I.D. Greeks 00023  

Hi, I'm Kath,
I have a Classical Civilisation degree and am starting to read and study Greek texts for pleasure. I've done a little reading of Pre-Socratics, but not much. I was wondering, which texts/philosophers propounded hedonism, as that is my natural philosophical stance?:) I think Epicurus was one but I'm not sure. What did he write?

Love Kath

GARY. C. MOORE:
Welcome Kath, or Pearl of Wisdom 666!!!! Forget Epicurus, at least to some extent. His hedonism is 90% mythical, an invention of enemies who wanted to discredit his fundamentally retiring way of life based on the principle "Pleasure is the absence of pain." That doesn't sound like hedonism does it? Almost all of the writings presented as his could very well be fakes but they do advocate retiring from the world and not getting involved with it because any value placed on worldly things will turn on you and cause you pain, if nothing else, because it is temporary and you will inevitably lose it. Lucretius, his Roman follower, has more 'hedonism' -- after all he dedicated DE RERUM NATURA to Venus -- but not really much. His main emphasis was materialism, like Epicurus -- they both believed in matter made up of atoms like Democrat's -- and simply being a materialist doesn't make one a hedonist as for example Karl Marx unless tearing one's enemies apart intellectually, beer, and cigars qualifies him -- and the justification of suicide.

Actually the whole time of Epicurus was essentially one way or another ascetic. You have to go back earlier, to the people who were ridiculed by Aristophanes -- himself obviously qualifying as a hedonist though probably with strict limits -- all the Greeks believed in strict limits wherever you look -- Socrates, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides -- they all thoroughly knew the keen allurements of flesh and sex and drink (Greek wine, it has been rather soundly speculated, was extraordinarily powerful -- you had to mix it with water or it would kill you -- and a scholar that speculates in 'mind enhancing drugs' in antiquity and has a good reputation (I can look up his name if you so desire) said Greek wine was heavily laced with ergot mold on the grapes, used now as a medicine to induce labor in women, used then like LSD. No wonder the people acted like they did in Plato's SYMPOSIUM, verbally out of control but perceptually keen like Alcibiades -- Aristophanes acts rather sober but explains an interesting philosophy that all humans were hermaphrodites before being split up by the gods so that a hermaphrodite had all the emotions it needed and was perfectly self satisfied
-- or that Alexander the Great, a great wine bibber, was, when sober, always at the edge of his nerves, absolutely needing personal action, fighting hand to hand in every single one of his battles, and, when drunk having a tendency to be suspicious and kill the object of suspicion, and, finally, drinking himself to death because there were no more worlds to conquer.)

But back to Socrates. Kierkegaard designates him as an erotic thinker in his great work and disertation THE CONCEPT OF IRONY. This is purely the Platonic Socrates who is the object of Alcibiades egos in the SYMPOSIUM and the subject in the PHAEDRUS with Phaedrus as the object. The very notion of dialectic used in Plato by Socrates is an act of "agon" or contest toward an opponent and therefore is guided primarily by passion. You can find reflections of dialectic as passion throughout all the dialogues with Socrates in it. But certainly the SYMPOSIUM and the PHAEDRUS should be first on your list. Supposedly the Dialogues of Aristotle were the only thing considered worth while by him or even assessable through Cicero's time, but none have survived intact, and what has survived, his lecture notes, would be hard to construe as hedonist, although I seriously doubt that he was an antagonist like the philosophers after him.

If you dislike the homosexual tendencies, you would be unfortunately limited. However, both Aeschylus and Euripides, especially Euripides, were perceptive about female/male relationships, and Euripides was supposedly 'guided' by Socrates according to a very unreliable biography of him. However, Greek 'homosexuality' is a very complicated thing, not well understood at all, and nothing like present day male homosexuality. They certainly had no hangups about it, but on the other hand, they distinctly did not go in for labeling also, defining a person in such a way they 'feel' they have to be such and such. The only sexual orientation that was condemned was exclusively homosexual orientation, probably based on the political necessity of procreation for the state.

Anyway, I hope that helps, and if anyone knows something to expand the discussion please do so.

'Sincerely' Gary C. Moore

KATH:
Dear Gary, thanks for this ace answer. I'll look at the Phaedrus and the Symposium. I'd forgot about the Symposium!:) Forget Epicurus, at least to some extent. His hedonism is 90% mythical, an invention of enemies who wanted to discredit his fundamentally retiring way of life based on the principle "Pleasure is the absence of pain." That doesn't sound like hedonism does it?

No, that doesn't sound much fun!:)

-- all the Greeks believed in strict limits wherever you look -- Socrates, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides -- they all thoroughly knew the keen allurements of flesh and sex and drink (Greek wine, it has been rather soundly speculated, was extraordinarily powerful -- you had to mix it with water or it would kill you -- and a scholar that speculates in 'mind enhancing drugs' in antiquity and has a good reputation (I can look up his name if you so desire) said Greek wine was heavily laced with ergot mold on the grapes, used now as a medicine to induce labor in women, used then like LSD.

I don't think ergot grows on grapes.

GARY. C. MOORE: It has been many years since I read about it, but they may have included wheat in their wine. Ergot I definitely remember grows on wheat and wheat was definitely used in the Eleusis initiation and if I remember right it was moldy. And there is no reason in the world to assume the Greeks didn't include moldy grapes in making wine. They had absolutely no underrstanding of germ-like transmission of disease (in fact have you actually seen a germ cause harm to anybody or anything? or do you take this on faith from researchers? have you actually ever seen a "germ"? Now, fungus spores are photographically common, and the Greeks would have known dried fungus, like anything else dried, puts particulars in the air when disturbed. But though they understood fungus could cause 'bad things', 'bad things' come, for the Greeks under two headings: (A) pharmakos which they understood to be both medicine and poison at the same time, and (B) magic which is both black and white, helpful and hurtful. The Greek main line of practical and moral judgement, not just Aristotle 's "golden mean", was "Nothing in excess!", that is, everything is acceptable up to a point, just i have demonstrated with greek homosexuality, and 'never' "Never this!" or "Never that!" Aristophanes demonstrated blasphemy had its accepted area, and blasphemy had its uses in magic. So the Greeks had no discernment "Germs are bad!" or -- for that matter! -- even 'disease' was bad. Read Hippocrates. Health is a balance of things and disease is when one humor is too strong.

KATH: Also you would see it when you picked it, it's black. You'd go, urgh, that's a bit manky:) and wash it off or drop it. The Greeks wouldn't have deliberately put it in their wine.

GARY. C. MOORE: "Deliberately" implies a standard of judgment. What is THEIR standard of judgment here, not yours? And, anyway, think about the HAND that actually picked the grapes. Sometimes it was a land owning, indepent farmer. Some times not. Then who? The slave, the traditionally ludicrous as well as evil figure. As well as being stupid, the slave is crafty, mean, and downright vicious. But then . . . do you ever think about the people who fix your food in restaurants?

KATH: They drank wine a lot of the time, and wouldn't've wanted to be tripping all the time:)

GARY. C. MOORE: Why not? "Tripping" is holy. It would be, in certain circumstances, an outright religious act like Mass. It would certainly induce 'inspiration'. It would not at all necessarily make you sleepy or stupid but, considering what actually may be in the wine, not only inspiring but energizing. It could make you super warrior like Alexander of Macedon.

KATH: Also, as well as being trippy, ergot is highly physically toxic, it can cause gangrene and loss of limbs, and the condition 'St. Anthony's Fire'-itching, burning, and muscle spasms called St Vitus' Dance.

GARY. C. MOORE: Once again, you have to think about how Greeks (still do) think about disease. i have a book on modern Greek folklore of about the turn of the 20th century. The pagan pantheon is a mere scratch beneath the Christian exterior with the names, sometimes even the most obscure ones, of all the old gods. Think of how they viewed eliplepsy. Sure, it can go bad, but, done right, it can go good -- by THEIR standard of judgment. Would you not do anything to hear the voice of God especially if she was female? Wouldn't you do anything to get a direct and unquestionable line to reality itself?

The scholar I mentioned was R. Gordon Wasson, a very respected figure in ethnobotany, liked by such figures as Claude Levi-Straus, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Robert Graves, and AMERICAN ATHROPOLOGIST. He has written PERSEPHONE'S QUEST: ETHEOGENS (theo?) AND THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION, SOMA: DIVINE MUSHROOM OF IMMORTALITY (which is great! -- IF you can find a copy!), ETHEOGENS AND THE FUTURE OF RELIGION, Maria Sabina and Her Mazatec Mushroom Velada

Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries

KATH: If you can get PERSEPHONE'S QUEST, Yale University Press, it both covers everything and is the most recent.

I love the idea that the ancients liked tripping, I'm sure they did. But they wouldn't have willingly used ergot.

GARY. C. MOORE: There are a lot worse things in medicine than ergot.

KATH: Ergot derivative induces labour because it induces a muscular spasm of the cervix.

Love, Gary C. Moore