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I'm sure that's true. Could you elaborate what you mean?
Well mostly what I was referring to is just the way people typically "slow down" or develop chonic disease conditions with age. I'm personally at the point now (over 60!) that I just don't have the energy to do the things I used to do in whole range of areas. That makes diet and exercise even more important over time, I guess!
Outstanding post Nate thank you. Very well worded on a whole series of key points on religion and morality and death.
I don't necessarily want to derail this thread with another discussion with fine points on "the gods," but is it your view at this point that you do not think Epicurus held the gods to have any physical existence whatsoever ("....though, those deities are simply inspiring mental objects") or am I misreading your intent there?
Not sure how we could work it, but maybe we need a "My Current Thoughts On _____" section of the forum or in our user profiles to have a way to keep track of evolving thoughts. But that's another topic too. Maybe someone will have a suggestion on how we could implement such a thing. I know my own opinions on difficult topics is subject to change so that might be helpful. The other alternative that we already follow to avoid thread derailment is that if a series of posts goes too far off from the main point, we move those to a new thread. So your choice as to whether to respond on that point here, somewhere else, or not at all.
But back on topic and my main point here is - that was an excellent post!
Today I've set up a page to keep track of a list of articles or materials that would be particularly helpful to have, but which don't currently exist (at least in the forum we need it at the forum for general reference).
I have seeded the list with three articles, one each for physics, canonics, and ethics, but I would like to expand it to include a wider list that we can keep pinned as a list of suggestions that we'd like to see people write about.
I suspect we have a considerable number of participants and even lurkers who occasionally have time on their hands, and this list would provide food for thought about how they might assist us in preparing general-interest materials about Epicurean topics.
Please feel free to add topics to this discussion thread, and we can incorporate them into a master ongoing list, to which we will link from the front page of the forum.
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No doubt there are some pithy quotes in "On Signs" that are directly relevant to this discussion.
Here's our discussion of two articles on knowledge and signs by David Sedley
And here's a transcript of the text of the DeLacey edition of Philodemus.
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"
[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.
Second thread, same general reservations:
See also in particular this part for discussion that Porphyry seems to be recommending abstinence from food and sex:
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.
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."
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"
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:
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:
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:
