Posts by Cassius

I would say that this issue of evidence - based reasoning is what is being referred to very near the beginning of Lucretius' poem, and its position here as one of Epicurus' great accomplishments reflects its importance. Epicurus points to the method for unraveling "what can be, and what cannot - in what way each thing has its power limited - its deep-set boundary mark"

Quote from Lucretius Book One

[62] When the life of man lay foul to see and grovelling upon the earth, crushed by the weight of religion, which showed her face from the realms of heaven, lowering upon mortals with dreadful mien, ’twas a man of Greece who dared first to raise his mortal eyes to meet her, and first to stand forth to meet her: him neither the stories of the gods nor thunderbolts checked, nor the sky with its revengeful roar, but all the more spurred the eager daring of his mind to yearn to be the first to burst through the close-set bolts upon the doors of nature. And so it was that the lively force of his mind won its way, and he passed on far beyond the fiery walls of the world, and in mind and spirit traversed the boundless whole; whence in victory he brings us tidings what can come to be and what cannot, yea and in what way each thing has its power limited, and its deepset boundary-stone. And so religion in revenge is cast beneath men’s feet and trampled, and victory raises us to heaven.

1. Don - The first upload was deleted. it may show up twice but only the first is usable.

2. Joshua - Let me check. I don't rememember anything egregiously off.

Lucretius Today Episode 246 is now available: "Examining Epicurean Evidence-Based Reasoning" Transcript

Here's a prior thread on the letter to Marcella: We've discussed this before as the source of the "vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal...." and that the letter is not represented to be a direct quote from Epicurus. I've come around to a somewhat more favorable opinion of it lately, but there's no doubt in my mind that it is mashup of Stoic and Epicurean and may simply Porphyry's own views, so in my view it has to be taken with caution. I agree with your reservations on this part Kalosyni. I think that a close reading of *exactly* what it is saying largely rescues it from sounding Stoic, and for that reason it's useful for discussion. But a too-superficial reading of it can definitely be made to sound like a recommendation to being indifferent to pleasure and pain, which I don't think is accurate Epicureanism.

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Porphyry - Letter to Marcella -"Vain Is the Word of the Philosopher..."

I was talking to @EricR this morning and trying to remember the source of this quote. In tracking it down it seems to come from Porphyry's letter to Marcella -- but do we really know this is attributable to Epicurus? Usener seems to think so, but why? Anyone recall?

U221

Porphyry, Letter to Marcella, 31, [p. 209, 23 Nauck]: Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man. For just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel the diseases of the body,…

Cassius

June 12, 2023 at 11:34 AM

Second thread, same general reservations:

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Article on the "Letter to Marcella" by Porphyry

Thanks to Takis Panagiatopolis of the Athens Garden for this link:

http://www.epicuros.gr/pages/en/Tempe…us_Porphyry.pdf

! It seems clear that this writer was referencing Epicurean ideas while also combining them with elements that are absolutely irreconcilable. It is interesting to reflect on which are which.

"27. So then, first you must grasp the law of Nature and from it ascend to the divine law which also established the law of Nature."

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/345/

…

Cassius

April 17, 2019 at 6:40 AM

See also in particular this part for discussion that Porphyry seems to be recommending abstinence from food and sex:

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RE: Article on the "Letter to Marcella" by Porphyry

Weren't we talking recently somewhere about someone recently interested in this letter to Marcella? I still to this day have not spent much time with it, but it seems to me very dangerous to consider this an Epicurean work as it seems to have lots of unEpicurean thought mixed into it.

It would take almost a line-by-line analysis to go through it but I see this as an example which appears to me directly UNEpicurean, because if the gods have decided to give up food and sex for themselves, then…

Cassius

January 31, 2020 at 2:45 PM

I think a lot of people miss why this is so important.

The point is that the other philosophers, typified by Plato with his cave, allege that the senses "lie" to you and that they are therefore unreliable sources of information about how to live. If the senses lie, then you need to look for some other faculties that you *can* rely on to replace them.

If you're Plato, you come up with geometry or dialectic or some other way of symbolic "logic." If you're more into straight religion you come up with some kind of prayer or divine revelation. No doubt there are other substitutes as well but (1) rationalism/logic and (2) mysticism are the big ones.

Epicurus rejects both of those and says that we rely on the senses that nature gave us, and we don't have to invent imaginary substitutes. He further points out that in addition to the five senses, there are two other categories of natural faculties (1 - the feelings of pleasure and pain, and 2 - the "prolepsis") which are also natural mechanisms that report "truly" without their own opinions. That's why these three categories are "canonical" - they don't give us any opinions of their own about what to do, but they are natural "straight edges" or "rulers" that we can reliably use to test our own individual contexts. They operate naturally, so when held up to situation after situation they give us reliable data that we can then act upon. No need for divine revelation or circular rationalism.

Quote from Kalosyni

This gave me some difficulty in the past, so I want to see if I can finally get it. Can we say that the senses are the mechanics of how the mind collects "data"? Then just like a microscope may have a scratch on the lense, the eye could have a defect which slightly alters the incoming data?

Yes. The microscope does not "tell" the doctor or scientist what he is looking at - the microscope simply collects and magnifies light and passes it on to the eyepiece. It's up to the observer to make an accurate assessment of what he sees.

If a lense has a scratch, then the light transmitted to the eyepiece is affected to greater or lesser degree by the scratch. But that doesn't affect the "truthfulness" of the microscrope, because at no time is the microscope "telling" anyone anything.

We're separating the "collection of data" from the "assessment of data." The collection isn't "true" or "false" - the collection function simply is what it is.

That's why it is possible to say that the senses always report "accurately" or "truthfully" -- they are not injecting their own "opinion" about what they are displaying. They aren't reaching any conclusions at all. The observer has to account for any scratches on a lens the same way you account for the lens being out of focus, or not having enough light to see what you're looking at.

It's "opinions" that are right or wrong or accurate or inaccurate.

So it's essential, if you're going to make any sense of Epicurean canonics at all, to "get the point" that tools like the eyes or ears are never "accurate" or "inaccurate" in the way that they report. They report what they report, and it's the interpretation of the data in the mind that is accurate or inaccurate.

"Accurate" or "inaccurate" applies to saying that the tower at a distance is round or square. When someone says "all senses are true" or "all sensations are true," they aren't talking about the conclusion about whether the tower is square or round. They are saying that the senses report "truly" in the sense of "honestly without any added opinion of their own."

Quote from Eric

Perceptions and interpretations can be false on all stages of processing as can be demonstrated via experienceable examples such as optical illusions (initial processing) or delusions (later processing).

This would be another comment similar to Godfrey's as to shades of meaning, but most of the time I don't think we see "perceptions" and "interpretations" linked as similar concepts that can be right or wrong. I generally see "perceptions" as used to refer to individual "sights" or "sounds" rather than the labeling of them. At any rate, it's important to be clear that the senses are not right or wrong themselves, it is the interpretations we draw from the senses that can be right or wrong.

From the article:

"Despite periodic re-examination of the concept, tired light has not been supported by observational tests and remains a fringe topic in astrophysics.^[4]"

Article on same topic: "Shamir study supports century-old tired light theory, challenging big bang"

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Shamir_study_supports_century_old_tired_light_theory_challenging_big_bang_999.html

A Special Happy Birthday to Bryan! Thank you for all you do for the forum, not the least of which is your work on Usener's Epicurea!

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

Yes I agree with Don. That's the key passage, mainly on the topic that we should organize our lives so that we are as little affected by negative chance as possible, because there are things which are not in our control (where lightning will strike) that are essentially to us matters of chance, but to which we can minimize our exposure.

I think there may be others directed against the idea that there is a "force" in the universe that dispenses favorable or unfavorable luck, along the lines of a "goddess of fortune," which would also be ruled out by Epicurean philosophy.

Good point Kochie!

Yep I am jesting. I'm not aware of any good arguments that we pick up ideas through blood transfusions

Also as a side note: I think this is so important that we will eventually want to add another bullet point to the opening list of key takeaways for new readers (the top of the front page).

So it would be good to look for pithy passages from the ancient Epicureans that summarize the point, which is something like:

Reasoning about the nature of the imperceptible must be based on and consistent with the nature of the perceptible.

What we're getting at here is probably the most basic Canonical assertion of Epicurean philosophy.

It is the method for deriving, and being confident of, both the affirmative existence of atoms and void as well as the non-existence of supernatural gods and consciousness after death (immortal souls).

But it must be stated in a way that makes clear why, at the same time, BOTH (1) people who have lived all their lives inland would not declare oceans to be impossible, and also (2) people need not live forever or travel the entire universe before they can affirm that supernatural gods are impossible.

So suggestions for text references which say something like the italicized section above will be appreciated. I expect we have this in Herodotus and Lucretius and probably other places as well.

For example from Herodotus:

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And besides we must keep all our investigations in accord with our sensations, and in particular with the immediate apprehensions whether of the mind or of any one of the instruments of judgment, and likewise in accord with the feelings existing in us, in order that we may have indications whereby we may judge both the problem of sense perception and the unseen.

I can't confirm the Greek, but, for example, it seems important in this passage that the phrasing would be "perceptIBLE" (able to be perceived) rather than "that which has already been perceived."

Just as a cross-refernce, Kalosyni just posted to an article that is relevant to this subject. It discusses Epicurus' reasoning about "the soul," so it is another separate example of what we are discussing here as to proper methods of reasoning about those things that are IMperceptible to the senses by starting with points of reference in what IS perceptible, rather than allowing "anything that can be constructed by the imagination with self-consistent wording is possible" type speculation.

So the list of "Important examples of Epicurean reasoning" needs to include:

1. Atoms
2. Void
3. Gods
4. The Soul
5. Death

And I am sure there are many many more to add to the list -including the ultimate nature of Epicurus' reasoning about pleasure itself. But should start with the "easy" and more concrete ones such as the list above, and establish the general method first, before we graduate to the more abstract issues.

Here is Kalosyni's link to the article on the soul:

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RE: What is the soul?

I just found this interesting excerpt, on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website, "Ancient Theories of Soul" - Section on Epicurus:

[…]

Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#5.1

Kalosyni

September 15, 2024 at 8:44 PM

Some good stuff there and it concerns exactly what we are discussing in Episode 246 of the podcast which is of such importance.

"What this suggests, and what in fact we have independent reason to think, is that on Epicurus’ view, once one is in a position adequately to explain sense-perception, one will then also be in a position to work out an explanation of intellectual cognition, by appropriately extending the explanation of sense-perception."

I think that's probably right, and again it points to the central role of reasoning about the IMperceptible based on what IS perceptible. That's how we conclude atoms exist, and no doubt it relates to how Epicurus concluded "gods" exist, but it also answers the charges that skeptics like Cotta raised as to why an Epicurean (if he indeed bases all reasoning on sense experience) would not rule out the possibility of existence of oceans if he had never seen one in the past.

The references cited in the article may be helpful in summing up the answers to that charge, and will allow us to make more clear why the single term "empiricist" does not fully describe Epicurus' method of thinking.

It will take a couple of days to get this edition posted, but in the meantime I want to point out that this passage I'm about to quote seems to me to be a great way to introduce the issues that Philodemus addresses in "On Methods of Inference."

If we strip away the context of discussing gods, and focus on the part that begins with "What!" I think we'll see that this is an argument that strikes much more deeply at Epicurean philosophy than do many others. It goes to the whole issue of Epicurean reliance on the senses and their relationship to reason and how we draw conclusions about things that are not directly seeable or touchable by us.

This gives us a list of specific examples of arguments against Epicurus to observe and confront:

1 - You've never seen anything here on earth like the moon, the stars, or the planets, have you? How can an Epicurean form ANY opinions about something that they've never seen before up close? You Epicureans should be denying that the moon and stars and planets exist at all, because you've never seen any such thing up close to which to compare it!

2 - You've never seen a god here on earth either! You Epicureans should be denying that gods exist, because under your philosophy you can validate nothing that cannot be validated by the sense!

3 - If your Epicurean doctrine were to prevail, we'd have to throw out everything that history or reason discovers, because it if hasn't been previously observed by the senses, then you Epicureans reject that it is even possible!

4 - Yours is such a narrow way of thinking! If you had been born and raised in an inland nation, and neither you nor your friends had ever seen an ocean, you would deny that oceans are possible!

5 - If you had lived in a land which had only rabbits and foxes, you would think that someone who asserted that lions and panthers or elephants exist would be playing you for a fool!

Ok that's this part of Cotta's argument, and it demands a response.

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that the Epicureans would not have admitted even a grain of truth in that charge, but in "On the Nature of The Gods" Cicero does not allow Velleius to reply.

Our job is to construct the argument that the ancient Epicureans used against these arguments. Probably Philodemus' "On Methods of Inference / On Signs" is the best place to start, but I bet there are other sources we can pull together as well.

We offer some possible responses in the podcast, but it deserves much longer treatment. Yes it applies to the gods, but it's an argument that applies to atoms and void and much of the rest of Epicurean physics. It's even at the root of the whole question of how we can be confident that the universe operates naturally and isn't the plaything of arbitrary gods.

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But since you dare not (for I am now addressing my discourse to Epicurus himself) absolutely deny the existence of the Gods, what hinders you from ascribing a divine nature to the sun, the world, or some eternal mind?

I never, says he, saw wisdom and a rational soul in any but a human form.

What! Did you ever observe anything like the sun, the moon, or the five moving planets? The sun, terminating his course in two extreme parts of one circle, finishes his annual revolutions. The moon, receiving her light from the sun, completes the same course in the space of a month. The five planets in the same circle, some nearer, others more remote from the earth, begin the same courses together, and finish them in different spaces of time. Did you ever observe anything like this, Epicurus? So that, according to you, there can be neither sun, moon, nor stars, because nothing can exist but what we have touched or seen.

What! have you ever seen the Deity himself? Why else do you believe there is any? If this doctrine prevails, we must reject all that history relates or reason discovers; and the people who inhabit inland countries must not believe there is such a thing as the sea. This is so narrow a way of thinking that if you had been born in Seriphus, and never had been from out of that island, where you had frequently been in the habit of seeing little hares and foxes, you would not, therefore, believe that there are such beasts as lions and panthers; and if any one should describe an elephant to you, you would think that he designed to laugh at you.

When I first looked at the photo i was on my phone -- Now i see that the image behind Epicurus is probably some kind of transfusion apparatus (given the article?)

So maybe I shouldn't take such a dim view of the collage -- if we could all receive a blood transfusion from Epicurus, we'd probably all be much better off! We may have to adopt that kind of imagery ourselves at some point!

1. I hope you find it!

2. Yes I may have more to say about that Ben Stein movie which you first mentioned. The main Richard Dawkins section (a short dialogue with Stein, which occurs after Stein visits that location pictured) is worth watching for the way it crystallizes some of the issues we are currently discussing. No doubt Stein edited it in a way slanted against Dawkins, but I think Dawkins would have been better advised to at least mention the possibility that Epicurus' externality argument is by no means out of the running as a response to Stein's "so give me the details of what happened first?" approach.

I will find a way to pull that out at some point so we can discuss it further.