Commentary and Translation of PD 24

Thanks Don ! Lots to think about. I'm particularly intrigued by the "true perceptions of the mind." Hmmm....

Great work Don! Thanks for preparing that!

What are our takeaways from this?

I would say first and most easily obvious he is saying that we should pay attention to all our faculties and the information that they provide to us (presumably because they are reported honestly and in this sense are "true"). That's probably pretty noncontroversial, except maybe if someone pursues the non-Epicurean reasoning that the senses are never to be trusted and should simply be ignored in favor of pure dialectical reasoning.

The deeper parts include:

(1) That the data from the "mental presentations' / anticipations" and also the feelings of pleasure and pain are entitled to equal consideration with the data from the five senses.

(2) That we should "wait" and hold open as at least potentially "true" all theories which have support from some date from some combination of the three faculties, and

(3) That we should be careful not to select from among the unrefuted possibilities any favorite or pet theory to hold as the only "true" possibility so long as other possibilities remain viable.

All of this is also presumably the foundation of affirming that "truth" comes to us through these three faculties and not from any other way which is NOT based on these three faculties (i.e. divine revelation, totally abstract logic / rationalism)

I would say one of the most continuously difficult parts is that of separating (1) instances of data provided by the "mental presentations/anticipations" from (2) conceptual reasoning, in which concepts are formed after a lot of thought and deliberation and reasoning. I continue to think that if we were to equate "mental presentations/anticipations" with "concepts" we would be confusing two distinct things (the process vs the result) into a single thing (the concept which the result of thinking) and we'd have a feedback loop which would introduce rationalism into the canon and would be why that Epicurus himself only had THREE legs, but the "other Epicureans (in my view mistakenly) came up with four.

Quote from Don

Are the epibolē and prolepses two facets of the same faculty? I believe we've discussed elsewhere on the forum the innate nature of the prolepses. The phrase phantastikē epibolē occurs in DL X.50 and 51

I would say almost certainly yes, they are two facets or descriptions of the same faculty. I agree with your comment that this listing of three almost certainly is intended to be a listing of the three legs of the canon. That is why I think there's so much work to do in understanding exactly what "an anticipation" really is. I think an anticipation/prolepsis/mental presentation/mental picture canNOT be a "concept" as we understand the term in logical reasoning, for example as with the concept of "capitalism" or the concept of "socialism" or whatever. Something that is "defined" in terms of "words" necessarily entails opinions about what to include, and therefore cannot be "canonical" or constitute a "mental picture" which is canonical.

But on the other hand a certain number of mental images probably constitutes at least part of the input that is eventually used to form a "concept." So what I am thinking is that these are parallel: the faculty of anticipations must be something like "sight." Sight is a faculty whereby the eyes assemble and process light. The anticipations would be parallel in that the "faculty of anticipations" assembles and processes mental pictures without thinking about them. But no single mental picture is a "concept" any more than a single photon or processing of light is a "sight." Cameras produce images but don't "think" about them. Our brains/minds presumably assemble all these things (input from eyes, ears, feelings, anticipations, etc) through pre-rational processes, and that "pre-rationality" is the essence of what I would think Epicurus would insist is required for a faculty to be described as canonical. If opinion is involved in producing something, then the result cannot be "trusted" or given the same level of authority as any of the three canonical faculties. If we do elevate a concept formed by reasoning to canonical status, then we have a feedback loop, and we have erased the distinction between the canonical faculties and opinions.

Error comes in opinion and the assembling and uses of opinions (the rational process). Whatever anticipations are, I firmly think that Epicurus saw them as "pre-rational," and that would fit a faculty that "automatically" assembles individual mental pictures just like the eyes and the ears assemble light and sounds without "thinking" about them.

Well I am not sure I can go much further! I think we're seeing that Epicurus's response to issues of "skepticism" and "knowledge"" was to focus on what those words meant and define as clearly as possible what it means to be "true" and "real" -- with the result that the rigorous conclusion is that "truth" for is what is or could be revealed to us through the canonical faculties. Asking for more than that --- asking for "certainty" -- implies a standard of proof that is impossible for a human being and is not even relevant to a human being in any way.

Within that kind of framework, what is "true" is what can be ascertained through the canonical faculties, and nothing else is or can be "true" or "real" to us.

As DeWitt says, Epicurus needed a standard of truth in the realm of relationships or abstractions - we need to go back and get his exact words - but I think that the problem arises when we say that the anticipations are standards of truth in the realm of "ideas." IDEAS are fully-formed concepts, and fully-formed concepts necessarily involved opinion and serve themselves as canonical "truth." Fully-formed ideas / concepts are highly useful and much to be appreciated, but they can never in themselves be considered "universal truths" that rise to the level of them always being true and real to individual humans.

Don in my mind this is where I always fall back to a passage from the 1770's book that I quote from by Jackson Barwis, his book against John Locke's argument against "innate ideas." Barwise defended not innate "ideas" but innate "principles of thinking." The book was entitled "Dialogue on Innate Principles." In that book (primarily chapter one of that book) Barwis argues that there is a huge distinction between innate IDEAS vs innate PRINCIPLES. Barwis argues that Locke and others are wrong to assert that there are innate *ideas*, but that there certainly are innate *principles of functioning* that go into ideas.

Here is the important section. Underlining is my emphasis Barwis is talking about innate "moral" principles here, but I think the point applies more widely to the issue of how "principles" are different from "ideas." I think the faculty of anticipations is dealing with the "principles' as discussed below, not with "ideas." We are not born with innate ideas, but we are born with a faculty that processes information in certain ways (according to certain principles):

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When I take a general view of the arguments adduced by Mr. Locke against innate moral principles; and when I see what he produces, as the most indisputable innate principles, “if any be so," I am inclined to think there must have been some very great mistake as to the true nature of the things in question: for he lays down certain propositions, (no matter whether moral or scientific, so they be but true) and then proves that such propositions, considered merely as propositions, formed by our rational faculty, after due consideration of things, as all true propositions must be, are not innate. Nothing more obvious! But surely those whom he opposes, must, or ought to have meant, (though I cannot say I have read their arguments, nor do I mean to answer for anyone but myself) not that the propositions themselves were innate, but, that the conscious internal sentiments, on which such moral propositions are founded, were innate.

He looked on me, interrogatively. I said it might be so, and that I saw a great difference in those things.

Or perhaps, continued he, the mistake may have arisen from following too closely the mode, in which it is necessary to proceed, in order to acquire a knowledge of certain sciences, as in geometry: that is, by laying down some clear and self-evident axioms, or rational propositions. But even here it should be remembered that, in the natures of things, there were principles which had existence anterior to the formation of these axioms or propositions, and on which they are founded, and on which they depend for their existence: as, extension and solidity.

-- I gave an assenting inclination of the head.

I cannot, therefore, conceive, added he, that what we ought to understand by innate moral principles, can by any means, when fairly explained, be imagined to bear any similitude to such propositions as Mr. Locke advances as bidding fairest to be innate, nor to any other propositions. That is, I cannot conceive that our innate moral principles, our natural sentiments, or internal conscious feelings, (name them how you please) which we derive, and which result, from our very nature as creatures morally relative, are at all like unto any propositions whatever.

Who can discover any similitude to any conscious sentiment of the soul in these strangely irrelative propositions: "Whatever is, is."
"It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be?"

– Nobody. –

The innate principles of the soul, continued he, cannot, any more than those of the body, be propositions. They must be in us antecedently to all our reasonings about them, or they could never be in us at all: for we cannot, by reasoning, create any thing, the principles of which did not exist antecedently. We can, indeed, describe our innate sentiments and perceptions to each other; we can reason, and we can make propositions about them; but our reasonings neither are, nor can create in us, moral principles. They exist prior to, and independently of, all reasoning, and all propositions about them.

When we are told that benevolence is pleasing; that malevolence is painful; we are not convinced of these truths by reasoning, nor by forming them into propositions: but by an appeal to the innate internal affections of our souls: and if on such an appeal, we could not feel within the sentiment of benevolence, and the peculiar pleasure attending it; and that of malevolence and its concomitant pain; not all the reasoning in the world could ever make us sensible of them, or enable us to understand their nature.

...

Even in the abstracted sciences of arithmetic and geometry, reason can create no principles in the natures of the things treated of. It can lay down axioms, and draw up propositions concerning numbers, extension, and solidity; but numbers, extension, and solidity, existed prior to any reasoning about them.

And here I must observe that the assent or dissent that we give to propositions in these sciences, which are but little interesting to our nature, is drawn from a source widely different from that which we give to moral propositions. Thus, when we are told that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, and see the demonstration; we say simply, true. That they are equal to three right angles; false. These things being irrelative to morals, they move no conscious sentiment, and do therefore only receive our bare assent or dissent as a mere object of sense; in the same manner as when we say a thing is, or is not, black or white, or round or square; we use our eyes, and are satisfied. But the truth or falsehood of moral propositions must be judged of by another measure; through a more interesting medium: we must apply to our internal sense; our divine monitor and guide within; through which the just and unjust, the right and wrong, the moral beauty and deformity of human minds, and of human actions, can only be perceived. And this internal sense must most undoubtedly be innate, as we have already shown; it could not otherwise have existence in us; we not being able, by reasoning, or by any other means, to give ourselves any new sense, or to create, in our nature, any principle at all. I therefore think Mr. Locke, in speaking of innate moral principles, ought, at least, to have made a difference between propositions relative to morals, and those which have no such relation.

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If you get interested in the entire argument, it is here:.

So the argument that I would make is that there must be some kind of innate mechanism that assembles mental pictures, and that did this mechanism not exist, we would never experience mental pictures in the first place. This mental picture mechanism functions "innately" - pre-rationally, and it can function in ways that we conclude are not "true to all the facts."

An example of that would be in Epicurus's letter to Menoeceus: "But they are not such as the many believe them to be: for indeed they do not consistently represent them as they believe them to be. And the impious man is not he who popularly denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many. For the statements of the many about the gods are not [pre]conceptions derived from sensation, but false suppositions, according to which the greatest misfortunes befall the wicked and the greatest blessings (the good) by the gift of the gods." (This is the Bailey version, and he insists on using "concepts." I inserted the [pre] because everyone else uses anticipations or prolepsis here rather than "concepts." This is why I am so unhappy with Bailey much of the time.)

And i gather that this is why Dewitt referred to the mind as a "supersensory organ"

Excellent thread! In a less scholarly vein regarding perceptions of the mind...

So I was just eating tortilla chips with my lunch. I picked up a chip and looked at it. I noticed a spontaneous memory of eating chips in the past, and also noticed a spontaneous anticipation of the pleasure I was about to experience. Eating the chip confirmed the truth of that pleasure.

In other words my sensations (vision, touch, smell) stimulated mental perceptions, in this case a spontaneous memory and anticipation of pleasure which served as a guide to action.

In reference to the fact that we may have multiple senses (up to 20?) senses and two feelings, it seems probable that we have several types of prolepses, of which this description is just one.

Just some food for thought. (ouch)

I agree that epibole tes dianoias (mental focus) and prolepseis (anticipations/stereotypes) are two facets of the same faculty. I also agree every sensation (the criteria of reality) is prerational.

All ideas that are based in reality must necessarily be based upon images.

If the idea is not based in reality -- not based on images -- then it is not a prolepsis but a hypolepsis (post conception, afterthought, supposition) [DL 10.124].

Πάσα φανταστική ἐπιβολή is something like “the entire graphic perception” “the full pictorial focus” “the complete visual attention.”

I think the use of φανταστική (‘graphic’) here is only further explaining the process of mental focus; the whole phrase is therefore equivalent to ἡ ἐπιβολή τῆς διανοίας (‘the focus of the mind’), which Lucretius translates as animī iniectus ‘a casting of mental energy’ or ‘a throwing out of the attention' [DRN 2.740].

Instead of using the modern analogy of ‘focusing’ the mind (as though the mind were something like a camera), Ἐπίκουρος and Lucretius use the analogy of ‘throwing’ or ‘casting’ the mind (as though the mind were something like a net). The paraphrases animī iniectus and ἡ επιβολή τῆς διανοίας therefore are equivalent to our modern use of ‘attention.’

Basically, we need to distinguish between sensations and ideas. Sensations are true per se, but ideas are only true if they accurately reflect our repeated sensations. If we accept any idea as true per se, without demanding any evidence, we have undermined our sensations which are the only foundation we have to accurately understand our environment.

Whoa, you guys are smart! This is erudite stuff!

So, for your entertainment, I'll throw another concept into the works: neurobiology and data segregation on entry.

The human brain is not evolved to discover abstract truth. It is evolved to determine reaction patterns, based upon what we have construed as "truth". If you look at the actual anatomy of information processing you will discover that as information comes in through the senses it literally passes by - for first appreciation - the limbic (emotive) system. This anatomical foundation is based on evolutionary survival issues. If a lion is coming at you and someone is offering you an ice cream cone, you better "ignore" the ice cream cone and pay attention to the lion, or it will be your last ice cream cone.

In brain processing, incoming information is sorted by this limbic assessment into "relevant", "not-relevant" and "curious". That which is deemed relevant - by the emotive systems - is retained for action determination. That which is deemed not-relevant-for-current-use is relatively side-stepped. That which is determined "curious" is sent on to the cortex for further analysis. Very interesting and potentially complex processing proceeds from there.

The relevance of this to the above discussion is that "truth" - within our appreciation of it - is assessed from sorted data, not absolute data. There is very interesting hard science related to this. And, this leads us to Hobbes: "Such truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome." He understood.

For an example of this processing problem you can see the following:https://www.npr.org/2010/05/19/126…visible-gorilla

There are many, many other objective-science examples of processing issues related to this "perception" problem.

So, you can add this to the erudite discussion above to see where it leads you.

Cheers,

Quote from BrainToBeing

If you look at the actual anatomy of information processing you will discover that as information comes in through the senses it literally passes by - for first appreciation - the limbic (emotive) system.

Just a lay-schlock’s question from recall: does this relate to Antonio Damasio’s research, finding that emotion (“the feeling of what happens”) – far from being something that ought to be removed from cognitive analysis and decision-making (ala, say, the Stoics) – is essential to proper cognitive functioning?

[I’m not sure I’ve even put that well; don’t let it derail the rest of the discussion here.]

Yes, basically. And you did put it well.

The analysis of the subject does depend on the evaluation of "proper cognitive functioning". We can say that the emotive system is built-in and central to how we process the world. Removing it from consideration (vis a vis Spock, at least the Vulcan part of him) doesn't work for our species. It actually leads to worse existential anguish. So, "proper cognitive functioning" needs to consider what emotions tell us. However, the degree to which that is a focus depends upon the situation. Over-utilization of emotions leads to a type of chaos, over-reactivity, and distraction from analysis. Under-utilization leads to failure to understand those often-hidden but important "subconscious" beliefs, values, and expectations that frame our perspectives of the world. Emotions tell us about these. Paying attention to emotions helps us to understand what is really driving our reaction patterns (why we get upset about something "little", or why a person "rubs us the wrong way", for examples). Overall this is a long discussion.

There are varying viewpoints on this subject. The main perspective is that we do, objectively, have the emotive system and if we want to function well overall we need to understand its role and what it tells us.

Cheers.