Hiram Crespo's Blog

I have finally decided to start a Substack blog, at the invitation of someone who also invited me to create a Society of Epicurus discord server.

I've been considering the appropriateness of the current platforms I use, which I've not reshuffled in a while due to habit and lack of time. In recent months, the company that used to be known as twitter has changed its algorithm and I'm noticing that it suggests, propagates and seeks to normalize false narratives, false equivalences, lies, distortions, anti-democratic ideologies, and other things that I find sometimes deeply worthy of objection. I realize that it is up to us to apply some filter to the content we consume, but we also have the choice of not being involved in a platform--particularly when it has become a danger to our democracy, and when participating in the little bird's platform may give the impression that we approve of its algorithm. Twitter does not do enough to battle disinformation, and I dislike the effects it is having in our democratic values and institutions, and how it irresponsibly adds fuel to our society's polarization.

I will diminish my involvement there. Facebook, on the other hand, offers much more utility for building community and is less impersonal, so its utility still surpasses whatever grievances I may have about it. To be invited to join our virtual Eikas (monthly gathering), you may joing our Garden of Epicurus group there.

In the meantime, please feel free to subscribe to my new substack blog, where I hope to write at least one monthly essay. Substack sends content in the form of an email to subscribers.

As always, you can also visit societyofepicurus.com for literary updates, and to continue learning Epicurean philosophy, and becoming an expert in Kyriai Doxai, De Rerum Natura, Philodemus, and our other sources.

Many moons ago (well, more like five years or so), I was part of an initiative by a fellow writer and friend of mine, Caleb. He is a gay, atheist author of risqué literature, and he wanted to publish a Puerto Rican sci-fi anthology, which we felt was overdue. So I wrote and submitted "Ogre Island", a coming-of-age story of a Neanderthal boy in a future where these hominids have been cloned and are beginning to become a visible human minority.

When the original anthology was first conceived, its title was going to be “Ciencia fricción”, but the original anthology project fell through and it wasn't until recently that an updated version of the original anthology was published by Gnomo, a publisher of risqué literature. This is probably a good thing, since many things have happened–including the pandemic, the hurricane, earthquakes, and the bankruptcy of the island's government–in the last couple of years, which have created post-apocalyptic real-life scenarios that inspired many of the authors who ended up contributing stories.

I’m currently about half-way through with reading the new anthology, which has over 600 pages of great content. So far, in addition to stories, I’ve read and enjoyed a few essays about science fiction’s peculiar expressions and concerns in Caribbean and Latin American literature. Most of the stories are in Spanish, but many (including my own) are in English.

If you’re a bilingual sci-fi fan, and would like to support Latin American sci-fi literature, feel free to enjoy and share a copy of Fricción cuántica: Antología de ciencia ficción desde Puerto Rico y su diáspora (= Quantum Friction: Sci-Fi Anthology from Puerto Rico and its Diaspora), which came out in May.

For other updates related to Epicurean philosophy, feel free to visit our Happy Eikas page, where monthly updates are posted, and where you may even find some of the past Eikas meetings. Eikas is the monthly feast of reason and friendship that Epicureans celebrate on or near the 20th of every month.

The book Epitome: Epicurean Writings is now available everywhere. Ancient Epicureans always walked around with an Epitome from which they studied Epicurean philosophy. This modern English-language Epitome includes the Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, Epistles, and several summaries of the scrolls from Herculaneum with a thematic index, and my commentaries.

Also, I recently gave an interview (which is now live in three parts: Part I, Part II and Part III) to Pablo Veloso, an Argentinian podcaster who lives in Spain. We discussed details about the therapeutics of Epicurean philosophy, the history of the Epicurean tradition, descriptions of the Epicurean sage, what it means to be part of a 21st-Century virtual Koinonia (Epicurean community), and many other subjects. It was a very enjoyable conversation, and English subtitles are available in the videos. Patreon subscribers also have the option of reading the script of the interview from societyofepicurus.com.

Also, Epicureanism now has a page within the website of the Spiritual Naturalist Society, where it is considered one of their available traditions.

I hope you have all had a Happy Thanksgiving. I had a death of an uncle the day before Thanksgiving, am thankful to live and to have my parents, friends and loved ones mostly in good health, and in recent months have taken refuge in the study of philosophy during this pandemic, which has given me many hours of learning, clarity, and intellectual pleasure.

Greg Sadler is a philosopher and YouTuber who has a large following. He's an eclectic philosopher who contributes to modern Stoic publications. Many years ago, Greg was among the people to whom I sent a copy of my Humanist Press book when it was initially published. This week, we finally saw the publication of Greg Sadler's Honest Review of my book, Tending The Epicurean Garden. It's lengthy and detailed. I hope you enjoy it.

It appears that Stoics in general have taken a recent interest in Epicurean teachings. The YouTube Channel Vox Stoica also published a 30-minute video titled What is Epicureanism and is it compatible with Stoicism? I find mutual advantage in this type of content, as it helps students of both schools to understand the similarities and differences between them, as they are understood by both schools.

In recent months, I have been working on deep explorations of the 40 Principal Doctrines of Epicurus, and posting essays on Society of Epicurus for the benefit of sincere students. The essay series, so far, includes essays on PD 16 against worship of fate, on PD 6 and the literal method of exegesis, on PD's 32, 37 and 38 and how we can discuss slavery in Epicurean terms, on PD 8 on deferred gratification, on PD 5 on checks and balances in our ethics, and PD's 24 and 28 on the utility of our dogmatism, which is based on empirical methods. These essay series includes instructions on Meleta (this is the Epicurean process of study and deliberation both by oneself and with others "of like mind"). My hope is that sincere students will consider the benefits of deep study, and that they will benefit and become happier by the study of philosophy.

There will be more content of this kind in the future, so please follow our content on twitter, by joining our FaceBook group "Garden of Epicurus" (linked from our page) or by signing up for our newsletter at the Society of Epicurus page.

I hope you have all had a Happy Thanksgiving. I had a death of an uncle the day before Thanksgiving, am thankful to live and to have my parents, friends and loved ones mostly in good health, and in recent months have taken refuge in the study of philosophy during this pandemic, which has given me many hours of learning, clarity, and intellectual pleasure.

Greg Sadler is a philosopher and YouTuber who has a large following. He's an eclectic philosopher who contributes to modern Stoic publications. Many years ago, Greg was among the people to whom I sent a copy of my Humanist Press book when it was initially published. This week, we finally saw the publication of Greg Sadler's Honest Review of my book, Tending The Epicurean Garden. It's lengthy and detailed. I hope you enjoy reading it.

It appears that Stoics in general have taken a recent interest in Epicurean teachings. The YouTube Channel Vox Stoica also published a 30-minute video titled What is Epicureanism and is it compatible with Stoicism?

In recent months, I have been working on deep explorations of the 40 Principal Doctrines of Epicurus, and posting essays on Society of Epicurus for the benefit of sincere students. The essay series, so far, includes essays on PD 16 against worship of fate, on PD 6 and the literal method of exegesis, on PD's 32, 37 and 38 and how we can discuss slavery in Epicurean terms, on PD 8 on deferred gratification, on PD 5 on checks and balances in our ethics, and PD's 24 and 28 on the utility of our dogmatism, which is based on empirical methods. These essays also include one with instructions on Meleta (this is the Epicurean process of study and deliberation both by oneself and with others "of like mind"). My hope is that sincere students will consider the benefits of deep study, and that they will benefit and become happier by the study of philosophy.

There will be more content of this kind in the future, so please follow our content on twitter, by joining our FaceBook group "Garden of Epicurus" (linked from our page) or by signing up for our newsletter at the Society of Epicurus page.

Ukemi Audiobooks has published Epicurus of Samos – His Philosophy and Life: All the principal Classical texts Compiled and Introduced by Hiram Crespo (amazon link here), which is basically an Epicurean Audio-Bible, and was a very gratifying project for me to work on. The audiobook contains all the ancient sources by the founders and selected passages from Lucretius' "On the Nature of Things" with my introductions and commentaries, as well as my summaries of many of the scrolls by Philodemus of Gadara that survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and of passages from Oenoanda's Wall. It also contains chapters on the legacy of Epicureanism, including secondary sources like Seneca, and Cicero's On Ends.

I also participated, together with fellow contributor and editor Massimo Pigliucci, in How to Live a Good Life, Episode 3: Stoicism & Epicureanism. HTLAGL was a limited-edition video discussion series where the various chapters of the book How to Live a Good Life were discussed by the authors of the respective chapters. The format was not a debate, but an informational discussion to help students of philosophy to understand the differences, in this case, between Stoicism and Epicureanism.

I was recently featured in the Seize the Moment podcast, where we discussed the Epicureanism chapter of How to live a good life. We discussed--among other things--hedonic calculus, the Epicurean canon, the science of happiness, the importance of friendships for happiness, and Universal Basic Income and other possible solutions to the automation of labor.

Today is the official publication date for the book How to Live a Good Life: A Guide to Choosing Your Personal Philosophy (Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House). The book contains a collection of 15 essays by various authors on Confucianism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Progressive Islam, Christianity, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Effective Altruism & more, edited by Massimo Pigliucci, Skye Cleary and Daniel Kaufman.

How to Live a Good Life is ideal for people who wish to more clearly articulate or re-assess their personal philosophy of life. You may listen to a sample of the book from the book's page from the Penguin Random House website. Here is the amazon link, and here's the goodreads link.

I wrote the 5,000-word chapter on Epicureanism that you will find in this book. I also wrote a brief book review of the rest of the book, encouraging readers to write an outline of their own personal philosophy after reading it.

I apologize that it's been a long time since my last update. I have been involved in developing the beginnings of an Epicurean online business--The Twentiers--as part of a project where I've decided to focus my content this year on exploring Epicurean economics and ideas around self-sufficiency. Our main economics source is Philodemus of Gadara' scroll On the art of property management. I will continue to write more on this subject as the project evolves, so please subscribe to my blog if this interest you.

Vintage Books--which is now a division of Penguin Random House--will be publishing a book either in the fall of this year or early next year titled How to Live a Good Life. The book will include approximately 15 chapters on diverse religions and philosophies as practiced by people today. It has already received a brief mention by Publishers Weekly. I was invited to write the chapter on Epicureanism, so be on the lookout for the book! This was, to me, a great privilege, as I'm likely to be the only contributor who is non-academic and not a member of clergy, and the inclusion of Epicurean philosophy signals that there has recently been an increase in visibility for our tradition. In a blog titled Seven reasons why we need Epicurean content creators, I recently wrote:

Many of the academic sources and interpreters of Epicurean philosophy are either indirect or hostile, and some online platforms have niches with similar attitudes. The subreddits /atheism and /philosophy have at times removed Epicurean content arbitrarily, rather than allow for an open market of ideas–sometimes relenting only after some level of activism on our part. Martha Nussbaum–one of the main contemporary interpreters of Epicurean sources in academia–has been notorious in her anti-Epicurean bias. She has said that Stoics and Aristotelians are superior to the Epicureans–whom she described as “parasitic” on the rest of the world–, that Seneca was “an advance of major proportions” over the Epicureans, and has even claimed that Epicureanism is not a philosophy. This all points to a need to have more people presenting EP on its own terms, both in our own niches and elsewhere.

Also, a few years ago Dara Fogel, author of The Epicurean Manifesto, complained that academics have been treating philosophy as a study of the history of itself, rendering it impractical, useless, sterile, and irrelevant. For all these reasons, our inclusion in a book about living philosophies and religions that are practiced today feels like a bit of a paradigm shift.

I frequently write detailed reviews of great books that are directly or indirectly relevant to Epicurean ideas, like Michel Onfray’s Hedonist Manifesto, or Thomas Nail's Ontology of Motion. Recently, a new indirect source for Epicurean philosophy was unearthed and translated into English by our friends from the Epicurean Gardens in Greece titled Porphyry’s Epistle to Marcella.

After a long hiatus, the Society of Friends of Epicurus has published a new educational video on its YouTube channel based on Epicurus' lecture against the use of empty words. If you like the content, please subscribe to SoFE on YouTube, and also please consider supporting me on Patreon!

There have been a few developments in the world of Epicurean philosophy. I have a new Spanish-language blog for El Nuevo Día, the most widely-read daily newspaper in Puerto Rico. It is titled Arte de vivir and its initial article was written on the fifth anniversary of the imprisonment of Raif Badawi, and in solidarity with secularism and free expression in the Middle East. Raif received a public lashing as a result of his criticism of Islam in Saudi Arabia.

I've long wanted to connect the French-language hedonist tradition with the English-language work we're doing. I finally read a book by Michel Onfray and published an introduction to his counter-history of philosophy discourse in English. Michel is a celebrity philosopher in France, the founder of the Université Populaire de Caen, and a fierce advocate of retelling a philosophical narrative from the perspective of the "friends of Epicurus, and the enemies of Plato". He argues that historiography is a form of ideological warfare, and that the scientific worldview has been under attack since antiquity.

The Society of Friends of Epicurus has put together a few educational videos on its youtube channel on the canon, on friendship, on choices and avoidances, and other aspects of the teaching. The videos are meant to clearly explain the teaching, Please subscribe to our youtube channel!