Category Archives: epicurus

Reasonings About Philodemus’ Treatise On Methods of Inference

PHILODEMUS: ON METHODS OF INFERENCE – A Study in Ancient Empiricism is the only extant work on logic that I know of that exists within our tradition. In it, Philodemus was arguing against other philosophers, mostly against Stoics, who relied heavily on syllogisms and logical juggling in order to ascertain truths.

There are many difficulties with this work, chief among them the fact that Epicureanism is a materialism and by necessity highly empirical, based heavily on evidence presented before the tribunal of the senses and things that can be grasped with our faculties as natural beings, whereas other philosophies are happy to discard the facticity of matter and evidence and degenerate into speculation and irrelevant abstraction.

On the Canon

There are several key features to our approach to logic, but prior to addressing them we must address why reason and logic are not within the canon. Epicureanism is a materialist and realist tradition of philosophy according to which reality exists and can be grasped with our faculties.

Because truth can be grasped, we are dogmatists: we believe that new truths must be in symphony with previously established truths, and that there must be criteria by which we judge things to be real.

These criteria are the canon (or measuring stick), our connection to reality. The canon includes three sets of faculties: the five senses, the pleasure/aversion principle, and the anticipations.

So far, so good. Now, some have interpreted anticipations as pre-conceptions, and given the impression that anticipations are ideas, concepts that are formed by the rational mind, but we hold this to be an error. Anticipations are innate, pre-rational. The three sets of faculties in the canon give raw data to reason and it’s the job of reason to make sense of it, to calculate with this data, but the data itself is irrational and whatever error we make with regards to this data, is an error of calculation, of reason, of logic. This is why logic/reason is not within the canon.

On the issue of how anticipations are innate and pre-rational, our friend Cassius, while citing Thomas Jefferson in his thoughts on anticipations, the canon, and reason, makes the case that humans, through natural selection, evolved as social beings with certain faculties. He also says:

The problem with the conventional Bailey view is that they say this “faculty” does not exist and they say that what Epicurus was talking about was the conceptual reasoning process. They say that anticipations are :

1) I see a chair

2) I see another chair

3) I form a concept in my mind of what I THINK a chair ought to look like

4) BINGO — that is an “anticipation” and the next time I see a chair, I recognize it because the “anticipation of a chair” is stored in my mind

Dewitt says that is ALL WRONG — because our mind, using reasoning in that case, have formed a CONCEPT of a chair.

Norman DeWitt said: “It was Epicurus’ determination to dethrone reason and set up nature as the norm.”

And so Epicureanism is fundamentally different from much reason-based philosophy out there. We’re very unlike the Aristotelians, the objectivists, and other cults of reason out there. We always keep our feet on the ground and do not consider irrelevant speculation without evidence to be true philosophy. Unlike other schools of philosophy, we look to Venus more than Athena.

And so the first problem that must be addressed when we approach On Methods of Inference is that we reject the premise that logic is a criterion for truth, as it was to the philosophers that Philodemus was arguing against. Cassius states: “You need to see the basic argument without letting them fool you into thinking they know more than you do”.

This is the kind of difficulty one encounters when one argues with non-Epicurean philosophers, or when one studies the arguments between various schools that utilized very different points of reference.

The Basic Arguments

Our friend Brian made available the following chart to help us begin to grasp the treatise. It includes some basic definitions, first among them the idea of signs, which are symptoms or indications that something is there and is real.

From a sign, we get what we see (which falls within the canon) and what we can infer (which does not and may be subject to error). As I see it, there key controversies in the text have to do with how we can know with any certainty that our inferences lead to firm truth, since they constitute indirect knowledge that is not immediately rooted in our experience or in evidence.

Inferences can be of two types:

  • general inferences draw generic information from a single instance of concrete fact
  • particular inferences draw very specific conclusions about a concrete fact

Our friend Cassius states: “… the Epicurean method of establishing truth is reasoning by analogy, by extention, and by comparison to things that we know already because they are clear … and … the method of Epicurus is sort of measurement-based“.

One of the main objections raised by other schools had to do with how Epicureans frequently draw generic non-evident conclusions from concrete, observed phenomena. These discussions centered on how there are many unique cases and exceptions to things that are generally perceived.

To justify this tendency to make generalizations, Epicureans cited inconceivability, which we can simplify by saying they invoked common sense. According to our friend Cassius, “inconceivable probably refers to something that CONFLICTS WITH A KNOWN FACT“. This is vindicated by Philodemus himself on the scroll:

… this has been observed to be a property of that in all cases that we have come upon, and because we have observed many varied living creatures of the same genus who have differences in all other respects from each other, but who all share in certain common qualities (e.g. mortality). – On Methods of Inference XXXV

For instance, it’s inconceivable that a man may be immortal because all men who existed in the past have died and there are no known and empirically verified cases to the contrary, and so it’s fair to expect that all men living today will also die.

We may call this the argument of no known exceptions: since all men are known to die, and we have no reason to suspect that men outside of our direct experience are immortal, then we can conclude that all men are mortal. The words used by Philodemus are with no case drawing us to the contrary.

It’s also inconceivable that a tree may ever have lungs or a nose, or grow hair or feathers, because never in our experience have we seen this. Cassius explains:

The entire argument of the whole book rests on “can our senses provide us an example on which to rest our argument” versus the Stoics “our argument can rest on logic through syllogism even though we have never seen or touched or sensed an example of what we are talking about”.

In my opinion, what the Epicureans were saying is that always, unless you can point to evidence of the senses as proving that each part of the syllogism is true, it is “inconceivable” that the syllogism can be true.

And so, again, we see the insistence on evidence presented before the tribunal of our natural faculties. As to the definition of syllogism, we generally find inference, conclusion, computation, calculation. Our friend Brian says that we may define it as a collected bit of observations.

One final note must be made based on commentary in page 168 of the book, which reasonably states that “the degree of certainty of an inference is often relative to the amount of variation observable”. Ergo, in addition to instances where there are no known exceptions, there may also be instances where exceptions are few or limited to very specific conditions, which limits what can be inferred based on evidence. The book cites as an example how we can establish with certainty “the actions of certain poisons, but only relative analogies can be established on the goodness or badness of foods”.

So, to conclude our discussion on syllogism:

If the premises in a syllogism can be validated by evidence / canon, then a syllogism may be valid.

If it’s not based on sense evidence or conflicts with reality, it’s not valid.

Period.

Our friend Cassius adds that probably the correct way to say it is that any syllogism, in order to be correct, must have all premises validated by evidence. It’s not complicated. In fact, many of Philodemus’ arguments against the Stoics simply refer back to the insistence on evidence. For instance:

… anyone who infers well about the unperceived objects that accompany appearances observes carefully the manifold variety of appearances in order to be sure that there is no conflicting evidence. He considers it impossible that the nature of things and their generation from each other should be inconsistent with appearances. – On Methods of Inference, XXXIII

Since we are not extremely fond of obscure language in Epicureanism, we prefer to say that we conclude or calculate this notion from that fact, rather than make use of technical terms that almost no one uses.

In fact, in many of our discussions with logicians we end up concluding that logic oftentimes makes things more difficult and complicated than they need to be, or than they are by nature.

Examples of Why The Canon Matters

Let’s have some fun and formulate some syllogisms so that these teachings can become strong in our souls, as Epicurus used to say.

Allah is the Greatest
The angels work for Allah
Therefore the angels are not the greatest beings in the cosmos

The above syllogism is perfectly valid. It has two premises and a conclusion which are internally consistent: there is one cosmic being who is the greatest, and creatures who are minions of this being, ergo these minions are not the greatest beings, they are secondary. A theologian would be happy with this perfectly logical syllogism. For us materialists, however, the lack of evidence for the existence of both Allah and Allah’s angels represents a serious problem. The premises, and therefore the conclusion, must all be false unless and until we can corroborate all three.

As we said earlier in these reasonings, Epicureans favor the method of similarity where we infer, for instance, from a finite sample to a whole population, or from the behavior of microscopic bodies to atoms or to bodies in heaven. According to James Allen, “if the opponents are right, the method will mistakenly project features belonging to the items in our experience onto items outside of our experience to which they do not belong“. He then goes on to cite that atoms would have color because things in our experience do, and that we would exclude possibilities that exist because they’re not in our experience.

However, we should answer to this by use of one final example, which is of particular interest because it confronts us with what happens when there is a unique exception: the platypus, an aquatic mammal who lays eggs and has a bird-like beak.

No mammals lay eggs
The platypus is a mammal
Therefore the platypus does not lay eggs

The above syllogism is valid, and if we did not pay importance to evidence, we would be obliged to conclude that the platypus does not ley eggs … except that it does. Evidence, not syllogisms or logical games of any kind, produces accurate conclusions about matters both rare and common. Prior to the discovery of the platypus, the syllogism would have been thought accurate. Now, not so; and it’s only because of evidence that we are forced to expand the definition of a mammal, and never from syllogisms. This is why the canon matters: it is our connection to reality.

Further Reading:

Inference from Signs: Ancient Debates about the Nature of Evidence, by James Allen
Against the Vulcans

PHILODEMUS: ON METHODS OF INFERENCE – A Study in Ancient Empiricism.
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Reasonings About Neuroscience

The following considerations are based on my reading of Buddha’s Brain, a book by neuroscientists Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius.

The book Buddha’s Brain adds much flesh to the bones of Epicurean notions of a science of happiness. It teaches how to scientifically and methodically cultivate a happy and healthy brain. It also substantiates and helps to understand the neuroscientific theories behind the practices that early Epicureans used to engage in (repetition, memorization, gratitude, etc.) as part of their regimen of abiding pleasures. These practices create and strengthen healthy neural connections in the tissue of our brain that are experienced, over the long term, as happiness.

The book also reminds us constantly of the physicality of the soul and all soul phenomena, of how each and every soul experience is rooted in some way in hormonal changes, bodily organs, neurons, etc. This is one of the crucial, central insights of our materialist philosophy, and the main reason why we utilize medicinal language when referring to the health of the soul just as mainstream culture does with the body. Like our own wisdom tradition, this book demonstrates a strong tendency to make applied, therapeutic philosophy tangible and concrete.

The Hedonic Tone

One of the first things the book does is to give us a theory, and new words, by which we may refer to the important knowledge being imparted. Much of the beginning portion of the book consists of establishing this framework.

The feeling tone, or hedonic tone, is defined as the quality of whether something is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. The hedonic tone is produced by the amygdala.

On the Importance of Mindfulness

As with all therapy, contemplation and meditation help us to identify suffering in its initial stages and to see how it arises in the mind. With this insight, we can stop the suffering process and lead the mind in a new direction.

People given to frivolous mental exercises might have a habit of avoiding mindfulness and attention, aware (or maybe unaware?) of the fact that once you observe pleasant activities, you burst the bubble and they cease being enjoyable. It is important to challenge this habit of mindlessness. Without attention and patient, non-judgemental mindfulness, it’s impossible to bring into awareness the issues that we must work through in order to cultivate a progressively happier mind.

There are many references to Buddhist teachings and techniques to educate the mind. The book frequently goes back to the first and second darts, a reference to the things outside of ourselves that generate suffering (loss of a loved one, insult, loss of a job, accidentally hurting ourselves, etc.), which constitute examples of the first dart, versus our REACTIONS to these things (anger, hatred, obsession with vengeance, vindictiveness, annoyance, etc) which are examples of the second dart. As you probably imagine, we have control usually only over the second dart, and so a great part of the training that we must undertake if we make a resolution to be happy, is to avoid throwing the second dart.

The authors speak of a progression from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence, and later on to conscious competence, and finally to unconscious competence. In the first stage, we are easily annoyed and affected by things with no conscious acknowledgement of it. In the second stage, we become aware of our reaction to events and how these reactions generate suffering, but we have not yet developed the wherewithal to discipline ourselves with prudence. The third stage is the beginning of discipline: we begin making conscious efforts to avoid throwing the second dart, and finally when we reach the fourth stage, we have become wise enough and gained enough insight to understand that our serenity, our ataraxia and tranquility, is worth too much to be sacrificed at the altar of vindictiveness, anger, or annoyance.

Implicit Memory

Notice that mindfulness, resolution, and discipline are all necessary in the cultivation of a steady, happy mind that habitually abides in pleasure.

The authors speak of implicit memory. It consists of the unconscious expectations, outlook, values, emotional states, relationships that are built around our experiences and result in our sense of self, our very identity, “what it feels like to be you”.

Going back to the learning process mentioned previously, the idea is to generate sufficient momentum for the happy and wholesome memories and experiences to become unconsciously competent. It is here that the daily practice of gratitude and other Epicurean disciplines of abiding (katastemic) pleasure gain a theoretical foundation in neurology.

Some piles of these implicit memories harm us, others help us, and so the idea is to increase the ones that help us. Part of the task of a good Epicurean has to do with wholesome memory-building. We are reminded of our sages’ advise to practice reminiscing about the good times frequently. The Epicurean Garden was provided as a place where practitioners built fond memories of virtuous friendship and affection. By allowing good times to settle into our memory banks as implicit memory and to become part of our very identities, we are nurturing a habitually happy, blessed state of being.

Dan Gilbert speaks about how happy memories are formed, insisting that his research leads to the understanding that people do not derive happiness from things. They derive happiness from experiences and relationships. Fond memories come from living, not having or thinking. Elsewhere in the book, the authors argue that we must turn happy facts into happy experiences.

It’s clear that happiness and abiding pleasure do not take place at the level of the intellect so much as at the level of being, of existing; that the entire being must be turned over to the experience of the good.

We buy things which give us some pleasure (clothes, cars, art, etc.), but we quickly forget the newness of these things. However, a night out with friends, weekly dinners with family, vacations with one’s partner, these are the things that fond memories are built from. They are experienced, they are lived.

Negativity Bias of the Brain

Since during our evolutionary history so much of our chances of survival depended on whether we were able to identify and avoid or confront dangers and threats in our environment, humans (like all animals) have a fairly developed fight-or-flight system of instincts which is coordinated, to a great extent, by the SNS (sympathetic nervous system).

In this way, we can understand how normal levels of anxiety and of threat response are natural and necessary, helping us to be more vigilant and pay attention. However, the necessity of the fight-or-flight instinct produces a brain that has a strong tendency to pay attention to the negative stimuli in our environment, those that are not particularly pleasant. Our brain is good at reminding us of what to avoid, and in this manner it believes that it’s constantly doing something good and important for us, for which we should be grateful.

The Cool-Head and the Hot-Head

The SNS produces instances where one must be hot-headed: angry, alert, ready for battle, impervious to pain. In contrast to this system, we also have the PNS (parasympathetic nervous system), which balances the fight-or-flight tendencies with tendencies that the authors of Buddha’s Brain call the rest and digest reflex.

This rest and digest reflex is the cooling, steadying tendency of the mind that we associate with ataraxia (imperturbability) and with abiding pleasure, which facilitates practices of gratitude and contemplation. It is here that (as in the case of Dan Gilbert’s science of happiness discourse) we begin to clearly see Epicurean theory by another name, even delving into the canon. In our tradition, we refer to these two tendencies as the pleasure and aversion principles.

Considering the fact that Epicureanism often gets called a philosophy of the stomach, it’s curious that the authors chose to include digestion into their notion of steady, cooling states of being, or the rest and digest reflex.

Buddha’s Brain refers frequently to notions of heat / hot-headedness and coolness. The book also makes mention of how awareness of the body suppresses chatter when one is attempting to meditate because chatter and body-awareness are tackled by two different hemispheres of the brain. This is all reminiscent to Yoruba lore and other traditional African wisdom traditions with their references to the physicality of the soul, which refer to the heat or coolness of the head and which were explored a bit in the piece On the Importance of Protecting One’s Head.

“Taking In the Good” and the Practice of Abiding Pleasure

The above is the framework within we can understand the importance of internalizing the good, the pleasant, of gratitude and of reminiscing about fond experiences. But what are the best techniques for this art of living, this art of abiding in pleasure?

In addition to the traditional Epicurean techniques known from our sources, there is in Buddhism the technique of taking refuge. Buddhist liturgy tells people to take refuge in the three jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma (or teaching) and the Sangha (the brotherhood of people who seek enlightenment).

Philodemus, on the other hand, accentuated the importance of personal choice in his oath where he spoke of “choosing to live according to Epicurus”. Many humanists today have difficulty with the idea of allegiance to a sage or Master, and when I wrote Tending the Epicurean Garden, my book editor encouraged me instead to articulate a modern version of Philodemus’ oath where we choose to live according to Epicureanism (the teaching) instead of according to Epicurus.

Perhaps a modern evolution of this refuge-taking remedy for abiding pleasure might be a simple liturgy along the lines of this one:

I choose to think good and wholesome thoughts
I choose to speak good and wholesome words
I choose to engage in good and wholesome activities
I choose good and wholesome association

In this manner, we choose the good actively rather than taking refuge in the good, which is a more passive choice. I am not saying refuge-taking is wrong or useless as a practice, merely offering an alternative liturgy for humanists and Epicureans to carry out experiments in their practice of abiding pleasure. In fact, Buddha’s Brain also speaks in an active voice with regards to how we must build our refuge through nurturing wholesome memories; and how this is not a denial of the bad or a mask for the prosaic. We must see it as a place within our very identity and experience where we can always go for safety. We must choose our anchors for refuge.

The notion of building our refuge, and the insights behind it, also vindicate the way in which our sages encouraged the development of an Epicurean identity rather than just allegiance to the teachings or concordance with the doctrine. An identity is a more visceral thing than an ideology and it is strengthened through association, through affiliation.

The above liturgy may be recited together with and prior to our daily practice of gratitude, which is required to have the disposition that is necessary for the practice Epicureanism. Our sages, in unison, teach that it’s impossible for an ungrateful person to be a true Epicurean.

A Natural Measure of Self

Among many life-denying faiths, the term ego has acquired a negative connotation. For that reason, I will stick to the use of the word self here in lieu of ego, but I wish to make a note of the fact that we have learned to speak of ego either as a bastion of weakness and vulnerability or as a crest of arrogance, almost invariably attaching a negative tone to any reference to ego and never considering that there is a natural measure of self that it is healthy to recognize and respect.

Buddha’s Brain draws from the wisdom tradition of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) and assumes many of its doctrines. One key distinction between Buddhism and Epicureanism is the doctrine of anatta, or no-self, which is one the the three marks of existence in Buddhism. Gautama Buddha believed that, because all beings are transitory and impermanent, they therefore do not exist as atman in the way Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita and the Vedas believe them to exist (as eternal beings composed of soul).

Buddha further argues that suffering arises because of our illusion about the existence of a self. The “me” is hurt, the “me” is betrayed, the “me” suffers injustice, the “me” lacks basic needs and suffers misfortunes.

In the book, at one point the authors go as far as to compare the self to a unicorn because it’s nowhere to be seen, only to later admit that the self is useful. But usefulness does not go far enough in explaining the phenomena that appear as the self, even if it’s an accurate assertion.

The self is not just useful: it’s necessary and natural. Need breeds invention, and the varieties of experience tied to this body which appear as self are all inventions of nature that arise from the needs of the natural beings.

If we are perplexed by the varieties of experience that we think of as self (memory, personal historical narratives, possession of things and of people, jealousy, self as subject and object of perception, etc.) and which do not appear to be composed of atoms, and if we are perplexed by the fact that the self appears to be hidden from view and immaterial, then perhaps we can use terms that many English-speaking Buddhists use such as presence, or maybe mindstreams, to refer to the chain or currents of thoughts, memories and experiences that characterize each living being. All of these minstreams are impermanent, but they compose unique expressions of collective and individual self which is experienced as very real.

Do I form a desire, or does a desire form an I? – Buddha’s Brain

In Epicureanism, we do acknowledge that there is no self that is separate from the body and the conditional experiences of the natural being, and we do recognize the impermanence of it, but we do not deny the existence of self.

We also acknowledge that the self carries within it the potential for suffering, but we consider it madness to attempt to escape our natural condition into fantasies about selflessness. Self is context. We cannot operate efficiently in the world selflessly, and in fact the recognition of the self and of the self in another being is the very foundation of ethics and of compassion, kindness, and a plethora of other virtues which become unnecessary and make no sense without the self.

Many central concepts in our ethics require individual selves. Natural justice, for instance, is based on the social contract: an agreement that can only be entered into by independent agents who exhibit volition.

And so there is a way in which we exist as natural beings: a natural and necessary self which is anchored in the material experience of the human body.

If we fail to acknowledge the natural needs of the self, we risk generating even more suffering than when we attach ourselves obsessively to the self. We must, therefore, find a happy and healthy medium where we respect the self.

New Verbiage:

Anchor
Hedonic Tone
Implicit memory
Natural measure of self
Refuge (-building)
Rest and digest reflex

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SoFE Journal Volume 8 – 2014

ARTICLES

CONTINUING THE PHILODEMUS SERIES

Hiram Crespo
Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances  (pp. 1-5)
June 25, 2014

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Hiram Crespo
Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Piety (pp. 6-14)
June 16, 2014

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Hiram Crespo
Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Death (pp. 15-19)
June 18, 2014

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Hiram Crespo
On the Importance of Protecting One’s Head (pp. 20-23)
July 7, 2014

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Hiram Crespo
Reasonings About Neuroscience 
July 23, 2014

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Cassius Amicus
New Spanish Language Translation of “A Few Days in Athens”
November 27, 2014

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REFLECTIONS

Joshua Becker
A Helpful Guide to Becoming Unbusy
July 1, 2014

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REVIEWS 

Robert Hanrott
“Tending the Epicurean Garden” Review
October 19, 2014

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Honoring Our Sages

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If you never give palm wine to your elders, you will never learn their proverbs. 

– Yoruba proverb

Many contemporary freethinkers dislike the notion of revering a Sage, as reverence oftentimes implies a certain servile attitude, and presages the impossibility of dissent and an authoritarian paradigm. Those that came before us in Epicureanism, however, favored paying honors to sages.

How do we honor a Sage?  More specifically, how do we properly honor OUR Sages? The immediate, obvious answer is by pleasing them through the rememberance of their words and by following their advice.

Our tradition teaches that association and respect, even reverence, for a wholesome personality has character-building power. We develop virtuous character through wholesome association just as we develop vices, or bad habits, through evil association.

This is easily observable. Please do not believe this blindly: learn directly how this happens by paying attention to the dynamics in the various types of cliques in your surrounding communities and see how people’s temperaments and qualities affect each other, and how the more intimately and long-term people associate with each other, the stronger their mutual influence. This is how identities are built and how cultures and sub-cultures develop.

Some people have stronger tendencies to admire great personalities than others.  It may be that, because we’re social beings, we inherently need to admire our parents as children, and then other mentors and role models as we grow older. Perhaps the adage on honoring sages has as its purpose the right and healthy channeling of this natural tendency in all social creatures. If we must have an alpha male (or female), let it be a sage, a person of prudence and wisdom, of good character.

By directly associating with sages, we gain the most benefit. By studying, reading, discussing and pondering their teachings indirectly, we still gain some distant benefit. People who admire a well-spoken, well-mannered sage are much more likely to conduct themselves likewise (and to exhibit shame when they don’t) than people who admire celebrities that exhibit superficiality and banality, or worse yet, than people who admire gangsters and criminals.

By observing and understanding the opposite of a certain virtue (bad versus good association), we can more fully discern its importance. Gangster culture, in particular, celebrates the most vulgar elements of society in elaborate cults of personality, and much of this has even made its way into mainstream culture.

Honoring a sage is itself a great good to the one who honors. – Vatican Saying 32

Let’s first consider the layers of meaning behind honor. It’s tied to being held in high esteem, admired, with enjoying great respect among one’s peers. We often hear it’s an honor to meet someone, or to have someone at our table or at our event: it’s a privilege, a joy, something to boast about and to be proud of.

In religious traditions, shrine-building, singing, praising and other forms of worship are the norm. In Lucretius, we find a pseudo-religious feeling for his Master, Epicurus, which seems to indicate that Epicureans in antiquity exhibited this type of behaviour.

You, who out of such black darkness were first to lift up so shining a light, revealing the hidden blessings of life – you are my leader, O glory of the Grecian race. In your well-marked footprints now I plant my resolute steps … You are our father, illustrious discoverer of truth, and give me a father’s guidance. From your pages, as bees in flowery glades sip every blossom, so do I crop all your golden sayings – golden indeed, and for ever worthy of everlasting life … As soon as your reasoning, sprung from that godlike mind, lifts up its voice to proclaim the nature of the universe, then the terrors of the mind take flight, the ramparts of the world roll apart, and I see the march of events throughout the whole of space. – On the Nature of Things, Book III

Effigies, busts and depictions of Epicurus were common among ancient Epicureans. Many of them may have been treated in a way not too different from how deities and saints are treated in many religious cultures. People took pleasure in honoring him, and later they took pleasure in honoring the original Four Masters just as many Christians honor the apostles, or just as many Americans honor the Founding Fathers, Martin Luther King, some of their Presidents and other great patriots (to use a secular example). Monuments and memorials are built; their words and deeds are celebrated and remembered.

The adage Do all things as if Epicurus was watching emerged among friends who were living their lives as if Epicurus was watching and advised others to do likewise. This is behavior quite typical of religious people. Frequent rememberance of the Master brought back memories of the original community of philosopher friends and the pleasure of their discussions. The mental and existential strength derived from these friendships was recalled and vindicated.

In antiquity there was a civic cult: an official, public cult of the city. It was considered civic duty to honor the deity of one’s polis, for instance, with formal recognition of the guiding principle of the city. Athens had the good fortune of having the Goddess of Wisdom as a patron, and so it was a city of philosophers because people were taught to hold Wisdom in high regard. The Epicureans honored Epicurus in a manner not too different from the civic cults: there was formal, public recognition of the founder of the tradition as a Humanist culture hero. He didn’t answer prayers and was not divine in the superstitious sense of being an immortal or having supernatural powers. He was not an Olympian, but a mortal hero.

It would be unfair to carry out the teaching mission without honestly addressing the frank religiosity of many of the original and later disciples of Epicureanism. Colotes prostrated before Epicurus once out of gratitude and affection. Epicurus returned the honor, perhaps embarrassed or intimidated by the display.

This Lucretian attitude of reverence towards our Sages seems perhaps out of character when we contrast it with the anti-authoritarian nature of the Canon, with how we accept evidence and direct observation as the final authority.

This paradigm shift happens because the Sages’ authority is founded upon nature’s authority. We can argue with gravity, but it will still pull us. This firm foundation, this firm understanding, nurtured a firm faith and trust in those that came before. They were not charlatans but genuine truth-seeking philosophers who were vindicated by the Canon. And so, while we ultimately always reserve the right to disagree with each and every one of our Sages, we ultimately align with their doctrine on most crucial matters.

My respect for Philodemus increased tremendously as I studied his writings. It provided me with a sense of legacy, of strengthening of my essence in a way, and I felt my studies placed me within a lineage system where teachings were handed down and strengthened by each generation. I may not have fallen to my kness like Colotes did, but I felt culturally and spiritually richer, and it was a great honor to study him.

And so it is my sincerest honor to join Philodemus in saying that I’m a follower of Epicurus and his associates, according to whom it has been my choice to live.

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A Helpful Guide to Becoming Unbusy

“Those who are wise won’t be busy, and those who are too busy can’t be wise.” ― Lin Yutang

It was in this video from Jeff Shinabarger that I first heard the phrase, “‘Busy’ has become the new ‘Fine’.” As in, when you ask somebody how they were doing, they used to answer, “Fine.” But nowadays, everybody answers, “Busy.”

Seemingly, busy has become the default state for too many of our lives.

But is the state of busy really improving our lives? Certainly not. Statistics indicate 75% of parents are too busy to read to their children at night. There is a rising number of children being placed in day cares and after-school activities. Americans are having a hard time finding opportunity for vacations these days. 33% of Americans are living with extreme stress daily. And nearly 50% of Americans say they regularly lie awake at night because of stress. This is a problem. We have become too busy.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Busy is not inevitable. Each of us can take intentional steps to unbusy our lives.

Consider this Helpful Guide to Becoming Unbusy:

1. Realize that being busy is a choice. It is a decision we make. We are never forced into a lifestyle of busyness. The first, and most important, step to becoming less busy is to simply realize that our schedules are determined by us. We do have a choice in the matter. We don’t have to live busy lives.

2. Stop the glorification of busy. Busy, in and of itself, is not a badge of honor. In fact, directed at the wrong pursuits, it is actually a limiting factor to our full potential. It is okay to not be busy. Repeat this with me: It is okay to not be busy.

3. Appreciate and schedule rest. One of the reasons many of us keep busy schedules is we fail to recognize the value of rest. But rest is beneficial to our bodies, our minds, and our souls. Set aside one day per week for rest and family. Intentionally schedule it on your calendar. Then, guard it at all costs.

4. Revisit your priorities. Become more intentional with your priorities and pursuits in life. Determine again what are the most significant contributions you can offer this world. And schedule your time around those first. Busyness is, at its core, about misplaced priorities.

5. Own fewer possessions. The things we own take up far more time and mental energy than we realize. They need to be cleaned, organized, and maintained. And the more we own, the more time is required. Own less stuff. And find more time because of it.

6. Cultivate space in your daily routine. Take time for lunch. Find space in your morning to sit quietly before starting your day. Invest in solitude, meditation, or yoga. Find opportunity for breaks at work in between projects. Begin right away cultivating little moments of space and margin in your otherwise busy day.

7. Find freedom in the word, “no.” Seneca wrote, “Everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things.” Recognize the inherent value in the word “no.” Learning to say “no” to less important commitments opens your life to pursue the most important.

Busy does not need to define you. Unbusy is possible. It’s okay to be happy with a calm life. And doesn’t that sound wonderful right about now?

Written by Joshua Becker for his Becoming Minimalist blog. Please check out his article archives and his newsletter!

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SoFE Journal Volume 8 – 2014


CONTINUING THE PHILODEMUS SERIES

Hiram Crespo
Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances 
June 25, 2014

» Part I Full Text (HTML)      » Full Text (PDF)

» Part II Full Text (HTML)

» Part III Full Text (HTML)

Hiram Crespo
Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Piety
June 16, 2014

» Part I Full Text (HTML)     » Full Text (PDF)

» Part II Full Text (HTML)

» Part III Full Text (HTML)

» Part IV Full Text (HTML)

Hiram Crespo
Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Death
June 18, 2014

» Full Text (HTML)             » Full Text (PDF)

Joshua Becker
A Helpful Guide to Becoming Unbusy
July 1, 2014

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Hiram Crespo
Reasonings About Neuroscience
July 23, 2014

» Full Text (HTML)

Hiram Crespo
On Methods of Inference
August 4, 2014

» Full Text (HTML)

Hiram Crespo
Detailed Review of A Few Days in Athens
September 14, 2014

» Full Text (HTML)

Hiram Crespo
Democritus: the First Laughing Philosopher
September 24, 2014

» Full Text (HTML)

Hiram Crespo
About Philodemus’ Rhetorica
September 24, 2014

» Part I Full Text (HTML)

Hiram Crespo
The 17 Scholarchs and the Empress
September 28, 2014

» Full Text (HTML)

Hiram Crespo
About Polystratus’ On Irrational Contempt
September 29, 2014

» Full Text (HTML)          » Full Text (PDF)

Society of Friends of Epicurus Journal

Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances (Part III)

 Continued from Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances (Part II)

Against Existing Only to Die

Now, Philodemus of Gadara lived during the first century Before Common Era. Therefore, he did not live to see this particular heresy become virally widespread as it became several centuries after he lived. Saul of Tarsus taught that mortals are saved and gain immortality by faith. But even before the rise of Christianity, Philodemus would have witnessed the initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries and the Orpheic mysteries and other such cults making similar claims about immortality through faith and participation in rituals.

The specific evil that he criticizes about these faiths in the afterlife had to do with the initiates’ unwillingness to live while they’re alive.

Column XVIII. “Do I not live decently and justly? Or do I not live in accordance with the laws applying to men? Then when I shall die I shall be immortal.” And they are cut off from everything by means of which they would have a better life, exactly like men who are sentenced to death.

In other words, in the expectation of a blissful afterlife, it is easy to not follow our bliss in this life. Time rushes through people and they do not experience the joys or seek the things that make life worth living. They look forward to the time after death as a consolation, and fail to live. Philodemus later says that such people at times neglect their health–even as they are frightened by diseases–and other things that matter, avoid great pleasures for fear of troubles in the afterlife, and he lists many other evidences of lacking an art of living.

Because they burden themselves needlessly in this manner, such a life is equated to a death sentence. As we saw in our discussion of the scroll On Death, it is one thing to exist, quite another to live.

The Qualities of the Prudent

After listing the qualities of the person who does not understand what really matters, Philodemus then turns to the person who does understand the easy-to-attain chief goods and has full confidence in his ability to procure them. The text mentions that he works with equanimity, either because he does so for the sake of friends of because he has “closely examined the things which yield fruit in return for his labours”.

The commentary explains that the prudent man chooses mild toils with great pleasures, in other words he subjects his labor paradigm to hedonic calculus, choosing activities that are useful and maximize his revenue. Such a man is content with only the necessary amount of money and is not greedy, lives in the present, is generous, industrious, and self-sufficient, and remains always devoted to philosophy. He’s friendly, caring, and grateful to others in the hopes that others will do likewise in the future. He also, importantly, takes good care of his health and self-betterment, administers his property diligently and reminisces about the past both analysing it and being grateful for it.

After establishing the criteria for successfully making choices and avoidances based on the chief goods and needful things, and teaching us the importance of being confident in our abilities to procure these, Philodemus then gave a list of examples of what happens when people fail to distinguish between natural and necessary pleasures and those that are vain and unnecessary.

The scroll ends with this auspicious account of how the prudent man who is aware of the chief goods, lives a virtuous life.

*

On Choices and Avoidances, edited with translation and commentary by Giovanni Indelli and Voula Tsouna-McKirahan

The above reasonings were inspired by the following source:  G. Indelli, V. Tsouna-McKirahan (edd., trans.): [Philodemus]: [On Choices and Avoidances]. (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, La Scuola di Epicuro, Collezione di testi ercolanesi diretta da Marcello Gigante, 15.) Pp. 248. Naples: Bibliopolis, 1995. ISBN: 88-7088-343-4.

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Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances (Part II)

… Continued from Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances (Part I)

Against the False View that the Gods Exhibit Volition

Column VII of the scroll contains a warning against belief in divine providence, saying that it causes innumerable failures

Column VII. For (these men) place themselves in such a situation so as to not take advise from anybody about anything at all, in the belief that nothing depends on man, but everything is controlled by the god.

In our own day and age many people who criticize the lack of action with regards to global warming oftentimes point the finger at apocalyptic beliefs among certain Christian groups, who hold that the Earth MUST be destroyed prior to Christ’s return and that, therefore, it is written that there will be cataclysms. Even more evil is the belief that there must be a great war prior to the return of Jesus that will devastate most of Earth, as this belief has made many Christian groups not just docile before greedy oil and military industrial complex investors who have appropriated the political machine to advance military plans that they profit from handsomely. There have always been conservative Christian groups, particularly in the US, who have been willing to celebrate such military agendas with the excuse that “it is written”.

To this example must be added the heinous example of medieval burnings of midwives, which was justified by reasoning that the pain of child-birth was originally intended as God’s punishment of all women for all eternity for Eve’s transgression. She ate the apple, ergo all women must suffer at child-birth, and to reduce the pain of women giving birth is therefore to challenge God’s law. But as with the above example, the execution of midwives during the Dark Ages was also profitable to a new class of professionals: male doctors, who were seeking to replace midwives in this role. It was also profitable for a large number of people in the legal profession, for whom the inquisition generated employment.

Without going into much detail, one must not fail to mention the many historical instances of holy wars and persecution, the Crusades, terrorist attacks and other evil acts done in the name of a God who is imagined as having a will, and a distorted sense of volition at that. God clearly “willed” the Jews to inherit Palestine and inhabit it forever as the Bible says, but then he “willed” that Muslims fight to the death anyone who persecutes them or throws them out of their homes for the sake of their religion. Is he being a Cosmic Don King, initiating fights to profit or take pleasure, in some sick manner, from the bloodshed? It’s more reasonable to suppose that mortals imagine their Gods doing THEIR will, and place convenient words in the mouths of their Gods.

And so we must not underestimate the dangers of fatal beliefs, that is, beliefs in oracles and in the notion that fate has been pre-determined by gods. These forms of superstition are profoundly dangerous and harmful. The freeze the actions of mortal agents in the expectation that supernatural aid knows best and that its will is unavoidable. They make mortals negligent and irrationally fearful of acting against the gods.

Philodemus also criticizes men who hold false beliefs about how the Gods can affect the afterlife. Many men believe that the evils that will befall mortals in the afterlife far surpass the goods that the Gods bestow while living, so they neglect living. This was as true in the days of Philodemus as it is today. Many people view pleasure as bad. They fear that if they sweeten their lives or achieve great things, they will be punished for doing so in the afterlife, that somehow one has to suffer or not live a pleasant life in order to earn a paradise after one dies.

The proverbial destruction of the Tower of Babel, which the Biblical God viewed as an act of human arrogance, is actually based on a similar Sumerian myth (Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta). The premise here is that the Gods not only treat humans perpetually as children, but they are also imagined as easily given to anger and/or envious of human achievement. These views are seen by us as small-minded and superstitious, perhaps as projections of our own character flaws.

Imaginary Evils

By speaking of things that “resemble evils”, Philodemus makes a clear distinction between true evils and imagined ones. This invites further contemplation. Just as we must learn to have firm conviction about the kyriotatai or principal goods, and distinguish these from vain desires, so must we also recognize true evils, and distinguish them from imaginary evils.

These evils arise from superstition–but also from ungratefulness, which to us is a fundamental flaw in the human character that must be treated. The ungrateful person does not enjoy the good when he has it, and has the bad habit of being mindfully unhappy and mindlessly happy, which is the opposite of what the prudent man does.

There are instances where we see a combination of superstition and ungratefulness. We see it in the person that goes to the doctor, regains health, and thanks only God, not the doctor, not the scientists, when a cure is provided. Perhaps it doesn’t occur to him that the doctor made great sacrifices and studied diligently for over a decade to be able to practice medicine, or that for generations scientists diligently researched chemicals and natural compounds that led to the production of a cure, or that the doctor may have had help from the state or scholarships in order to be able to afford school. There are lands where medical assistant is unavailable or scarce. People fail to nurture accurate values when they are mindless and ungrateful.

Column X. They lament if they are afflicted by things which resemble evils, both the evils deriving from ingratitude towards men and the fatherland, and also the evils resulting from superstition, that is, because they take god to be the cause of both death and life … and because of the sorrow that weighs upon them on account of their death, they become irascible and hard to please and ill-tempered.

The term death denial principle was coined in the 1970’s and has been the object of research since then, but it’s interesting to note that the scrolls of Philodemus had a reference to this same idea 2,000 years ago. The idea is that people invent all kinds of religious fantasies, rituals, rites and many other cultural expressions in order to escape their anxiety about their own mortality. Recent research on the death denial principle has uncovered that people who have not evaluated these anxieties and worked through them also exhibit greater levels of hostility towards those who are different and are more judgemental, particularly right after they are reminded of their own mortality.

Philodemus here touches on a very deep insight about human nature. He says that those who haven’t therapeutically treated their apprehensions about death become “irascible, hard to please, ill-tempered”, which is not far from what recent research has found. As we will see when we study the Philodeman scroll On Death, this fear is also an imaginary evil.

On the other hand, there is the “we will die anyway” excuse, which Philodemus covers in Column XVII. This is the excuse that mortals use to avoid living up to their highest potential, to avoid conducting hedonic calculus and taking ownership for their choices and their creation. In his example, he speaks of people who abandon philosophy and do not accomplish noble and great things with this excuse, and attributes this attitude to ungratefulness–for the ungrateful do not expect gratitude in return for their good deeds. I’ve heard it from smokers who won’t quit and who damage their quality of life and health with this excuse.

Continues on Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances (Part III)

On Choices and Avoidances, edited with translation and commentary by Giovanni Indelli and Voula Tsouna-McKirahan
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Rediscovering The Good and Meaningful Life Through Work

The Epicurean school of Hellenistic philosophy was the only missionary secular humanist tradition to come out of Greece. It set the foundation for Western civilization by teaching a theory and science of happiness, the social contract as the foundation for law and justice, atomist physics and naturalism as the ultimate reality, an early version of the theory of natural selection, a 2400-year-old doctrine of innumerable worlds that is now being vindicated by exoplanetary research, science as a means to overcome superstition and to formulate wholesome ethical standards and a stress on self-sufficiency as a requirement for the good life.

Autarchy (from αὐταρχία, “state of self rule”), understood as self-sufficiency, self-control, personal sovereignty and independence, is one of the ideals of ancient philosophy which we value highly in Epicureanism. The importance of self-sufficiency must be understood against the backdrop of a hedonistic view that life should be pleasant and that leisure is a requirement of the good life. Yet, this life of pleasure must balance productivity and leisure. If a man is to live a life of seeking pleasure for its own sake without balancing the pursuit of pleasure by prudence, he will become lazy, selfish, unreliable, and probably dependent on others.

Robert LeFevre, a self-proclaimed autarchist, has created a libertarian political theory which he has labeled autarchy and which is influenced by ancient philosophy. He frequently contrasts this autarchy with anarchy, which by comparison he sees as an impractical expression of immature rebelliousness. However, Epicurus advised his followers to “live unknown” and his teaching was apolitical. Political involvement, he believed, breeds intrigue, has a corrupting effect on the character and is detrimental to our serenity. Because his philosophy stressed tranquility, politics were generally shunned.

What this did throughout the centuries was protect Epicureanism from the corruption of the polis and from being misused by both the ruling classes (unlike Platonic philosophy, which was of great use to politicians) and by the mobs (unlike Marxism, which was manufactured specifically for the masses).

Epicurean discourse does not speak to power. It is a philosophy of the people and the discourse is horizontal; in fact one of the maxims found within our cultural memes is Occupy Your Soul. It falls within the tradition of the laughing philosophers like Democritus, who mock traditional authority. Because Epicureans believe in evidence before the senses as the first of the criteria for truth, this emancipates philosophers from the views of the majority and of tradition and makes each person an independent agent fully equipped with the tools and faculties to discern reality. Autarchy is not just a fiscal ideal: it’s also a spiritual one.

Money: A Natural and Necessary Desire

Our tradition categorizes desires as necessary or unnecessary, as well as natural or not natural. When we apply to money the same criteria that we apply to all desires, we must conclude that money is a natural and necessary desire within our culture. It provides safety and security, and the fear of not having money is a legitimate one.

A Princeton University study of Gallup data on wealth versus happiness concluded that the emotional benefits of having wealth peak at $75,000, and then may deteriorate from there based on several factors, among them isolation and health. This means that any wealth that one may wish to acquire beyond that threshold is to be considered a vain desire that can be easily dismissed, and perhaps even constitute more of a burden than a boon. For instance, people who are extremely wealthy oftentimes can not know with certainty whether the loyalties of certain friends depend on the material benefits gained from the friendship.

Yet, in our society, the vain desire for excessive amounts of money and displays of wealth have created high levels of debt, as well as petty and violent crime. In addition to this, many people who live in poverty have to subject themselves to abusive and exploitative bosses, bad working conditions, and a general lifestyle of stress all week only to conclude the social Friday by inebriating the stress to oblivion, and then spend the weekend recovering and dreading the following Monday.

The problem of debt (and the consumerism it feeds on) leads to the problem of slavery. These two used to be one and the same. In ancient societies, a person who was unable to pay his debt had to work as a slave for the person to whom he was indebted until his debt was paid in full. There has always been a blurry boundary between debt and slavery. High levels of debt today translate into indented slavery where people work to pay the banks. It is for this reason that debt is a primary concern if we are to apply Epicurean teachings in our lives. There can be no autarchy, no self-sufficiency and freedom, until one is free from debt.

If we are wage slaves and must have two or three jobs and never have time to spend with friends, to engage in the analyzed life, and to do the things that give us pleasure, it’s unlikely that philosophy, the arts, and the most refined civilization will flourish in our midst. Wage slavery is not compatible with a dignified life of philosophy, which requires leisure.

Autarchy requires an entrepreneurial spirit, as well as an accurate understanding of the measure of our true needs versus wants so that we can live free from money worries. It requires both the autonomy to be ourselves and the ability to make a comfortable living. Walking daily into a work environment that kills our souls, or where we do not earn sufficiently, is depressing. Authenticity and affluence are part of the balancing act of the Autarch.

Epicurean Ethics of Labor

Philosophers and sages have always discussed the acceptable ways of making a living as a natural extension of conversations about virtue, duty and the good. Different schools offered various criteria for discerning between wholesome and unwholesome professions, and wove these concerns into their wisdom traditions.

Philodemus was one of the main Epicurean philosophers of the first century of Common Era. When we consider Philodemus’ choices of wholesome ways to make a living, several criteria emerge by which we may judge our contemporary paradigm of labor and our available options.

In his screed On Property Management, Philodemus discussed various ways in which it was acceptable for a philosopher to earn a living, to be productive while having time for leisure. His autarchy teachings can be distilled into seven generalizations.

Among the acceptable ways to be a self-sufficient philosopher and have a life of pleasure and leisure we find that we are encouraged to create jobs and to employ others in our enterprises. We can gain self-sufficiency through joint ventures, such as worker coops. We’re also encouraged to own means of production, to cultivate multiple streams of income, and to own real estate and accept rent from tenants, which seems to be a tried-and-true way to facilitate a life of leisure and self-sufficiency as feasible two millenia ago as it is today.

Another thing we notice in Philodemus is that physical exploitation and cruelty are deemed unpleasant and that we should not participate in any work environment that is harsh or hellish. Like military service, work in a slaughterhouse, for instance, is the type of work where one may be perturbed by constant day-to-day killing of sentient beings.

If we don’t love what we do, we should establish a strategy to shift careers. If we’re interested in self employment, we may want to minimize the risk of our entrepreneurial ventures by initially doing the work on a part time basis. We should know the right people and seek successful mentors who can show us the ropes.

On the Need to Reinvent Labor and Retirement

We are living in times where there is a severe need to reinvent labor. Not only are jobs going to other countries: machines are replacing humans. They are becoming the cashiers in our supermarkets, they are the cash dispensers at our banks, they are answering our phones when we call most major companies (if we are not using online self-service). Each one of the 24-hour automated machines that corporations employ replaces three full-time around-the-clock jobs. Can this be an opportunity? How can we use automation in our favor in a sustainable people’s economy?

Curiously, the original meaning of the word robot was slave. Automated machines were meant to perform slave labor and the original, altruistic idea of robotics was to emancipate humans and other animals from exploitative or monotonous labor.

When we employed cars, trucks and cranes to replace the oxen, horses and other animals that we had enslaved, this was seen as a major advancement in terms of ending cruelty against the other species. But now that machines are replacing people and the population is growing, and with it poverty and unemployment, this generates a serious problem of shortage of labor that affects our ability to live with dignity. As a society, we are not extending the same courtesy of emancipation from labor to other humans that we extended to animals.

The mechanization of labor, in an ideal world, should increase ordinary people’s ability and opportunities to become self-sufficient and to own multiple means of production. It should create the opportunity to reimagine an economy where traditional labor takes up less of our time, where less money is needed, and where ordinary people can easily procure what they need in order to survive. Mechanization should not be seen as a sign of instability but as a remedy against the tediousness of the old model of nine-to-five labor.

Louis Kelso, in his books “The Capitalist Manifesto” and “Two-Factor Theory,” presented a practical economic vision of a world where the physical means of production are broadly owned by ordinary people rather than being owned by either the government or the wealthy few, thus freeing millions for a life of constructive leisure.

Futurists, like Jacques Fresco, have already begun to imagine a future world economy of this sort. But one need not be a dreamer: there are practical reasons to reinvent labor. The failure to pragmatically address the shortage of labor in an increasingly mechanized world will inevitably produce social unrest.

Autarchy and Discipline

Epicureanism gives philosophers existential tasks to complete. Some are introspective, others social; some are short-term, others are long-term. The implementation of self-sufficiency is perhaps the most important long-term task that a good Epicurean must revisit frequently and it requires planning, hard work, and creativity.

As a spiritual ideal, autarchy requires a deep respect for our own authority and our own decrees. As part of our autarchy strategies, we may incorporate various schemes of self-employment or freelancing; we may be part of a worker coop; we may invest or own, buy or sell real estate; we may also save a portion of our income in order to plan for early semi-retirement cycles, which may also serve as insurance in case we lose our jobs unexpectedly.

Planning for early semi-retirement cycles serves an additional, pragmatic purpose: as a rehearsal for the real thing, and this is far more important than most people realize. We must know how we wish to retire so we can plan for it and enjoy it. If we build our entire identity and social life around our job and don’t know what we’ll do when we retire, like many unsuccessful retirees we will be depressed when we find ourselves without it. We will feel unproductive and useless rather than experience retirement as a time to reap the fruits of our labor.

We have to build an identity of leisure, an identity outside of our jobs: learn our likes, our hobbies, our passions, get better at doing the things that we are passionate about, and perhaps even learn to make money on the side while doing them. If we find pleasure in our streams of income, then leisure and productivity are one and the same.

Semi-retirement is a chance to be productive by earning a part-time wage doing what we love as part of our retirement. In other words, just as we should reinvent labor, so should we reinvent retirement.

Most philosophers say the unanalyzed life is not worth living, but we Epicureans add a second part to this adage: the unplanned life is not worth living. This is especially true in these times. Also, freedom requires self-sufficiency. A philosophy of freedom can not make sense without a firm insistence on autarchy. By weaving the autarchy discourse into our wisdom traditions, we keep long-term goals in sight and remain diligent with regards to them.

 *

The above piece was originally written for Occupy.org under the title The Epicurean Way: Rediscovering The Good and Meaningful Life Through Work.

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Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances (Part I)

On Choices and Avoidances is an evaluation of the criteria by which a philosopher must made decisions. Traditionally in Epicureanism, the simple answer to how to make moral or personal decisions is that we should conduct hedonic calculus, that is: the comparative evaluation of the pleasure versus pain that one gains in the long term. If one follows this general guideline, one attains net pleasure in the end, which is the goal.

The Doctrine of the Principal Things

However, men of prudence need to know much more than this. They need a complete philosophical education that helps them to discern between the different kinds of desire and of pleasure and to pay close attention to the things that really matter for human wellbeing, the kyriotatai, the chief goods or principal things. Not being able to discern clearly what these things are leads to suffering, disillusion and confusion. These chief goods are things that lead to life, health, and happiness and include specifics like shelter, food, safety, and association.

If a philosopher clearly discerns what really matters, on the other hand, he will be able to make firm decisions and have full confidence in how he manages his life. Therefore, we must keep in mind what these real natural needs are.

In relation to these chief goods, men must have a clear understanding that externalities are only secondary and firm confidence that they can not affect our happiness in the way that the eary to procure chief needs can. This is clarified in Column XV, and mentions things like beauty, marriage, wealth, luxury, and the like.

The inability of foolish men to recognize the chief goods in life also produces societies where men are ruled by fear. Column XII mentions that laws that threaten with death and beliefs about divine punishment only work with men who do not know true precepts of philosophy. In our discussion of the scroll On Frank Criticism, we discussed how Confucius taught that “when leaders are virtuous, the people naturally feel shame when they are wrong whereas when leaders are not virtuous, they rule by fear instead and people follow the law for fear of punishment.” However, here Philodemus is expressing the same idea viewed from the other perspective: a foolish man can not imagine being ruled by anything other than irrational, unfounded fear. That is what he knows. If a society has enough foolish men, it will likely invent these fears or produce the tyrants to meet the demand.

Column V. For men suffer the worst evils for the sake of the most alien desires which they take to be most necessary–I mean desires for sovereignty and … reputation and great wealth and suchlike luxuries … they neglect the most necessary appetites as if they were the most alien to nature.

Column IX. Many and great evils concerning many matters occur as a result of the worthless assumptions of mindless men and are avoided as a result of the right concepts.

The scroll begins by mentioning some of the opinions that have been presented regarding the matters that will be discussed: some have called for uncalculated hedonism (the Cyrenaics), others call for reserving judgement until all the facts are known about a matter, others claim that knowledge is not possible and that grief and joy are empty notions (the Skeptics). It then asserts the last two of the Four Cures:

the good is both limited and easy to attain
the bad is both limited and easy to bear

and then restates them as meaning that one does not seek a thing that does not remove pain and that one does not avoid that which doesn’t prevent pleasure; instead one avoids that which prevents pleasure.

On the Pleasures

Column VI. (of natural pleasures) some are necessary, others not necessary; and of the former ones themselves some are necessary for life, others for the health of the body, others for living happily.

When Philodemus says that some desires are necessary for life, it is understood that here he means for our safety and protection. This includes the need for shelter and for the rule of law. These necessary pleasures are declared to be the natural end and goal of life, as established by nature itself.

Column XI. (Choices and avoidances) are accomplished successfully when we measure them by the ends laid down by nature.

Let’s ponder what this means by considering what happens in nature: just as birds must build a nest, lions must roam a certain territory where they can catch prey, and apes must live on trees for safety, so humans also have a territorial instinct and need a the warmth and sweetness of a home for safety, familiarity, and protection.

Just as carnivores and plant-eating animals all have their peculiar dietary needs, similarly humans must maintain their health with wholesome foods. We also must take care of our mental health as social animals, in the same manner that a baby chimpanzee must have tactile connection with its mother for the first two years and many animals are happier and best protected when they are part of a pride, pack or some other group. We instinctively seek the pleasure of company and affiliation.

Lion cubs play with each other, and like many other species in doing so they learn important skills: when they play hide-and-seek, they’re honing their instinct to prowl and chase. But in the end, they play because they’re happy. They naturally do this, and do not need encouragement from others or effort on their part. Nature guides them, through pleasurable activities, to the necessary things in life. This is one way in which we can gain a better understanding of how the good, needful things are easy to attain.

Continues on Reasonings About Philodemus’ On Choices and Avoidances (Part II)

On Choices and Avoidances, edited with translation and commentary by Giovanni Indelli and Voula Tsouna-McKirahan
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