Posts by Cassius

This week's episode is now posted, and by coincidence it ends up addressing almost the exact topic which ended up being the major topic of our 20th Zoom last night. Many of us - including Kalosyni in the podcast as to "truth," Tau Phi in discussion last night as to whether to consider this a matter of "re-definition," and Cicero in On Ends as to Epicurus "doing violence to words" - question how best to get a grasp on Epicurus' deviation from convention in the way he describes many important concepts.

Hopefully this episode will prompt further discussion on how to describe what Epicurus is doing. Should what he is doing be considered "redefinition?" Should it be considered "clarification?" What about "clarifying definition," or "redefining clarification?"

Regardless of what words are used to describe it, there is deviation from convention, and it will be useful to think about the best way to describe what is going on and how to convey that to other people.

It's in this context that we have DeWitt's statement that has been cited in many of our recent podcasts. DeWitt calls it "extension of the name" and refers to "application" and "denomination" without using "re-definition":

Quote from “Epicurus And His Philosophy” page 240 - Norman DeWitt (emphasis added)

“The extension of the name of pleasure to this normal state of being was the major innovation of the new hedonism. It was in the negative form, freedom from pain of body and distress of mind, that it drew the most persistent and vigorous condemnation from adversaries. The contention was that the application of the name of pleasure to this state was unjustified on the ground that two different things were thereby being denominated by one name. Cicero made a great to-do over this argument, but it is really superficial and captious. The fact that the name of pleasure was not customarily applied to the normal or static state did not alter the fact that the name ought to be applied to it; nor that reason justified the application; nor that human beings would be the happier for so reasoning and believing.

Lucretius Today Episode 242 - "Is Truth A Matter of Logic?" - is now available:

Today we kept on topic with the existing thread title, and most of the episode is devoted to discussing the concept of "truth" (which is probably very closely related to the concept of "real").

Here's a section of Diogenes' Laertius' biography that we quoted during the episode:

Quote

[32] Nor is there anything which can refute the sensations. For a similar sensation cannot refute a similar because it is equivalent in validity, nor a dissimilar a dissimilar, for the objects of which they are the criteria are not the same; nor again can reason, for all reason is dependent upon sensations; nor can one sensation refute another, for we attend to them all alike. Again, the fact of apperception confirms the truth of the sensations. And seeing and hearing are as much facts as feeling pain. From this it follows that as regards the imperceptible we must draw inferences from phenomena. For all thoughts have their origin in sensations by means of coincidence and analogy and similarity and combination, reasoning too contributing something. And the visions of the insane and those in dreams are true, for they cause movement, and that which does not exist cannot cause movement.

I have underlined that last sentence because now that the episode is "in the can" I realize that we did not point this out on the air, but when you read that last sentence it is pretty hard not to come to the conclusion that Epicurus was defining "to exist" as "having the capacity to cause movement." That's a very interesting perspective on how to define what "exists" or "what is real" that probably deserves some independent discussion. We often talk about how Epicurus us focusing on whether it is revealed to us by our natural faculties as the definition of something being "real," but it probably should always have been obvious, that given that the faculties themselves are made up of atoms, that the implication of the way Epicurus is going allows us to refine the definition of what is real all the way down to the question "does it have the capacity to cause movement."

This would seem to shift the focus of the question of "what is real" away from a more abstract "Does it exist outside your physical body?" as the test of what we should regard as "real," to a more practical question of something like "does it cause your physical body (which would include your mind) to "move" or "feel impact?"

Another link referenced in this episode - we started off referencing the "Correspondence Theory of Truth" as described here:

The Correspondence Theory of Truth (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Ok we won't plan to devote the 20th to this, but we can start gathering ideas such as in Julia's post so that we have a productive session when we do get it together.

Let's talk about software categories to cover:

1) Cleveland has suggested censor-resistant social media platforms.

2) I think another obvious category is "research management" software. For example I can talk about the software I use to store and organize my Epicurean research, which probably fits into the "knowledge management" category and includes programs such a Obsidian and Logseq and "wiki" management.

3) Probably could talk about where we are in terms of AI usage, such as using ChatGPT to clean up or summarize large chunks of text.

4) We definitely make major use of Graphics programs for memes and graphics for posts, so we can talk about what people use for that.

5) If anyone is interested we can talk about how those of us who are probably most into "privacy" and "resistance to censorship" use Linux as an alternative to windows, but that may well be to "in the weeds" for general interest. I am thinking "application" software that we use regularly would be of greatest interest and use.

6) Along with graphics design programs goes Video and Audio editing (which we need to be doing more of.)

7) Perhaps also website design, and

Ebook (epub) or PDF generation for longer-form works.

Other suggestions for categories?

Great input Julia thank you! And definitely we will focus on what is actually productive other than rabbit holes chasing privacy behind the point of productivity.

For reference, here's a transcript of this week's episode. This has been prepared using AI, so it very well may contain errors, but it is useful for finding topics that were discussed.

Episode 241 - EpicureanFriends Handbook

Welcome to Episode 242 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 have a thread to discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

Today we are continuing to review Cicero's "On the Nature of The Gods," which began with the Epicurean spokesman Velleius defending the Epicurean point of view. This week will continue into Section 21 as Cotta, the Academic Skeptic, responds to Velleius, and we - in turn - will respond to Cotta in particular and the Skeptical argument in general.

For the main text we are using primarily the Yonge translation, available here at Archive.org. The text which we include in these posts is available here. We will also refer to the public domain version of the Loeb series, which contains both Latin and English, as translated by H. Rackham.

Additional versions can be found here:

• Frances Brooks 1896 translation at Online Library of Liberty
• Lacus Curtius Edition (Rackham)
• PDF Of Loeb Edition at Archive.org by Rackham
• Gutenberg.org version by CD Yonge 

A list of arguments presented will eventually be put together here.

Today's Text

XXIV. ...

But where is truth? Is it in your innumerable worlds, some of which are rising, some falling, at every moment of time? Or is it in your atomical corpuscles, which form such excellent works without the direction of any natural power or reason? But I was forgetting my liberality, which I had promised to exert in your case, and exceeding the bounds which I at first proposed to myself. Granting, then, everything to be made of atoms, what advantage is that to your argument? For we are searching after the nature of the Gods; and allowing them to be made of atoms, they cannot be eternal, because whatever is made of atoms must have had a beginning: if so, there were no Gods till there was this beginning; and if the Gods have had a beginning, they must necessarily have an end, as you have before contended when you were discussing Plato’s world. Where, then, is your beatitude and immortality, in which two words you say that God is expressed, the endeavor to prove which reduces you to the greatest perplexities? For you said that God had no body, but something like body; and no blood, but something like blood.

XXV. It is a frequent practice among you, when you assert anything that has no resemblance to truth, and wish to avoid reprehension, to advance something else which is absolutely and utterly impossible, in order that it may seem to your adversaries better to grant that point which has been a matter of doubt than to keep on pertinaciously contradicting you on every point: like Epicurus, who, when he found that if his atoms were allowed to descend by their own weight, our actions could not be in our own power, because their motions would be certain and necessary, invented an expedient, which escaped Democritus, to avoid necessity. He says that when the atoms descend by their own weight and gravity, they move a little obliquely. Surely, to make such an assertion as this is what one ought more to be ashamed of than the acknowledging ourselves unable to defend the proposition. His practice is the same against the logicians, who say that in all propositions in which yes or no is required, one of them must be true; he was afraid that if this were granted, then, in such a proposition as “Epicurus will be alive or dead to-morrow,” either one or the other must necessarily be admitted; therefore he absolutely denied the necessity of yes or no.

Can anything show stupidity in a greater degree? Zeno, being pressed by Arcesilas, who pronounced all things to be false which are perceived by the senses, said that some things were false, but not all. Epicurus was afraid that if any one thing seen should be false, nothing could be true; and therefore he asserted all the senses to be infallible directors of truth. Nothing can be more rash than this; for by endeavoring to repel a light stroke, he receives a heavy blow. On the subject of the nature of the Gods, he falls into the same errors. While he would avoid the concretion of individual bodies, lest death and dissolution should be the consequence, he denies that the Gods have body, but says they have something like body; and says they have no blood, but something like blood."

Quote from Julia

Yes! This is why promises made only because of a sense of duty aren't worth a grain of salt.

Yes. Now of course we are talking about communication and word choices, and different people might use a very different word to express exactly the same thing to which I am referring to as encompassed in "commitment" as "an intense emotional drive voluntarily undertaken toward the achievement of some specified and desired goal." But if I became convinced that someone was "commitment-averse" in a generic sense, I would likely arrive at exactly the conclusion of "flakiness" you mentioned earlier Julia.

And for example I am convinced that it is the "commitment" of Lucretius that comes through as the intensity and value of his poem, and likewise with Diogenes of Oinoanda. If that sense of "commitment" does not come through in a person's writings about Epicurus (at least after a time) then that gives me a pretty good sense that they and I are not at all on the same page. I'm sorry, but I can't take a "disinterested" or "passionless" position on someone I see to be standing up to fight - and almost alone -- against the greatest evils of human life.

Quote from Julia

People who do not commit are aimless and flakey.

That is the sense in which I use the word "commit" and 'commitment" too. While Kalosyni is correct that it *can* involve improper views of duty and obligations asserted by false abstractions, it's more important meaning (to me, and i would wager to be one of the most generally-used definition, unless you're specifically talking about sending a crazy person to an asylum, a criminal to prison, or signing a contract) is more like:

an intense emotional drive voluntarily undertaken toward the achievement of some specified and desired goal.

I would not let Stoics or Buddhists or anyone else abscond with the perfectly valid word like "commitment" as if it only arises through "duty." To accept that would be akin to buying into the idea that all intense emotional drive is somehow tainted. Epicurus said that the wise man will feel his emotions MORE intensely than others.

I am saying that ("fleeing" is not a normally something an Epicurus would do) mainly in the context of coming up with words that are generally useful.

To me, "flee" is something you do when Mt. Vesuvius erupts, and there is absolutely nothing you can do a about a horrible danger. But even then, if you are Pliny the Elder, then you run toward the danger - and this is not the Stoic "duty" some will accuse it of being - because you could not live with yourself if you did not make an effort to save your friends, or even (though this is less likely) you want to satisfy your curiosity. It seems to me that for an Epicurean in the normal world, 'fleeing' is something you will rarely have to consider, along the lines of luck rarely intruding on the life of the wise man." "Choosing" and "Avoiding," or similar action words of normal life, seem to me to be the more useful terms that characterize what even the wisest man will generally be doing.

Just gotta say to close the night, I don't like the sound or connotations of "flee" at all!

So the general thrust is words like 'shared in festivals' and 'participated in worship' - and nothing specific about praying in terms of asking for things and expecting a reply (?)

1 - Ok adding to the mix on the discussion of what might be "between the worlds," I guess i should have said that what could be there is a "quasi-planet!" Actually now that I think about it, it does seem to be important to what Velleius is saying that the gods are not of firm solid shape, so I suppose that doesn't require a firm solid planet to stand on.

2.

Quote from Don

I said I was going to respond to some of Twentier 's thoughts on prayer.

Going back behind that statement -- what authorities do we have that Epicurus said that we should "pray" to a god? I'm thinking that anything that exists is later and of less authority, more like someone like Horace talking about asking gods what he can't provide for himself. Are there other more specific references?

I think I remember how this line of thought got started in this thread, (What good is a god that is just a dream?), followed by some references to Christian prayer and then that Epicurean theology is hard to make sense of. While I don't read Twentier as suggesting "prayer" to Epicurean gods, I can see how someone skimming the entirety of this thread casually, including Don's detailed explanations above, might get confused. Probably it's worthwhile to be clear about this:

Twentier could you clarify your thoughts about what you think the ancient Epicurean toward prayer was?

My first thought is that "worlds" appears to refer to a "collection" of lots of objects like planets and stars (presumably) then I would take "world" to be the "collection" of things, and not indicative that it would be impossible for planets or even starts to exist "on their own" part from a "world-system." I seem to recall that even in the letter to Herodotus there is talk of worlds arising from a "vortex" - like spinning, so it would not seem impossible for me if Epicurus considered each "world" to be like a spinning collection of things (like we tend to look at galaxies) with it being possible for objects to be "spun off" into the area that would presumable exist between innumerable galaxies.

I know that is broad and ambiguous but I would presume that Epicurus realized we can only see "so far" out into the universe, presumably no further out than our own world. I wouldn't expect him to impose arbitrary limits or descriptions on what kind of matter in what arrangements might exist "between" these world formations.

We need more input from others....

Hopefully some others will have some suggestions - sort of synonyms for "enjoy"

Kind of like we are writing a Pepsi cola commercial

Julia that last post #3 does make your question very clear. I was thinking given the title of the thread that your focus was on replacing the word "Choice."

This isn't likely to be satisfactory, but I am tempted to suggest that we might sort of parallel the view that DeWitt suggested - that "life" rather than "pleasure" was Epicurus' greatest good. We might observe that from an Epicurean perspective the meaning of "pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain" comes down to a proper perspective on the verb "to live!"

I am reminded of that Latin poem by Catullus which contains "Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus..."

Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love,
and value the rumors of dour old men
at just a single penny.
The sun falls and rises again:
but for us, once falls the paltry light,
ours is a sleep that lasts forever.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
then another thousand, and a second hundred,
then even another thousand, and a hundred—
then, after so many thousands,
we will throw them in disorder, losing count,
so that no one evil can envy,
knowing the count of our kisses.

I'm easily reminded of it cause I've never gotten it out of my mind after seeing this:

Quote from Bryan

I'd say that an anticipation must be involved for every word we use -- we would have no idea what any particular word indicated unless we have some general stereotype that we access before we start thinking or speaking about any object or relationship.

I agree with that so long as the emphasis stays on the word "involved" - because I suspect a lot of people will read what Diogenes Laertius wrote and conclude that anticipations ARE concepts. I think we all or mostly all agree here that anticipations are *not* in themselves concepts, but something that is PRE-concept.

it's awfully tempting to try to boil things down to "I see 5 men. I form a concept of a man. The next time i see a man I match what I see to the concept and conclude 'That is a man.'" But I think that that would be an error to conclude that is the complete picture.

The complete picture contains something before "I see 5 men." Because from before you ever saw your first man, you had some kind of pattern-assembly faculty going on that told you to associate the head and body and arms and leg into a single "thing." I am thinking that labeling that "thing" as a "man" is something your mind does in forming an opinion AFTER the prolepsis has presented to your mind the perception that the mind needed to organize this particular relationship into something to name and then remember.

Quote from Don

By definition, that means there is no world, no world-system, no ordered part of the universe on which a human-shaped god could reside. By definition, the intermundia/metakosmos has no "world." Are we to imagine them floating around like bubbles?

I understand why you are arriving at that conclusion, but I don't think it's necessarily the only conclusion to draw, given the ambiguity of what a "world" or a "space between worlds" would really mean.