Posts by Cassius

This episode will be released today. In the meantime I wanted to memorialize an observation Joshua made last night to this effect:

That there is a parallel between Epicurus' statement in the letter to Menoeceus as to the nature of gods, and the statement by Torquatus in Cicero's On Ends as to the nature of the highest good.

Joshua can do a better job than I of stating his point, but the way I remember it is that as to gods in the letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus points out that the idea of gods is etched on the minds of all men, but that the particular assertions about the gods that men make are untrustworthy and often wrong.

Quote

The things which I used unceasingly to commend to you, these do and practice, considering them to be the first principles of the good life. First of all believe that god is a being immortal and blessed, even as the common idea of a god is engraved on men’s minds, and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness: but believe about him everything that can uphold his blessedness and immortality. For gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision. But they are not such as the many believe them to be: for indeed they do not consistently represent them as they believe them to be. And the impious man is not he who popularly denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many.

In regard to the highest good, Torquatus points out that there is a common conception of the highest good on which all philosophers agree (that the highest good is the thing all actions aim act, but which is not itself aimed at anything else) and yet the specific observations men make against the highest good (that the highest good is virtue or piety) is untrustworthy and often wrong.

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[29] IX. ‘First, then,’ said he, ‘I shall plead my case on the lines laid down by the founder of our school himself: I shall define the essence and features of the problem before us, not because I imagine you to be unacquainted with them, but with a view to the methodical progress of my speech. The problem before us then is, what is the climax and standard of things good, and this in the opinion of all philosophers must needs be such that we are bound to test all things by it, but the standard itself by nothing. Epicurus places this standard in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good, while pain is the supreme evil; and he founds his proof of this on the following considerations.

In both cases, Epicurus is not using the conclusions of other men as the direct basis for his conclusion, he is observing that there is a common root perspective in the minds of men, but what men think about that common root perspective is in many/most cases totally wrong, and must be correcting by going back to observations from the canonical faculties.

Linking these two passages together leads to some interesting possibilities which I'll defer making in this post and see if Joshua gets a chance to elaborate his observation further himself.

All this came up in relation to the main point of this Lucretius Today episode, which is that it is ridiculous to assert that Epicurus based his ideas of gods, or of philosophy, by observing the conclusions of other men - the "general consent of mankind" / "Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong" argument.

This episode is devoted largely to refuting a specific allegation made by Cotta which misrepresents Velleius' and Epicurus' position:

Quote from Cotta addressing Velleius

You have said that the general assent of men of all nations and all degrees is an argument strong enough to induce us to acknowledge the being of the Gods

During the episode, I made a passing allusion to Cotta's argument being essentially that Epicurus had adopted a "fifty million frenchmen can't be wrong" attitude.

This needs to be firmly rejected. Epicurus did not and would endorse, given that Epicurus was well known for setting himself apart from the crowd and pointing out that the crowd is frequently wrong.

Some may not be aware of my "Fifty million Frenchmen" reference, and in fact I am not sure I was aware of the Cole Porter song myself, but here is the source of the allusion:

Fifty Million Frenchmen - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Welcome to Episode 240 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

XXIII. You have said that the general assent of men of all nations and all degrees is an argument strong enough to induce us to acknowledge the being of the Gods. This is not only a weak, but a false, argument; for, first of all, how do you know the opinions of all nations? I really believe there are many people so savage that they have no thoughts of a Deity. What think you of Diagoras, who was called the atheist; and of Theodorus after him? Did not they plainly deny the very essence of a Deity? Protagoras of Abdera, whom you just now mentioned, the greatest sophist of his age, was banished by order of the Athenians from their city and territories, and his books were publicly burned, because these words were in the beginning of his treatise concerning the Gods: “I am unable to arrive at any knowledge whether there are, or are not, any Gods.” This treatment of him, I imagine, restrained many from professing their disbelief of a Deity, since the doubt of it only could not escape punishment. What shall we say of the sacrilegious, the impious, and the perjured? If Tubulus Lucius, Lupus, or Carbo the son of Neptune, as Lucilius says, had believed that there were Gods, would either of them have carried his perjuries and impieties to such excess? Your reasoning, therefore, to confirm your assertion is not so conclusive as you think it is. But as this is the manner in which other philosophers have argued on the same subject, I will take no further notice of it at present; I rather choose to proceed to what is properly your own.

I allow that there are Gods. Instruct me, then, concerning their origin; inform me where they are, what sort of body, what mind, they have, and what is their course of life; for these I am desirous of knowing. You attribute the most absolute power and efficacy to atoms. Out of them you pretend that everything is made. But there are no atoms, for there is nothing without body; every place is occupied by body, therefore there can be no such thing as a vacuum or an atom.

XXIV. I advance these principles of the naturalists without knowing whether they are true or false; yet they are more like truth than those statements of yours; for they are the absurdities in which Democritus, or before him Leucippus, used to indulge, saying that there are certain light corpuscles—some smooth, some rough, some round, some square, some crooked and bent as bows—which by a fortuitous concourse made heaven and earth, without the influence of any natural power. This opinion, C. Velleius, you have brought down to these our times; and you would sooner be deprived of the greatest advantages of life than of that authority; for before you were acquainted with those tenets, you thought that you ought to profess yourself an Epicurean; so that it was necessary that you should either embrace these absurdities or lose the philosophical character which you had taken upon you; and what could bribe you to renounce the Epicurean opinion? Nothing, you say, can prevail on you to forsake the truth and the sure means of a happy life. But is that the truth? for I shall not contest your happy life, which you think the Deity himself does not enjoy unless he languishes in idleness.

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."

Diogenes Laertius on Eudoxus:

LIFE OF EUDOXUS.¶

I. Eudoxus was the son of Æschines, and a native of Cnidus. He was an astronomer, a geometrician, a physician,[373] and a lawgiver. In geometry he was a pupil of Archytas, and in medicine of Philistion, the Sicilian, as Callimachus relates in his Tablets; and Sotion, in his Successions, asserts that he was likewise a pupil of Plato; for that, when he was twenty-three years of age, and in very narrow circumstances, he came to Athens with Theomedon the physician, by whom he was chiefly supported, being attracted by the reputation of the Socratic school. Some say that his attachment to Theomedon was cemented by nearer ties. And when he had arrived at Piræus, he went up to the city every day, and when he had heard the Sophists lecture he returned. And having spent two months there, he returned home again; and being again aided by the contributions of his friends, he set sail for Egypt, with Chrysippus the physician, bearing letters of introduction from Agesilaus to Nectanabis, and that he recommended him to the priests.

II. And having remained there a year and four months, he shaved his eyebrows after the manner of the Egyptian priests, and composed, as it is said, the treatise called the Octaeteris. From thence he went to Cyzicus, and to the Propontis, in both of which places he lived as a Sophist; he also went to the court of Mausolus. And then, in this manner, he returned again to Athens, having a great many disciples with him, for the sake, as some say, of annoying Plato, because he had originally discarded him from his school. Some say, that when Plato gave an entertainment on one occasion, Eudoxus, as the guests were very numerous, introduced the fashion of sitting in a semicircle.

Nicomachus, the son of Aristotle, affirms that he used to say, that pleasure was the good.

III. He was received in his own country with great honours, as the decree that was passed respecting him shows. He was also accounted very illustrious among the Greeks, having given laws to his own fellow citizens, as Hermippus tells us in the fourth book of his account of the Seven Wise Men; and having also written treatises on Astronomy and Geometry, and several other considerable works.

He had three daughters, Actis, Philtis, and Delphis. And Eratosthenes asserts, in his books addressed to Baton, that he also composed dialogues entitled Dialogues of Dogs; others say that these were written by some Egyptians, in their own[374] language, and that Eudoxus translated them, and published them in Greece. One of his pupils was Chrysippus, of Cnidos, son of Erineus, who learnt of him all that he knew about the Gods, and the world, and the heavenly bodies; and who learnt medicine from Philistion the Sicilian. He also left some very admirable Reminiscences.

IV. He had a son of the name of Aristagoras, who was the teacher of Chrysippus, the son of Aëthlius; he was the author of a work on Remedies for the Eyes, as speculations on natural philosophy had come very much under his notice.

V. There were three people of the name of Eudoxus. The first, this man of whom we are speaking; the second, a Rhodian, who wrote histories; the third, a Siciliot, a son of Agathocles, a comic poet, who gained three victories at the Dionysia in the city, and five at the Lenæa,[119] as Apollodorus tells us in his Chronicles. We also find another, who was a physician of Cnidos, who is mentioned by this Eudoxus, in his Circuit of the World, where he says that he used to warn people to keep constantly exercising their limbs in every kind of exercise, and their senses too.

VI. The same author says, that the Cnidean Eudoxus flourished about the hundred and third olympiad; and that he was the inventor of the theory of crooked lines. And he died in his fifty-third year. But when he was in Egypt with Conuphis, of Heliopolis, Apis licked his garment; and so the priests said that he would be short-lived, but very illustrious, as it is reported by Phavorinus in his Commentaries. And we have written an epigram on him, that runs thus:—

’Tis said, that while at Memphis wise Eudoxus

Learnt his own fate from th’ holy fair-horned bull;

He said indeed no word, bulls do not speak

Nor had kind nature e’er calf Apis gifted

With an articulately speaking mouth.

But standing on one side he lick’d his cloak,

Showing by this most plainly—in brief time

You shall put off your life. So death came soon,

When he had just seen three and fifty times

The Pleiads rise to warn the mariners.

[375]

And instead of Eudoxus, they used to call him Endoxus,[120] on account of the brilliancy of his reputation. And since we have gone through the illustrious Pythagoreans, we must now speak of the Promiscuous philosophers, as they call them. And we will first of all speak of Heraclitus.

Eudoxus appears to be one of the major advocates of Pleasure as the highest good prior to Epicurus - and perhaps someone more even more appropriate to compare to Epicurus than Aristippus. Here is an opening discussion of Eudoxus from Gosling & Taylor's "The Greeks on Pleasure:"

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3. Eudoxus 8.3.1.

At the time of the Philebus, then, Plato is encountering two anti-hedonist positions, each backed by a theory of the nature of pleasure. But the opposition in the Philebus is a hedonistic thesis, and one which Plato thinks it worth while to attack with a wealth of argument not given to the subject in any previous dialogue. Some extra stimulus had been given to discussions of pleasure. This (cf. DL VIIl.86-91; Proclus, In Primum Euclidis Elementorum Librum Commen- tarii, B.39) was probably given by Eudoxus of Cnidus (cf. 7.1.4). According to Aristotle (EN 1172b9 ff.), he argued that pleasure is the good on the grounds that

(i) all animals, including men, pursue it, and what all pursue is the good;

(ii) all animals and men avoid pain as evil, and the opposite of pain, pleasure, must therefore be good;

(iii) pleasure is never for the sake of something else: no one ever asks ‘why enjoy yourself?’;

(iv) if pleasure is added to anything it makes it better.

He is also said (EN 1101b27-31) to have argued that pleasure is prized, not praised, just as the good is. The point here is not altogether clear, and Aristotle interprets Eudoxus rather than cites him. It is plausible, however, to suggest that the point is that with other goods we praise them because of the benefits they yield, whereas with pleasure this is not the case. This suggests that this consideration might have supported argument (iii) above. For it seems to suppose that whereas people might cite pleasure as what justifies their praise of X and so gives point to pursuing X, no one praises pleasure because there is no further reason for pursuing pleasure. This might have been thought to imply, what Aristotle considers lacking in Eudoxus’ position, that there is nothing that can be added to pleasure to make it (more) desirable.

8.3.2. At first sight this might seem to be a rehash of the hedonism of the Protagoras, but further consideration reveals important differences. To begin with, in the Protagoras Socrates is simply addressing himself to human beings, and his procedure is to challenge an honest man to acknowledge any other final end. Eudoxus, on the other hand, relies on the supposed observation that all animals, whether rational or not, pursue pleasure, and this is regarded as supporting the conclusion that pleasure is the good (compare EN 1l72b9— 15, 1l72b35-1173a5). In other words pleasure is not shown just to be one goal among many, because the goal of one species, but to be the sole claimant to the title of goal with any goal-pursuing being. He also supports this with an argument from general pain-avoidance and the consideration that pain is opposed to pleasure. While arguments (iii) and (iv) doubt- less rely on facts about human beings’ judgements they are not found at all in the Protagoras. Of course, in so far as ‘pleasure’ is taken in the Protagoras to mean ‘maximization of pleasure’ it will follow that no one will be able to supply a further end to give point to pursuing pleasure; but it is perfectly possible to ask of any individual pleasure what the good of pursuing it is. The point is not, however, made in Eudoxan terms, by appeal to the fact that no one asks a given question. Similarly it will follow from the Protagoras view that an addition of pleasure will make something better; but again, Socrates does not start with that as a premise, but works to it as a conclusion.

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Wikipedia:

Eudoxus of Cnidus - Wikipedia

Eudoxus of Cnidus (/ˈjuːdəksəs/; Ancient Greek: Εὔδοξος ὁ Κνίδιος, Eúdoxos ho Knídios; c. 390 – c. 340 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, doctor, and lawmaker.^[1] He was a student of Archytas and Plato. All of his original works are lost, though some fragments are preserved in Hipparchus' Commentaries on the Phenomena of Aratus and Eudoxus.^[2] Spherics by Theodosius of Bithynia may be based on a work by Eudoxus.

Mine flat lines too but my recent reading into Seneca has motivated me a little more than in the past. Now it seems likely to be that the Epicureans didn't disappear overnight - which never made sense - and that if we start to look back into the history we will see things that we did not see before.

Exposing Seneca's hypocrisy will go a long way toward purging Modern interpretations of Epicurus of Senecas Stoicism, and I bet if we look closer we will see details in the history of next several hundred years that make a lot more sense if we look for clues in people who -like Julius Caesar himself probably - were holding Epicurean ideas without being called by that name.

Given how active Cassius Longinus and other Epicureans were in 50BC, and lacking any reason why they should be suppressed until the Christian total takeover, there must have continued to be prominent Epicureans for centuries.

A glance at Wikipedia doesn't help much to get a fix on Juvenal, but I do have a couple of additional thoughts. We spent most of our time in this episode criticizing Academic Skepticism and its self-contradictions and lack of position-taking, and some of that applies to that excerpt. It's probably helpful exercise to be able to take any passage and be able to pull it apart and ask Epicurean questions about it to see if it's really helpful or not.

Just what is Juvenal advocating, when his words can be interpreted acceptably by Stoic or Epicurean? Would a Christian or Jew or Hindu or Buddhist have any objection to this wording? If *everyone* finds it acceptable despite their dramatically different worldviews, that strikes me as a major red flag.

As to the first two lines, a healthy body isn't so hard to quantify, but what exactly is a healthy mind? Isn't that the ultimate question? And why not be afraid of death? For the Epicurean reason that there is no existence after death, or for an anti-Epicurean reason that a god is going to reward you in an afterlife?

After the first two lines, each of the following lines seems to me to have a decided unEpicurean slant:

and deems length of days the least of Nature's gifts
that can endure any kind of toil,
that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks
the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than
the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus.
What I commend to you, you can give to yourself;
For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.

1. Time ("length of days") is the *least* of Nature's gifts? Doesn't that reduce to not needing life at all, and doesn't Epicurus specifically condemn the view that it would be better never to have been born, and doesn't Epicurus say that life is desirable?
2. Enduring any kind of toil? Doesn't it make a lot of difference *why* you are toiling?
3. Knows neither wrath nor desire? Aren't there times to be angry, as Philodemus preserves for us, and don't we find life to be desirable, as Epicurus says to Menoeceus?
4. Woes and hard labors of Hercules? Doesn't Lucretius directly minimize Hercules as a symbol by pointing out that his labors were largely unnecessary? I don't get the impression that the Epicureans would have considered Hercules to be a negative figure in all cases, but when Hercules is set up as a paradigm of choosing virtue, not as a means to pleasure, but as an end in itself, then that crosses a line to the clearly negative.
5. Criticisms of the "loves and banquets and cushions" of Sardanapalus makes sense in Epicurean terms, *if* the reader understands Sadanapalus as in fact not being successful in living a happy life (in which case it would be consistent with PD10), but Wikipedia says: "The name Sardanapalus is probably a corruption of Ashurbanipal (Aššur-bāni-apli > Sar-dan-ápalos), an Assyrian emperor, but Sardanapalus as described by Diodorus bears little relationship with what is known of that king, who in fact was a militarily powerful, highly efficient and scholarly ruler, presiding over the largest empire the world had yet seen. ... There is no evidence from Mesopotamia that either Ashurbanipal or Shamash-shum-ukin led hedonistic lifestyles, were homosexual or transvestites. Both appear to have been strong, disciplined, serious and ambitious rulers, and Ashurbanipal was known to be a literate and scholarly king with an interest in mathematics, astronomy, astrology, history, zoology and botany.^[6]" The way the line is written, Juvenal takes the story as a caricature that makes it sound like he is condemning all luxury all the time, which is not what Epicurus says to Menoeceus.
6. "What I commend to you, you can give to yourself" can certainly be read acceptably, but more than anything else it has a Stoic "mind over matter" ring to it, as if you are oblivious to outside circumstances, which Epicureans (who cry out when under torture) are not.
7. "For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue." And of course the road set out by Epicurus is to "pleasure," and not to "peace," even if the road can be considered to be one of virtue, per PD05. Everything about the tone of this excerpt implies that "virtue" is being stated in the Stoic sense, not the Epicurean sense.

I tend to think your take in the episode is correct, as I see the overall tone of that quote as decidedly slanted toward Stoicism. But I don't have a mental fix on Juvenal at all at this point, so I will try to look further into him in the future.

Episode 239 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we address the dishonesty of Academic Skepticism as opposed to Epicurus' commitment to knowing and teaching the truth about things that matter in life!

Early in this episode (recorded this morning, to be released later this week) Joshua leads off with an excellent quote from Thomas Jefferson expressing Jefferson's disdain for Skepticism. The quote comes in an 1820 letter Jefferson wrote to John Adams, one of a series of documents relevant to Epicurus collected here.

The complete letter can be found here, and the selection Joshua emphasized is below:

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let me turn to your puzzling letter of May 12. on matter, spirit, motion E^tc. it’s croud of scepticisms kept me from sleep. I read it, & laid it down: read it, and laid it down, again, and again: and to give rest to my mind, I was obliged to recur ultimately to my habitual anodyne, ‘I feel: therefore I exist.’ I feel bodies which are not myself: there are other existencies then. I call them matter. I feel them changing place. this gives me motion. where there is an absence of matter, I call it void, or nothing, or immaterial space. on the basis of sensation, of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all the certainties we can have or need.

...

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Rejecting all organs of information therefore but my senses, I rid myself of the Pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations hyperphysical and antiphysical so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind. a single sense may indeed be sometimes decieved, but rarely: and never all our senses together, with their faculty of reasoning. they evidence realities; and there are enough of these for all the purposes of life, without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams & phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence. I am sure that I really know many, many, things, and none more surely than that I love you with all my heart, and pray for the continuance of your life until you shall be tired of it yourself.

Those are certainly two excellent quotes directly on point to this and many episodes of the podcast to come, because we are dealing with the objections to the Epicurean position made by Cotta, who is himself an Academic Skeptic. I also recommend reading the full letter, because sandwiched between the two sections Joshua quoted is more excellent analysis that is useful to fully understand the self-refuting nature of the radical skeptic position.

I think this is well worth exploring because it's probably the front line of the way the Epicureans would have distinguished their approach to the search for truth as opposed to the use of "formal logic" by the other philosophers. Looking for and setting up "rules" that harden into inflexibility is a prescription for disaster, and I would expect that Epicurus would be looking for ways to describe a properly flexible approach that always takes into account new facts and new circumstances regardless of what "rules" of virtue or piety have been developed formally over time.

Seems to me that Frances Wright was attacking this issue also in saying something to the effect that "theory" is an enemy of truth. I'll look for that cite.

From Chapter 15 of A Few Days In Athens, Leontium speaking:

Quote

“I apprehend the difficulties,” observed Leontium, “which embarrass the mind of our young friend. Like most aspirants after knowledge, he has a vague and incorrect idea of what he is pursuing, and still more, of what may be attained. In the schools you have hitherto frequented,” she continued, addressing the youth, “certain images of virtue, vice, truth, knowledge, are presented to the imagination, and these abstract qualities, or we may call them, figurative beings, are made at once the objects of speculation and adoration. A law is laid down, and the feelings and opinions of men are predicated upon it; a theory is built, and all animate and inanimate nature is made to speak in its support; an hypothesis is advanced, and all the mysteries of nature are treated as explained. You have heard of, and studied various systems of philosophy; but real philosophy is opposed to all systems. Her whole business is observation; and the results of that observation constitute all her knowledge. She receives no truths, until she has tested them by experience; she advances no opinions, unsupported by the testimony of facts; she acknowledges no virtue, but that involved in beneficial actions; no vice, but that involved in actions hurtful to ourselves or to others. Above all, she advances no dogmas, — is slow to assert what is, — and calls nothing impossible. The science of philosophy is simply a science of observation, both as regards the world without us, and the world within; and, to advance in it, are requisite only sound senses, well developed and exercised faculties, and a mind free of prejudice. The objects she has in view, as regards the external world, are, first, to see things as they are, and secondly, to examine their structure, to ascertain their properties, and to observe their relations one to the other. — As respects the world within, or the philosophy of mind, she has in view, first, to examine our sensations, or the impressions of external things on our senses; which operation involves, and is involved in, the examination of those external things themselves: secondly, to trace back to our sensations, the first development of all our faculties; and again, from these sensations, and the exercise of our different faculties as developed by them, to trace the gradual formation of our moral feelings, and of all our other emotions: thirdly, to analyze all these our sensations, thoughts, and emotions, — that is, to examine the qualities of our own internal, sentient matter, with the same, and yet more, closeness of scrutiny, than we have applied to the examination of the matter that is without us: finally, to investigate the justness of our moral feelings, and to weigh the merit and demerit of human actions; which is, in other words, to judge of their tendency to produce good or evil, — to excite pleasurable or painful feelings in ourselves or others. You will observe, therefore, that, both as regards the philosophy of physics, and the philosophy of mind, all is simply a process of investigation. It is a journey of discovery, in which, in the one case, we commission our senses to examine the qualities of that matter, which is around us, and, in the other, endeavor, by attention to the varieties of our consciousness, to gain a knowledge of those qualities of matter which constitute our susceptibilities of thought and feeling.”

Anyone have thoughts on how "analogy" differs from "similarity"?

Quote from Twentier

I find the text to be challenging,....

It sure is, and especially since it seems to pick up in the middle, and it's sometimes hard to tell which arguments he is agreeing with, and which he is stating accurately but which are Stoic arguments that he ultimately disagrees with.

There's a lot more to get out of the book than I've gotten myself. I do think the Appendix to the DeLacy version is very helpful however, and it gives a lot of background about these issues that's not in the text.

I also want to be sure we emphasize what Bryan has produced on page 130 of the current version of his Epicurea, from Diogenes Laertius 10:32. It strikes me that the specific mention of these considerations lends them special importance in any proper analysis process:

1. Circumstance
2. Analogy
3. Similarity
4. Combination / Synthesis

Welcome to Episode 239 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

XXI. Cotta, with his usual courtesy, then began. Velleius, says he, were it not for something which you have advanced, I should have remained silent; for I have often observed, as I did just now upon hearing you, that I cannot so easily conceive why a proposition is true as why it is false. Should you ask me what I take the nature of the Gods to be, I should perhaps make no answer. But if you should ask whether I think it to be of that nature which you have described, I should answer that I was as far as possible from agreeing with you. However, before I enter on the subject of your discourse and what you have advanced upon it, I will give you my opinion of yourself. Your intimate friend, L. Crassus, has been often heard by me to say that you were beyond all question superior to all our learned Romans; and that few Epicureans in Greece were to be compared to you. But as I knew what a wonderful esteem he had for you, I imagined that might make him the more lavish in commendation of you. Now, however, though I do not choose to praise any one when present, yet I must confess that I think you have delivered your thoughts clearly on an obscure and very intricate subject; that you are not only copious in your sentiments, but more elegant in your language than your sect generally are.

When I was at Athens, I went often to hear Zeno, by the advice of Philo, who used to call him the chief of the Epicureans; partly, probably, in order to judge more easily how completely those principles could be refuted after I had heard them stated by the most learned of the Epicureans. And, indeed, he did not speak in any ordinary manner; but, like you, with clearness, gravity, and elegance; yet what frequently gave me great uneasiness when I heard him, as it did while I attended to you, was to see so excellent a genius falling into such frivolous (excuse my freedom), not to say foolish, doctrines.

However, I shall not at present offer anything better; for, as I said before, we can in most subjects, especially in physics, sooner discover what is not true than what is.

XXII. If you should ask me what God is, or what his character and nature are, I should follow the example of Simonides, who, when Hiero the tyrant proposed the same question to him, desired a day to consider of it. When he required his answer the next day, Simonides begged two days more; and as he kept constantly desiring double the number which he had required before instead of giving his answer, Hiero, with surprise, asked him his meaning in doing so: “Because,” says he, “the longer I meditate on it, the more obscure it appears to me.” Simonides, who was not only a delightful poet, but reputed a wise and learned man in other branches of knowledge, found, I suppose, so many acute and refined arguments occurring to him, that he was doubtful which was the truest, and therefore despaired of discovering any truth.

But does your Epicurus (for I had rather contend with him than with you) say anything that is worthy the name of philosophy, or even of common-sense?

This is a thread-starter for use in discussing "methods" or "considerations" in thinking, as referenced in the Epicurean texts.

Not quite so elegant as the photo above, but perhaps conveys the point just as well. You can only fill the bucket so far, and the bucket never gets more full than full.

PD18. The pleasure in the flesh is not increased when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied: and the limit as regards pleasure in the mind is begotten by the reasoned understanding of these very pleasures, and of the emotions akin to them, which used to cause the greatest fear to the mind.

PD19. Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure.

Thanks to a tip I see that there is an article by Professor Clerk Shaw available for public download at the link below which addresses some of these issues (the Epicurean concern for truth, and the importance of physics to the study of ethics) in a way I find very persuasive. I highly recommend this for those interested in the topic. This article is recent (2020) and (as I recall at the moment) new to me, so I appreciate the tip!

Epicurean Philosophy and Its Parts

History for Shaw, Clerk (2020)

philarchive.org

The article contains this cite to Philodemus, with which i also was not familiar:

"This is confirmed by Philodemus, who says that all three parts contribute to choices and avoidances (De Elect. XIII):Above all, he [Epicurus] establishes the principles of philosophy, by which alone it is possible to act rightly. And it is clear that he also establishes the congenital ends, which yield the most conspicuous evidence and by which the calculations concerning choices and avoidances are performed. Besides, one must unfailingly draw the ethical arguments regarding both choices and avoidances entirely from the study of nature in order that they should be complete — if nothing else, the principle that nothing is produced without a cause and that … does not change.""

And a good reminder to a cite in Lucretius:

The diagnostic and therapeutic significance of this distinction is shown by Lucretius ’ case of a man who fails to understand that the cause of his trouble is internal, not external (III.1053 – 1075). Under the misapprehension that his surroundings bother him, he travels restlessly between city and country. The real cause,though, is his fear of death; if he knew that, he would instead devote himself to studying the nature of things — i.e., to physics. So, knowledge of causes, and particularly the distinction between internal and external causes, can alter our choices and avoidances: it can lead us to abandon travel for philosophy.This hypothesis also helps to explain the claims in SV 45 and De Fin. I.63 – 64 that the study of nature improves character. Character is primarily a matter of one’s evaluative beliefs, and such beliefs are among the main causes of living well or badly. Physics is thus relevant to living well in part because it draws distinctions among causes and enables us to alter those causes — among them, our evaluative beliefs. So, physics contributes to character development, making us moderate and self-sufficient."

For some reason I missed seeing that quote the first time through:

Quote

'The ethical and epistemological turn in Epicureanism has the curious effect that what has appeared to many modern commentators to be the most materialistic and least teleological of ancient philosophies (in short, the most scientific) represents at the same time a deliberate turning away from examination, experiment. and the elimination of competing hypotheses for astronomical, cosmological, and meteorological phenomena' (Lehoux).

Yes that's the direction I can see some people wanting to go, and as a defender of Epicurus I'd want to strike back at that as firmly as possible.

But that's definitely a part of the issue that we are discussing in this thread so it's great that you've pointed that out! It's been implicit in many comments i have seen made over the past but I don't think I've seen it asserted so starkly.

I guess you may be talking about this:

https://philpapers.org/rec/HANLEA-2

It seems to me that it would be tempting for opponents of Epicurus to say: "He never seems to be weighing evidence and discussing probabilities at all. He is always going straight from 0% certainty to 100% certainty, with nothing but "maybes" in between. And therefore we can discard Epicurus because no one with any sense would do away with the concept of probabilities."

But I don't think that would be a fair reading of Epicurus to reach that conclusion. Is it even possible to imagine that in his life or teaching Epicurus did not admit that "some things are more probable than others?"

It would be good to go through the texts and see what arguments can be raised based on specific examples, but I can't imagine that in his intention to refute the skeptics who said that "nothing is knowable" he would have erased any distinction between "the more and less probable."

I see that Bailey references "probable" in that quote from Pythocles:

Quote

Now all goes on without disturbance as far as regards each of those things which may be explained in several ways so as to harmonize with what we perceive, when one admits, as we are bound to do, probable theories about them.