a research master in philosophy, specializing in Epicurean physics.
With that background you certainly ought to be able to contribute a lot!!
Welcome aboard.
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a research master in philosophy, specializing in Epicurean physics.
With that background you certainly ought to be able to contribute a lot!!
Welcome aboard.
Welcome Asclepiades !
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In that regard we have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.
It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.
And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.
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Welcome to the forum!
My thoughts on this are spurred by what I did this afternoon. For years I have been kicking myself that I did not have a better "topical index" or "table of contents" for finding things in Lucretius. I have had a rough outline, but it wasn't keyed to line numbers and was not much help in finding things. And it really bugs me to have to say that "I remember that's in Lucretius but I can't remember where!"
So to help burn this in my memory and create a better reference for everyone, I am going to go through as quickly as I can an update my existing index with line references and better summaries. Today I completed Book One. I hope to spend this weekend getting as far as possible with the rest.
Lucretius - Editions And Topical Finding Aid
From this review of the explanation of how Epicurus derives the existence of matter and void, it's clear that he's using what Dewitt calls "chain reasoning." He's making observations about how things work, such as nothing is seen to come from nothing, and using those observations of what IS visible to make deductions about what IS NOT visible, and then carrying forward the reasoning from there all the way to "no supernatural gods" and "no eternal soul surviving death" and of course many other things. And by the time he reaches those conclusions, he considers them iron-clad and no longer open to doubt, so he asserts them firmly and without equivocation. I would expect that Epicurus saw PD01 as complimentary and supporting of the physics reasoning about no supernatural gods, rather than that PDO1 stands on its own as sufficient proof of the position. Likewise the physics point would not stand alone to establish that there are no higher beings that are capable of meddling in our affairs (like we are meddling in the affairs of the Moon and Mars), but the anticipation/prolepsis point would establish that any beings that do meddle don't merit being considered truly blessed and imperishable beings (regardless of whether they are natural or not).
It seems to me to be super important to observe that he's not starting with a conclusion ("there are no supernatural gods"). Rather, he's starting with evidence from observation from which he makes deductions and then builds those deductions as they naturally flow to a conclusion that is compelled not by desire or arbitrary assumption but by sound reasoning.
I would expect him to do exactly the same thing as to pleasure and pain. He would not assert that pleasure and pain are mutually exclusive unless he had some kind of framework of reasoning to support the contention. We can observe how we feel about pleasure and pain, but we can't directly observe the mechanism of action any more than we can directly observe the atoms and the void. So we can deduce how pleasure and pain "must" operate, just like we can deduce how the atoms "must" operate, in order to create the world as we live it.
The same reasoning that would make Epicurus comfortable to state dogmatically that matter and void never mix would make him comfortable stating that pain and pleasure never mix. The experience of the world dictates what we conclude about atoms and void, even though we can't see them directly, and the experience of living dictates what we conclude about pleasure and pain, even though we don't see atoms of pleasure or pain at work. That experience combined with "true reasoning" is the best standard of proof we can hope to obtain.
So a preliminary way of stating where this might lead would be to say that the same knowledge that tells us all bodies are composed of combinations of atoms and void tells us also that all feelings are composed of combinations of pleasure and pain, with each element always remaining discrete and true to its own nature, but moving and combining in different ways to produce something new. The mix of atoms and void produces bodies, the mix of pleasure and pain produces our overall experience (including happiness or unhappiness).
But the first point that would seem clear is that if we can use our reasoning to conclude that all of the universe is composed of atoms and void, and of nothing but atoms and void, then we can use similar reasoning to conclude that all of human experience is composed of pleasure and pain, and of nothing but pleasure and pain.
With the result that we can be dogmatically certain and insistent that just like where there is an atom there is no void and where there is void there is no atom, we can say that where there is pleasure there is no pain, and where there is pain there is no pleasure. And if Torquatus and the Epicureans were approaching the issue that way, then no matter how many ridiculous examples that Chryssippus or Cicero constructed to try to prove that there are more feelings than pleasure or pain, the Epicureans would **never** agree to such a suggestion.
There are only two components to the universe, atoms and void, and there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain. From basically that starting point, combined with the commitment to following the evidence of the senses/anticipations/feelings, you can deduce the rest of the physics and deduce the rest of the ethics.
Perhaps a similar analogous transfer of reasoning from one branch of the philosophy to another one in PD28?
PD28. The same knowledge that makes one confident that nothing dreadful is eternal or long-lasting also recognizes, in the face of these limited evils, the security afforded by friendship.
And potentially another transfer from physics to ethics in PD09 (the parallel being that in the same way that atoms cannot be unlimited in quantity or size, or else one or more atoms would fill up the universe and nothing could move, individual pleasures must be limited in experience, or else there would be no room for other pleasures to be experienced):
PD09. If every pleasure could be intensified so that it lasted, and influenced the whole organism or the most essential parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another.
As another example, could we not compare these two similar statements:
(1) "Atoms come in numberless varieties, but we have the capacity through our senses to recognize the qualities of the bodies which they come together to form."
(2) "Experiences come in numberless varieties, but we have the capacity through our feelings of pleasure and pain to recognize the qualities of the lives which they come together to form."
In both cases, we are accepting the validity of our faculty of perceiving (the senses as to atoms and void and the feelings as to pleasure and pain) because these are the only faculties given to us by nature for use in these areas. (With the anticipations being the faculty which allows us to integrate all this into words, without which we could not be having this discussion.) We aren't claiming to understand every detail about how the five senses or the feelings of pleasure and pain operate, but the atomic theory gives us a framework for understanding how the the things we sense around us (the qualities of the bodies) and the things we feel (pleasure and pain) operate naturally and not supernaturally.
For now those are almost random thoughts to consider.
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Here's the summary of Book One. It's pretty long in itself, but I think can be used to construct some ways to make things easier to find across the many translations. Now I need to do the other five.
One implication of this:
We know due to the extending reasoning in Lucretius how Epicurus came to the conclusion that only atoms and void have an ultimate unchanging existence, that nothing has ultimate unchanging existence other than atoms and void, and that everything is made of atoms and void and only atoms and void.
That reasoning tells us how he "defined" atoms and void and how he deduced their existence and how he reached his "nothing but atoms and void" perspective.
Do we have a similar understanding of the chain of reasoning by which Epicurus concluded that Nature gives us only Pleasure and Pain by which to choose and avoid (Torquatus, Diogenes Laertius) and why the two do not mix and one cannot exist where the other is present (PD03)?
In other words, are we confident why Cicero was wrong to insist that most people are experiencing neither pleasure nor pain?
Are we confident why Chrysippus was wrong in asserting that the outstretched hand in a normal condition -- in which it is apparently not feeling a specific stimulus of pleasure) is not feeling pain or a lack of pleasure in that condition? (Simply saying "pleasure is the absence of pain" just begs the question - *Why* must we consider pleasure to be the absence of pain?)
And last of all, why are we confident that the host pouring the wine can be considered to be in the greatest of pleasure when the guest drinking it may not be?
It seems to me that these issues are all closely interrelated with the reasoning about atoms and void.
In preparing an outline of Lucretius Book One it appears to me that the following is a reasonable summary of Book One line 503:
Summary:
Since we have determined that everything is composed of only two things, atoms and void, and that nothing else can exist, we conclude that wherever there is empty space there is no body there, and where any body exists, there is no void, and from this we conclude that the atoms are solid bodies free from any void.
Here is Bailey:
[503] First, since we have found existing a twofold nature of things far differing, the nature of body and of space, in which all things take place, it must needs be that each exists alone by itself and unmixed. For wherever space lies empty, which we call the void, body is not there; moreover, wherever body has its station, there is by no means empty void. Therefore the first bodies are solid and free from void.
I would like to compare Munro and others on this point, but presuming that Bailey has it correct, it seems that this might be an example of reasoning similar to the distinctions that Epicurus draws between pleasure and pain and that where one exists the other is absence.
I make note of this because I would expect that if reasoning like this is embedded so closely into the Physics as to the nature of atoms, it is easy to suspect that the Epicureans became comfortable with such "black and white" logical division, and that this attitude of reasoning carries over from "bodies and void" into "pleasure and pain."
The parallel is pretty clear:
We are not able to observe the atoms or the void directly, but we are confident that they are there based on the impact that their combinations make on our senses. We are not able to observe the ultimate mechanisms of pleasure or pain either, but we are confident of our conclusions about them based on their impact on our feelings.
This method of argument is not going to impress a skeptic who argues that nothing can be known, but it works great for those who are willing to take confidence in reasoning based on repeated evidence, and who are willing to conclude that the results of repeated experience are reliable as a basis for knowledge.
Book One:
[215] Then follows this, that nature breaks up each thing again into its own first-bodies, nor does she destroy ought into nothing. For if anything were mortal in all its parts, each thing would on a sudden be snatched from our eyes, and pass away. For there would be no need of any force, such as might cause disunion in its parts and unloose its fastenings. But as it is, because all things are put together of everlasting seeds, until some force has met them to batter things asunder with its blow, or to make its way inward through the empty voids and break things up, nature suffers not the destruction of anything to be seen.
Book Five:
[235] First of all, since the body of earth and moisture, and the light breath of the winds and burning heat, of which this sum of things is seen to be made up, are all created of a body that has birth and death, of such, too, must we think that the whole nature of the world is fashioned. For verily things whose parts and limbs we see to be of a body that has birth and of mortal shapes, themselves too we perceive always to have death and birth likewise. Wherefore, when we see the mighty members and parts of the world consumed away and brought to birth again, we may know that sky too likewise and earth had some time of first-beginning, and will suffer destruction.
Adding this one to the list:
From Diogenes Laertius: "When once a man has attained wisdom, he no longer has any tendency contrary to it or willingly pretends that he has. ... He will give lectures in public, but never unless asked; he will give definite teaching and not profess doubt."
From Epicurus' point of view, I see two reasons: 1. to help people (as that's the ultimate goal of the philosophy), 2. build a community of friends - safety in numbers. My impression is that the intensity of this effort in DeWitt's book comes across a little greater than would be warranted by the nature of the school.
I think there is a third reason that was actually more important to Epicurus than these two, and comes through especially through the intensity of Lucretius, which does come through in DeWitt. That reason is the earnest desire to be confident in knowing the "Truth" about the way things are, so as to then live according to those conclusions. Epicurus doesn't start out simply deciding he wants to be happy -- he starts out - from his first questioning of "Chaos" - wanting to know what "the truth" is about the universe, so as to then live accordingly. Had Epicurus determined from his search for truth that theism could be confidently established, I would argue that Epicurus would then have turned his energetic and determined mind -- see the opening of Lucretius Book I - to being "more catholic than the pope." He would have engaged his powers of persuasion to whatever course he deemed to be correct, and if living per the instructions of supernatural gods could be proven to be the correct course, then Epicurus would have led the way.
Of course that theistic conclusion cannot be proved to be correct, and in fact the non-theistic conclusion is established by such weight that we can have great confidence in it, and thus we have the confident Epicurus (and Lucretius and Diogenes of Oinoanda) that comes through in the texts. These are personalities that will be mocked by such as Cicero, alleging that they talk as if they just came down from the intermundia, and that they want to avoid nothing so much as seeming to be in doubt, but we all have to make our own decisions about how to evaluate the evidence and then act accordingly.
So accordingly I would definitely not agree that "to help people" is the ultimate goal of Epicurean philosophy. It is a very important aspect of the conclusion, but it is not the starting point or the end point.
I presume his endless perceived connections between Christianity and Epicureanism were an attempt to get his Christian contemporaries to take another look at Epicurus.
I think that is definitely the central motivation. Again, DeWitt never (to my recollection) comes out and says that he is a Christian, or that we should accept Christian dogmas. In fact the more I think about it the more I see him doing what Gibbon did -- talking about the history of Christianity as a means of luring in the conventional Christian thinkers before setting the bait that catches them onto the truth.
Don't forget that DeWitt mentions more than once (and seems to enjoy repeating it) how Augustine would have "given the palm" to Epicurus were it not for (apparently) the immortality / life after death issue. In my mind DeWitt does much the same thing that Gibbon does -- he rims the cup with honey for the Christian with all the historical parallels, while he dispenses the medicine of true philosophy to the patient.
DeWitt wasn't in a position himself (and we don't really know whether he wanted to be or not) of writing an anti-Christian philosophy book. We don't know his motives, but I would say that what he in fact did was to provide the most sweeping and sympathetic overview available of a philosophy that makes holding the Christian viewpoint impossible. I doubt very much that he was blind to the natural result of what he had written.
Something tells me that if Epicurus was alive today, and he posited a belief that was contradicted by good science tomorrow, he would consider the results and modify his view the make way for the new information.
I think it's certain he would do that. However, there is a deeper issue at work too that is addressed by Philodemus and goes to the heart of Epicurean canonics regarding "when" it is appropriate to take a position and when it is not, and that question can't be settled by counting numbers of "scientists" or taking the position that a consensus of some number of people at any moment proves a point. The issue of when skepticism is appropriate and when it is not is very subtle, and Epicurus clearly thought that "radical skepticism" of the "nothing is knowable" type is clearly wrong.
If you agree with Epicurus that radical skepticism is clearly wrong, then the issue always comes back to that of "how much evidence is needed and how do you process it." You don't flatly throw up your hands - as many people do - and decide to simply stop thinking about super-important issues like whether there are supernatural gods or life after death.
The origin of this is from Martha Nussbaum?
No I would not at all say that she originates the attack, she's just a well-known repeater of it.
It appears that I can't find a video of Elena Nicoli's presentation re Nussbaum. Here is another video that is also good, but if anyone knows of a video that goes with the Nussbaum material please post:
I had not visited this issue in a while and now I see Elena Nicoli collected some of the best/worst Nussbaum quotes:
This is one place in Nussbaum's "Therapy of Desire" where she makes similar assertions about Epicurus being authoritarian, which I think are simply not a fair reading of the texts, and far too pro-Stoic. Comments like these (and for many other reasons where I think she gets Epicurus wrong) are why I don't recommend her book, no matter how well regarded it is in other quarters.
Elena Nicoli has written against Nussbaum's interpretation as per here:
More criticism of Nussbaum's interpretations here:
Thanks for the post Waterholic because it raises important points. Just a few comments on point 1, because I think point 2 first is likely the much more significant one.
DeWitt's comparisons of Epicureanism to Christianity are pretty much neutral in terms of what they say about Epicurus, and I see them as much more reflective of DeWitt's own speculations about how they compare. In fact I was thinking about this point the other day and I believe it deserves to be emphasized when we discuss this topic: As frequent as DeWitt's comparisons are in the book, ask yourself: "Do those comparisons really state that Christianity is correct or did anything other than borrow procedures from Epicurus?" Yes he goes overboard in his parallels, but to what result? It's not like he is saying that Christianity is right, just that they were perceptive enough to borrow certain perspectives from Epicurus. If he goes overboard, and I think he does, it's on a topic that really doesn't touch Epicurus himself, and just shows that DeWitt's parallels are stretched too thin, because what he's saying they picked up from Epicurus they could have picked up anywhere, because the friendliness and charity and honesty etc are just largely common sense.
Compare DeWitt's comments to Gibbon's in his "Fall of the Roman Empire." Gibbon uses sarcasm and false-sounding praise of Christianity to make his derogatory points about the influence of Christianity. DeWitt's comments seem sincere, but thenever to my memory rise to a level of saying "the Christians were right!" He's basically just drawing attention to parellels that some will find - and do find - extremely interesting, while others won't.
On point 2 I think the issue is much more important. When you say " Is this a problematic tangent of NDW or am I missing something?" I don't think this is something specific with DeWitt.
The characterization you use does remind me of what Martha Nussbaum says in her "Therapy of Desire," but I don't recall DeWitt being nearly so negative about it. Epicurus clearly thought it was important to combat skepticism, and he thought it important to state firmly what he thought was correct, and there is plenty of evidence in the texts to support that being an accurate characterization. But as far as being "a despotic figure with a strong will to dominate feeble minded and expand his influence by any means necessary, including missionary work," I would say yes he had strong will but never tried to "dominate feeble minded" people or expand his influence by "any means necessary." I do think that the term "missionary work" is probably a fair characterization, though it's hard to say how organized it really was.
I see I've already written a lot and only really set the stage for this, with my main points being (1) that the Christianity parallels are a tangent of Dewitt that some find interesting and some don't, but no reason for worry, and (2) the issue of "dogmatism" vs "skepticism" in Epicurus is definitely there, and dedicated skeptics are definitely going to have a problem with Epicurus. Given that I believe Epicurus' position on skepticism is a correct one, that doesn't personally cause me any problem at all, and makes him more valuable to me. But that's the issue that we will want to discuss in much more detail and I feel sure others will weigh in on as well.
On the parallels with Christianity you're indeed struggling with DeWitt. On the issue with "dogmatism," you're struggling directly with Epicurus, though I think you'll eventually decide that your wording of Epicurus' position is significantly too strong.
As soon as we wrap up the series on DeWitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy," the next project the podcast will tackle will be the full sections of Cicero's "On Ends" devoted to discussing (attacking) Epicurean philosophy - Books One and Two. In this work Cicero has summarized and preserved what are probably the most important objections to Epicurus collected from across the ancient world in the prior two hundred years, so this work gives us both a wealth of knowledge about Epicurus combined with extremely intelligent criticisms. Cicero skimps on the time he gives the Epicurean Torquatus to respond, so we can formulate for ourselves what we think are the best full responses.
We have previously discussed the Torquatus Narrative in Episodes 93-111 (Torquatus narrative of Epicurean Philosophy). As a result we will review that section only briefly, and in only enough detail to keep the flow of the full discussion of Book One.
The text we are covering can be found in three editions at Archive.org:
As before when we went through Torquatus in detail, we will use the Reid version as our main text, but compare frequently with Rackham. We favor Reid because he seems to be both more readable and more literal than Rackham. However many of us are more familiar with the more recent wording of Rackham, so we will often use both on important passages.
We will therefore suggest that those who are following along grab a copy of the Reid version at the link above, and then you will be able to follow any references we make to page or line numbers.
We expect to start this series as soon as September 3, 2023, so if you have comments, suggestions, or questions, please let us know!
Episode 188 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available!
In my unreletenting quest to be positive and upbeat I always encourage everyone to read everything they can. It's been a long while since I first read "Marius the Epicurean" but I think I recall being profoundly disappointed in it. I hope the experience of others is more positive, but I better throw this into the mix - I will see if I can find my prior posting and perhaps link it here. But by all means I do encourage everyone to read whatever strikes their attention, because it will add to the fullness of your perspective whatever conclusion you reach about it!
Here's the earlier thread with some of my comments. It seems I remember being much more negative, either on Facebook or in private discussions.
What I seem to remember most today is that I believe I came across this about the time that I came across Francis Wright's "A Few Days In Athens." I read Frances Wright first and was blown away by the depth of her presentation of Epicurus. Then I read Marius, and the contrast was - to say the least - striking. And in the balance of the two, "A Few Days In Athens" is by far the better quality work for understanding Epicurus. But that's just the balance of the two, and reading Marius produced very beneficial results for me -- in making me realize how disappointing something can be even though it has "Epicurean" in the title.
Your mileage may vary!!!