Posts by Cassius

Quote from Kalosyni

I am not looking to convince anyone of anything.

But Lucretius was - and by "song" no less

Quote from Lucretius Book One - Humphries

I am well aware how very hard it is

To bring to light by means of Latin verse

The dark discoveries of the Greeks. I know

New terms must be invented, since our tongue

Is poor, and this material is new.

But I'm persuaded by your excellence

And by our friendship's dear expectancy

To suffer any toil, to keep my watch

Through the still nights, seeking the words, the song

Whereby to bring your mind that splendid light

By which you can see darkly hidden things.

Our terrors and our darknesses of mind

Must be dispelled, not by the sunshine's rays,

Not by those shining arrows of the light,

But by insight into nature, and a scheme

Of systematic contemplation.

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Joshua was talking about use of metaphor in the last podcast, so we probably need his input. And don't forget that Epicurus apparently said something like the wise man won't compose poetry, but will be the only one who can intrepret it correctly. And then we have to incorporate Lucretius into what that statement means.

Quote from Kalosyni

I am not sure we need allegories or parables for explaining Epicureanism. It might be best to be more straight-forward on most ideas within Epicureanism.

We certainly need to be straightforward in explaining the ideas so that the allegories and parables can be developed accurately. The reason allegories and parables are useful, like art and music and the like, is that they help people get a firm grip of the core of the issue and hold onto it confidently when troubles and challenges arise, as they inevitably do. The Michelle Pinto graphic crystalizes the anti-supernatural aspect of Epicurean philosophy in the "one picture is worth a thousand words" way. Music is similarly effective.

That's a good update of the cave allegory, along the lines Todd has been talking about.

But is it clear what the takeaway is or should be? Does it answer that question?

Do they say that you only have one life to live and you better use it or lose it forever?

Do they say that there is no god or anything else telling you that something is absolutely right or absolutely wrong?

Do they say that your senses and your ability to look and see (even look and see smartphones) is you only way out of the exploitation?

Do they even tell you that these cave arguments and social media / cell phones did not just happen by themselves. They didn't just poof! into existence at the will of gods (who don't exist). Those things didn't arise on their own, but from people who have an agenda that the consumers of those things aren't part of (or more accurately, the consumers *are* a part of it - just not a part that they want to realize that they are playing.

So these are great ways to illustrate the problem. How do we illustrate through Epicurean principles how we got here? And how do we illustrate the solution?

In fact Godfrey what you may be describing is probably closer to what DeWitt describes in considering anticipations to be more of an "intuitive" faculty. That would make more sense to me if what is being described is something automatic or involuntary, but I don't get the impression that a generalized fourth leg is meant by its advocates to be that kind of thing. This is definitely a murky subject which is another reason why I resist adding another category which seems so difficult to describe -- anticipations themselves are already difficult enough to describe!

Quote from Godfrey

Also, as I recall epibolai have something to do with grasping (as in understanding?). Both dreams and intuitive leaps are mechanisms for grasping, to my thinking.

I could easily be wrong, Godfrey, but what I thought I read in the past was that the 4th leg argument asserted that every "flash of recognition" (every time we made a conceptual connection of any kind) was an example of this fourth leg in action. That seems unlikely to me to be what Epicurus intended, but I could be reading it negatively because of my concern that the argument goes too far. A limited faculty like you are talking about would make more sense, but I think what we are dealing with too is an attempt by some to incorporate Diogenes' Laertius' description of how anticipations work (which I think is probably faulty) and to consider as a test of truth every time something matches one of our preconceived concepts - and I don't think that would be consistent with basic canon theory.

Quote from Cassius

It doesn't seem to me that we should try to force into this model every mental process possible to us.

And that is really what I intuit some are doing by pursuing a fourth leg argument. I mean - surely "conceptual reasoning" - pattern recognition and matching - generating pictures and definitions and testing what we see again them -- all those kind of things seem to me to be obviously part of the reasoning process, and very important for us to consider how to do them efficiently using rules of logic.

But the "canon" or "criteria" is that first part -- the "yardstick" part - the "input" part - and that is where it seems to me that the key attribute is that these faculting operate automatically and without injection of opinion. That is what makes them worthy of being considered primary starting points for the reasoning process that takes place based on them.

I'm thinking that it's important to keep clear a bright line between the data collection, which operates largely or wholly "automatically" - versus what we do with that data after it is gathered. It's only in that second part where conceptual reasoning takes place and we have to judge whether our opinions are true/accurate or false/inaccurate.to the full data set that we have it in our power to collect.

I think Joshua and I crossposted and I just saw what he wrote.

I would say it is important not to look at this discussion as some kind of global description of every possible thought process involved in the brain.

It seems to me that this is really directed toward defeating the claims of skeptics that nothing is knowable, and describing a system by which we can understand how to determine what we think is true about important issues of life. It doesn't seem to me that we should try to force into this model every mental process possible to us.

Quote from Todd

To be clear, I'm referring strictly to the observing of one's own mental processes. The extrapolation to understanding other people's actions definitely involves additional reasoning.

I don't see why the observation of thought processes is anything special or different from making mental note of anything else. For example, writing out one's thoughts and playing with the words - does that require a special aspect of the canon for some reason? I think that as Joshua observed repeatedly during the podcast,what we are really talking about here is contact with the outside world. I don't think Epicurus or anyone else is disputing that we can't in fact direct our mental attention inward for long periods of time. That would include for example recalling past pleasures as we regularly discuss. No one is saying that thinking about thinking can't or doesn't or shouldn't happen. Whatever we think is indeed what we think. I am thinking that this entire discussion is not devoted to introspection, but how we make judgments about things in the outside world. Introspection is certainly an important subject but I don't gather it is really what is in issue here in combating skepticism.

Quote from Godfrey

Am I correct in understanding that "intuitive leaps" are being discussed as a part of this 4th leg?

Is that in the Greek book Godfrey? My reading of this 4th leg in the past was that the assertion is much more broad than that, and essentially would include every time a concept is judged to match something being observed - which would be virtually constantly during thought processes. I have not seen it asserted to be something special such as what you might be thinking there.

For example, this from Book 4 of Lucretius. There are many similar references to images which are not of the "seeing" variety, but nevertheless impact our minds. I am not saying that I believe this, or that the same phenoma could not be equally explained by stored images in the mind that are agitated when we are dreaming or hallucinating. I don't think it's important that Epicurus explained them "correctly" in our view, but that he suggested natural explanations that take them out of the realm of the supernatural, Theories like this allow us to explain what has happened to us without fearing that they are supernatural:

[26] But since I have taught of what manner are the beginnings of all things, and how, differing in their diverse forms, of their own accord they fly on, spurred by everlasting motion; and in what way each several thing can be created from them; and since I have taught what was the nature of the mind, and whereof composed it grew in due order with the body, and in what way rent asunder it passed back into its first-beginnings: now I will begin to tell you what exceeding nearly concerns this theme, that there are what we call idols of things; which, like films stripped from the outermost body of things, fly forward and backward through the air; and they too when they meet us in waking hours affright our minds, yea, and in sleep too, when we often gaze on wondrous shapes, and the idols of those who have lost the light of day, which in awful wise have often roused us, as we lay languid, from our sleep; lest by chance we should think that souls escape from Acheron, or that shades fly abroad among the living, or that something of us can be left after death, when body alike and the nature of mind have perished and parted asunder into their several first-beginnings. I say then that likenesses of things and their shapes are given off by things from the outermost body of things, which may be called, as it were, films or even rind, because the image bears an appearance and form like to that, whatever it be, from whose body it appears to be shed, ere it wanders abroad. That we may learn from this, however dull be our wits.

In both cases I am attempting to carry out the texts to their conclusions.

As to consciousness conscious only of itself, I don't think that Epicurus would say that that is something that would not apply to us humans, because we are aware of who we are because our our past experiences through the senses, as per the Thomas Jefferson passage. I am not aware of the details or theory of mindfulness mediation, but we aren't the kind of consciousnesses who have arisen from hypotheticals that are conscious only of themselves.

As to dreaming, that is to my understanding attributed by the Epicureans to the influx of images while we are asleep, which would be related to their impact on us while we are awake as well, for example as given in the exchange between Cassius and Cicero about "spectres." I presume that in modern terms we would think that the mind is operating on stored memories, but I personally would not entirely rule out of court the possibility that we are in fact affected by things going on around us. We are affected by what we eat or drink or how cold or hot things are while we are sleeping, and I would not rule out undiscovered aspects of how our brains are impacted by our environments. But especially as to dreams and hallucinations the point is only that they are "real to us" not that they are really happening to us, or even the mechanism by which they occur.

That last part is what I see as the important point. It looks to me like Epicurus is saying that our reality derives from the actions of our senses, anticipations, and feelings, and our mind reasoning on the inputs from those things, and that we need to consider what is going on with those things to be real to us, and work with them, and not look to imaginary worlds of ideal forms or supernatural beings or any of that stuff which Platonists or religionists assert to exist without evidence. Dreams and hallucinations are what they are - things which have an impact on our thoughts - but that doesn't mean that they have any external reality beyond what is going on in our minds.

To me all this comes down to an attempt to explain that *this* world is all that we have, and we need to explain the things that present themselves to us in natural terms, and not look to supernatural or other-worldly (meaning Platonic idealism) sources for those things.

Also from the article Don cited, it is interesting to see Sedley disagree so strongly with Bailey's interpretations. This kind of disagreement leads me to conclude that while I am not ready to die on the hill of whether there were only three or actually four criterion of truth, the real issue is the deeper question of making sure that the criterion come to us "naturally" and "without opinion" and can therefore serve as data which Nature programs us to accept as a given. That's the problem with most versions I see that attempt to describe a "fourth" leg. Like Don is saying, suggestions as to a fourth seem to be describing a process of evaluation, not a mechanism for receiving raw unfiltered data.

To me the danger zone is anytime you cross that line into thinking that something you have developed in your own mind, after evaluation, has to be taken with the kind of acceptance you grant to what you see or hear or touch. I've always read Bailey as indicating that the thinks that conceptions which we develop in our minds can serve as a criterion of truth, and in fairness to him Diogenes Laertius can be read that way.

But I think it's beyond dispute that Epicurus was looking to develop a theory of the tools which Nature gave to us by which to evaluate our conclusions. If so, questions like whether "images" fit within the canon, and whether the canon has three or four or fourteen legs, are not nearly as important as avoiding considering our own thoughts as criteria of truth. But Nature does not give us full-blown conceptions either at birth or at anytime later, at least under any interpretation of Epicurus that I can find to be reasonable.

Considering our own conclusions to be criteria of "truth" seems to me very much like what Plato was doing in suggesting that our minds can make contact with ideal forms. And if you get to that point of agreeing with Plato there, then you get to the point (which we regrettably left out of our most recent podcast) that Plato could hold that you could never really know whether the thing in front of you is a horse, but that you *can* know the ideal form of "horseness."

That Platonic position is at the very least impractical, if not in fact total nonsense.

Quote from Nate

the entire Allegory of Plato's Cave is, itself, actually inside of a metaphorical Cave in the Epicurean world, and the light of day into which the Epicurean walks is the light of particles that allows us to physically see.

With the Platonic gang being the one chaining everyone down, persuading the innocent normal people to think that they have no way to verify what the truth really is --- unless the Platonic gang itself loosens the chains (which the gang itself placed). The whole thing is an ultimate game of manipulation which encourages the exploited to see their exploiters as saviors -- a kind of "Stockholm Syndrome."

At some point in the future I hope we can put together more of an index or table of contents of each episode. For the time being, we have the episode titles to go by, and the thread for each of them which can be word searched. However in this thread I would like to make note of episodes of special significance, because it regularly occurs to me to ask: "If I were suggesting someone new listen to some particularly important episodes, where would I direct them?"

So my first suggestion for this list is the current episode: Episode One Hundred Fifty-Five "Epicurus And His Philosophy" Part 11 - The Canon, Reason, and Nature 02

I've just been listening to the finished product and I think this is a particularly good one, addressing Chaos, the Relationship of Reason to the Canon and to the senses in particular, and several other basic points. Some of the episodes flow better than others, but I think this one has to be ranked among a list of our best.

If others who are reviewing older podcasts find some to be particularly worthy of note I would appreciate them adding this to the thread so at some point we can come up with a "best of" series.

Started January 10, 2023

"And if there were not that which we term void and place and intangible existence, bodies would have nowhere to exist and nothing through which to move, as they are seen to move. And besides these two, nothing can even be thought of either by conception or on the analogy of things conceivable such as could be grasped as whole existences and not spoken of as the events or properties of such existences." Epicurus' Letter to Herodotus at 40.

----

This is the Bailey version with the exception that I have replaced Bailey's "accidents" with "events" as used in the Brown translation of the analogous passage in Lucretius. For purposes of this header it seems to me that "event" is less distracting and does not carry the baggage of "accidental" which is a very deep topic in and of itself. It seems to me that questions of random vs. determinist causation (an issue implied in "accidental") is beyond the major point to be made here in this header, which is that no ideal forms or other types of eternal existences exist other than bodies and space which arise / emerge from "atoms and void."

Humphries' term "by-products" is also good and maybe even the most faithful and clear of all, but the Latin of Lucretius is "eventa / eventum" so I am going with "events" that rather than "by-products" for the moment.

Lucretius Book one at 450: Nam quae cumque cluent, aut his coniuncta duabus rebus ea invenies aut horum eventa videbis.

Munro: For whatever things are named, you will either find to be properties linked to these two things or you will see to be accidents of these things.

Brown: All other things you'll find essential conjuncts, or else the events or accidents of these. I call essential conjunct what's so joined to a thing that it cannot, without fatal violence, be forced or parted from it; is weight to stones, to fire heat, moisture to the Sea, touch to all bodies, and not to be touched essential is to void. But, on the contrary, Bondage, Liberty, Riches, Poverty, War, Concord, or the like, which not affect the nature of the thing, but when they come or go, the thing remains entire; these, as it is fit we should, we call events.

Humphries: Whatever exists you will always find connected To these two things, or as by-products of them;

As Don mentioned in another post, there is this from Lucretius too with the "hunting dog" metaphor, that might be a counter-reference to the Platonic cave problem:

Quote from Lucretius Book One

I could mention many things, Pile up a heap of argument-building proof, But why? You have some sense, and these few hints Ought to suffice. You can find out for yourself. As mountain-ranging hounds smell out a lair, And animals covert, hidden under brush, Once they are certain of its track, so you, All by yourself, in matters such as these, Can see one thing from another, find your way To the dark burrows and bring truth to light. Lucretius Book One Humphries

Yep. I hope this will end up being a long thread and an ongoing process for lots of people to use in the future. That's a very good list of symbols for inclusion, and I suspect the real trick is prioritizing and selecting the issues to be included so any particular image focuses on whatever main points it is trying to convey. There's no necessity to reduce everything down into a single graphic.

As I look at your numbered list, those are good "positive" symbols with which to identify as a goal. I suppose what Plato was doing was taking a more aggressive or argumentative topic indicative of human suffering and dramatizing his proposed solution (escape to a "true world" outside the cave). We need those kind of confrontational graphics too in addition to the pleasure aspect.

Michele's friend's "breaking the chains" graphic is almost a mirrored response to the Platonic cave metaphor. It could be varied thousands of ways, among them going beyond the implicit attribution of the situation to the glowering of the gods above, to somehow conveying (as did Lucretius) that the breaking free comes from exploring the universe with strength and courage of mind with presumably some nod toward the senses.

As we talk about this I have to wonder whether the Platonic cave analogy was in Lucretius' mind when he came up with that passage in Book One.

It is good that we often get very deep in the weeds in important questions (The Canon: Three Legs of Four?; When Was Epicurus Born? What is the nature of Anticipations? etc. etc.). However given several recent podcast discussions I am remembering how important it is not to get lost in those weeds, so I am thinking this thread will be a way to keep us also focused on the big picture.

Plato is often and I think fairly identified with the "Cave" analogy, which leads to fruitful possibilities of illustrating maybe the central aspect of the anti-Epicurean philosophies: that are senses are deceptive and we are chained in a prison of shadows from which we need abstracted reason and logic (brought to us by the expert philosophers) as our only means of escape.

How can we contrast and summarize our place in the universe under the Epicurean worldview? We have a couple of illustrations on the forum already:

(Graphic commissioned by Michele Pinto - see right sidebar of the home page for details).

And Nate's Allegory of the Oasis (see bottom of the EF homepage for link to a description):

Both of these are now several years old, and I see that Nate's graphic was first added here back in 2018 or so.

I think over time it should be a continuing project to develop new versions of graphics which summarize the key role of Epicurus in the history of philosophy. We have allusions like the "hog in Epicurus' herd" from Horace, but most of all we have the opening of book one of Lucretius, which likely played a role in the graphic listed above from Michele (here in the Humphries version):

When human life, all too conspicuous,

Lay foully groveling on earth, weighed down

By grim Religion looming from the skies,

Horribly threatening mortal men, a man,

A Greek, first raised his mortal eyes

Bravely against this menace. No report

Of gods, no lightning-flash, no thunder-peal

Made this man cower, but drove him all the more

With passionate manliness of mind and will

To be the first to spring the tight-barred gates

Of Nature's hold asunder. So his force,

His vital force of mind, a conqueror

Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world

Explored the vast immensities of space

With wit and wisdom, and came back to us

Triumphant, bringing news of what can be

And what cannot, limits and boundaries,

The borderline, the bench mark, set forever.

Religion, so, is trampled underfoot,

And by his victory we reach the stars.

I am not artist myself, but it's easy to take that passage and think of many many different ways to analogize the same point - especially if we combine it with the allusions to Epicurus that start each of the other five books of the poem as well.

So the point here is that while we develop our aptitude in dealing with the details, it's even more important to develop our dexterity with the "big picture." I bet Nate has had many different thoughts about illustrations in the five years since he did his oasis graphic, and the graphic from Michele should have motivated lots of thoughts for alternative illustrations of the essence of the Epicurean approach to life - and that is why it is featured on our home page.

I may pin this post somewhere but as time goes by I hope we can expand this list of pro-Epicurean illustrations much further than we already have.

Edit: Even if you are not an artist yourself, you can still submit "word pictures" to the thread that over time will give ideas for scenarios to other people.

Just to set the stage on the "three legs of the canon vs. four" issue, the following is from the chapter of the book entitled "Epicurean Gnoseology":

The four criteria of truth include senses, concepts (προλήψεις, “preconceptions”), emotions (πάθη, “passions”) of pleasure and pain and the imaginary imposition of the mind (φανταστική ἐπιβολή τῆς διανοίας):

...

Preconceptions are concepts stored in the mind and are derived from the senses. These concepts are based on repetitive sensory experiences. They do not need verbal proof since they are evident by observation to all ("universal understanding"), constituting a criterion of correct belief. For example, it is common to all people who have seen a rose, the "clear preconception of a rose", that is, the explicit concept based on observation of this material object. Through preconceptions, the chaotic information of the sensory world begins to assemble into a coherent, structured, and stable entity leading to the emergence of language and consciousness.

...

Imaginary impositions of the mind are representations that the mind captures when it focuses its attention on something. In its singular form, the term has been interpreted as "insightful conception of the mind", "immediate perception of the mind", and "focus of the mind on an impression", but perhaps the best conceptual approach to the term is ‘focusing on a cognitive image’. According to Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus, in his book “Kanon”, describes the three criteria of truth, senses, preconceptions and passions. At the same time, the imaginary imposition of mind was added as a criterion of truth by the later Epicureans (D.L. X31). However, Epicurus, in his Principal Doctrines (XXIV), mentions: “If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the mind,

[The discussion of this latter paragraph is taken further, basically in the direction of interpreting impacts of "images" on the mind as constituting a fourth leg. As far as I can tell so far the book does not attempt to take a position on why Epicurus himself did not consider this to be a full leg of the canon, or on why later Epicureans thought he was wrong in failing to do so.]