Epicurus, or Philosophy Incarnate
Anyone else love Epicurus? I praise him as "philosophy incarnate" especially because I understand his philosophy as the theory and practice of a more or less secular wisdom. I personally love the "leanness" or stubborn focus of his philosophy. He keeps his eyes on the prize: wisdom, the good life.
His notion of the gods or of God is also fascinating. They don't bother with us because they themselves are something like the ideal or perfect philosophers enjoying ataraxia.
[quote=Epicurus]
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.
...
Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live.
...
We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life.
...
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of revelry, not sexual lust, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is wisdom.
[/quote]
His notion of the gods or of God is also fascinating. They don't bother with us because they themselves are something like the ideal or perfect philosophers enjoying ataraxia.
[quote=Epicurus]
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.
...
Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live.
...
We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life.
...
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of revelry, not sexual lust, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is wisdom.
[/quote]
Comments (60)
He devotes time to attacking gnosticism.
He spends a LOT of time attacking Stoicism.
He completely ignores Epicureanism.
That tells us more about Plotinus than Epicurus.
"Epicurean in peace, Stoic at war".
Well, I don't dislike him. I've read his extant fragments but never really bothered reading beyond that.
I don't think it right even to consider Epicureanism a serious philosophical sect. The real philosophers (including the Stoics) were all basing themselves, more or less loosely, on Plato and Aristotle.
Epicurus came straight out of left field with some pre-Socratic philosophy that Aristotle had long put to bed.
And need I even mention the "swerve"?
How utterly ridiculous.
So your point is... what? That serious philosophy comes from Aristotle and Plato, hence all else is wind? Were Aristotle and Plato the only true Scotsmen?
Stoicism is great, too. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus seem as valuable along the same lines as Epicurus.
I haven't looked at Plotinus closely, but I like this quote:
[quote=Plotinus]
Once the man is a Sage, the means of happiness, the way to good, are within, for nothing is good that lies outside him. Anything he desires further than this he seeks as a necessity, and not for himself but for a subordinate, for the body bound to him, to which since it has life he must minister the needs of life, not needs, however, to the true man of this degree. He knows himself to stand above all such things, and what he gives to the lower he so gives as to leave his true life undiminished.
Adverse fortune does not shake his felicity: the life so founded is stable ever. Suppose death strikes at his household or at his friends; he knows what death is, as the victims, if they are among the wise, know too. And if death taking from him his familiars and intimates does bring grief, it is not to him, not to the true man, but to that in him which stands apart from the Supreme, to that lower man in whose distress he takes no part.
[/quote]
We have in this passage at least the same rough image of the wise man. I personally don't think the metaphysics or physics in either case are as important as this self-conscious goal --becoming more like this image of the wise man.
Could you explain the war and peace issue? If it's a quote, I don't recognize it. But it sounds promising...
What do you reckon Epicurus would make of that? See, here Plotinus is being a 'classical sage' - heaven lies within, etc - which is is why Plotinus' ideas were so easily assimilated into Christian theology. Whereas Epicurus was more of a hedonist, albeit a prudent one. He eschews pursuit of worldly pleasure, he says, but only so as to enjoy a state of worldly tranquility, whereas for Plotinus, all such pursuits belong to the 'lower man'.
This is noteworthy.
[quote=Epicurus]
A life free of mental anxiety and open to the enjoyment of other pleasures was deemed equal to that of the gods. Indeed, it is from the gods themselves, via the simulacra that reach us from their abode, that we derive our image of blessed happiness, and prayer for the Epicureans consisted not in petitioning favors but rather in a receptivity to this vision. (Epicurus encouraged the practice of the conventional cults.) Although they held the gods to be immortal and indestructible (how this might work in a materialist universe remains unclear), human pleasure might nevertheless equal divine, since pleasure, Epicurus maintained (KD 19), is not augmented by duration (compare the idea of perfect health, which is not more perfect for lasting longer); the catastematic pleasure experienced by a human being completely free of mental distress and with no bodily pain to disturb him is at the absolute top of the scale. Nor is such pleasure difficult to achieve: it is a mark precisely of those desires that are neither natural nor necessary that they are hard to satisfy.
[/quote]
I was just looking at the Enneads. There's plenty of logic chopping metaphysics therein, just as there is plenty of antiquated physical speculation in Epicurus. For me this "heaven lies within" is something like the indestructible core of the wisdom traditions. Maybe Plotinus has more of a mystical flavor, but I wonder how differently these men really lived. I can, of course, only guess at their subjective experiences in terms of my own.
[quote=IEP]
According to Sextus, one does not start out as a skeptic, but rather stumbles on to it. Initially, one becomes troubled by the kinds of disagreements focused on in Aenesidemus' modes and seeks to determine which appearances accurately represent the world and which explanations accurately reveal the causal histories of events. The motivation for figuring things out, Sextus asserts, is to become tranquil, i.e. to remove the disturbance that results from confronting incompatible views of the world. As the proto-skeptic attempts to sort out the evidence and discover the privileged perspectiveor the correct theory, he finds that for each account that purports to establish something true about the world there is another, equally convincing account, that purports to establish an opposed and incompatible view of the same thing. Being faced with this equipollence, he is unable to assent to either of the opposed accounts and thereby suspends judgment. This, of course, is not what he set out to do. But by virtue of his intellectual integrity, he is simply not able to arrive at a conclusion and so he finds himself without any definite view. What he also finds is that the tranquility that he originally thought would come only by arriving at the truth, follows upon his suspended judgment as a shadow follows a body.
Sextus provides a vivid story to illustrate this process. A certain painter, Apelles, was trying to represent foam on the mouth of the horse he was painting. But each time he applied the paint he failed to get the desired effect. Growing frustrated, he flung the sponge, on which he had been wiping off the paint, at the picture, inadvertently producing the effect he had been struggling to achieve (PH 1.28-29). The analogous point in the case of seeking the truth is that the desired tranquility only comes indirectly, not by giving up the pursuit of truth, but rather by giving up the expectation that we must acquire truth to get tranquility. It is a strikingly Zen-like point: one cannot intentionally acquire a peaceful, tranquil state but must let it happen as a result of giving up the struggle. But again, giving up the struggle for the skeptic does not mean giving up the pursuit of truth. The skeptic continues to investigate in order to protect himself against the deceptions and seductions of reason that lead to our holding definite views.
[/quote]
Epicurus and Plotinus were very different indeed. The former was a materialist who didn't believe in anything beyond material existence. Plotinus, as noted, was the archetypical sage basically with a religious attitude, although on philosophical rather than fideistic grounds. I don't think he much believed in the Gods either, the One of Plotinus was not conceived as a deity.
Whereas catastematic pleasure (new word!) is said to be 'felt when being in a particular state, as opposed to kinetic pleasure, which is felt while performing an activity. It is the pleasure that accompanies well-being as such. Absence of pain, aponia, and lack of disturbance of mind, ataraxia, are two of the katastematic pleasures and often seen as the focal ones to Epicurus.'
Notice that ataraxia, tranquility, is mentioned also in the quote from the Sceptics. But, in any case, that state is rather more like 'eudomonia', i.e. a state of worldly well-being, happiness or joy, which is quite different from the 'unmediated vision of the One' that Plotinus praises.
I think Plotinus (and other mystics) depicts worldly existence as a kind of illusory state (cf 'maya' or samsara) analogous to a fantasy realm or game kind of like Dungeons and Dragons, but with real blood. Whereas Epicurus accepts that the game is all there is, so the best we can hope for is to attain the most satisfactory state within it - for him, that is winning. Plotinus wants to break out of the game altogether (like the scene in Mockingjay when Katniss breaks through the 'dome' and reveal the whole set-up as being a contrivance. There are many other analogies in science fiction films.)
That's a great story about the painter accidentally producing the effect he wanted. Sextus is a very interesting character. I wonder if anyone knows if his name 'Empiricus' is the etymological origin of 'empiricism'?
Granted that they are different, you do seem to be ignoring Epicurus's thoughts about the gods/God.
The Being in Plotinus sounds like God as pure possibility in Nicholas of Cusa. (Maybe Nicholas read Plotinus). On the level of concept alone I can't personally make much sense of that. What's the difference between the "active making-possible" and that which is made possible? It seems tacked on like a first cause by the arguably empty principle of sufficient reason. The PSR is tempting as a sort of axiom, but I think this is because "finite" knowledge or ordinary knowledge is pretty much the finding of causal relationships --which is to say buttons to push, levers to pull, hints about the future. On the other hand, if it's the lyrical expression of a sort of mystical-intellectual ecstasy, that's fine. But that's pretty esoteric. Heidegger obsessed over Being, and he wrote
[quote=Heidegger]
Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.
[/quote]
I'm not saying that the esoteric is bad, but I do suggest that we move toward religion and away from a certain image of philosophy at least as we get more esoteric. Perhaps you, however, exactly want to preserve the esoteric in philosophy. I'm content to let music and visual art tackle the ineffable.
Anyway, Epicurus seems quite exoteric to me, at least at his ethical center. I don't think he's really describing only an animal happiness: His love of friendship suggests a recognition of intellectual delight. I read him as an "understated" sage. To manage happiness (most of the time) with just basic necessities and some serious reflection squares pretty well with my notion of wisdom. I'm not saying that this is an exhaustive vision. The "true man" is more or less going to be the "universal man" in accord with Nature or the One or Reason or The Gods. If I am abolishing important differences, this is just the cost of looking for important similarities.
Then graveyards must be the happiest places on earth...
:-} Then why do they keep feeding their bodies, maintain hygiene and so forth? What happens in this phantasy realm is obviously of interest to them.
Quoting Wayfarer
What's there beyond material existence?
Quoting Wayfarer
The thing is, it's impossible to break out of the game, and even if it was, it's not worth the effort.
Quoting Wayfarer
Simple, he'd agree with it. The pleasures of the mind are always greater and more certain than the pleasures of the body.
Quoting ThePhilosopherFromDixie
*facepalm* :s - yeah, when you can't disprove something, you throw up your hands and say it's ridiculous! Great attitude to have, I should start adopting it!
I recommend a reading of Vladimir Lossky's The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, where these issues are discussed in detail.
Quoting Agustino
'Breaking out of the game' is an analogue for theosis, 'the beatific vision', where the 'worldly realm' or the 'domain of the senses' is analogous to being 'part of the game', but the 'awakening' or 'new birth' is seeing 'beyond the game'.
I've read it. What's your point?
Quoting Wayfarer
"The beatific vision" is temporary in nature. There is no "breaking out of the game" because of its temporary nature. After you have the "beatific vision" you still live in this world, not another world.
If you can't see the point, I won't detain you further.
Because the proposed solution doesn't make sense. Now I may be appreciative of the mystical tradition, but I don't agree with it fundamentally. Fundamentally I'm an Aristotelian, not a Platonist. I appreciate the mystical tradition more than I appreciate New Atheism, but that doesn't mean I'm in full agreement with it or the whole way of thinking and relating to the world that it advocates. For me happiness is always found in the material world, not in some other realm. Virtue is the path to happiness in this world, not (primarily) to happiness in some other world.
It's becoming quite obvious that you don't wish to discuss this matter with me honestly and openly though, and prefer instead to be pushing an agenda. Fine.
Which is why I employed the analogy of 'breaking out of the game'. The 'beatific vision' is not 'a temporary state', but a transition to an entirely new way of being - 'new heaven, new earth', as it is written. So Plotinus was one of the well-springs of that kind of visionary state (albeit distinct from the later Christian interpretations of that state).
In relation to Epicurus, and other materialists, they also, obviously, dismiss such ideas, but the question I have is, have they even begun to understand them? That is where materialism, overall, is trying to make a virtue out of a deficiency. Not having understood the game they're in, or that they're in a game, it's like 'let's make the best of it'. But from the viewpoint of a Plotinus, whatever good Epicurus makes of it, is temporary, transient, subject to decay, unsatisfactory. They're actually in a situation of grave peril, which they don't understand.
It is noteworthy that Epicurus employs the traditional terminology of philosophy - ataraxia, eudomonia, etc - but that they have a different referent, i.e. maximising well-being in the context of worldly existence. Epicurus is far more likely to be acceptable to the modern secular intelligentsia, for that very reason. But I'm not amongst them.
But thinking that some "beatific vision" is what will change your life, or how you will find meaning in life is nothing short of deluded. No experience, no matter how great, can provide a meaning to life in this world that has nothing to do with this world. Think about it - when you experience a great piece of music, or when in love you stare in your beloved's eyes and the whole world stands still - the experience ends. Human beings are fallen to the point there is no escaping this world. We can get glimpses - beatific visions - of another state, but they all end, and then we're thrown back into this world. We are creatures of the earth, born to live and die as creatures of the earth.
Quoting Wayfarer
No I don't think they dismiss them, only that they realise the limited significance such events have to living.
Quoting Wayfarer
But whatever good Plotinus found is especially subject to decay. Are you enlightened 100% of the time? Of course not. Why not? Because reality is fallen - regardless of what you do, you will never be in that state 100% of the time or anywhere near it.
Quoting Wayfarer
But all well-being is in the context of worldly existence. Even the beatific vision. And Epicurus isn't the best comparison, Aristotle is. The mystical isn't other-worldly, but decidedly this worldly.
Quoting Wayfarer
The only thing they like in Epicurus is his denial of gods, not his ethics.
Well, I really have to differ with you on that. It's not a matter of 'having an experience' - I'm referring to the meta-cognitive change that is called 'metanoia' in Platonistic philosophy. I thought, as you had referred from time to time to Orthodox philosophy that you might understand these things, but apparently not, sorry for the bother.
And what does a meta-cognitive change have to do with anything? Really now... I still have to provide for my kids and so forth. What has changed? Have I become better able to provide for them? Has my relationship with my wife improved? Am I more loving, not in an abstract kind of way, but in a practical kind of way?
That's why I see this all as useless. The essence is virtue, not some meta-cognitive change. Virtue alone is sufficient. All you're doing Wayfarer, is that you're imagining yourself as you are today, then you're imaging yourself as you will be after the beatific vision. But that's exactly a delusion! To think that any experience will produce a sudden change in your character - really? Why would you think that?
I think he would have dismissed the second part ('nothing good lies outside him'), which sounds worthy of the most devoted pessimists on this forum. But the first part may be interpreted as suggesting that a necessary condition for eudaimonia is to gain better control of one's own mind - one's reaction to events and one's desires - and that seems to me to be quite Epicurean, as well as Stoic and Buddhist.
To be entirely honest, I think Wayfarer is committing a great moral error. Virtue gives your best chance for happiness as Aristotle understood, but it doesn't guarantee it. Wayfarer still talks of ways of being etc. which guarantee happiness, which is just nonsense. There are no guarantees around. The best you can do (virtue) is the best you can do, and if at the end of the day you're still not happy, well you couldn't have done any better!
What 'guarantees' do you think I have been offering?
Quoting Agustino
I too work, run a household, and the rest. And, yes, my ability to all of those has been improved by my philosophy, and the associated meditation, along Buddist lines. What's the problem, Augustino? Why all the accusations?
Quoting andrewk
It's no different to 'the truth is within you', which I take to be axiomatic. Epicurus actually is quite similar in that respect - he is saying, adjust your expectations, manage your desires, don't engage in 'prodigal passions', and you will attain the best kind of happiness. So in that way he also is very much part of the philosophical tradition. The contrast with Plotinus, is that Plotinus says there is a higher happiness - 'out of this world', so to speak. So, yes, that aspect of Epicurus is similar to Stoicism, and Buddhism, but also different, as the goal is different.
But instead if you go to someone who doesn't have enough to feed his children, if you go to someone who is fighting with his wife, if you go to someone whose kids are on drugs, etc. That person will accept your meta-cognitive change, because he perceives that something material could be changed for the better because of it. And especially all of a sudden, ain't that great now? Someone who lacks virtue will do the same, because he will believe the fantasy that all of a sudden he will become virtuous... This seems very absurd to me, and no mystical writers have ever clarified this. That's why I think the Spinoza quote applies to mystics. The mystics think of the common person as some beast of the field who requires a meta-cognitive change to be different. No - he just requires damn virtue, and the fact he can't follow virtue merely shows his weakness of character and nothing else. No meta-cognitive change will fix that.
No but tell me Wayfarer. What is lacking in the scenario I described above, in the good one? Do those people need a meta-cognitive change? Would they be helped by one in any way? It's an honest question. You seem to be shying away from answers all the time, so of course I have to be straight up and ask you for them.
I don't see the point of the question. The answer would depend on a lot of factors. There are plenty of people who have apparently fantastic lives but are deeply unhappy. I read a newspaper article yesterday about the wife of a US politician who was so misereable she had to get shock therapy and now has become an advocate for Electro-Convulsive Therapy! That's one way to achieve a meta-cognitive change, but I'm sure you agree philosophy and meditation would be preferable.
So what answers am I 'shying away from'? The question was about Epicurus and Plotinus. They are well-chosen, because the former is an archetypal materialist, the latter a well-spring of 'the perennial philosophy'. That is quite a rational topic to discuss, and sets up a great dialectic.
I suggested that Plotinus 'rising above the world' could be metaphorically understood as 'seeing through the game' - an analogy you see in current movies, like The Matrix and Hunger Games, and many others. I am actually trying to present a kind of cross-cultural and rational schema against which such a question can be appraised. So, what's the problem? I think the question you should consider is, why this is 'pushing buttons'? - because it plainly is.
Well again - her life wasn't great. Her life was only apparently great to those on the outside. Maybe her husband didn't love her. Maybe she was upset he lost the bid for president. Maybe she had everything but was bored out of her mind, didn't know what to do with her life - as she says, she didn't feel alive. But again - we're not all like that. We're not all in need of a meta-cognitive change. That's why I referred to Spinoza. It's absurd to think that that's the natural disposition of everyone.
I'm not like that for example. Virtue is sufficient. I don't understand for example, why someone who has everything would resort to drugs - that makes no sense to me. It is, as Spinoza said, no less absurd than to think, that without whatever meta-cognitive change, we would resort to pouring poisons down our throats...
Quoting Wayfarer
My problem is that it seems to me - I'm not saying it is the case - but it seems to me that you're not willing to rationally analyse the matter from beginning to end - logically. It seems to me that you're biased in other words. That's why it's pushing buttons. It seems to me utterly absurd why someone would think we're all in need of some meta-cognitive change... Or that this could actually be helpful. Because again - it is absurd to me, that someone, in the absence of this meta-cognitive change, would proceed to pour poisons down their throat. I don't know. Is that something you'd do if you didn't have a meta-cognitive change? Because it's not something I would do.
And indeed I've seen threads where you referred people who had mental trouble to go to the psychiatrist/psychologist - you didn't tell them to go meditate. Why is that? If a sudden, meta-cognitive change can fix them up, what's that got to do with the psychologist, who will merely change their cognition, not their meta-cognition? You should've saved them the time, and sent them to a meditation retreat!
Quoting Wayfarer
Yeah, of course I agree meditation has benefits. This worldly benefits :P (and I sometimes do practice it)
And overall I don't see the use of meta-cognitive change. The problems we face in life are practical. I don't get along with my wife. I don't make sufficient money to be able to care for my family. I don't have time to spend with my kids. Stuff like that. Simple stuff. No meta-cognitive change can affect that. it's practical actions that can change that. Intelligence, virtue, etc. Meditation, although it can help in some regards has limited use in solving the kinds of situations I have mentioned above, and therefore has limited use for most people in life. That;s why I prefer Aristotle over Plato. Plato was stuck in his heavens. Aristotle was down in the dirt getting the job done!
I'm not biased, I'm presenting a philosophical argument. Actually, it's a meta-philosophical argument. I have many meta-philosophical differences with a great number of people here on this forum, due to the fact that my orientation is around what can generally be categorised as spiritual philosophy. (I don't actually like the term 'spiritual' very much, but the modern lexicon seems to lack many effective synonyms.)
So what is the meaning of 'metanoia', why was that regarded as important in Platonist philosophy? Surely, as someone who has read Lossky and the other authors of that ilk, you would know that. There is an almost exact equivalent in Buddhism, namely, paravritti, meaning 'a turning around in the seat of consciousness' (from the Lankavatara Sutra).
But - isn't this central to what 'philosophy' is about? What is 'philosophy'? 'Love-wisdom', is it not? Epicurus' wisdom was a worldly wisdom - 'be as well adjusted as possible'. Plotinus set his sights higher. So - is there a 'higher'? Is the belief that there is 'a higher truth' simply 'a bias'? You tell me.
I don't see the argument. Where's the argument? All I see is that my questions go unanswered and yet you claim to be right.
Quoting Wayfarer
Metanoia is an insight, a change of heart, a movement away from the material and towards God, repentance. It's important for Plato because he considers the relationship with the transcendent to be necessary for the well-ordering of the human soul. Does me reciting stuff like a school child change anything?
Quoting Wayfarer
If by higher you mean living with love, compassion, courage, loyalty, devotion, and the other virtues and avoiding hatred, improper sexual conduct, etc, then yes there is something higher. But there is nothing higher than that.
But what of the wisdom in making peace with the temporary? The itch for something beyond all mortal things (some ineffable transcendence of the game) can itself be framed as one of the "false" or "unwise" desires to mastered.
What is the grave peril? The unwise man lives with more pain and confusion, yes, but he too is laid to sleep eventually. If one believes in Hell, then, yes, there is the gravest peril for the worldly-wise doubter.
But otherwise we seem to be looking at a missed opportunity at worst. "Epicurus helped me a fairly happy and dignified life, but I could have experienced something higher had I listened to Plotinus."
It's possible, if blurry. But surely you can understand the usual secular doubt without sharing it. Grandiose claims abound.
Not if it means nothing to you.
Quoting Agustino
I think the question is, what can possibly rationalise or provide the motivation for that?
Quoting R-13
I don't believe it is. I respect anyone else's right to believe it is, but that's what I'm challenging.
They don't need to be rationalised. The "higher" is already expressed (always too, given they are eternal truth of ethics) in the world. "Transcendent force" does not need to enter the game to make it so. This is Spinoza's point.
You say that, if pumping myself full of recreational drugs is to be unethical and a failed attempt to find satisfaction, it must be rationalised through the transcendent. Supposedly, my life itself (and the world) can't have that significance. The story goes that, somehow, if there is no transcendent rationalisation, it somehow ethical or amoral to engage in substance abuse and think it amounts to solving any problem of dissatisfaction.
This is nonsense. All the failures of drug abuse are an expression of the world-- the damages it causes me, relationships it destroys, an obsession which takes my attention away from more important things, including "higher" aspects such respecting and loving my friends, family and other people. All the reason and motivation not to abuse drugs is found in the expression of the world.
The world (or "material" ) isn't value neutral. It express value and ethical significance all the time.
I think we do want something permanent but that we find this in the "universal mind." For me this isn't anything supernatural but just the heights of human thought and feeling "crystallized" in culture. We see that the mortal part of ourselves (the body and the particular face and personality quirks) is something like a vessel or womb in which we "build" the sage or "trans-personal" self. From this perspective, the fear of death is not only fear of pain or the unknown but also manifests a petty or vain attachment. We come to feel at one, in our higher moments, with all the wiser moments of others. As I see it, it's an education of the heart and the mind. True, for me it remains very "human." One might call it secular, but it sees the truth in myth as myth. I really like Epicurus's friendly feeling toward the gods understood as models for emulation. The wise part of the wise man is blessed and immortal. Sure, mortals are subject to interruption and a temporary fall from wisdom, but this can be forgiven from within the recovered standpoint of wisdom. Nothing essential is threatened by an occasional stumble into folly.
And what, according to Spinoza, was the acme, the highest point, of the philosopher's life?
SEP
Quoting R-13
The Indo-European pantheon are an ubiquitous presence in the literature of those times, both Greek and Indian. I think that is who Epicurus is referring to.
In Buddhist mythology, likewise, the virtuous may be reborn in the realm of the Gods, where they live for 'aeons of kalpas' - however, ultimately, they always fall from that realm, being also subject to impermanence.
Quoting R-13
'Supernatural' is such a boo-word, isn't it? Meaning, what? Look at Buddhism again. One of the traditional epiphets of the Buddha is 'lokuttara' which means exactly 'world-transcending'. So I think that can be translated as 'supernatural', but I have noted that 'secular Buddhists' argue that it is one of the things 'grafted on' to the Buddha's teaching by later religionists; that is part of the effort to 'naturalise Buddhism'. I don't agree, however - I see the Buddha's 'world-transcending wisdom' as the acme of the teaching. (The other profound difference with Greek philosophy, however, is that Mah?y?na Buddhism says that ultimately Nirv??a and Samsara are not different - 'Nirv??a is samsara released, samsara is Nirv??a grasped'.)
Quoting R-13
That is much nearer to Plotinus than Epicurus.
Yes this is it. This is exactly what you're not understanding. Let me quote Spinoza:
"Blessedness is not the reward of virtue - but virtue itself; nor do we enjoy it because we restrain our lusts; on the contrary, because we enjoy it, we are able to restrain them"
Blessedness is virtue itself - it is the highest, there is no higher. As it is the highest there can't be any talk of it being done for the purpose of some other higher thing - rather it is the end for which all other things are done. We're not virtuous for any other reason than virtue itself. There is no talk of a "motivation" for that, as if virtue itself wasn't motivational enough. That's why Spinoza laughs at the great multitude - and you appear to be one of them here - who seem to think that freedom corresponds to giving in to their lusts, and therefore they need a divine providence to motivate them not to do that. So what am I to understand from your answer? That if there is no transcendence to motivate you, you will go back to living without virtue, in hatred, sexual misconduct and all the other vices? So then that's your natural disposition! You should go right back to it, because transcendence or not, that's who you fundamentally are. Without something other than virtue to motivate you to be virtuous, you won't be virtuous! Without the transcendent, you will start pouring poisons (vices) down your throat, because that's the sensible thing to do if there is no transcendent right?
That's why I go back to Spinoza, that nothing is more absurd than what you're saying. And as for why it is pushing buttons... it doesn't help anyone! Sending them to meditate does little to help them become more virtuous! Reading Plotinus does 0 towards helping them become more virtuous. Instead of talking of what really matters - virtue - you talk of something higher, as if that something higher could serve another purpose except be MERELY INSTRUMENTAL to virtue - the highest good. Why do you go by such a round-about way to teach virtue? Why not teach it directly? What's the use of the whole "spiritual philosophy"? What more will it teach them than merely to live virtuously? >:O
Instead of focusing on the practical philosophy - the virtuous life - you focus on the spiritual. But the spiritual is nothing because its final end is living virtuously as well. It's empty of content. I mean, instead of preaching your spiritual philosophy, you're honestly better off grabbing the whip and the carrot to teach them - that, fear or hope, are a much better way to get them to fake virtue than whatever "spiritual philosophy" can do. And I might add that the great multitude faking virtue is the best scenario achievable. Very few can actually reach up to virtue, probably because virtue requires intelligence which is cultivated along the right lines.
And in your very posing the question, you understand this. It's not the spiritual philosophy that matters at all - at best, that's merely a motivating factor for what TRULY matters - for the real highest - the virtuous life in this world. That's why Spinoza is beyond good and evil - because good and evil are traditionally understood to be merely instrumental towards the achievement or loss of something higher. He is beyond instrumentality - you're not good because there's some higher end to being good. Being good is the highest end, and you do all things to be good. It's like in Buddhism - you're not practicing morality (sila) in order to cultivate some higher insight, and deepen your meditation practice to achieve samadhi or whatever other nonsense. Practicing morality IS nirvana there is no higher. Buddha is just laughing at you and using the carrot of something higher to get you to practice morality (as if morality wasn't end in itself). A good and effective con, but nothing more. You should be ready to drop that crutch now.
What does "world-transcending" mean in this context? Does it imply some form of supernatural power over the forces of nature, or is it metaphorical in some sense?
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Quoting Agustino
Boy, that's quite a polemic, Augustino. Didn't you notice the very phrase from Spinoza that I quoted to Willow about the 'intellectual love of God', which is the pinnacle of Spinoza's system? Mind you, I can hardly make head or tail of Spinoza, but he did at least say that.
The rest of your post is basically venting of spleen. Hope you feel better for it.
Well what's the point of finding excuses for answering? Whether or not I'm venting spleen or whatever is irrelevant to the contents of my post. Why do you deal in these superficialities instead of tackling the very real philosophical problems that I'm bringing up for you?
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes I did. But as you see Spinoza identifies blessedness with virtue. The intellectual love of God is merely understanding of the world. He who understands the world will be virtuous, because again, if you understand, would you pour poisons down your throat? >:O
Quoting Wayfarer
Well I can see that.
God is immanent for Spinoza. Not a transcendent force that makes the world meaningful or produces an escape from the meaningless world, but an expression of the world-- the eternal, the value, meaning and significance produced by each state.
Love of God is not belief in the transcendent which saves us form the ignominy of the world, it's understanding of the eternal expressed by the world (ethics, meaning). Meaning is always found of the world itself. Meaning is eternal-- it is never born and it never dies. Death does not remove the love of a family. Birth does not found it.
One cannot have a "problem of meaning" because the world is never without value, meaning and significance. No-one needs to create meaning in the world, be it a transcendent force (e.g. mystics, theism, etc.,etc.) or man (e.g. Nietzsche, existentialism, the science and technology of Modernist utopia, etc.,etc.), for the world always comes with an expression of meaning, value and significance. There is never "just the existence" of a rock, mountain or person. The presence of any state also means the eternal expression of its value, meaning and significance.
Our highest point is to recognise this. To understanding the world, its eternal expression, rather than just in terms of the empirical state we must possess next or to insist that it's meaningless. An understanding of the eternal itself (ethics, virtue, meaning, logic), rather than floundering over possession and loss of the transient (death, possessions, money, desires).
The contents of your post basically amounts to: be good.
Interestingly, there is an anecdote in Chinese Buddhism, wherein an emperor asks a Buddhist master, 'what is it you teach?' - to which the reply comes 'learn to do good, cease to do evil, purify the mind'. The Emperor a replies 'a child of seven knows that', to which the master says 'but many men of 70 have failed to practice is.'
Quoting Agustino
'Merely', eh? He did go to the trouble of constructing lengthy and recondite texts, in the style of geometrical propositions, the aim of which is to remedy ignorance and to advocate the supreme importance of virtue, and was ostracised by his own culture for so doing. You're selling him well short, all the while accusing others of not understanding him.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Spot God in today's news, then. 25 dead in head-on smash in Thailand. US Republicans decide to scrap the Ethics Office, then change their minds. Somewhere, no doubt, numbers of women and children slaughtered by jihadis. Hey, it's all God, right? 'Nothing to transcend here, folks, move right along'.
Indeed. Those are unethical acts and outcomes of the world. Horror, tragedy and immorality, an eternal expressed by the world. Not something to transcend, but loss which ought have been avoided, states of the world which ought not have been enacted or happened. An eternal expression of the world which cannot be avoided (even if all the dead were resurrected, the Republicans decided not to scrap the Ethics office, it would not undo what was done ).
Certainly, there is a world to avoid in the future. We ought to act so these sort events don't happen again. This is not a question of "transcending" the world. It's being a part of it.
Pretending there is a force which undoes the eternal expression of loss isn't the worldly act of avoiding head-on smashes, terrible political policy or massacring women and children.
It's just a hedonistic story that suffering and loss can become something else if we believe it. A philosophy not dedicated to understanding and respecting the eternal, but rather one which disrespects and ignores it, to create the image that the horrible and/or immoral outcomes don't really occur. It serves not understanding the eternal, but the desire for life without pain.
Bingo.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Do your ears not hear what your mouth has spoken? As always, a total waste of time conversing. You contradict yourself in every post you write.
But this is what I'm asking you. You claim that there is something higher than this. And I don't see how there can be something higher than this, from a logical point of view.
Quoting Wayfarer
Bodhidharma? One of my favorite Buddhists. I loved his pragmatism.
Quoting Wayfarer
Exactly, but what is there to do more than this?
It's not a contradiction.
People don't come to act morally by being outside the world. They act within it. Any instance of changing from immoral to moral behaviour is a change of the world. We don't get there by presenting to be outside the world. We do it be being in the world and respecting it's eternal ethical expression.
I think of nature as our organized vision of the world. So for me the supernatural would be anomalous. It would be precisely what we could not yet integrate into a system of necessary relationships. As soon as we can say something definite about the Divine, it's part of nature. From this perspective, the super-natural is more or less exactly what we know nothing about. One might present nature rather than super-nature as the hero of the piece. I don't mean the usual amoral vision of Newtonian clockwork. I mean a vision of nature that includes human nature and history in a way that can affirm the value of the world or at least of the individual life where the raw materials for happiness are present, despite its "evil."
I'm inclined to think of transcendence in terms of freedom from desire (non-optimal attachments.)
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't think you're giving Epicurus enough credit on this issue.
[quote= Epicurus]
For man loses all semblance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings.
[/quote]