Posts by Don

Quote from Godfrey

I'm chewing on the idea that the prolepsis comes from the infant-caregiver relationship

I think you're onto something thinking along those links, Godfrey . Part of it comes down on answering the questions:

• "What is a prolepsis?
• What are the prolepses (as a group of phenomena)?
• Can we translate (literally and/or metaphorically) Epicurus's ancient Greek concept of mental/sensory functioning into a modern framework and still have it make sense?

There's the rub.

Quote from Cassius

At the moment I would tend to think the way Godfrey is going is most likely. It seems likely that prolepsis is, like the eyes or other senses, a pre-conceptual / pre-opinion faculty that is neither right nor wrong. In contrast, even the assertions that "gods are blessed" or "gods are incorruptible" are chock full of conceptual right/wrong content.

So... it reads to me there, Cassius , that you don't think "gods are blessed and incorruptible" cannot be the content (so to speak) of a "a pre-conceptual / pre-opinion faculty"? IF (and *please* correct me right out of the box!) that's your point, I'm tending to agree.

Epicurus tells Menoikeus:

• "First and foremost, believe that the god is a blessed and imperishable thing/being as is the common, general understanding of the god."
  • πρῶτον μὲν τὸν θεὸν ζῷον ἄφθαρτον καὶ μακάριον νομίζων, ὡς ἡ κοινὴ τοῦ θεοῦ νόησις ὑπεγράφη
  • The verb, νομίζων, comes last in that first phrase and means "believe, hold, consider." At this point, he's not bringing in the prolepses.
  • I still say there is significance in that ζῷον can mean "living being, animal" OR "in art: figure, image" To me, it seems Epicurus hedges his bets in that one word.
  • ἡ κοινὴ (koinē) τοῦ θεοῦ νόησις "the common or general understanding of the god" has been ὑπεγράφη (hypegraphe) "traced, outlined" on our minds. I think this refers to Epicurus's proposed prolepsis of divinity. I consider ὑπεγράφη as laying in a rough, light outline of a drawing to later fill in the details with pen and ink and paint, covering up the original outline. It seems to me that Epicurus is encouraging us to stick to the outline and not cover it up with unnecessary decoration. That seems to be why he's insisting on the "blessed and incorruptible." BUT that seems to be more of an intellectual distillation process arrived at from sorting through all the religious ideas of the hoi polloi than what is *really* outlined in our minds (if I understand those Hidden Brain episodes and other research + Godfrey's caregiver hypothesis (See, I've raised your idea to a hypothesis now ).

Quote from Cassius

More likely than saying that our brains are stamped at birth "gods exist and are incorruptible and blessed," he's saying that our brains are stamped at birth with an operating system that, when exposed to certain experiences, are disposed to "anthropomorphize and to engage in teleological thinking." The results of that process are deemable to be true and consistent with all evidence only when we conclude that gods are blessed and imperishable, which means that they don't have anything to do with us or earth (that would indicate weakness). To reason otherwise contradicts our physics and all other repeatable and verifiable sensory observations.

Hmmm.... I'm not sure I completely follow your train of thought there.... but I *think* I agree with where I think you're going?

Quote from Cassius

Epicurean style gods

And there's another rub! With the popular and scholarly debates about what an "Epicurean style god" *is*... this discussion continues to have interesting side quests and interesting digressions!

(NOTE: I'm sure these podcast episodes are also available where you happen to subscribe to podcasts. I'm posting the program's episode pages because they also had some additional resources that might not be in show notes on a podcast-subscription platform.)

I just started listening to the second episode of Hidden Brain listed below but felt obligated to share them. I've found them to be instructive and thought-provoking from a cultural evolution of religion perspective.

"Creating God"

Creating God | Hidden Brain Media

If you've taken part in a religious service, have you ever stopped to think about how it all came to be? How did people become believers? Where did the rituals…

hiddenbrain.org

"Our God-Shaped Brains"

Our God-Shaped Brains | Hidden Brain Media

Some think of religious faith as just that: a leap of faith. But psychologists are increasingly filling in the gaps in our understanding of how beliefs shape —…

hiddenbrain.org

These two have also made me question whether we really do have a prolepsis of "blessed and incorruptible" characteristics of gods.... or whether the ubiquitous nature of gods across cultures is really (as talked about in "Our God-Shaped Brains") due to our innate proclivity (prolepsis) for assigning agency even where it doesn't exist, to anthropomorphize, and to engage in "teleological thinking" (seeing purpose where none really exists). The episode talks about these innate evolution-adapted proclivities giving rise to gods/spirits/divinities across cultures. Not some innate "preconception" of "blessed and incorruptible" beings existing somewhere. It seems to me that that is worth considering... although I'm fully aware this goes against Epicurean orthodoxy! There are still prolepses involved in there being ubiquitous gods, just not the prolepses that Epicurus posited. And if a "modern" Epicurean wants to imagine gods as admirable archetypes to emulate, I don't see a problem with that (at the moment I'm typing this at least). However, if these podcast episodes are correct, in a manner of speaking, the hoi polloi can be "forgiven" for holding the beliefs they do about the gods... in a way, evolution made them do it.

I'll have to cogitate on this for awhile, but I'm posting here for consideration by forum members. I look forward to any and all thoughts.

I am woefully late to the game on this thread, but **finally** feeling well enough to wade (way) back into some of the the threads I missed.

One thought that came to mind reading this thread is that the word "democracy" didn't mean exactly what we take it to mean today in Ancient Rome and Athens. ...although honestly there are some similarities, both postive and negative. Attempting to cleave to the "no politics" rule of this forum, I'll not go into details. But it seems Philodemus is especially concerned about the people - the hoi polloi, if you will - being able to be swayed by the rhetorical abilities of individuals skilled in the art of speech-making. < sarcasm > I'm glad that's not a concern anymore! < / sarcasm>

When it comes to Philodemus, I always like to go back and see what we're physically dealing with -- not just translation, but what physical remains are the translators working with. Toward that end...

Website of Holger Essler

And one example from that page: Philodemus: De rhetorica 1 (PHerc. 232, 234, 247, 250, 398, 426, 463, 1115, 1427, 1601, 1606, 1612, 1619, 1813), encoded by Claudio Vergara, Corinna Lang, Marcel Moser and Vanessa Zetzmann, revision by Vincenzo Damiani and Holger Essler (WCE)...

DCLP/Trismegistos 62474 = LDAB 3650

What I also find fascinating are some of the multi-spectral images of the papyri! fragment right N 1619 fr. 4 (=P.Herc. 1619) (Not a drawing but an actual photographic image. That's cool!)

Quote from Matteng

Thank you, I am german (live near Würzburg where is an Epicurean science center on the university) so it is easy to read for me, perfect

That's good. If you find anything particularly interesting as you read it, please share.

It's in German but there's this:

Quote from Bryan

Don, I mostly agree with your conclusion, but one issue I see is that the "faculty of discerning" would be a faculty of thought --- and not a faculty of the senses. The senses, anticipations included, are still in the "suck in all the sensory stimuli" phase.

I'm not seeing prolepsis as a faculty of thought. To me, there's only recognition of meaningful patterns on which thought can work to assign names or concepts. The analogy of the sieve is the best I can do right now, still feeling under the weather. I would agree that the faculty of prolepsis sucks in everything, but it's like that mechanical sorting bank that has slots for pennies, nickels, etc., in the crudest way. We're born with an innate sorting ability, otherwise our little brains would short circuit from all the stimuli. We have the ability to focus on patterns of significance in our environment. Now I'm not saying at this time how that translates into a "prolepsis of justice" etc., but I think I can get there from here.

Over the past few years, the most cogent suggestion as to what the faculty of prolepsis is the faculty of discerning patterns out of the cacophony of our sensations. It seems to me (to summarize what I've come to understand) that our sensations suck in all the applicable sensory stimuli - mental and physical - from our environment. The faculty of the prolepsis sieves those sensations to find discernible patterns, patterns that have been encountered before, repeated patterns that that faculty have significance within that cacophony. As we encounter them more often, we can find tune that recognition. A crude analogy is If a child's family has a "dog" , all animals are "dog" for awhile until the toddler discerns patterns that fine tune their recognition of patterns identified with other animals. Another crude analogy is the ability to discern patterns within a color blind test, ex.

The full circle is the flood of sensations. Prolepsis allows one to pick out the shape. Then reason/cognition steps in and assigns meaning, as in "that's the number 5."

To me pleasure and pain enter in after prolepsis but before assignment of cognitive meaning.

Quote from Twentier

Quote from Remus

This confirms, once again, that everything sounds better with a posh English accent.

Cellar door

Thanks, @Twentier !

For anyone who doesn't get the reference:

Phonaesthetics - Wikipedia

When the topic of rights comes up, I turn to George Carlin and his "rights vs privileges"

For those who haven't heard it (language warning!):

Quote from Bryan

τὰ Συμβεβηκότα	Coniūncta	"Inseparable Characteristics"	"Properties"	Fundamental qualities, Inherent attributes
τὰ Συμπτώματα	Ēventa	"Separable Characteristics"	"Accidents" "Symptoms"	Potential qualities, Incidental attributes
This outline is specific to Epicurus. For example, Aristotle uses τὰ συμβεβηκότα, with the sense of τὰ συμπτώματα.

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So... Did I get that exactly opposite??

Quote from TauPhi

so-called accidents* - τά συμβεβηκότα

Just to be clear for anyone reading this, TauPhi 's footnote is exactly right:

Accident (philosophy) - Wikipedia

Quote

An accident (Greek συμβεβηκός), in metaphysics and philosophy, is a property that the entity or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. An accident does not affect its essence, according to many philosophers. It does not mean an "accident" as used in common speech, a chance incident, normally harmful.

Philosophically speaking then, as I understand, my having a beard is one of my accidents; my being a human is an attribute of mine.

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Bryan

We smell and see the film that comes from our meal, for example.

Ok now *there* is another potential issue. I thought that "images" are received directly by the mind, without going through the eyes, and that the "images" technically speaking are not visible or otherwise detectable by the five senses. Is that not the implication of the discussion in Book 4 of Lucretius, and the implication of what Cicero says to Cassius about the mind selecting images as involved in thinking of someone who is not present?

My understanding is that *all* our sensations are based on "images"/fields/eidola. The mental faculty simply picks up the finest, most subtle images. But all sensations are based on touch, from the sense of touch itself to vision touching the images emitted by objects, to the mental faculty touching the finest most subtle fields.

Of course, we now know that this isn't how our senses actually work. But Epicurus posited a completely material theory of sensation, so he gets kudos for that.

The one I seem to return to again and again is at the ending of On Nature, Book 28, where Epicurus has gone on for feet of a scroll, he says, "So let the words which we have prattled suffice for the present." and the verb there is specifically a form of ἀδολεσχέω “to talk idly, prate” so it seems to me that Epicurus is being self-effacing. I really like that.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Α α, , ἀδι^κο-χρήματος , ἀδο-λεσχέω

Quote from Cassius

a luminary in the world of library science

LOL 🤣 Please... Don't.... Stop. But seriously, "luminary" is FAR too kind (read: hyperbole).

Quote from Cassius

in an adjoining state so there may be some rivalry involved

Friendly rivalry Even Ohio and Michigan get along and cooperate in the library world.

Quote from HollyGraves

circulation assistant

Hey! Y'all in Lending keep the materials flowing to the people and you're on the frontlines of public service. Kudos!

Crash Course Pods: The Universe

Dr. Katie Mack, a theoretical astrophysicist, walks #1 New York Times bestselling author John Green through the history of the entire universe - including the…

crash-course-pods-the-universe.simplecast.com

A great limited series podcast on the *entire* history of the universe. Accessible and fascinating. I've been enjoying it greatly myself.

Quote

Dr. Katie Mack, a theoretical astrophysicist, walks #1 New York Times bestselling author John Green through the history of the entire universe - including the parts that haven’t been written yet.

Welcome to the forum

Quote from Remus

"Pleasure Activist" is my new phrase of the day.

The West is a guilt-culture, although some have observed that the Internet is changing it into a shame based culture. If so, I wonder if shame is any healthier than guilt.

I noticed that "title" too

Agree with the guilt. Considering the difference between "guilty pleasure" vs "shameful pleasure" is telling.

Quote from Kalosyni

Not sure if this translator is useful, or has already been mentioned:

https://akhos.net/

It seems a little wonky and only gives individual words definition by definition one word at a time. I would recommend simply going straight to Wiktionary.com. I think that's just what akhos is doing, so just bypass the intermediary and go straight to Wiktionary which gives links to LSJ and other sources.