Episode 166 - The Lucretius Today Podcast Interviews Dr. David Glidden on "Epicurean Prolepsis"

    Quote from Martin

    Once the result is verbalized, we have already confounded it with cognition, and then it may appear to be rather arbitrary to assign what level introduced the error.

    Quote from Martin

    As both sensations and prolepses are non-verbal, it is not straight-forward to determine whether they are true or false in a particular instance. Once the result is verbalized, we have already confounded it with cognition, and then it may appear to be rather arbitrary to assign what level introduced the error.

    I agree with that and think it is helpful to think of all legs of the canon as "non-verbal," and then to consider whether some (or all?) meanings of "true" and "false" only apply to the verbal level.

    If all meanings of "true" and "false" only apply to the verbal level, then the canon is lost.

    To keep the canon, we need somehow be able to establish the truth of its pillars in particular instances.




    Those clips are from the book. DeWitt's article on the subject - with very pithy summary paragraph - is here:


    File
    Norman DeWitt - "Epicurus - All Sensations Are True"
    DeWitt's interpretation of the "all sensations are true" controversy.
    Cassius


    I think all this is important in how we understand the Democritus quote:


    Quote from Democritus

    By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void. (trans. Durant 1939)[2].


    "Convention" implies "agreement" to most of us, and yes that is true in regard to what word we use for "sweet" - what language we speak. But it is not by agreement with other people that sugar tastes sweet to us - we describe it that way in words, but "in truth" it is nature telling us individually and directly that sugar tastes a desirable way and gives pleasure. That feeling is just as true and real no matter what words we use to describe it, and it exists before we attempt to express anything about the sugar in words.


    Democritus' statement as worded is easy to understand as nihilistic - as saying that nothing exists unless we agree it exists other than atoms and void.


    Seems to me Epicurus is much more clear about all this (and in fairness to Democritus he might have been too if we had more of his texts).


    The important take away is not that only atoms and void have a claim to be considered real, but that for us as humans what has a claim to be real is what nature allows us to perceive through the canonical faculties. That's the opposite of nihilism - it tells us (as against religion that points to another world) that it is THIS world that we perceive through our faculties that is everything to us.

    Quote from Cassius

    Democritus' statement as worded is easy to understand as nihilistic - as saying that nothing exists unless we agree it exists other than atoms and void.

    For me, it doesn't read that way. I've always taken it as a bare statement of fact. To try and imbue existence - let's get personal, your existence or mine - with some transcendent or ultimate meaning is, by definition, a meaningless endeavor. We're ALL, at the core, temporary patterns of atoms in the void. But not JUST atoms and void. We do have a real life and interact with real things in a real cosmos at the macro level of everyday existence. We don't experience ourselves as atoms and void, but we should keep that thought at the back of our minds, especially when we hear "God has a plan for me" or "The Universe is showing me a path." We give our lives meaning, and we can experience a pleasurable existence. But that doesn't mean we aren't, at our foundation, atoms moving in the void (or whatever modern paraphrase one wants to use).

    Quote from waterholic

    One thing is clear for me personally: I still have LOTS to read ;)

    I think that's a key insight for everyone including especially me. No matter how much we've read, it's the constant effort to organize it in our minds and then look for new ways to express it to others that is really motivational and keeps you moving forward.

    Christos Tsigarides sends this at Facebook:


    David Glidden must see this On the left of the picture is an old shrine in my village overlooking my city of VOLOS and PELION the place of CENTAURS I found this very important on 52,3 minutes of his lecture This is one of the two shrines on the two entrances to the village