Episode 335 - Not Yet Recorded

Welcome to Episode 335 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue in Book Two, where we will finish up Section 7 and take up Section 8

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here:

• Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Last week we incorporated material from Wikipedia and Diogenes Laertius on the Stoics.

This week we will likely jump off from this short section of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on "Ancient Greek Skepticism", as this is largely what we are about to hear from Cicero when Lucullus finishes speaking:

ii. Attack on the Stoics

In general, the Stoics were the ideal target for the skeptics; for, their confidence in the areas of metaphysics, ethics and epistemology was supported by an elaborate and sophisticated set of arguments. And, the stronger the justification of some theory, the more impressive is its skeptical refutation. They were also an attractive target due to their prominence in the Hellenistic world. Arcesilaus especially targeted the founder of Stoicism, Zeno, for refutation. Zeno confidently claimed not only that knowledge is possible but that he had a correct account of what knowledge is, and he was willing to teach this to others. The foundation of this account is the notion of katalêpsis: a mental grasping of a sense impression that guarantees the truth of what is grasped. If one assents to the proposition associated with a kataleptic impression, i.e. if one experiences katalepsis, then the associated proposition cannot fail to be true. The Stoic sage, as the perfection and fulfillment of human nature, is the one who assents only to kataleptic impressions and thus is infallible.

Arcesilaus argued against the possibility of there being any sense-impressions which we could not be mistaken about. In doing so, he paved the way for future Academic attacks on Stoicism. To summarize the attack: for any sense-impression S, received by some observer A, of some existing object O, and which is a precise representation of O, we can imagine circumstances in which there is another sense-impression S’, which comes either (i) from something other than O, or (ii) from something non-existent, and which is such that S’ is indistinguishable from S to A. The first possibility (i) is illustrated by cases of indistinguishable twins, eggs, statues or imprints in wax made by the same ring (Lucullus 84-87). The second possibility (ii) is illustrated by the illusions of dreams and madness (Lucullus 88-91). On the strength of these examples, Arcesilaus apparently concluded that we may, in principle, be deceived about any sense-impression, and consequently that the Stoic account of empirical knowledge fails. For the Stoics were thorough-going empiricists and believed that sense-impressions lie at the foundation of all of our knowledge. So if we could not be certain of ever having grasped any sense-impression, then we cannot be certain of any of the more complex impressions of the world, including what strikes us as valuable. Thus, along with the failure to establish the possibility of katalepsis goes the failure to establish the possibility of Stoic wisdom (see Hankinson [1995], Annas [1990] and Frede [1983/1987] for detailed discussions of this epistemological debate).

just a brief comment on where we are going on the podcast at the moment:

1 - We're going through Academic Questions to help us get a general grounding on the issues of knowledge and skepticism as they were understood at the time that Epicurean philosophy was flourishing in the ancient world.

2 - When we finish what we decide to do with Academic Questions (we don't have the time to go through every word of it), we are going to be in a position to tackle - and we will tackle - what's left of Philodemus' "On Signs" / "On Methods of Inference"

3 - And in case it's not clear where all this leads:

As best I can tell, those who claim to be modern Stoics have pretty much abandoned any interest in the true Stoic theory of knowledge. I am sure that there are many reasons for that, but I strongly suspect that one of the primary reasons is that modern Stoics in general run from the truth that Stoicism is essentially a theistic philosophy that makes no sense outside a supernatural-based intelligent design view of the universe.

We - at least the EpicureanFriends forum in general - are not going to take that position of neglect and supression in regard to Epicurus. The main hurdle we have is not that Epicureanism starts with a false view of the universe, or that we suspect the truth of the radical skepticism that overtook the Academics and other ancient philosophers. Our hurdle today is that for generations everyone has chosen to focus exclusively on tranquility and other issues which can be reconciled with the dominant Judeo-Christianity and Humanist mix that passes for moral consensus. As a result, most of us have very little understanding of the fundamentals what Epicurus was actually teaching - even in ethics. In canonics, most of us have only a tenuous idea - at best - of what the "prolepsis" discussion is all about.

By the time we finish with "On Signs" we should have a very clear understanding of the general direction of the Epicurean theory of knowledge. At that point I expect that most of us will then be in a position to confidently assert the Epicurean view of knowledge as one of the foundational aspects of Epicurean philosophy that it certainly is. And the rest won't have any reason for confusion about what it is they are actually rejecting.

To close with a good word for those who are "actual" Stoics - even today -- At least they aren't radical Skeptics!