Episode 154 - "Epicurus And His Philosophy" Part 10 - The Canon, Reason, and Nature 01

It's my understanding that in generic terms that would be exactly what Plato advocated, that the senses are insufficient to give us reliable information about the true world. And I would think in support of that you can cite Diogenes of Oinoanda saying that Epicurus agreed that there is a flux, as D of O attributed to Aristotle, but that Epicurus held the flux not to be so fast that our senses could not apprehend it.

Very interesting and thank you Don! It is almost as if Diogenes Laertius was working from a list of questions that he wanted to address as to every philosopher, and that almost everything that he recorded about Epicurus comes from a desire to add in Epicurus' views to this list of topics that he wanted to cover. And that we could learn a lot by looking at what Diogenes Laertius records from that perspective.

If so, that would be entirely consistent with the Nikolsky article and his observation that by the time Diogenes Laertius was writing he (Diogenes) was influenced by the Division of Carneades. And that would lead to the conclusion that Diogenes Laertius was applying a method of analysis that was current to Diogenes' own time, but which was not necessarily reflective of the time of Epicurus):

Quote from Boris Nikolsky

If Epicurus did not divide pleasures into kinetic and static, the question arises where Cicero and Diogenes Laertius found this idea. We will be able to answer this question if we examine the context in which a classification of pleasures is normally proposed. Both Cicero and Diogenes speak about it when they wish to contrast Epicurus' doctrine with the Cyrenaics' views. According to them, the Cyrenaics recognized only one type of pleasure, pleasure in motion, whereas Epicurus admits two types - pleasure 'in motion' and pleasure 'in a state of rest.' Besides, it should be noted that in comparing Epicurus' and the Cyrenaics' ideas Cicero proceeds from a description of various ethic doctrines that goes back to Carneades and is related to Carneades' division of theories of the supreme good (divisio Carneadea): using the classification principle 'thesis - antithesis - synthesis', the author of this division contraposed the definitions of the supreme good as pleasure in motion, as the absence of pain, and Epicurus' view which he believed to synthesize both of these concepts. Probably, Cicero received this view of Epicurus' concept of pleasure through Antiochus of Ascalon, who, as Cicero himself reported, had often used the divisio Carneadea in his reasoning. Let us now look at the tradition upon which the text by Diogenes Laertius is based. .....

I've never bothered to read this before from Wikipedia:

Carneades (/kɑːrˈniːədiːz/; Greek: Καρνεάδης, Karneadēs, "of Carnea"; 214/3–129/8 BC^[2]) was a Greek philosopher^[3] and perhaps the most prominent head of the Skeptical Academy in ancient Greece.^[3] He was born in Cyrene.^[4] By the year 159 BC^{[citation needed]}, he had begun to attack many previous dogmatic doctrines, especially Stoicism and even the Epicureans^[5] whom previous skeptics had spared^{[citation needed]}. As scholarch (leader) of the Academy, he was one of three philosophers sent to Rome in 155 BC where his lectures on the uncertainty of justice caused consternation among leading politicians.^[6][7][8] He left no writings.^[9] Many of his opinions are known only via his successor Clitomachus. ^[10] He seems to have doubted the ability not just of the senses but of reason too in acquiring truth. His skepticism was, however, moderated by the belief that we can, nevertheless, ascertain probabilities (not in the sense of statistical probability, but in the sense of persuasiveness)^[11] of truth, to enable us to act.^[12]

^{Carneades is known as an Academic Skeptic. Academic Skeptics (so called because this was the type of skepticism taught in Plato's Academy in Athens) hold that all knowledge is impossible, except for the knowledge that all other knowledge is impossible}

^{German Wikipedia has more detail:}

Divisio Carneadea

Another method is what Cicero called it Divisio Carneadea ("Classification according to carnades"). It consists in the collection and classification of not only all the solutions to a problem that have been expressed so far, but also all possible solutions. Cicero illustrates this using the example of Goods theory. The individual arts or. Techniques such as medicine (healing art) or navigation (helmsman's art) have reference points for which they are studied and practiced (health or. safe seafaring). Reason is "art", the point of reference of which is "life", that is, according to Hellenistic understanding, the right life. Eudaimonie (Bliss, happy life, Latin vita beata). The nature of Eudaimonie and thus the way to it is controversial among the philosophers. First of all, there is a division of the teaching of goods according to the different views on the nature of eudaimony. Some seek eudaimony in experiencing pleasure, others in a state of painlessness, others in realizing the natural. Another principle of division that is combined with the first is the distinction according to the type of goal sought. Either the goal is something desired (for example, pleasure), the attainment of which is to bring about eudaimony, or the striving itself also contains the goal in itself, so that eudaimonia is realized even if there is no final success. For example, the Stoics see the pursuit of the natural as a goal in itself. The combination of both divisions results in six possible Eudaimon teachings. Additional possibilities arise if virtue is included as something sought.^[32] The variety of the possibilities put together should lead to the relativization of all teachings and thus to the insight that none of them may claim generality.

Quote from Don

I still think Epicurus (and Metrodorus and Philodemus) did use those categories; however, I think much ado has been made of them by later commentators.

But that's a conversation for another thread

Yes the important issue you've brought up here is how so much of what was recorded doesn't seem to be just a random list of what Epicurus was focused on, but an attempt to lay the philosophies against one another so the reader can compare and contrast them. So that when we find something significant in Epicurus we're likely to find the same issue discussed in Aristotle or Plato or the other previous schools, and if we go looking for those that will help us give context and meaning to what Epicurus was saying.

Episode 154 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we start Chapter 7 - "The Canon, Reason, And Nature"