Posts by Cassius

It's an interesting question as to when one would become a martyr for one's beliefs. Apparently Socrates thought the answer was clear, but my understanding has always been that he was doing so "for the sake of his country" or something like that. Maybe that's the same thing, but it has never been clear to my why he couldn't have made a more practical analysis of all the costs and benefits, and even if he thought his personal example was so important to the world, just gone somewhere else to continue to make it. Plus I gathered he had all these afterlife considerations.

I am not sure at all what Epicurus would have done if he thought he was about to be hauled up on blasphemy charges. Might he not have simply said "OK, guys, have it your way - I will go continue my teaching in Samos or Lampsacus or where-ever. You can believe what you want to believe here in Athens - I may die for my friends, but no spot of ground is worth my dying over?"

Great point Joshua. I am not sure which or if any of the commentators use the term "pattern recognition" but that is definitely one of the labels that we want to discuss. A faculty of "recognizing patterns or relationships between objects that does not derive from ideal forms or from internal essences, but from analogies which we are genetically disposed to recognize arising from evolution over the ages" -- but hopefully less wordy.

And this is the place also we need to discuss intuition/intuitive and instinct/instinctive with those dam-building beavers, migratory birds, etc.

And i don't think it would be out of place to compare this with pleasure and pain, which are arguably similar in representing some capability that is pre-programmed at birth to operate in certain ways that don't derive totally (or even primarily?) from experiences as we grow older. I am pretty sure that i liked ice cream the first time i tasted it, even though i also acknowledge that certain vegetables are "an acquired taste."

Episode 161 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we continue in Chapter 8 of the DeWitt Book abd focus on sensations and Epicurus' relationship with empiricism.

Another thing I want to mention in preparation for this episode is a question we touched on at the end of 161 - the relationship of Epicurus to "empiricism" and the focus in empiricism on "experience."

One of the important issues in controversy as to anticipations is to the extent to which anticipations exist or operate "prior to experience." Let me through out a description that may or may not be accurate: in the DIogenes Laertius example of anticipations, multiple experiences of observing oxen are made by a person, an image-picture-definition-anticipation is assembled, and then that image-picture-definition anticipation is used as a standard by which to judge later experiences.

One interpretation of anticipations (can't recall at the moment if this is Dewitt) is that this description refers to concept formation and conceptual reasoning, but that "pre-conceptions" and "pro-lepsis" and even the word "anticipation" itself refer to something going on *before* even the first exposure to an oxen.

The argument for that position would find its strongest support in Velleius (On the Nature of the Gods) which can be read to refer to anticipations of the gods being inborn and/or existing before any experience with a god. In other words, since most of us take the position that we have never seen or heard or touched or smelled or tasted a god, the existence or development of anticipations of the gods must not come from direct sensory experience of them.

I think that's a good argument but very definitely I am not taking a firm position on much of this debate - especially since I have not read either DeWitt or the Tsouna article in recent months.

However I do hope before we come to the end of this discussion we can begin to address the question: Does the faculty of Anticipations describe nothing more than concept-formation and the application of those concepts to new situations? Or - like i think most of us accept about the operation of pain-pleasure and even the 5 senses, the faculty of anticipations involves some kind of inborn predisposition of principles of operation which exist in us before any exposure to anything that causes the faculty of anticipations to generate any input to our minds. At the very least, it would seem that the "coding" for the faculty of pleasure and pain exists before we, after birth (or after conception) are exposed to anything we find painful or pleasurable. Same goes for the "Coding" in the operation of the eyes, which predates the things we see. Is the same true for Anticipations?

Another thing I think that most of us will agree on is that we are not born capitalists or communists or socialists (i.e., with fully formed concepts in our minds). Then what is this disposition toward "fairness" or "justice" and how far does the disposition go in containing comment at birth? I would say at the moment that the "disposition" goes as far as the ability to **recognize** that relationships and abstractions exist, but not much as to their content. LOTS of room for discussion on all this.

Post your comments and we will try to at least address the major points!

This episode will be recorded on 2/19 and it is going to be one of our most challenging, so all readers please feel free to make comments or suggestions on your latest thoughts on "anticipations." We'll obviously steer our discussion but the DeWitt text, but we'll also try to include at the very least the article by Voula Tsouna focusing on her and David Sedley's views on the topic. Link:

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Epicurean Preconceptions - Tsouna

Epicurean Preconceptions

Cassius

April 13, 2019 at 11:14 PM

Welcome to Episode 162 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only 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 you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

We're now in the process of a series of podcasts intended to provide a general overview of Epicurean philosophy based on the organizational structure employed by Norman DeWitt in his book "Epicurus and His Philosophy."

Sensations

Epicurus Not An Empiricist

Anticipations

The Account of Laertius

The Element of Anticipation

Evidences From Specific Context

Later Evidences

Feelings

This week we continue in Chapter 8 and move to the subsection "Anticipations."

Obviously not a super priority but it would be very interesting over time to trace down these medial documents, in all the different languages, to see what they were saying.

Especially when the author of the book has a career in Academia and the balancing act that entails.

Probably appropriate to remember Lucian's comment about the Epicurean who challenged Aristotle the Oracle Monger - what business did he have being the only sane man in a roomful of dangerous folks - or something to that effect

That's the kind of line Joshua can quote off the top of his head at the spur of the moment but I can only paraphrase!

"...In the end, though, Epicurus might oversell" (emphasis added)

Like Nate, I haven't read back to the full context, so take this extra comment with a grain of salt too: But I recall when reading the book thinking that the author was trying to both provide the most aggressive defense of "pleasure" that I have seen from an academic since Norman DeWitt, while still trying to avoid being "lynched."

And so in this case I read that wording as an attempt to be compassionate to those who are (in my view) so out of touch with reality that they think that magic bullets are possible. Probably there are better ways to state my last sentence but I read the "might" as an attempt to soften the blow for those who are in really bad circumstances, rather than a charge against Epicurus.

Interesting that Burley says "he said that pleasure is the highest good." Does Diogenes Laertius' commentary state it that way aside from including the letter to Menoeceus? almost sounds like there his quoting Torquatus' formulation.

One aspect of that which I think is important Waterholic is that Epicurean philosophy isn't magic, and you can't just repeat an incantation and automatically be healed or changed in the blink of an eye. Successful results in any procedure can't be guaranteed because the universe is not deterministic or fated, and there are no gods or mechanisms that prevent unexpected events from happening or which can necessarily overturn motions already in place. Many of the people who are shown the benefits of an approach are simply not willing, or sometimes not capable, of following it.

So when discussing whether something is "oversold" it seems to me that a lot of the issue is in the expectations of the person hearing the advice, in that they are looking for things which are not possible to deliver.

Do we also think that the Vatican sayings numberings were added later?

Titus could you elaborate on what you mean?

Quote from Don

My reservation on that would be the latter part of PD01 where neither anger not favor/gratitude affects the one who is blessed and incorruptible. Epicurus is clear that gratitude is important for humans to live a pleasurable life.

That's a very good point, Don. That would mean that the subtlety would have to extend to the observation that because men are not gods, they are subject to anger and favor, both of which are necessary to sustain their lives at times given that we do not live in the intermundia.

Perhaps related to this is that I have always found it interesting that Diskin Clay, in his article on Epicurus' last will and testament, suggested that this PDO1 was really one of the Twelve Fundamentals (in which he agreed with many of DeWitt's suggestions but not all). I can definitely see an analogy to atoms in that an atom has no possibility of being "weak" and breaking apart, and there therefore selfsufficient, but on the other hand atoms are not gods - there's just that analogy that they are not weak.

So in pointing out correctly that gratitude (and I would say anger/ability to use force against at least some types of enemies too as per PD06) is in fact a necessary part of human life, this is perhaps the offsetting balance against the first assertion that a perfect being knows no trouble and give no trouble (why "trouble" and not "pain"?), like many of the other doctrines seem to start with an assertion and then finish with a second "offsetting" assertion.

PD08. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself; but the means which produce some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures.

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.

And as Kalosyni mentioned in terms of "getting back to the original question" there is something odd about the way the list is written. Epicurus obviously could string together a narrative such as in his letters. How did this document end up being so disjointed? And as per the original question too, it would have been so easy to lift from the letter the Meneouceus or presumably many other places as statement like: "We recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good."

Even if PD01 is dual purpose as per this recent exchange, why is that ethical point not stated more explicitly? Would Epicurus himself likely have left it out?

It's almost like Kalosyni said that the document has been lifted from some other context without an introduction (such as Torquatus gave when he started talking about the best life) .

Surely there are articles out there that make this comparison so I will see what I can find.

I would certainly not suggest that PDO1 is not of relevance to the gods, but if it in fact has wider application, then the aspect that relates to the gods would be only a part of the intended meaning, and maybe not the most important part.

Do not in fact every one of the other principal doctrines refer to human affairs? Maybe the primary Epicurean contentions about the gods are as stated in Herodotus and Pythocles as a matter of physics, the important aspect of which is that the gods are not supernatural and did not create the universe. If one sees PDO1 as only a statement about the nature of the gods alone, that would make it an exception to the subject of all the rest. Epicurus shows in the letter to Menoeceus that he very capable of being clear about the nature of the gods being different from what we think of them.

And I would relate this to another opinion that I think a lot of people here would share, especially when we consider Lucian's "True Story."

Can anyone here see Epicurus as being the kind of person who would say: "Humans do not have wings so they will never fly?" Lucian thought of humans going to the moon, so why would Epicurus lock himself into a position of declaring that it is "impossible" for beings elsewhere in the universe, even in other "worlds" to travel between them? We know that he accepting the idea that we receive images of the gods, apparently from the intermundia. I would say that the central important theme of Epicurean philosophy is that the gods are not supernatural and did not create the universe, and that Epicurus would not lock himself into stating flatly that beings on other planets/worlds, like Lucian envisioned as to the moon, might not be capable of traveling around between them.

So there are numerous ways of coming at this, but the bottom line is I see no reason not to interpret PD01 as applicable to all life everywhere, of which both we and the gods are but natural parts, and not just a reference for not "fearing" the gods -- especially since the reverse - benefiting from their images - seems to be an important part of Epicurean philosophy but is not mentioned in PD01.

And from the letter to Menoeceus passage translated as Please is the alpha and Omega of the blessed life...". Same word?

And if so that would mean that each of the descriptors if the beings referenced in PD01, which commentators seem to consider as referencing only gods, are also terms that Epicurus uses when discussing humans?

Combine these comments with those we have repeatedly made that the numbering is later addition and induces an artificial sense of separation between the lines and the possibilities for deeper interpretation of PD01 are intriguing.

We don't talk about it often, maybe in part because it seems "over the top," but that "live as a god among men" reference surely could be related to this too.

So what about the word translated as "blessed?". Does it have connotations so strong that it cannot be applied to humans? If "immortal" can be applied to human activities, then can "blessed" be less flexible?

Quote from Don

121] Two sorts of happiness (eudaimonia) can be conceived, the one the highest possible, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented, the other admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures.

I wonder if that means that the happiness that the gods enjoy is necessarily greater that the top level that can be enjoyed by non-gods. Meaning, just because the happiness of the gods never increases or decreases, does that mean that the top level enjoyable by non gods is less than that when it is at its top level?

Further and rephrased: I wonder if that passage about competing with the gods for happiness indicates that the changing level available to non-gods, when it is at its highest level, can be equal the unchanging level of the gods, with the only difference being the limitation in time available to the non-gods?

Don, as our resident Greek expert, what is your assessment of the possibility that PD01 is not a reference to the gods alone, but is intended to be a reference to the best life for humans as well as gods, and thus serves as a reference to pleasure (the opposite of pain as stated in PDO3) being the goal?

Also as to the possibility that PDO1 is intended to refer to more than just the Epicurean gods even though the term "immortal" is used, there is this:

VS78. The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship; of these, the one is a mortal good, the other immortal.