Isonomia

I am in agreement with some of the last several posts and not in agreement with some, but I think mainly the answer to concern that this is Platonic is that it appears to me we have ample justification for projecting higher and lower forms of life based on what we see here on earth, so I think that is fully sufficient ties the full theory to reality and observation. Based on observing worms and below all the way up to humans and elephants and so many others, it seems to me very empirically reasonable to extend the attributes we do see to a wider scope of varieties that would exist if there are an infinite number of Earth's in the universe.

I absolutely see that as rigorously empiriical and not Platonic, and I feel sure that they would have argued that NOT to take that position would be a Platonic rejection of the variety we see here.

I think that a lot of what is missing here is that we have never undertaken a study of the "epicurean reasoning" theory and the best place to focus on that is probably Philodemus' "Methods of Inference" material.

So we need to figure how to devote some time to that.

The entire philosophy is ultimately based on things we cannot see or touch or sense (atoms) so we have to get comfortable with "true reason" and I don't think we're there yet.

And that's not unexpected because so little attention is paid to it. DeWitt can maybe get carried away but I think many of his points are highly insightful and one of them is (to my reading) that DeWitt was both an "empiricist" *and* a master logician and that these are not necessarily in conflict if you understand and apply those correctly.

Methods of Inference sounds valuable and I confess that I haven't spent a lot of time with it.

The issue here, to me, is that I don’t see how higher and lower life forms relate to the idea of isonomia as presented by Cicero. Higher and lower life forms, both known and unknown, I see as intuitively obvious based on the Epicurean viewpoint. But if the only description of isonomia that we have is Cicero's, then I don’t see isonomia as a pertinent concept in EP.

So I think that finding a proper definition of isonomia is necessary if we are to be able to accurately evaluate its place in the philosophy. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think that anyone here is questioning the existence of higher and lower life forms. It's just that Cicero seems to use isonomia to validate the divine, so if we think that isonomia is valid based on an agreed upon definition, then we need to evaluate what is meant by the divine, based on the definition of isonomia. That may lead right back to higher and lower life forms, but with my current understanding I don't see it doing so.

Of course when we're referring to Cicero we're referring to "Cicero's reporting of the Epicurean view" because Cicero himself wasn't advocating any of this.

If we didn't have Cicero's reports we'd still have the letter to Menoeceus talking about anticipations of the gods, and Lucretius talking about the "images" we receive of thelr lives of blessedness, and Epicurus himself talking about life in the rest of the universe and (I think? the gods in the intermundia - isn't that in the letters too?).

In my view what the fragments on isonomia give is a linkage to how they apparently extended their methods of reasoning in order to speculate further about the life of the gods. But what's also not clear is which came first and which is primary -- the "anticipations/images" argument for the gods, or the "physics/isonomia/no single thing of a kind" argument for the gods.

My best guess is that they developed alongside each other and were seen as mutually reinforcing, rather than one relying on the other.

But again if we can find a way to do it, it will really help if we can pull out DeLacey's appendix and then get into "Methods of Inference" so we can see how they grappled with the issue of reaching conclusions about things about which we can never get direct sense-based evidence.

Please see this post too for the place to pursue the question of the "logic" of isonomia:

Post

RE: Anticipations - Justice & Divine Nature

I am going to try to make some comments and point us to the reading material in this post here. It's been a long while since I read this myself so I am going to put a priority on rereading it now. (Yes Don, even before I finish reading Sedley's work on Lucretius! There is too little time!!!)

If anyone gets started ahead of me please post in that thread (the link that follows) and let's try to prompt each other to deal with those issues soon:

epicureanfriends.com/thread/?postID=13484#post13484

Cassius

August 23, 2021 at 1:56 PM

I’ve been chewing on isonomy and thinking about different kinds of infinities.

So, mortals have this annoying habit of dying whenever you try to count them all, and that is frustrating, considering that the total number of immortals never decreases. Mortals die all the time. Sometimes, all the mortals on a world die all at once. Sometimes, the total sum of mortals in the universe drops by trillions in a fraction of a second … but, the total sum of immortals in the universe never, ever, ever decreases. Epicurus supposes that there is a mathematical relationship between the value of these two sums (these two different evaluations of infinity).

My readings thus far haven't really provided me with a satisfying justification to see any meaningful value in the concept of isonomy ... so, I thought of another instance of comparative infinities:

Countless particles fall and fall through endless space, but never so much space that the particles become so distant that they never meet to form bodies (nor so many particles that the available space is always already occupied with other particles, and cannot facilitate movement). So, there can never be “too much space” compared to particles, nor can there be “too few particles” compared to space. Our universe hosts a healthy portion of particles-to-void. There is some cosmic variable that express the relationship between the infinte sum of endless space and the infinite sum of innumerable particles. They are both infinities, but not equal.

I wonder if this difference-of-infinities (countless particles vs. endless space) might inform my understand of isonomy (the fluctuating infinity of mortals vs. the stable infinity of immortals)?

I've found some correspondence, with the inspiration of atoms and void:

Perhaps cosmic isonomy is Epicurus' way of describing the ratio of mortals-to-immortals such that we have frequent interactions with mortals but only conceive of immortals. If there were a higher distribution of immortals, then we would have bumped into one. But we haven't. So the density of immortals must be less than that of mortals. Likewise, if there were less significantly less mortals than we observe, then perhaps we would rarely encounter another soul. But we don't. So in this regard, isonomy might provide another reason why first-hand knowledge of the gods is so limited, not just because they are geometrically tucked away from terrestrial forces in adobes between worlds, but also, because their total numbers are stable, and do not fluctuate like numbers of humans (or other animals), and that those numbers are comparatively rare.

This is all purely speculation, on my part.

At the same time, if we take a monolatrist interpretation of Epicurean theology, and suppose that everyone has their own "Zeus" inside of them, then the number of deities definitely does share a 1:1 correspondence with each mortal, 1 God/person. That's another thing I've been chewing.

Interesting thoughts Twentier. I don't have anything to add to your thinking at the moment, but this phrase in particular sparked my interest:

Quote from Twentier

but, the total sum of immortals in the universe never, ever, ever decreases

Are we sure that that is part of the theory? If so, why?

Is there something more going on to explain that, or is that exclusively a deduction from the view that if a class exists, then it exists and infinite number of times, and if so then "infinity never decreases" and so "the total sum of mortals in the universe never, ever, ever decreases"?

Quote from Cassius

Are we sure that that is part of the theory?

Nope, this is definitely just my own deduction.

Great post, thank you!

Quote from Twentier

mortals have this annoying habit of dying whenever you try to count them all

This make me think of Seleucus in Petronius' Satyricon who speaks of a recently dead man (Chrysanthus, part 42) saying "abiit ad plures -- he went over to the majority."