Lining the two sources up like that is a reminder of DeWitt's view that the reference to "the Epicureans generally" adding a fourth criteria was arguably a mistake. The way you've translated that "focus of the mind" reference would appear to indicate that there's no reason to split the term into two, and that it's best to think of there being only three categories, with the third being something like "the faculty that is involved in the focusing of the mind" as what Epicurus originally set forth.
Posts by Cassius
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I agree, Godfrey. Also, of course, given the word "conception" is appropriate here is itself an indication that this is an idea and is past the point of preconception.
Great way to state it Bryan!
"Before they see their first example" is too early to have an anticipation, as the anticipations are a sense just like the others. We cannot see anything until we have something to look a
And that's a great clarification too. It's not like an innate idea of numbers is encoded at birth, what we're searching for is a description of a mechanism that swings into action as soon as it is exposed to ________, just like the eyes swing into action when they open and are exposed to light.
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Very good video! And while we're still searching for ways to say it precisely, I'd have to say that Yes "prolepsis is involved with numbers - and it seems to involve something "inmate" as in the example of the babies used in the video.
Before they have seen the first example of a difference in quantity, they have some kind of "etching" that tells them that difference in quantity is significant to them.
And I think that "before they have seen the first example" is where we need to focus as we try to describe a faculty of prolepsis. Not on how it gets more accurate with practice, but how and why it is there in the first place, just like pleasure and pain and the other faculties are also there at birth. Focusing on adults forming conceptions of oxes after seeing more and more of them is not the place to look.
I think this video illustrates the best way forward is to look again at babies, just like with pleasure and pain, at a time period when Nature is fully in control and there is no possiblity of corruption through mistaken opinion.
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So just for clarification, I have set up a "conversation" with those who volunteer to help with Quiz creation, and we'll use that conversation thread to tell each other about updates and discuss the details of the quiz questions. It would probably undercut the "fun" if we posted each comment and thereby gave away all the questions and answers before they were used more publicly.
So we'll continue to take in this thread discussion of those who wish to volunteer in the project, but the thread won't expand on a day to day basis as we will move that part to a private discussion. If you wish to add yourself to the conversation list and participate in updating the list, just post here and we'll add you to the conversation.
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1 - Great research work Bryan - thank you!
2 - (This is a poorly-thought-out comment but I will make it anyway) Consistent with that research and other things that we've discussed, it seems to me that LR's suggestion here:
Would that mean something like, the gods' properties of being 'immortal and indestructible' are definitional, but that the gods having the property of 'living being' is one of τὰ Συμβεβηκότα?
... might be plausible as I can see "being a living being" as being more important than "deathlessness." We could not conceive of a god not being a "living being," but we could conceive of particular a god voluntarily giving up its immortality, because a particular god might choose for some reason to stop acting to maintain its deathlessness. Is it not possible to imagine that a god too might choose to leave the theatre when for some reason (hard to describe) the play ceased to please it? At the very least, it would not make sense to deprive a god of the free will to make such a decision.
Edit - My eyes have trouble following the Greek so I'll just refer to separable and inseparable. So to restate what I wrote, I can see "being a living being" as being inseparable from godhood. If you aren't living you can't be a god. But I can see "incorruptibility' as being separable from godhood, because I can imagine a god choosing to exit the theatre, and actually I can't imagine depriving a god of such a power. I find it conceivable to say that a god who chose to exit the theatre was still, while he existed, a god, and I can't imagine "trapping" a god into a situation where he could not choose to stop existing.
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Oh that's great and we will very much appreciate your help! Let me set up a shared document that we can all work on together, and I will send a link by "conversation" to you and anyone else who is willing to help.
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This episode is now on Youtube:
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As another relevant analogy, we see Torquatus in On Ends arguing that Epicurus establishes the foundations of friendship, and implicitly justice, far more soundly by basing it on pleasure than do those who invoke fictional views of justice as established by gods or "Natural Law." Diogenes of Oinoanda makes much the same argument.
Torquatus:
[70] Men are found to say that there is a certain treaty of alliance which binds wise men not to esteem their friends less than they do themselves. Such alliance we not only understand to be possible, but often see it realized, and it is plain that nothing can be found more conducive to pleasantness of life than union of this kind. From all these different views we may conclude that not only are the principles of friendship left unconstrained, if the supreme good be made to reside in pleasure, but that without this view it is entirely impossible to discover a basis for friendship.
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I think Epicurus blows to pieces any concept of "universal" rights that is alleged go be based on or protected by a god of Nature in a Stoic kind of way
But replacing it is the acknowledgement that humans by nature experience pleasure and pain as motivations, and where pain is inflicted one can expect pushback. Sometimes we will choose pain and deal with the pushback, but Epicurus leads to acknowledgment that the results are up to us. If we want certain rights (and we do) then it is up to us to act to obtain and keep them.
That's a much more realistic way of looking at things, and since it more consistent with reality it's very arguably more effective.
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In regard to Don's notable beard, this is why I prefer how the 1743 edition translates Lucretius' "eventum" as "event" rather than accident.
Yes the philosophers seem to prefer to use the word, "accident," but in English parlance "accident" implies "fortuitousness" or "chance" in a way that should not be presumed.
It would probably raise the eyebrows of the normal person to think that it is an "accident" that Don has a beard worthy of Epicurus. It's much more appropriate to say that Don's beard is an "event" of Don's life, which conveys that it is an event that has occurred after much deliberate thought, rather than as an "accident" that Don lost his access to his razors through no input of his own.
Yes it is true that Don's beard could be removed from him without Don losing his identity, and that's what makes his beard an "event." But Don's beard surely should not be thought of to arise "by accident" any more than other emergent properties of bodies arise by "accident." Indeed, it's exactly the point of Epicurean physics - that emergent properties do not arise by the intention of gods, but neither do they arise "randomly" or by "chance" or "accident." Most things in the universe arise from the "laws of nature" that arise repeatedly, reliably, and predictably from the movement of the atoms through the void.
For those who find this topic interesting, we explored it further with the Latin from Lucretius in this thread:
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Strangely to me, I don't recall that DeWitt makes much reference to comparing "we cannot be born twice" to the "born again" statements of Christianity.
Is being "born again" an obvious question that arises to everyone everywhere? I wonder what the probabilities are that the Epicureans were known for this "can't be born twice" and that that infuenced the use of the analogy.
As for me, if I were an early Christian talking about miraculous salvation, my wishful thinking would focus on "never dying" or "staying young" but remaining at least a young adult. Even if I were a miracle worker I don't think I'd consider being literally "born again" to be particularly appealing, so I doubt I would have normally thought to talk in those terms.
Maybe Dewitt or others argue this somewhere and I am not aware of it.
John 3:1-21
3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus[a] by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again[b] ” he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.[c] 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You[d] must be born again.’ 8 The wind[e] blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
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The long discussion of images begins in section 26 of Book 4. I would say that Epicurus seems to be making a distinction about about our ability to perceive the retained "shapes" of the groups of atoms that stream off the surface of things, and that this retained shape would not necessarily be the same as seeing, hearing tasting etc. For example the reference below to perceiving them in sleep are presumably not involving the eyes because our eyes are closed when asleep?
But the references do seem to be dealt with as a group so it's going to be difficult to pull it apart. Some of this might apply to mirages and some might not, and then there's the separate discussion (somewhere else) about how images are involved before we walk or take other actions.
[26] But since I have taught of what manner are the beginnings of all things, and how, differing in their diverse forms, of their own accord they fly on, spurred by everlasting motion; and in what way each several thing can be created from them; and since I have taught what was the nature of the mind, and whereof composed it grew in due order with the body, and in what way rent asunder it passed back into its first-beginnings: now I will begin to tell you what exceeding nearly concerns this theme, that there are what we call idols of things; which, like films stripped from the outermost body of things, fly forward and backward through the air; and they too when they meet us in waking hours affright our minds, yea, and in sleep too, when we often gaze on wondrous shapes, and the idols of those who have lost the light of day, which in awful wise have often roused us, as we lay languid, from our sleep; lest by chance we should think that souls escape from Acheron, or that shades fly abroad among the living, or that something of us can be left after death, when body alike and the nature of mind have perished and parted asunder into their several first-beginnings. I say then that likenesses of things and their shapes are given off by things from the outermost body of things, which may be called, as it were, films or even rind, because the image bears an appearance and form like to that, whatever it be, from whose body it appears to be shed, ere it wanders abroad. That we may learn from this, however dull be our wits.
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My understanding is that *all* our sensations are based on "images"/fields/eidola. The mental faculty simply picks up the finest, most subtle images. But all sensations are based on touch, from the sense of touch itself to vision touching the images emitted by objects, to the mental faculty touching the finest most subtle fields.
As to "all sensations are based on touch," I would agree, that contact between atoms is the way all of them work - no "action at a distance" without touch.
But I think we ought to dig further, presumably into book 4 of Lucretius, to clarify whether smell or touch or taste, for example, are based on "images."
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We smell and see the film that comes from our meal, for example.
Ok now *there* is another potential issue. I thought that "images" are received directly by the mind, without going through the eyes, and that the "images" technically speaking are not visible or otherwise detectable by the five senses. Is that not the implication of the discussion in Book 4 of Lucretius, and the implication of what Cicero says to Cassius about the mind selecting images as involved in thinking of someone who is not present?
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Bryan would you agree or disagree with saying that the difficulty of prolepsis operates on "images?"
And do you see any connection between the Centaur / image example in Lucretius and prolepsis?
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I think we are at least 99% together, maybe more, except possibly for this:
In some circumstances you may sense many trees around you, at other times you may sense guilt from the circumstances, at other times you may sense the gods.
It sounds like you're talking about some kind of "intuition" or "intuitive sense," and I am open to that wording at least in part because I think that's the direction DeWitt goes.
But I am having a hard time getting a grip on how to explain "intuition" in clear terms. Is it the difference between Windows95 and Windows 11 in terms of much more advanced processing power, or is it the difference between a computer with a keyboard vs a computer with lots of additional peripheral input devices, or what kind of analogy or explanation can be given to "intuition?"
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I'm reminded of a guy several years ago on the Stoicism subreddit. He got--or thought he got--a tattoo of Epictetus, but the bust he chose was actually one of Epicurus 😁
And that is why we have on our "research list" further investigation into those statues from Herculaneum, right Joshua? On deck right after the Dunster thread-starter?
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You're making a distinction there Bryan that I want to be sure I understand. To be clear about my own view:
1 - I think that Epicurus thought that a solid case exists that the type of gods he is talking about not only serve a very useful purpose to reverence, but also that such beings do exist somewhere in the universe. So I think he would say that his evidence and argument mean that the statement "gods exist somewhere in the universe and are blessed and imperishable" is a true opinion. (I know some disagree with that, but that's my personal view.)
2 - I think however that I would not describe "gods exist somewhere in the universe and are blessed and imperishable" as a "sense." I would describe "gods exist somewhere in the universe and are blessed and imperishable" as statement or proposition or an opinion that I have adopted based significantly in part on the operation of a "sense" that assists me in the process of organizing the evidence and that "tells" me, in reaction to the opinion, that the opinion seems valid. Maybe here I might describe that at least in part as a "sense of confidence" that I sometimes have about opinions that are surely true, vs. a much less confident feeling I have when an opinion is on shaky ground. Talking about this reminds me that somewhere in the distant past of the forum there were comments made by some to the effect that a "sense of confidence" might be a part of the prolepsis picture.
3 - I think most of us agree that pleasure and pain are highly analogous to a "sense," in that we say we "feel good" or "feel bad" and the "feel" in that sentence seems naturally to associate with feeling smooth or rough or seeing color or hearing sound. But I still think to bring any clarity to this we would have to be more specific about "what" a faculty of prolepsis "processes" as its function. And the closer we get to saying that prolepses processes "ideas" such as "guilt" - such as to say that "feeling guilty comes only after a real and automatic sense of guilt" - then the further that intrudes into the conceptual reasoning process where true and false apply. In the case of justice or guilt, I'd be more apt to say that the prolepses is processing the "relationships" (possibly the relationships of the atoms in the images that we are processing), and that it is then the feeling of pleasure and pain that comes into play to assess whether we find the particular relationship agreeable or not.
So what I am looking for a position on is whether "gods exist and are blessed and imperishable" *IS ITSELF* a prolepsis, or - from the point of view of Epicurus - whether it is a "true opinion that has been formed taking into account the operation of the proleptic faculty and other things as well."
I'm trying to focus on that because I can't see it proper to say that the eyes "flat out tell me" that "I see a bird" or that the ears "flat out tell me" that "I hear music" or that pleasure tells me that "I am eating honey." In turn I cannot see it proper to say that a prolepsis "flat out tells me" that "a god is imperishable" or any other statement that amounts to a "proposition." Each of those underlined statements seem to me to be "propositions" that are formed in the mind after the use of inputs from all three of the categories of faculties, including prolepsis, rather than conclusions of those faculties themselves.
Can you clarify further?
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If post #7 is largely or partly correct, one more focused way to state the takeaway might be:
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One additional thing I'd like to memorialize from the Wednesday Zoom: Bryan pointed out something that I think boils down to close to this (Bryan can correct me if better way to say it):
All of us are constantly being bombarded from all directions at all times with all sorts of sensations, with all sorts of feelings, and also with all sorts of "images."
For the moment we may (or may not) want to consider the essence of all of these bombardments as movements of atoms that touch us / impact us in different ways. The three canonical faculties are our inborn ability to perceive movement or presence of atoms which constitute light (sight), sound (hearing), odors (smell), touch, or in the case of images - arrangements of atoms in films which are essentially filmy "shapes" which retain to greater or lesser degree the shapes of their source.
We can take or leave that last paragraph, because the essential point being made right now is that we're constantly being bombarded from the outside with all sorts of atomic impacts.
I take Bryan's point to be that "something' within us must constitute a faculty of selectively focusing our attention and pointing us towards identifying what is significant to us and what is not. Whatever that mechanism is, whether that's a description of a "faculty of prolepsis" or a description of something else, such a process *is* going on within us, and such a faculty is born with us at birth, and such ability does in fact get sharper over time as we process multiple experiences over time.
Perhaps an analogy is that pleasure and pain are essentially our *reactions* to events as they occur. Our genetics are etched to operate in a way that predisposes us to particularize what happens to us and to find some events more pleasurable (and painful) than others.
Similarly each of our five senses are etched to operate in a way that disposes us to distinguish between the things that impact our senses and to relay that reaction to the brain for further processing. it should not be a stretch to think that there would be a faculty that disposes our mind to distinguish between the images that impact our senses and to find some more significant than others, and to relay that to the brain for further processing. Only after the brain receives these inputs and starts processing them into "opinions" is "truth" or "error" a relevant consideration. An exercise of the operation of the eyes and ears and nose is never "right" or "wrong;" the a feeling of pleasure and pain is never "right" or "wrong," and likewise on that analogy an exercise of of the faculty of prolepsis is never "right" or "wrong." (I take it that Tau Phi is emphatically in agreement with the importance of emphasizing that truth or error does not exist in the faculties, but in the conclusions/opinions of the mind.)
Perhaps describing the action of the faculty we are talking about as one of selective focusing of attention is a little more neutral than the "pattern-recognition" term that we also discussed. "Recognizing a pattern" maybe rings a little to close to "recognizing an idea." I think most of us are disposed to reject "innate ideas" for maybe the same reason that Lucretius thought it was a good argument to say that the gods could not have created the universe because even the gods would have had no pattern by which to go.
On the other hand, it seems most of accept without hesitation that we are programmed at birth to find some things pleasurable and some things painful in varying degrees, so certain forms of "programming" as related to the operation of a faculty of prolepsis in selectively focusing images doesn't seem to be out of line with Epicurus' approach.
One of the Nietzsche quotes from Beyond Good and Evil that we included in the last episode (Gutenberg edition, translated by Helen Zimmern ) Chapter 1, section 9 -
Quote... Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? ..... while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature “according to the Stoa,” and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism!
Surely the faculty of pleasure and pain is an example of programming that disposes us to value or prefer some things over others. It might not be too much of a stretch to analogize prolepsis very broadly as involving a disposition of the mind to value or prefer or focus on some images other than others, without which faculty we would never be able to focus on or distinguish any images in particular as different from any of the other myriads of images that constantly bombard us.
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