, if the magnitude measured is greater; fewer of them, if the magnitude measured is less.

59

“We must recognize that this analogy also holds of the minimum in the atom; it is only in minuteness that it differs from that which is observed by sense, but it follows the same analogy. On the analogy of things within our experience we have declared that the atom has magnitude; and this, small as it is, we have merely reproduced on a larger scale. And further, the least and simplest things must be regarded as extremities of lengths, furnishing from themselves as units the means of measuring lengths, whether greater or less, the mental vision being employed, since direct observation is impossible. For the community which exists between them and the unchangeable parts (i.e. the minimal parts of area or surface) is sufficient to justify the conclusion so far as this goes. But it is not possible that these minima of the atom should group themselves together through the possession of motion.

60

Doctrine of relativity: an infinite cosmos has no center, only an infinite number of points of reference

“Further, we must not assert ‘up’ or ‘down’ of that which is unlimited, as if there were a zenith or nadir. As to the space overhead, however, if it be possible to draw a line to infinity from the point where we stand, we know that never will this space – or, for that matter, the space below the supposed standpoint if produced to infinity – appear to us to be at the same time ‘up’ and ‘down’ with reference to the same point; for this is inconceivable. Hence it is possible to assume one direction of motion, which we conceive as extending upwards ad infinitum, and another downwards, even if it should happen ten thousand times that what moves from us to the spaces above our heads reaches the feet of those above us, or that which moves downwards from us the heads of those below us. None the less is it true that the whole of the motion in the respective cases is conceived as extending in opposite directions ad infinitum.

61

Particles in space travel at great speed unless they meet resistance

“When they are travelling through the void and meet with no resistance, the atoms must move with equal speed. Neither will heavy atoms travel more quickly than small and light ones, so long as nothing meets them, nor will small atoms travel more quickly than large ones, provided they always find a passage suitable to their size, and provided also that they meet with no obstruction. Nor will their upward or their lateral motion, which is due to collisions, nor again their downward motion, due to weight, affect their velocity. As long as either motion obtains, it must continue, quick as the speed of thought, provided there is no obstruction, whether due to external collision or to the atoms’ own weight counteracting the force of the blow.

62

We can not infer about particles an identical behavior as composite bodies

“Moreover, when we come to deal with composite bodies, one of them will travel faster than another, although their atoms have equal speed. This is because the atoms in the aggregates are travelling in one direction during the shortest continuous time, albeit they move in different directions in times so short as to be appreciable only by the reason, but frequently collide until the continuity of their motion is appreciated by sense. For the assumption that beyond the range of direct observation even the minute times conceivable by reason will present continuity of motion is not true in the case before us. Our canon is that direct observation by sense and direct apprehension by the mind are alone invariably true.

63

On the nature of the mortal soul

“Next, keeping in view our perceptions and feelings (for so shall we have the surest grounds for belief), we must recognize generally that the soul is a corporeal thing, composed of fine particles, dispersed all over the frame, most nearly resembling wind with an admixture of heat, in some respects like wind, in others like heat. But, again, there is the third part which exceeds the other two in the fineness of its particles and thereby keeps in closer touch with the rest of the frame. And this is shown by the mental faculties and feelings, by the ease with which the mind moves, and by thoughts, and by all those things the loss of which causes death. Further, we must keep in mind that soul has the greatest share in causing sensation.

64

Still, it would not have had sensation, had it not been somehow confined within the rest of the frame. But the rest of the frame, though it provides this indispensable condition for the soul, itself also has a share, derived from the soul, of the said quality; and yet does not possess all the qualities of soul. Hence on the departure of the soul it loses sentience. For it had not this power in itself; but something else, congenital with the body, supplied it to body: which other thing, through the potentiality actualized in it by means of motion, at once acquired for itself a quality of sentience, and, in virtue of the neighbourhood and interconnexion between them, imparted it (as I said) to the body also.

65

“Hence, so long as the soul is in the body, it never loses sentience through the removal of some other part. The containing sheath may be dislocated in whole or in part, and portions of the soul may thereby be lost; yet in spite of this the soul, if it manage to survive, will have sentience. But the rest of the frame, whether the whole of it survives or only a part, no longer has sensation, when once those atoms have departed, which, however few in number, are required to constitute the nature of soul. Moreover, when the whole frame is broken up, the soul is scattered and has no longer the same powers as before, nor the same motions; hence it does not possess sentience either.

66

“For we cannot think of it as sentient, except it be in this composite whole and moving with these movements; nor can we so think of it when the sheaths which enclose and surround it are not the same as those in which the soul is now located and in which it performs these movements.

67

“There is the further point to be considered, what the incorporeal can be, if, I mean, according to current usage the term is applied to what can be conceived as self-existent. But it is impossible to conceive anything that is incorporeal as self-existent except empty space. And empty space cannot itself either act or be acted upon, but simply allows a body to move through it. Hence those who call soul incorporeal speak foolishly. For if it were so, it could neither act nor be acted upon. But, as it is, both these properties, you see, plainly belong to soul.

68

“If, then, we bring all these arguments concerning soul to the criterion of our feelings and perceptions, and if we keep in mind the proposition stated at the outset, we shall see that the subject has been adequately comprehended in outline: which will enable us to determine the details with accuracy and confidence.

“Moreover, shapes and colours, magnitudes and weights, and in short all those qualities which are predicated of body, in so far as they are perpetual properties either of all bodies or of visible bodies, are knowable by sensation of these very properties: these, I say, must not be supposed to exist independently by themselves (for that is inconceivable),

69

nor yet to be non-existent, nor to be some other and incorporeal entities cleaving to body, nor again to be parts of body. We must consider the whole body in a general way to derive its permanent nature from all of them, though it is not, as it were, formed by grouping them together in the same way as when from the particles themselves a larger aggregate is made up, whether these particles be primary or any magnitudes whatsoever less than the particular whole. All these qualities, I repeat, merely give the body its own permanent nature. They all have their own characteristic modes of being perceived and distinguished, but always along with the whole body in which they inhere and never in separation from it; and it is in virtue of this complete conception of the body as a whole that it is so designated.

70

Accidental properties of bodies

“Again, qualities often attach to bodies without being permanent concomitants. They are not to be classed among invisible entities nor are they incorporeal. Hence, using the term ‘accidents’ in the commonest sense, we say plainly that ‘accidents’ have not the nature of the whole thing to which they belong, and to which, conceiving it as a whole, we give the name of body, nor that of the permanent properties without which body cannot be thought of. And in virtue of certain peculiar modes of apprehension into which the complete body always enters, each of them can be called an accident.

71

But only as often as they are seen actually to belong to it, since such accidents are not perpetual concomitants. There is no need to banish from reality this clear evidence that the accident has not the nature of that whole – by us called body – to which it belongs, nor of the permanent properties which accompany the whole. Nor, on the other hand, must we suppose the accident to have independent existence (for this is just as inconceivable in the case of accidents as in that of the permanent properties); but, as is manifest, they should all be regarded as accidents, not as permanent concomitants, of bodies, nor yet as having the rank of independent existence. Rather they are seen to be exactly as and what sensation itself makes them individually claim to be.

72

Time is relative and accidental

“There is another thing which we must consider carefully. We must not investigate time as we do the other accidents which we investigate in a subject, namely, by referring them to the preconceptions envisaged in our minds; but we must take into account the plain fact itself, in virtue of which we speak of time as long or short, linking to it in intimate connexion this attribute of duration. We need not adopt any fresh terms as preferable, but should employ the usual expressions about it. Nor need we predicate anything else of time, as if this something else contained the same essence as is contained in the proper meaning of the word ‘time’ (for this also is done by some). We must chiefly reflect upon that to which we attach this peculiar character of time, and by which we measure it.

73

No further proof is required: we have only to reflect that we attach the attribute of time to days and nights and their parts, and likewise to states of movement and states of rest, conceiving a peculiar accident of these to be this very characteristic which we express by the word ‘time.’

Bodies are ever emerging, changing, and dissolving

“After the foregoing we have next to consider that the worlds and every finite aggregate which bears a strong resemblance to things we commonly see have arisen out of the infinite. For all these, whether small or great, have been separated off from special conglomerations of atoms; and all things are again dissolved, some faster, some slower, some through the action of one set of causes, others through the action of another.

74

On the diversity of planets

“And further, we must not suppose that the worlds have necessarily one and the same shape. [On the contrary, in the twelfth book “On Nature” he himself says that the shapes of the worlds differ, some being spherical, some oval, others again of shapes different from these. They do not, however, admit of every shape. Nor are they living beings which have been separated from the infinite.] For nobody can prove that in one sort of world there might not be contained, whereas in another sort of world there could not possibly be, the seeds out of which animals and plants arise and all the rest of the things we see. [And the same holds good for their nurture in a world after they have arisen. And so too we must think it happens upon the earth also.]

75

Nature learns skills, reason and culture perfect them

“Again, we must suppose that nature too has been taught and forced to learn many various lessons by the facts themselves, that reason subsequently develops what it has thus received and makes fresh discoveries, among some tribes more quickly, among others more slowly, the progress thus made being at certain times and seasons greater, at others less.

Origin of language

“Hence even the names of things were not originally due to convention, but in the several tribes under the impulse of special feelings and special presentations of sense primitive man uttered special cries. The air thus emitted was moulded by their individual feelings or sense-presentations, and differently according to the difference of the regions which the tribes inhabited.

76

Subsequently whole tribes adopted their own special names, in order that their communications might be less ambiguous to each other and more briefly expressed. And as for things not visible, so far as those who were conscious of them tried to introduce any such notion, they put in circulation certain names for them, either sounds which they were instinctively compelled to utter or which they selected by reason on analogy according to the most general cause there can be for expressing oneself in such a way.

Planets or stars are not gods or moved by gods; they move by their own nature

“Nay more: we are bound to believe that in the sky revolutions, solstices, eclipses, risings and settings, and the like, take place without the ministration or command, either now or in the future, of any being who at the same time enjoys perfect bliss along with immortality.

77

For troubles and anxieties and feelings of anger and partiality do not accord with bliss, but always imply weakness and fear and dependence upon one’s neighbours. Nor, again, must we hold that things which are no more than globular masses of fire, being at the same time endowed with bliss, assume these motions at will. Nay, in every term we use we must hold fast to all the majesty which attaches to such notions as bliss and immortality, lest the terms should generate opinions inconsistent with this majesty. Otherwise such inconsistency will of itself suffice to produce the worst disturbance in our minds. Hence, where we find phenomena invariably recurring, the invariableness of the recurrence must be ascribed to the original interception and conglomeration of atoms whereby the world was formed.

78

Science protects us from superstition (4)

“Further, we must hold that to arrive at accurate knowledge of the cause of things of most moment is the business of natural science, and that happiness depends on this (viz. on the knowledge of celestial and atmospheric phenomena), and upon knowing what the heavenly bodies really are, and any kindred facts contributing to exact knowledge in this respect.

Polyvalent logic so long as superstitions are discarded

“Further, we must recognize on such points as this no plurality of causes or contingency, but must hold that nothing suggestive of conflict or disquiet is compatible with an immortal and blessed nature. And the mind can grasp the absolute truth of this.

79

On the limited usefulness of science for our happiness (5)

“But when we come to subjects for special inquiry, there is nothing in the knowledge of risings and settings and solstices and eclipses and all kindred subjects that contributes to our happiness; but those who are well-informed about such matters and yet are ignorant what the heavenly bodies really are, and what are the most important causes of phenomena, feel quite as much fear as those who have no such special information – nay, perhaps even greater fear, when the curiosity excited by this additional knowledge cannot find a solution or understand the subordination of these phenomena to the highest causes.

“Hence, if we discover more than one cause that may account for solstices, settings and risings, eclipses and the like, as we did also in particular matters of detail, we must not suppose that our treatment of these matters fails of accuracy, so far as it is needful to ensure our tranquillity and happiness.

80

Infer about the non-evident and heavenly phenomena based on the evident

When, therefore, we investigate the causes of celestial and atmospheric phenomena, as of all that is unknown, we must take into account the variety of ways in which analogous occurrences happen within our experience; while as for those who do not recognize the difference between what is or comes about from a single cause and that which may be the effect of any one of several causes, overlooking the fact that the objects are only seen at a distance, and are moreover ignorant of the conditions that render, or do not render, peace of mind impossible – all such persons we must treat with contempt. If then we think that an event could happen in one or other particular way out of several, we shall be as tranquil when we recognize that it actually comes about in more ways than one as if we knew that it happens in this particular way.

81

Heavenly bodies are not sentient

“There is yet one more point to seize, namely, that the greatest anxiety of the human mind arises through the belief that the heavenly bodies are blessed and indestructible, and that at the same time they have volitions and actions and causality inconsistent with this belief; and through expecting or apprehending some everlasting evil, either because of the myths, or because we are in dread of the mere insensibility of death, as if it had to do with us; and through being reduced to this state not by conviction but by a certain irrational perversity, so that, if men do not set bounds to their terror, they endure as much or even more intense anxiety than the man whose views on these matters are quite vague.

82

But mental tranquillity means being released from all these troubles and cherishing a continual remembrance of the highest and most important truths.

“Hence we must attend to present feelings and sense perceptions, whether those of mankind in general or those peculiar to the individual, and also attend to all the clear evidence available, as given by each of the standards of truth. For by studying them we shall rightly trace to its cause and banish the source of disturbance and dread, accounting for celestial phenomena and for all other things which from time to time befall us and cause the utmost alarm to the rest of mankind.

Conclusion

“Here then, Herodotus, you have the chief doctrines of Physics in the form of a summary. So that,

83

if this statement be accurately retained and take effect, a man will, I make no doubt, be incomparably better equipped than his fellows, even if he should never go into all the exact details. For he will clear up for himself many of the points which I have worked out in detail in my complete exposition; and the summary itself, if borne in mind, will be of constant service to him.

“It is of such a sort that those who are already tolerably, or even perfectly, well acquainted with the details can, by analysis of what they know into such elementary perceptions as these, best prosecute their researches in physical science as a whole; while those, on the other hand, who are not altogether entitled to rank as mature students can in silent fashion and as quick as thought run over the doctrines most important for their peace of mind.”

Such is his epistle on Physics.

Notes:

  1. We know that particles have a limited variety of properties because we observe in nature that different elements behave differently at different temperatures and in different circumstances, but this variety follows certain laws and never violates them.
  2. Diogenes Laertius left commentary as part of his report, based on his investigations.
  3. The ancient Greek word “atomos” means not-cuttable. The modern atomic theory does not neatly correspond with the original preconception of the atom. The modern English word for ancient Greek atoms is “particles”, sometimes rendered as “elementary particles”.
  4. Aphrodite Urania was the patroness Goddess of the Epicureans. Urania was also the name of the Muse of astronomy, which likely explains why Epicureans derived such great mental pleasure from the study of nature and from astronomy.
  5. Some enemies of Epicurus have accused him of being against learning and scholarship because he seems to limit the utility of science to how much pleasure it can add and how much pain, or superstitious fear, it can remove. But Epicurus had a clear understanding of the different goals of philosophy and of science. Raw scientific data can not replace or abolish the role of ethics. Ethics must coexist with scientific data, and guide its utility.

Books that SoFE Recommends

By Hiram Crespo, SoFE Founder

Tending the Epicurean Garden – All Reviews

How to Live a Good Life – Review

 

Ukemi Audiobooks’ Epicurus of Samos: His Philosophy and Life: All the Principal Source Texts – Includes Diogenes Laertius’ biography of Epicurus including three letters from Epicurus to friends, to Herodotus, Pythocles and Menoeceus; The Principal Doctrines of Epicurus, The Vatican Sayings; Epicurean Fragments; further fragments included in the collection The Villa of the Papyri, Diogenes’ Wall Inscription, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), and there is a chapter on The Legacy.

Epitome: Epicurean Writings and Study Guide
Epitome: Epicu…
By Hiram Crespo
Photo book

Epitome: Epicurean Writings is SoFE’s modern Epicurean Epitome for students. It includes a thematic index, and an Outline of the Doctrines on economics.

Epicurean Therapeutics and Philodemus

The Ethics of Philodemus by Voula Tsouna. Best intro to Philodemus in English I can think of and a source of potential Epicurean therapeutic techniques. Also, Tsouna quotes many Philodemus frangments, making them accessible in a way they otherwise wouldn’t be – recommended by Marcus

 

On Death – Review

On Frank Criticism – Review

On the Art of Property Management – Review

For All Works: The Philodemus Series

For More Advanced Students:

A Few Days in Athens – Review

Horace the Poet

Other Modern Introductions:

How to be Epicurean, by Catherine Wilson – Review. Alan says: I liked Catherine Wilson’s books A Very Short Intro and How to be an Epicurean.

Re: Tim O Keefe’s Epicureanism – Jordan says: isn’t too strenuous if you wanted a more technical reading.

Reclaiming Epicurus, by Luke Slattery – SH says is a good short book.

Letters on Happiness by Peter Saint-Andre.

Both books by DeWitt were recommended by Ross. Epicurus and his philosophy has a cult following among some modern Epicureans. Others criticize “that it is very hefty, not the most accessible, and ultimately only so useful when it comes to implementing Epicurean philosophy, though it does present the history and theory well.”

St. Paul and Epicurus helps us to understand all that Christianity borrowed from the early Epicurean communities.

 

For Children and Adults Alike:


Epicurus the Sage Review.

For French Speakers:

De l’inhumanité de la religion – Review

The Theodorians

The following is part of a book review of Cyreniacs Handbook: Handbook of Source Material for Cyrenaic Philosophy.

Theodorus the Atheist was discussed in a previous series of essays about the Cyrenaics. Like the other thinkers who were highlighted, he also founded a sect that bore his name. According to the Handbook,

Theodore was the founder of that branch of the Cyrenaic sect which was called after him “Theodorei”, “Theodoreans.” The general characteristics of the Cyrenaic philosophy are described elsewhere. The opinions of Theodore, as we gather them from the perplexed statement of Diogenes Laertius (ii. 98) partook of the lax character of the Cyrenaic school.

He taught that the great end of human life is to obtain joy and avoid grief, the one the fruit of prudence, the other of folly; that prudence and justice are good, their opposites evil; that pleasure and pain are indifferent. He made light of friendship and patriotism, and affirmed that the world was his country. He taught that there was nothing really disgraceful in theft, adultery, or sacrilege; but that they were branded only by public opinion, which had been formed in order to restrain fools … The wise man would indulge his passions openly without the least regard to circumstances.

But the great charge against him was atheism. “He did away with all opinions respecting the Gods,” says Laertius, but some critics doubt whether he was absolutely an atheist, or simply denied the existence of the deities of popular belief. The charge of atheism is sustained by the popular designation of Theodoras ”Atheus,” by the authority of Cicero (de Nat. Deor. i. 1), Laertius, Plutarch (De Placit. Philos. i. 7), Sextus Empiricus (Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. lib. iii.), and some of the Christian Fathers; while some other authorities speak of him as only rejecting the popular theology. Theodore wrote a book “Concerning God”, De Diis, which Laertius–who had seen it–says (ii. 97) was not to be disdained; and he adds that it was said to have been the source of many of the statements or arguments of Epicurus. According to Suidas he wrote many works both on the doctrines of his sect and on other subjects.

Elsewhere, it says:

Theodorus considered joy and grief to be the supreme good and evil, the one brought about by wisdom, the other by folly. Wisdom and justice he called goods, and their opposites evils, pleasure and pain being intermediate to good and evil. Friendship he rejected because it did not exist between the unwise nor between the wise; with the former, when the want is removed, the friendship disappears, whereas the wise are self-sufficient and have no need of friends.

Notice the statement on how Laertius held Theodorus’ book on divinity in high esteem, and considered it to be the source for “many of the arguments” we find in the Epicurean theories on theology and piety. Now, let’s consider this in light of what we know of Epicurean theology, as attested in Principal Doctrine 1 and Philodemus’ scroll On Piety. PD1 states:

A happy and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; hence he is exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for every such movement implies weakness.

The Monadnock translation says:

That which is blissful and immortal has no troubles itself, nor does it cause trouble for others, so that it is not affected by anger or gratitude (for all such things come about through weakness).

The pattern that immediately becomes evident here is that, just as Theodorus used to teach his philosophy in terms of pairs of opposites (joy/grief, prudence/folly, etc.), we see here a focus on “anger and partiality / gratitude“. Scholars have pointed out that this has to do with the gods’ autarchy (self-sufficiency): they do not need anything from anyone, ergo they are not of the constitution that would experience anger or gratitude, as no creature may harm or benefit them. We know from Lampe’s book that autarchy was one of the cardinal virtues of Theodorus, so this fits his profile, particularly if the gods are to be seen as ethical guides.

Also notice that these aspects of the theology do not touch on the physics. Unlike Epicurus, Theodorus was not of the lineage of Democritus and may not have come up with a physical theory of gods as super-evolved animals with bodies made of particles, as we see in Epicurean theology. This indicates that his ideas in the work On the Gods cited by Laertius (which seem to have influenced Epicurus) may have focused, instead, on the ethical aspects of the gods. Hence the two key attributes that Epicurus considers taboo to ascribe to deities in his Epistle to Menoeceus:

Do not ascribe to god anything that is inconsistent with immortality and blissfulness; instead, believe about god everything that can support immortality and blissfulness.

Some translations use the word happiness (that is: always abiding in pleasure, which fits the ethical ideal of hedonism), and indestructible (which fits the definition of a god). In the case of the gods’ immortality, Epicurus may have developed this theory by linking it to his atomist physics.

Like Epicurus, Theodorus seems to not have been a real atheist (in spite of his epithet “Theodorus the Atheist”). He seems to have rejected the vulgar and popular beliefs about the gods, as Epicurus did, and for that reason they were both misbranded atheists. Diogenes Laertius, in Life of Aristippus (2.97-104), says:

The Theodoreans derived their name from Theodorus, who has already been mentioned, and adopted his doctrines. Theodorus was a man who utterly rejected the current belief in the gods. And I have come across a book of his entitled Of the Gods which is not contemptible. From that book, they say, Epicurus borrowed most of what he wrote on the subject.

Here, we see that Anniceris is not the only proto-Epicurean in the Cyrenaic lineage. The Handbook has this to say of Theodorus, which could have easily been attributed to Epicurus, as it is consistent with his instruction that one should philosophize not for Greece, but for oneself:

It was reasonable, as he thought, for the good man not to risk his life in the defense of his country, for he would never throw wisdom away to benefit the unwise.

Elsewhere, the Handbook says of Theodorus:

He said the world was his country.

These teachings are identical to the Epicurean conception of cosmopolitanism, which is sustained by an anarchic spirit that choose nature over culture, true friends over imaginary or Platonic communities.

Further Reading:
Cyreniacs Handbook: Handbook of Source Material for Cyrenaic Philosophy

Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods