Posts by Cassius

Cleveland your post has me thinking about what I would recommend to someone who "wanted to read a primer on philosophy, thinking that such a background might aid my Epicurean studies."

I haven't read many such primer's myself, and I suppose it would depend on the person and the primer what makes the most sense. If anyone has recommendations of primers that are written from non-Platonist or non-Skeptical or non-Stoic points of view, please comment in this thread.

For some reason something that comes to mind as attempting a basic comparison between Epicurus and others is the Appendix to the DeLacey translation of Philodemus' "On Methods of Inference"

Philodemus: On methods of inference: a study in ancient empiricism : Philodemus : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

http://uf.catalog.fcla.edu/uf.jsp?st=UF001032148&ix=nu&I=0&V=D

archive.org

The three chapter headings in the Appendix have been valuable to my understanding of some very basic issues:

• Sources of Epicurean Empiricism
• Development of Epicurean Logic and Methodology
• The Logical Controversies of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics

These appendices are relatively detailed, and they for me they were almost more valuable than the translation (of which large parts are missing) for understanding some very basic issues. I seem to recall that David Sedley has some different viewpoints from DeLacy on certain issues (can't remember what right now), but I think these appendices are worthy of reading on their own for the background information they provide.

Happy Birthday to Cyrano! Learn more about Cyrano and say happy birthday on Cyrano's timeline: Cyrano

Quote from Matteng

Here is defense but I know this can be an endless debate:

A quick additional comment:

After about 15 minutes I wasn't able (for now) to continue. You are right a hundred times over that "this can be an endless debate." For those who find it helpful to go down the rabbit hole, this looks like it could possibly be a very good video. It's definitely well crafted.

But I can't help but throw up my hands and think that this is another example of a rabbit hole that has no happy ending for those who go choose to follow it down into its depths, no matter what side of the debate you are on. In the end, it makes sense to me that we have to accept at face value what the senses, anticipations, and feelings provide to us, and it seems to me that at the very least these faculties tell me that there are at least some times when "I could have acted differently." I may not be able to trace back down to the movement of particular atoms through particular locations of void what is happening to make me sense this, but that's just another example of how there can be truths at the micro level, and separate truths at the macro level, and that neither level has a monopoly on truth.

As a practical matter it seems to me that Epicurus was right that it would be impossible for us to live happily if we did not organize our lives as if we are confident that we have some amount of free agency. Yes it's possible to take the opposite position, just like it is possible to take varying positions on many philosophical issues, but we all have to make our choices about what we choose to believe, and get on with life. Having confidence that we have some amount of free will makes the most sense to me consistent with the evidence and reasoning that I can grasp. Snow is white, and honey is sweet, and it appears to me that I have free will. That has to be good enough and I judge it to be good enough - at least for me.

Just started watching that video Matting and may not be able to finish it for a while, but this looks like a very good video, so thank you!

Happy birthday Holly, and thanks for helping manage the Facebook page!

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Just a note to comment that we had a good "First Monday" meeting tonight. Seven of our regulars had a good chance to speak with two of our most recent participants, Eric and Patrikios. We thank them for joining us and look forward to hearing more from them on the forum.

We very much appreciate that Eric made the effort to stay up until the middle of the northern-European night to join us, and we appreciate that Pgannon has made the effort to make contact with Christos in Athens, Greece.

One side note: After our discussion I realized that we have at least two (and probably more) regular participants who may end up being affected by Hurricane "Milton." I've recently myself seen the damage from hurricane Helene, so I know that others here share my concern and best wishes for Patrikios and Eikadistes and any others of our readers in the Florida area for safe conduct in the coming storm!

Pgannon I think you are right in your comments, but if I read them correctly you are probably leaving out the issue of the images being "received directly by the brain" and not going through the five senses. As I would understand it myself, you're right that all things give off "films" of atoms and that this explains vision, but it is also clear that they discussed receiving images while asleep - a time in which the eyes are closed and not the mechanism.

Lucretius is pretty clear that this is an important aspect in his discussion in Book 4. It even appears in the correspondence of Cicero and Cassius in their joking back and forth about "spectres."

I also recommend Dewitt discussion of images of you have not yet read his book.

Yes it is a fascinating subject!

Would "readily" work?

However there is definItaly a possibility of an "in-your-face" intention once, or especially when, the full picture of the Epcurean position is brought into focus.

I will add a cite....

In the easily or readily in the sense of straightforward I am reminded of this from the opening of Lucretius Book 6:

[09] For when he saw that mortals had by now attained well-nigh all things which their needs crave for subsistence, and that, as far as they could, their life was established in safety, that men abounded in power through wealth and honours and renown, and were haughty in the good name of their children, and yet not one of them for all that had at home a heart less anguished, but with torture of mind lived a fretful life without any respite, and was constrained to rage with savage complaining, he then did understand that it was the vessel itself which wrought the disease, and that by its disease all things were corrupted within, whatsoever came into it gathered from without, yea even blessings; in part because he saw that it was leaking and full of holes, so that by no means could it ever be filled; in part because he perceived that it tainted as with a foul savor all things within it, which it had taken in. And so with his discourse of truthful words he purged the heart and set a limit to its desire and fear, and set forth what is the highest good, towards which we all strive, and pointed out the path, whereby along a narrow track we may strain on towards it in a straight course;

Also, on the "dreadful" -

That's a word that to me tends to emphasis the excruciatingly painful, which - going along with Nate's earlier comment - might not be so much the intimation as is "good" vs "bad" or even "evil".

"good" is a very generic word that both sounds philosophical and doesn't emphasize some kind of pointed state of ecstacy. Does the original greek bear a "bad" that corresponds to what is translated as "good" so that the entire passage sounds more philosophical than referring to "terrible" or "dreadful?"

Thank you Don! That is a great start toward what we ought to set up as a special page!

Considering it as you said a rough draft from which to work further, I hope we can combine our efforts and work on turning this into something that will be an important resource.

Is there any way beyond ellipsis that we can indicate how much of gap exists before and after the Tet?

You know Bryan (and Don et al), whether as part of the Epicurea or otherwise, I think it would be a major contribution if we could combine our efforts and come up with a complete version of whatever is left of the scroll on which the Tetrapharmakos is taken. We don't even seem to have an agreed upon title, and I gather all it is referred to is P. Herc. 1005

It would be a major contribution if we could put together a page on

"Translation Of The Surviving Text of P. Herc. 1005" and begin to put all that we know about this scroll in context.

Is any of it of substance translated in a Sedley or other text? Where would we begin?

This is definitely a subject I'd like to see expanded as part of our studies of Epicurean canonics. Might be worth a subforum at some point, but more likely I will create an entry in the Canonics section of the Wiki here and list the separate fallacies there.

Today I came across this reference to a logical fallacy that is addressed in Lucretius. I am sure there are many more, but this will get the thread started:

The Fallacy Of Division / Composition

Here's the thrust of the fallacious reasoning, in an entry for Fallacy of Division:

The fallacy of division^[1] is an informal fallacy that occurs when one reasons that something that is true for a whole must also be true of all or some of its parts.

An example:

1. The second grade in Jefferson Elementary eats a lot of ice cream
2. Carlos is a second-grader in Jefferson Elementary
3. Therefore, Carlos eats a lot of ice cream

The converse of this fallacy is called fallacy of composition, which arises when one fallaciously attributes a property of some part of a thing to the thing as a whole.

If a system as a whole has some property that none of its constituents has (or perhaps, it has it but not as a result of some constituent's having that property), this is sometimes called an emergent property of the system.

The term mereological fallacy refers to approximately the same incorrect inference that properties of a whole are also properties of its parts.^[2][3][4][5]

Dealt With in Epicurean Texts

The same wikipedia artlcie says:

Both the fallacy of division and the fallacy of composition were addressed by Aristotle in Sophistical Refutations.

In the philosophy of the ancient Greek Anaxagoras, as claimed by the Roman atomist Lucretius,^[6] it was assumed that the atoms constituting a substance must themselves have the salient observed properties of that substance: so atoms of water would be wet, atoms of iron would be hard, atoms of wool would be soft, etc. This doctrine is called homoeomeria, and it depends on the fallacy of division.

---

This would be found at Lucretius Book 1, at 830, which begins as follows:

[830] Now let us also search into the homoeomeria of Anaxagoras, as the Greeks term it, though the poverty of our country’s speech does not suffer us to name it in our own tongue; nevertheless the thing itself it is easy to set forth in words.

[834] First—what he calls the homoeomeria of things—you must know that he thinks that bones are made of very small and tiny bones, and flesh of small and tiny pieces of flesh, and blood is created of many drops of blood coming together in union, and that gold again can be built up of grains of gold, and the earth grow together out of little earths, that fire is made of fires, and water of water-drops, and all the rest he pictures and imagines in the same way. And yet he does not allow that there is void in things on any side, nor that there is a limit to the cutting up of bodies. Therefore in this point and that he seems to me to go astray just as they did, of whom I told above.

Bryan do you know if there is a translation of what exists most closely before and after this passage? I don't think I have been able to piece together anything coherent about that, much less any indication of how much is lost between anything that remains and this particular passage.

Don I noticed that in my prior thread here (from several years ago) I don't think you added any comment. I think several of my links came from or through you, but since you are one of the most-well-versed on the text issues, if you have anything new to add to bring that thread up to date, please do.

In addition to the translation issue I think it is almost or more an issue that we do not have the immediate before or after context of these lines. This lack of context accentuates what I personally think is the ultimate issue, that the work in largest context appears to concern a dispute among Epicureans in which over-simplification and not paying sufficient attention to reading the original texts is a criticism being leveled by Philodemus against others.

Without the before or after context we have no way of knowing whether this formulation was being cited approvingly or disparagingly. It's for that reason that I don't "blame" Philodemus for the confusion that we now have to deal with. If more context is discovered at some point we may find out the truth someday, but in the meantime this excerpt is the *only* statement of this formulation in the ancient texts, and it is a shame that it is being presented to the world as being as worthy of respect as if it were a well-attested statement of Epicurus himself.

Not saying that you have any new input on these issues but for others reading along intermittently maybe at some point someone will make new connections that help us with it, once they are aware of the issues.

Quote from Don

I need to find a better translation and change that WP article

If you can that would be great!

Quote from Eikadistes

One thing I'll note is that EYEKKAPTEPHTON is used in opposition to TAΓAΘON (which, as Don has demonstrated in the past, can appropriately be expressed as "The Good", which is Pleasure), so in this case, "the terrible" or "bad", I think, is referring to the general feeling of Pain.

Thanks to you guys for pointing this out. The common discussion across the internet as "the terrible is easy to endure" is probably in my view the most damaging aspect of talking loosely about it.

The point of PD3 and PD4 from which these are derivations seems to me to be almost certainly, as you are stating, to be directed at "the good" or "what is good in life" and "the bad" or "what is bad in life," in a generic and philosophical way. Give the wide net that is included with Epicurus' view of "pleasure" then there's a corresponding wide net regarding "pain." The thrust of Epicurus' views on pleasure and pain are completely defensible and persuasive when put placed in its full philosophic context. In the form it's trumpeted widely, as for example in today's Wikipedia, I continue to see its use as an abomination.

No need to go through all this again but we continuously have new people, so might as well link to my prior thread here for those who have not seen it.

I am not finding a prior thread directly on the Sorites Issue - and this is something we will want to remedy. In the meantime here are some links where it has come up before:

Post

The Covered Father

(Epicurus - On Nature - Book 28, P.Herc. 1479 (1417), fr. 13, col. 9 sup., David Sedley trans.)

"...these will be confuted, if they are false and whether the cause of their error is irrational or rational, either because (1) some other than theoretical opinion expressed on the basis of them is untrue, or, (2) if they become indirectly linked up with action, wherever they lead to disadvantageous action. If none of these consequences ensues, it will be correct to conclude that opinions are not…

Bryan

March 2, 2024 at 9:43 PM

Sorites paradox - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

168

Discussion in Lucretius Today Episode 150 - Episode 150 - "Epicurus And His Philosophy" Part 06 - Development of the School in Mytilene and Lampsacus

Note about the Sorities discussion:

Post

RE: October 7, 2024 - First Monday Epicurean Philosophy Zoom Discussion - Agenda

A key text which was mentioned in our Zoom last night involves the first sentence of the following quote which Usener catalogs as part of U67, from Athēnaîos, Deipnosophists, 12.67, 546E:

• And indeed Epíkouros, while not hiding himself, says loudly "I myself am not able to conceive the good – if I removed the pleasure from flavor, and removed the pleasure from Aphrodisian activities." For this wise man believes that even the life of profligates can be irreproachable – if It should be safe

…

Cassius

October 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM

Thanks very much!