Innovations/Updates in Epicurus Philosophy

Excellent question, Matteng!

Regarding the fourth criterion of the canon, I will simply point the way to Prof. David Glidden's Epicurean Prolepsis. It won't furnish any answers, but in it he does attempt to explain why the question itself is extremely confusing, and why we should tread carefully.

Regarding the passage you have quoted from Hiram's essay, we have direct evidence of this method in the Letter to Pythocles:

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[95] for in our own experience we see many things which shine by their own light and many also which shine by borrowed light. And none of the celestial phenomena stand in the way, if only we always keep in mind the method of plural explanation and the several consistent assumptions and causes, instead of dwelling on what is inconsistent and giving it a false importance so as always to fall back in one way or another upon the single explanation. The appearance of the face in the moon may equally well arise from interchange of parts, or from interposition of something, or in any other of the ways which might be seen to accord with the facts.

[95] καὶ γὰρ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν θεωρεῖται πολλὰ μὲν ἐξ ἑαυτῶν ἔχοντα, πολλὰ δὲ ἀφ᾽ ἑτέρων. καὶ οὐθὲν ἐμποδοστατεῖ τῶν ἐν τοῖς μετεώροις φαινομένων, ἐάν τις τοῦ πλεοναχοῦ τρόπου ἀεὶ μνήμην ἔχῃ καὶ τὰς ἀκολούθους αὐτοῖς ὑποθέσεις ἅμα καὶ αἰτίας συνθεωρῇ καὶ μὴ ἀναβλέπων εἰς τὰ ἀνακόλουθα ταῦτ᾽ ὀγκοῖ ματαίως καὶ καταρρέπῃ ἄλλοτε ἄλλως ἐπὶ τὸν μοναχὸν τρόπον. ἡ δὲ ἔμφασις τοῦ προσώπου ἐν αὐτῇ δύναται μὲν γίνεσθαι καὶ κατὰ παραλλαγὴν μερῶν καὶ κατ᾽ ἐπιπροσθέτησιν, καὶ ὅσοι ποτ᾽ ἂν τρόποι θεωροῖντο τὸ σύμφωνον τοῖς φαινομένοις κεκτημένοι.

The word translated as method in this passage is τρόπος, trope, or way. The way of manifold explanation; when confronted with a strange new phenomenon (φαινομένων), one should begin be considering the various natural hypotheses (ὑποθέσεις) or potential causes (αἰτίας) that might possibly have given rise to the phenomenon. These potential explanations must harmonize with sense perception, and also with known facts. All of this is in contrast to the way of the single explanation, which constitutes an arbitrary selection of one possible explanation to the exclusion of all others.

It's important to remember that the purpose of this exercise is not to develop a robust or rigorous scientific explanation for every phenomenon. The purpose is to eradicate fear. For example; are bolts of lightning hurled down by Zeus in order to punish hubris, as in the myth of Phaeton? There is no reason to think so; that is just one possible explanation, and that particular explanation isn't even a good one. As Lucretius notes (book 2, line ~1100), thunderbolts are often seen to strike the temples of Olympian Zeus himself. The explanation, in other words, does not accord with known facts.

Quote from Matteng

in one of Hirams essays about the 4. criterion of the Canon he mentions rules for Innovations or Updating the Philosophy.

This is one of the basic differences between Hiram's approach and that which I set out to accomplish here in forming EpicureanFriends. Our focus is on understanding the philosophy as it was originally taught, which we are all including me very far from doing, not attempting to account for every "what-about" that has occurred over the last two thousand years.

We inevitably do some of that here and i don't see anything wrong with some amount of discussion on this, and I have a lot of respect for Hiram personally and for his enthusiasm for Epicurus.

However I do want to say that it's likely I'm going to moderate this thread to keep it from getting out of hand and distracting us from our core mission. For an example of how that can happen, we still have on the forum one of our longest threads from many years ago when we attempted (and failed) to hammer out a common approach on how to "organize" our efforts. I encourage people on the forum now to read over that thread because it's a very interesting discussion of how people can be generally on the same team but see game plans very differently.

Those who are really interested in pursuing "Neo-Epicureanism" - which is against one of our most clear site rules, should pursue that at Reddit or some other location. I wish them well in doing so, but this is not the place to pursue that in the way that some would like.

Again I'll say that a general discussion is probably ok. But everyone who wants to talk about some aspect of Physics needing to be updated is in my opinion mainly displaying that they do not yet understand Epicurus' approach to physics, which focuses on ultimate conceptual issues (e.g. infinite divisibility) rather than contemporary opinions on limited data. That is exactly the reason for our rule against pursuing "neo-Epicureanism."

Quote from Matteng

Which basic principles are close to be „timeless“ or “hardcore“ ?

That's what we pursue in discussion about the principles which are listed on the front page as the focus of the work here. We've had much discussion about those in the past and more discussion is welcome.so long of course as it's in the spirit of "this is what Epicurus actually taught" and not something that someone thinks he should have taught.

To some extent that includes the "fourth criteria" of the canon. That in itself is clearly stated by Diogenes Laertius to be something that later Epicureans added, and as Norman DeWitt argues, they added it because they did not understand the circularity that it creates by including in the canon something that is created by our own mental processing of the data from the senses, rather than from automatic functioning without opinion.

That too is something that sincere people disagree on, but as we can see in Torquatus there was already a tendency to water down after he was gone- in terms of the argument for friendship - what Epicurus had taught when he was alive.

I am sure we've had previous discussions on that and we can link to those and pursue them further, because clearly the present impressions of the mind are involved in Epicurean epistemology. But we're already on thin ice when embracing a formulation that Epicurus himself did not embrace.

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I don't mean this post to sound harsh Matteng because I know you are sincere and I know you haven't been involved in our past discussions on these issues. Every so often it's going to be appropriate to air them all out again so people can know where everyone stands. This difference in approaches is why we have at least two separate websites devited to the study of Epicurus in different ways, and in truth there are many more approaches, such as that at the Twentiers website and the website of the Athenian Garden in Greece.

We are all pursuing the study of Epicurus as we see best, and it's my strong opinion that we're all making better progress pursuing out individual threads than we would be if we were constantly "turned off" by the approach of people who are friends but who see things differently.

Also while this topic is on my mind:

it's always important to be clear here as to exactly what we are talking about. When some hear"innovation" or "Updates" they are thinking about "let's talk about applying Epicurean ethics and ideas to modern situations.

And of course that's what we want to do.

That relates to another point:

We are running a discussion forum that caters to nonspecialists, and (to be honest) people who have a generally middle class Americans/ European worldview and are focused on wanting to live happier lives. We do have many people from whom English is not their first language, and we welcome anyone sincerely interested in Epicurus, but we are definitely not catering to a specialist/academic orientation that likes to pursue every rabbit as far down a trail as they can go. People on the forum see "latest posts" and if we get too far off into specifics that are not of general interest, then then adversely impacts the mission of the forum.

So that in itself is a very significant factor in theorizing about "innovations" in core ideas.

Thanks to Joshua for his post which I did not previously see.

As to the "fourth criteria" we have this earlier thread which explains the DeWitt position. Again, I'm by no means saying it is ridiculous to talk about the present impressions of the mind. The issue is what rank to give it and how to consider it, and clearly Epicurus himself did not consider there to be four criteria - his were the sensations, anticipations and feelings. To talk of "four criteria" is to presumptively take a position on an issue that is not at all settled in that direction, and which in fact is not the way Epicurus himself spoke. This is the hazard I was referring to earlier. Someone new to Epicurus and reading about "four criteria" as if it were a given that that was Epicurus' approach is going to be immediately misled.

Thread

Thoughts On The Alleged "Fourth Leg of the Canon"

I don't have time for a long post but I wanted to start this topic with a couple of general thoughts which are prompted by our recent discussions of images in book four of Lucretius, plus the articles from the Encyclopedia Brittanica (thanks Nate) as to the development of skepticism within the Academy, as well as the Stoic/Academic interplay involving how the Stoics attempted to remain dogmatic. Let me particularly highlight this paragraph:

[…]

Now as to the Epicureans, here is the primary…

Cassius

May 3, 2021 at 8:49 AM