***THIS WEEK IN EPICUREANISM - 3/22/2014*** **This is the forty-seventh in a series of weekly updates on news from the world of Epicureanism. These posts are collected at the Epicurean Philosophy Today forum at epicurus.englishboards/t19-this-week-in-epicureanism Registration is free and easy, and if you subscribe to the This Week in Epicureanism thread, you will receive emailed updates each time a This Week In Epicureanism post is made. I compile these each week as a personal exercise to help myself keep track of what people are talking about, and if you dont have time to monitor the Garden of Epicurus forum as closely as I do I hope youll find it to be of some interest to you as well. **March continues to be an active month. I would never have thought that wed still be in the dark about MH370 so long after the event, and now there is a debate taking on a life of its own as to how close the event should be covered by the press. I bet the last two weeks have seen more mention of Occams razor than the last twenty years. And indeed the mystery of that flight tests our thought processes and brings to the front our inclinations to see what we want to see. I posted to my personal page a summary that I think is very helpful for understanding the benefits and hazards of Occams razor, here: https://facebook/cassius.amicus/posts/734683733230435?stream_ref=10 Worth a read. **First in order of posts in the Garden for the week was Tom Merles link to The Long Reach of Reason https://facebook/groups/gardenofepicurus/permalink/608963752526013/?stream_ref=2 Heres the blurb that describes the video: An animated Socratic dialog! In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, has reasoned thinking finally lost its power? Watch as psychologist Steven Pinker is gradually, brilliantly persuaded by philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein that reason is actually the key driver of human moral progress, even if its effect sometimes takes generations to unfold. **Next, in my neverending quest to enlighten the world as to the hazards of Platonism (and its descendant, Stoicism) I linked to quote from the Nietzsche page. Worth repeating in full! : To be attracted to the Platonic dialogue, this horribly self-satisfied and childish kind of dialectic, one must never have read good French writers — Fontenelle, for example. Plato is boring. In the end, my mistrust of Plato goes deep: he represents such an aberration from all the basic Greek instincts, is so moralistic, so pseudo-Christian (he already takes the concept of the good as the highest concept) that I would prefer the harsh phrase higher swindle or, if it sounds better, idealism for the whole phenomenon of Plato. - Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols **This past week included the Twentieth, but in my continuing struggle to type Greek characters I cannot even cite the name of the Garden member who posted the first graphic. Have a look for yourself: https://facebook/photo.php?fbid=801393086555674&set=gm.609621679126887&type=1 **In my own twentieth post, I highlighted some good news - at least for me. I was not aware that within the last year, Hackett Publishing had released Martin Ferguson Smiths translation of Lucretius in EPUB format. This is going to make my own work in writing about Lucretius much easier. I sound like I get a commission for pushing this book, but of course I do not. I simply want to make all fans of Epicurus aware that though Lucretius can be intimidating reading, there is a clear, modern, understandable translation available. This is the translation that introduced Steven Greenblatt to Epicurus for his book The Swerve and it is the single must-have version for every new student of Epicurus. https://facebook/groups/gardenofepicurus/permalink/609685012453887/?stream_ref=2 **Hiram, who has been doing great work at the Society of Epicurus, posted an article Defending Giordano Bruno in the context of the recent COSMOS television show: https://facebook/groups/gardenofepicurus/permalink/610029602419428/?stream_ref=2 **Hiram also posted an excellent testimonial piece for The Humanist, written by Hirams publisher, on how he celebrates the 20th. https://facebook/groups/gardenofepicurus/permalink/610391442383244/?stream_ref=2 **Last in the week so far, Hiram posted about the difficulties he has run into in writing about Philodemus given the few texts that are available. It is my understanding that On Methods of Inference is probably the most complete, but many of the rest are mere fragments. If you have sources you can suggest, please add them to the thread. https://facebook/groups/gardenofepicurus/permalink/609387629150292/?stream_ref=2 **One more thing that has not yet been posted about but I want to add here, and will post further about later. One of our Garden members, Ed L., has been working more lately with 3d printing, and he has asked me if I had any idea how he could get photographs to build a 3d model of the bust of Metrodorus. I told him that I dont have one to photograph, and I doubt one exists outside a museum. If anyone knows of a museum where a bust of Metrodorus is readily accessible, please let us know! **Once again as I put this update to bed there is trouble both in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia (MH370). If you are any loved ones are in harms way I certainly wish peace and safety to you all. In the comments to this post https://facebook/groups/gardenofepicurus/permalink/609685012453887/?stream_ref=2 we had some interesting views exchanged showing how even fans of Epicurus can view things differently. As I always like to point out, we have absolutely no context for the Live Unkown text, so we do not know how Epicurus applied this in every situation. We have many different views on that, but all of us I think recognize that our goal is not to live unknown, or to live known for that matter, but to live according to circumstance to maximize our happy living. Perhaps in the future we can open a sub-forum or special place to discuss that kind of current events which we ordinarily stay away from. **As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please add a comment or participate in the Garden of Epicurus https://facebook/groups/gardenofepicurus/ PEACE AND SAFETY! Cassius Amicus
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 00:24:13 +0000
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