Stumbling on Happiness April 22, 2008
Posted by Don in Epicurus, News.comments closed
There’s an interview in today’s NYT with Dan Gilbert, the Harvard psychologist who authored the best selling book with the above title:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/science/22conv.html?_r=1&oref=login
There are many points of contact with Epicureanism (e.g. the emphasis on personal relationships and the value of experience as opposed to durable goods), but Gilbert presents it all as science. I haven’t read the book yet, but I am interested in exploring further the relationship between the themes of ancient ethics and the findings of “positive psychology.” Has anyone read the book?
Beyond belief redux April 16, 2008
Posted by Don in Epicurus, News.comments closed
Thus physics gives us the courage to face down fear of death, and the strength of purpose to combat religious terror. It provides peace of mind, by lifting the veil of ignorance from the secrets of the universe; and self-control, by explaining the nature and varieties of desire. Finally, as I just showed, it hands down a criterion of knowledge, and, with judgment thereby given a foundation, a method of distinguishing truth from falsity. (De fin. I.64)
Does this not pretty much sum up the hopes of those who believe that science offers the way forward for humanity, achieved in part by freeing ourselves from the tentacles of religion? Reading the coverage of the pope in today’s New York Times, I’m not sure we’ve quite caught up to Epicurus yet. One might think that we have surpassed him in our ability to explain “the nature and varieties of desire.” But note the ambiguity in that phrase. We have clearly progressed in our knowledge of the limbic system; but how much further ahead are we in our capacity to recognize and acknowledge the objects of our own most pressing desires? That seems more the territory of Freud than modern neuroscience.
Epicurean cosmological conjecture empirically proven April 7, 2008
Posted by Monte in Epicurus, News.Tags: cosmology
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Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own … Martin Dominik, from St. Andrews University in the UK, said the finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common than we thought. And he told a major meeting that astronomers were on the brink of finding many more of them. The St Andrews researcher said this planetary system, and others like it, could host terrestrial planets like earth.
Here are the words of Epicurus, from his Letter to Herodotus 45:
Moreover, there is an unlimited number of cosmoi, and some are similar to this one and some are dissimilar. For the atoms, which are unlimited (as was shown just now), are also carried away to very remote distances. For atoms of the sort from which a world might come to be made are not exhausted [in the production] of one world or any finite number of them, neither worlds like this one nor worlds unlike them. Consequently there is no obstacle to the unlimitedness of worlds. (Hdt. 45, tr. Inwood)
One should compare the statements in the Letter to Pythocles 88-90:
A cosmos is a circumscribed portion of the heavens which contains stars and an earth and all the phenomena… there is an unlimited number of such cosmoi. (Pyth. 88, tr. Inwood)
What scientists today find remarkable is that we should find planetary systems (= cosmoi) SIMILAR to our own. But for Epicurus it was a radical proposition to hold each of the following:
1. There are other worlds similar to our own.
2. There are other worlds dissimilar to our own.
For the ancients, I take it that 2 is more radical than 1; for the moderns 1 is more radical than 2. But for the ancients the most radical proposition was the one presupposed by both of these:
3. There are other worlds.
A point on which there is no controversy but rather universal agreement among moderns with the ancient atomists (not only Epicurus but also Democritus and even Leucippus).
Citation: P. Rincon, ‘Solar system’s “look-alike” found’, BBC News 2008/04/06.
Limits to self-control April 3, 2008
Posted by Monte in News, Stoicism.Tags: Stoicism, virtue
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Interesting editorial in yesterday’s NYT about limits to self-control includes a list of activities that deplete willpower:
“The brain’s store of willpower is depleted when people control their thoughts, feelings or impulses, or when they modify their behavior in pursuit of goals. Psychologist Roy Baumeister and others have found that people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task.”
<snip>
“Other activities that deplete willpower include resisting food or drink, suppressing emotional responses, restraining aggressive or sexual impulses, taking exams and trying to impress someone. Task persistence is also reduced when people are stressed or tired from exertion or lack of sleep.”
Would an implication of this be that apatheia, along with the deliberate avoidance of “kinetic” pleasures (two things a stoic might recommend) could inhibit the virtue of self-control (or sophrosune, etc.)? The article concludes on a seemingly pro-stoical point:
“Whatever the explanation, consistently doing any activity that requires self-control seems to increase willpower — and the ability to resist impulses and delay gratification is highly associated with success in life.”
Ya, Ya. Doing virtuous acts promotes virtue. But if focusing on it causes stress and loss of sleep and deprivations of small pleasures, etc., then becoming a stoic stage might be inimical to a central virtue.
Citation: SANDRA AAMODT and SAM WANG, ‘Tighten your belt, strengthen your mind’, NYT 2008-04-02.
Smooth Motions 