The Twelve Fundamentals - Discussion on Lucretius Today Podcast

Clay provides at least two lists of ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΩΜΑΤΑ (STOIKHEIOMATA), with very minor differences. Also, I note that Clay does not try to reconstruct the same ΔΩΔEKA ΣTOIXEIΩΣEIΣ (DODEKA STOIKHEIOSEIS) that De Witt does (the "Twelve"). He omits the Propositions about uniform atomic motion and the atomic swerve.

In Paradosis and Survival (12), he writes:

1. “Nothing comes into being out of nothing.” (EH 38.8-39.1, DRN I 145-150, 159-160)

2. “Nothing is reduced to nothing.” (EH 39.1-2, DRN I 215-218, 237)

3. “The universe always was as it is and always will be.” (EH 39.1-2, DRN II 294-307; V 359-363) (Atomic Theory; Quantum Field Theory)

4. “The universe is made up of bodies and void.” (EH 39.6-40.2, DRN I 418-428)

5. “Bodies are atoms and their compounds.” (EH 40.7-9, DRN I 483-486)

6. “The universe is infinite.” (EH 41.6-10, DRN I 958-1001)

7. “Atoms are infinite in number and space extends without limit” (EH 41.11-42.4, DRN I 1008-1020)

8. “Atoms of similar shape are infinite in number, but the variety of their shapes is indefinite, not infinite.” (EH 42.10-43.4, DRN II 522-527)

9. “Atomic motion is contstant and of two kinds.” (EH 43.5-44.1, DRN II 95-102 [I 952])

10. “Atoms share only three of the characteristics of sensible things: shape, weight, mass.” (EH 54.3-6, DRN II 748-752)

In Lucretius' Translation of Greek Philosophy (35-39), Clay writes:

1. “Nothing is created out of nothing” (DRN I 145-150, 159-160)

2. “Nothing is reduced to nothing.” (DRN I 215-218, 237)

3. “The universe is made up of two components: body and void.” (DRN I 418-428)

4. “Body is understood as atoms and their compounds.” (DRN I 438-486)

5. “Atoms share only three of the characteristics of sensible things: shape, weight, mass.” (DRN II 748-752)

6. “Atomic motion is constant and of two kinds.” (DRN I 952)

7. “The universe is infinite.” (DRN I 958-864)

8. “The atoms are infinite in number, and space extends without limit.” (DRN 1008-1020)

9. “Atoms of similar shape are infinite in number, but the variety of their shapes is indefinite, not infinite” (DRN I 1008-1020)

Clay also has a slightly different version in Lucretius and Epicurus, but I do not have access to it. They are essentially the same, but Clay never presents the same list in the same order twice.

Quote from Nate

Clay also has a slightly different version in Lucretius and Epicurus, but I do not have access to it. They are essentially the same, but Clay never presents the same list in the same order twice

That's the primary problem with trying to reconstruct a lost text with NO surviving fragments. My understanding is that the ONLY reference to the "Twelve Fundamentals" is the one in Diogenes Laertius: colour varies with the arrangement of the atoms he states in his "Twelve Rudiments". Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί ; further, that they are not of any and every size ; at any rate no atom has ever been seen by our sense.

Epicurus uses στοιχεῖα in the letter to Menoikeus (123) to refer to the elements of the noble/good life: στοιχεῖα τοῦ καλῶς ζῆν.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, στοιχεί-ωσις

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, στοιχεῖον

Without at least some fragments, there's no way to know what the Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί discussed. Who knows? Epicurus could have been talking about something else and brought in the color and size of atoms to make a point about our senses. Maybe the Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί were about those who say we can't trust our senses and Epicurus was laying out why we could. There's no way to know again without at least some fragments of papyrus or other references.

PS. The only reference to a "twelve" of anything in the surviving fragments of Diogenes' wall inscription is: For if the pain takes a turn for] the worse, it no longer continues severely, but the crisis comes and passes away in the shortest time; while if it is relieved, it ushers the creature to health. What then, in the name of the twelve gods, is terrible about that? Or how can we justly bring a complaint against nature, if someone who has lived for so many years and so many months and so many days [comes to his last day?]

PPS: If I'm missing a key reference or textual fragment of the Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί, please don't hesitate to point me towards it! If love to be wrong about the one reference in Laertius.

I took a look through my copy of Dewitt and he goes on and on about the Twelve Elementary Principles... But with what authority? He just states, with no citation to an actual text, things like:

The procedure was regularly from the general to the particular. The truths of Physics were reduced to Twelve Elementary Principles. These

corresponded to a general map, affording a panoramic view of the nature of things. Of the Twelve Principles the most important was the third:" The universe consists of atoms and void."

How can he state this so matter-of-factly? What is her basing this statement on? How does he know this is the third principle? Did I miss Lucretius expounding the Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί? I've tried to get just twelve principles from the letter to Herodotus and it's not easily done. Without question, Epicurus wrote a work called Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί but Diogenes doesn't list it among the most important works of the philosopher. Is it a later compilation? And are we sure it's about physics as I asked in my previous post. I respect Dewitt's scholarship (mostly), but many times he flies off in flights of fancy with, from what I can see, little to back it up.

Okay, since I couldn't find anything in DeWitt or in Clay to satisfy me, I went through and picked out ALL of the uses of the word στοιχεῖον (as in Δώδεκα στοιχείωσις) and its variations within Diogenes Laertius, Book X. It's used 5 times within the letter to Herodotus (the most within Book X). I've included both the Greek and English (Hicks) from the Perseus Project below for everyone's inspection. Unfortunately, I have not had time (nor do I plan to take the time!) to go and search within Philodemus or the extant On Nature fragments. Sorry. Life is too short

(30) Canonic forms the introduction to the system and is contained in a single work entitled The Canon. The physical part includes the entire theory of Nature : it is contained in the thirty-seven books Of Nature and, **in a summary form, in the letters.** (**καὶ ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς κατὰ στοιχεῖον**)

The usual arrangement, however, is to conjoin canonic with physics, and the former they call the science which deals with **the standard and the first principle, or ***the elementary part*** of philosophy (περὶ κριτηρίου (kriteriou) καὶ ἀρχῆς (arkhes), καὶ ***στοιχειωτικόν (stoikheiotikon)***), while physics proper, they say, deals with becoming and perishing and with nature.

(34) They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined; and that there are two kinds of inquiry, the one concerned with things, the other with nothing but words.So much, then, for his division and **criterion in their main outline**. (καὶ τοῦ κριτηρίου στοιχειωδῶς.)

From the Letter to Herodotus:

(35) Those who have made some advance in the survey of the entire system ought to fix in their minds **under the principal headings an *elementary outline* of the whole treatment of the subject** (ἐν τῇ τῶν ὅλων ἐπιβλέψει τὸν τύπον τῆς ὅλης πραγματείας τὸν *κατεστοιχειωμένον*). For a comprehensive view is often required, the details but seldom.

(36) ...since it is the privilege of the mature student to make a ready use of his conceptions by referring every one of them to ***elementary facts and simple terms** (πρὸς ἁπλᾶ στοιχειώματα καὶ φωνὰς (apla phonas "simple terms")).

(37) Hence, since such a course is of service to all who take up natural science, I, who devote to the subject my continuous energy and reap the calm enjoyment of a life like this, have prepared for you just such **an epitome *and manual* of the doctrines as a whole** (τινὰ ἐπιτομὴν (epitome) *καὶ στοιχείωσιν* τῶν ὅλων δοξῶν).

(44) But that colour varies with the arrangement of the atoms he states in his "Twelve Rudiments" (τὸ δὲ χρῶμα παρὰ τὴν θέσιν τῶν ἀτόμων ἀλλάττεσθαι ἐν ταῖς Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί φησι.)

(47) For if it changed its direction, that would be equivalent to its meeting with resistance, even if up to that point we allow nothing to impede the rate of its flight. **This is an *elementary fact* which in itself is well worth bearing in mind.** (χρήσιμον δὴ καὶ τοῦτο κατασχεῖν *τὸ στοιχεῖον*.) (NOTE: This is the one mention that gets close to stating this is one of the elements: Something like "Atoms don't change their direction or speed"??)

From Letter to Pythocles:

(86) We do not seek to wrest by force what is impossible, nor to understand all matters equally well, nor make our treatment always as clear as when we discuss human life or explain the principles of physics in general--for instance, that the whole of being consists of bodies and intangible nature, or **that *the ultimate elements of things* are indivisible** (ὅτι ἄτομα *<τὰ> στοιχεῖα*), or any other proposition which admits only one explanation of the phenomena to be possible.

From Letter to Menoikeus:

(123) Those things which without ceasing I have declared unto thee, those do, and exercise thyself therein, holding them to be ** *the elements* of right life**.(στοιχεῖα τοῦ καλῶς ζῆν)

Clay says "His (Epicurus's) language makes it plain that he regarded the nine propositions set out earlier in the letter as stoicheia... "kai de touto" looks back to the stoicheiomata and their usefulness." I'm still unclear on how Clay is slicing the Letter to Herodotus to come up with only nine stoicheiomata, and the number is clearly 12 "elements." So, why would Epicurus only include 9?

I *think* I'm willing to accept that the Δώδεκα στοιχείωσις *probably* referred to the physics of Epicurus, BUT in Section 30, Diogenes Laertius specifically talks about Canonic being the στοιχεῖον... So, again, as I did earlier, I ask: Did the Twelve Elements refer to the atoms, void, physics stuff or did it refer back to the use of the senses within the canonic? Both DeWitt and Clay seem too self-assured for my full endorsement of their lists.

And I see what Clay was trying to do, I think, in calling the article after Epicurus's will. He's trying to say that even though Hermarchus is his philosophical heir, it is actually Lucretius who ends up being his "heir" because we get Lucretius's whole poem to carry on Epicurus's philosophy. Yeah, that's a little arcane.

Thoughts welcome!!

Don what do you make of Erik Anderson's translation of U56 that renders ΣTOIXEIΩΣEIΣ ΔΩΔEKA as "Doctrine of the Elements (12 Books)"? I just came across this, and after our discussion about the ΠPOTEPᾼ ΔEKATῌ ΓAMHΛIΩNOΣ I am considering the possibility that the δώδεκα στοιχειώσεις refers to a collection of works on particle behavior called "The Elements (i.e. Atoms) in 12 Books", rather than one book called "The Twelve Elementary Propositions".

<http://epicurism.info/etexts/epicurea.html#2>

Elsewhere in Book X of Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diognes uses στοιχειώμaτa ("elementary principles", "elementary outline") and στοιχεíωσιν ("first principles") to refer to "a digestible set of propositions about particles". Is στοιχειώσεις in this context referring to the "Element(al Propositions about particles)" or to "the Elements (which are particles)"? The difference could mean the difference between one work on theoretical propositions versus twelve books.

I continue to wonder, "why twelve?"

Nate , I had never seen that but I am definitely intrigued.

So, the form of that is:

ΣTOIXEIΩΣEIΣ ΔΩΔEKA

(or in upper & lower case, for comparison)

Στοιχειώδεις δώδεκα.

I was curious to see how the other sets of books were listed in Diogenes ' Book 10:

Περὶ φύσεως ἑπτὰ καὶ τριάκοντα.

On Nature (in) 37 (books)

Ἐπιστολικὰ περὶ Ἐμπεδοκλέους εἴκοσι καὶ δύο.

Letters concerning Empedocles (in) 22 (books)

Πρὸς τοὺς σοφιστὰς ἐννέα.

Against the Sophists (in) nine (books)

Πρὸς τοὺς ἰατροὺς τρία.

Against the Physicians (in) three (books)

There were others but those only used numerals. But these three here all use the number directly after the title and are translated, with no fanfare, as Title (in) X# (books).

I do notice that the form in Diogenes 10.44 is ταῖς Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί with the number preceding the "elements/principles." However, in looking at them placement of other numbers in relation to the noun they're modifying, some are before, some after. The placement of Δώδεκα between the definite article and στοιχειώσεσί leads me to interpret ταῖς Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί as "in The 12 Principles/ Elements." I'm not saying I couldn't be persuaded otherwise, but that's my current understanding.

Quote from Cassius

Diskin Clay has a discussion of these 12 in an article he wrote I believe by the title of something like "The Last Will of Epicurus."

I've looked at that paper (looking at it right now, in fact) and I'm not impressed with Clay's exposition. He writes about 10 stoicheiomata in the letter to Herodotus but there's really 12 (in relation to that title) so he adds two from the Tetrapharmakos. That just seems sloppy.

The reference to this mystery list/book/work is only mentioned in a scholia (scribal note added to a manuscript) at Diogenes Laertius 10.44:

He (Epicurus) says below that atoms have no quality at all except shape, size, and weight. But that colour varies with the arrangement of the atoms he states in his "Twelve Rudiments" ; further, that they are not of any and every size ; at any rate no atom has ever been seen by our sense.

So, according to that, the only thing we know for sure that the "Twelve Rudiments" contains is that "1. colour varies with the arrangement of the atoms." I'm not sure of that line that comes after, but, theoretically, the "Twelve rudiments" could include "2. atoms are not of any and every size" and "3. no atom has ever been seen by our sense." But that doesn't mean there's a simple list of 12 things. So, the work could be talking about the senses, not the physics. It seems it could have been translated as "The 12 Basics" or "The 12 Fundamentals."

LSJ:

στοιχεί-ωσις , εως, ἡ,

A. teaching, “ἀρετῆς” Hierocl. in CA11p.445M.; elementary exposition, “τῶν ὅλων δοξῶν” Epicur.Ep.1p.4U.; αἱ δώδεκα ς., a work by Epicurus, Id.Fr.56; ἡ ἠθικὴ ς., work by Eudromus, Stoic.3.268; “ς. καθολικαί” Phld.Rh.1.104 S.; τὰ ἁπλᾶ πρὸς στοιχείωσίν ἐστιν ἐπιτήδεια elementary teaching, Simp. in Cat.13.29.

2. doctrine of the elements, Gal.7.678, 15.175, 19.356.

Also:

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, στοιχεῖον

Quote from Don

The placement of Δώδεκα between the definite article and στοιχειώσεσί leads me to interpret ταῖς Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί as "in The 12 Principles/ Elements."

I just realized that that capital Δ delta wouldn't be in the original manuscripts. They were all "capital" letters in the early scripts. So, those "twelve basics" could simply have been part of another work, say a list of 12 foundational principles within Epicurus's On Nature. Literally, all that scholiast wrote was:

ΤΟ ΔΕ ΧΡΩΜΑ ΠΑΡΑ ΤΗΝ ΘΕΣΙΝ ΤΩΝ ΑΤΟΜΩΝ ΑΛΛΑΤΤΕΣΘΑΙ ΕΝ ΤΑΙΣ ΔΩΔΕΚΑ ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΩΣΕΣΙ ΦΗΣΙ

followed by - and these need not be included within the 12 the way the sentences are written - "Also they are not of every size; no atom has ever been seen by our senses."

ΕΝ in this case with the dative can mean simply "within, among" so if Epicurus is talking about 12 fundamental principles or giving a summary of something that includes 12 items within one of his works, that would still be ΕΝ ΤΑΙΣ ΔΩΔΕΚΑ ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΩΣΕΣΙ "among the 12 fundamentals."

Yeah, I'm not seeing this as "12 volumes" but rather as a summary of something with 12 items. Whether it's physics or sensation or the Canon or something else that needs to mention that color is a product of the arrangement of atoms, there's no way to tell from the context in Diogenes Laertius.

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Don

Whether it's physics or sensation or the Canon or something else that needs to mention that color is a product of the arrangement of atoms, there's no way to tell from the context in Diogenes Laertius.

And thus DeWitt and Clay set out to "reconstruct" the list by looking for the common foundational points in Lucretius and Letter to Herodotus, which seems to be a pretty reasonable approach. I am not aware of other attempts to do that but seems like a fruitful topic for future writing.

Yes and no. There's no way to tell what those 12 basics were (other than the 1, 2, or 3 stated there). For example:

Metrodorus in his Timocrates, whose actual words are : "Thus pleasure being conceived both as that species which consists in motion and that which is a state of rest."

Nor, again, will the wise man marry and rear a family : so Epicurus says in the Problems and in the De Natura.

It's likely that Metrodorus talked about things other than the species of pleasure in his Timocrates, and Epicurus wrote about more then marriage in Problems and in On Nature. We know Problems was a complete work because it's in the list that Diogenes gives.

As for the "12 basics" it could be the title of a work or a list in another work, and it could be 12 basic principles applied to the senses like color is due to the arrangement of atoms, sounds are due to the ...?, touch is due to ...?... And so on with dreams, memory, taste, etc. They could be 12 foundational ideas of physics. They could be 12... etc. There's simply no way to tell. It's a quote from a commentator citing a quote out of context from a work or excerpt.

PS: That's not to say one can't try to pull together a list of "fundamental physics principles" if one wants to, be that 9, 10, 12, 20, 40. But they should be under no illusions that these are "The Twelve Rudiments " referred to by the scholiast adding notes to the manuscripts.

I found a few discrepancies between the various attempts at reconstruction that can be points of exploration:

1. DeWitt identifies [a] the infinite multitude of particles and [b] the infinite extent of space as two different propositions, whereas every other reconstruction merges them into one. What gives?

2. Clay's list of 10 (of the 12) includes the proposition that [c] the universe always was as it is and always will be, but this proposition of a sort of temporal symmetry is not found in DeWitt's list. What gives?

3. Clay combines the ideas that [d.I] atomic motion is uniform and [d.II] atomic motion is of two kinds into one proposition. DeWitt separates them into two propositions. What gives?

4. In his Epistle To Herodotus, Epicurus contrasts particles that have recoiled to a distance with particles rebounding against other particles in a matrix of entangled particles. Elsewhere, he contrasts the recoiling due to collisions to the universal "fall" due to a particle's weight. Elsewhere, he includes the clinamen. I am reading either 3 or 4 kinds of motions: [I] the fall due to weight, [II] the clinamen due to internal motion, [III] the recoil due to collisions, and [III.b], the occasion when recoiling leads to particles being entangled in matrices that lead to the foundation of compounds and complex matter. How would Epicurus have arranged all of these ideas as propositions? (And how many?)

5. Why do the reconstructed lists specify two types of motion in one proposition, and yet introduce a third type of motion (the clinamen) as a separate proposition? Would Epicurus not have identified three kinds of motion?

6. Why does Clay omit (or not recognize) the proposition about [e] uniform motion?

Nate raises a number of good questions above. My suggestion?

1. Ignore both Dewitt and Clay
2. Go through the letter to Herodotus oneself
3. Come up with any number of foundational principles one wants because there's no way to know what those "12 Rudiments" were referring to.