Episode 153 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we complete Chapter 6 and discussion of "The New Education." One thing I would like to point out about this episode is that we spent a significant amount of time near the end discussing the issue of "certainty" and "confidence." That's a perfect setup for next week's episode, where we will begin discussion on Chapter 7 on the Epicurean canon of truth.
After reading Torquatus (I will admit that I didn't get all the way through), I didn't get the impression that Cicero was cleverly misleading his readers. OTOH, maybe he was just very good at it!
You may not have seen this quote from a review written by Norman Dewitt:
Cicero's Presentation of Epicurean Ethics. New York, The Columbia University Press, 1938. Pp. 127. Columbia Diss.
This study is most commendable. It is clearly written and well printed, acutely reasoned and amply documented. The treatment confines itself to De Finibus I-II and is divided into two chapters: 1. Cicero's Presentation of Epicurean Philosophy in De Finibus I. 2. Cicero's Critique of Epicurean Philosophy, Presented in De Finibus I and II. Each chapter concludes with a summary, and the text of Epicurus himself is abundantly cited. The conclusion is that Cicero failed "to understand Epicureanism as a consistently unified philosophy (p. 81)," but is acquitted of having been "deliberately and intentionally unfair (p. 119)." It is only to this acquittal that I take exception. Every debater has the choice of arguing to reveal the truth in its entirety or of arguing to make points. The former method is adapted to the Supreme Court, the latter to a trial by jury. Cicero was a crafty old trial lawyer and he deliberately argued to make points, because he was pleading before a reading audience, which functions like a jury, and his shrewd legal mind had long discerned the vulnerability of Epicureanism before this style of attack. His attitude was that of William J. Bryan toward biological evolution, and his pleadings are comparable to a Scopes trial, but I do not believe he could have misrepresented the truth so successfully had he not understood it completely. In the Scopes trial, the crafty old lawyer was on the opposite side-Clarence Darrow.
NORMAN W. DEWITT. VICTORIA COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
But this strikes me as a rather bland, (somewhat) non-controversial flavor of Epicureanism. I would like to be able to make stronger claims, and to do that, you have to be very clear on what words actually mean and how concepts relate. Again, this is possibly a personal failing of mine.
Certainly you're not the only one. And at least to some point, it surely isn't a failing. I do think there is a question however whether at some point the quest becomes counterproductive, and that's what Epicurus seems to have been warning against. I doubt that we've reached that point in this discussion, but it's good to keep in mind that at some point we might.
I only have time to start this topic, but this morning while driving I heard it asserted in a podcast that in Book One of Plato's Republic, Socrates had attacked the traditional Greek view (which was asserted to be doing good to your friends and doing harm to your enemies). Supposedly Socrates said that rather than doing harm to one's enemies one should try to "improve" them.
If true, I can easily imagine such a doctrine being considered to be a component of virtue, with a universalized conclusion that doing harm to ones enemies is always bad.
It seems to me that Epicurus' views on justice are much more realistic -- to neither do harm *nor be harmed* with the implication that there is no universal rule of benevolence to "improve" one's enemies. One should make friends of them if possible, not treat them as enemies if friendship is not possible, or when necessary have nothing to do with them.
PD39. The man who has best ordered the element of disquiet arising from external circumstances has made those things that he could akin to himself, and the rest at least not alien; but with all to which he could not do even this, he has refrained from mixing, and has expelled from his life all which it was of advantage to treat thus.
I would expect that there are probably articles out there which discuss this in detail which would be worth looking into. We regularly discuss the Justice doctrines without making a lot of progress, and if we could link Epicurus' views to specific Platonic or Aristotelian ideas to which they are responses, things would probably be much more clear.
Also, I had a "DUH" moment this morning about something that needs to be included in this thread.
Torquatus does not gve us *only* the "use your eyes and look at the young of all species before they are corrupted" argument.
He also gives us:
(2) A thought experiment (or perhaps an appeal to anticipations, or "conceivability"?) that is probably analogous to the use of the Javelin argument as to the size of the universe:
XII. The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain; he will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement.
Suppose on the other hand a person crushed beneath the heaviest load of mental and of bodily anguish to which humanity is liable. Grant him no hope of ultimate relief in view also give him no pleasure either present or in prospect. Can one describe or imagine a more pitiable state? If then a life full of pain is the thing most to be avoided, it follows that to live in pain is the highest evil; and this position implies that a life of pleasure is the ultimate good. In fact the mind possesses nothing in itself upon which it can rest as final. Every fear, every sorrow can be traced back to pain; there is no other thing besides pain which is of its own nature capable of causing either anxiety or distress. Pleasure and pain moreover supply the motives of desire and of avoidance, and the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure. But that which is not itself a means to anything else, but to which all else is a means, is what the Greeks term the Telos, the highest, ultimate or final Good. It must therefore be admitted that the Chief Good is to live agreeably.
And (3) - a more practical "Why do we do anything that we do?" argument:
XIII. Those who place the Chief Good in virtue alone are beguiled by the glamour of a name, and do not understand the true demands of nature. If they will consent to listen to Epicurus, they will be delivered from the grossest error. Your school dilates on the transcendent beauty of the virtues; but were they not productive of pleasure, who would deem them either praiseworthy or desirable? We esteem the art of medicine not for its interest as a science, but for its conduciveness to health; the art of navigation is commended for its practical and not its scientific value, because it conveys the rules for sailing a ship with success. So also Wisdom, which must be considered as the art of living, if it effected no result would not be desired; but as it is, it is desired, because it is the artificer that procures and produces pleasure.
I therefore wonder to what extent Torquatus is indeed giving us an example of each of the perspectives he mentions in the opening. And I also wonder to what extent Torquatus represents the "After 300 years of combatting Stoicism we've learned that you better understand the logic side of the argument or you'll get steamrolled" segment of the school, vs the extent to which Lucretius represents the more traditional "here's what you need to know and to hell with the other schools for now" perspective.
If that explains the difference between the two manners of presentation, there is no good reason to "fault" either one, and we need to be fluent in both so that they are both available to use for talking to different people in different circumstances.
And from that perspective Torquatus is not to be criticized entirely for playing the other side's game, but he's dealing with the reality that some people have been "corrupted" by opposing philosophies more than others, and they have to be walked back as it were from the precipice in steps. Others, on the other hand, who are not so far down the road of corruption through skepticism or idealism or supernatural religion can be approach more directly with the "this is the way things work" approach.
I "liked" Godfrey's post not to suggest that the discussion is counterproductive or should terminate, because surely there are lots of benefits to it, including the translation deep-dive. However I think he raises a point that should be considered, and another way of stating it is whether what we are currently engaged in violates the Plutarch fragment:
“That which produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about, prating meaninglessly about the good.” Epicurus, as cited in Usener Fragment U423
Does that fragment mean "anything that produces pleasure should be considered good" and you should not obsess over other implications of the word 'good'"?
Your current division concerns me in that "feeling" strikes me as a faculty, as a result of which I gather that it was included in the standard of truth along with the five senses and anticipations.
"The Good / End/ Telos" appears to me to designate a destination or a concept describing an overall assessment.
In the case of "goods" -those seem to me to be instrumentalities useful to attaining pleasure, such as friendship or virtue or hammers.
But as "faculty" akin to the five senses or anticipations, it seems to me that the feeling of pleasure (and likewise pain) is neither a destination or itself a simple instrumentality that we pick up and use as circumstances allow. It is a key component bestowed by nature that alone serves as the guide of life so long as we live. Now that may be not far from "goods" or "standard" as you are defining it, but it seems to me that it is so essential, while most everything else seems secondary in rank, that this function should not be left ambiguous.
There are 2 relevant concepts:
Pleasure (aka The Good, The End, Telos)
goods
If at all, where do you include the term "guide" in that division? Because I think Dia voluptas, dux vitae is sound basis for considering guide/leader as a key concept that may not clearly be included in either of those two, and meaning something more than lower-case good as one among many instrumentalities.
If I could think of a way I would bookmark this discussion under "cautions to think about when reading Torquatus.". Maybe all of us don't come to the same conclusion DeWitt does as to life rather than pleasure being the "highest good," but Torquatus himself labels his own view as not totally in accord with Epicurus, so we need to continue to question whether the way he sets up the dialogue (an inquiry into the highest good) is really the way Epicurus approached things at all. Maybe Dewitt started the ball rolling in questioning Torquatus but didn't go far enough.
I am getting more and more comfortable that it is Lucretius rather than Torquatus who is the more orthodox Epicurean, and I think we are better off looking to Lucretius' format (start with looking at what drives all of Nature) rather than launching off in a Platonic-style dialog on "what is the highest good" before answering all sorts of other questions first.
Starting the discussion in the middle of a complex semantic debate over the meaning of words seems to be very much what Epicurus' warned against.
Several good recent posts there, and I want to think more about what Todd is saying but I think he's got an interesting approach. We have talked regularly about it being more appropriate to talk about pleasure as the "Guide" rather than "the good" - along the lines of Lucretius' "Dia voluptus, dux vitae" / divine pleasure GUIDE of life. I think Todd may be sensing the same issue.
Pleasure isn't just a good. You can't even talk about goods until you have a standard to determine what is a good anyway.
Yes. Pleasure is more than anything else one of the two FEELINGS. A feeling has both aspects at least in the way we think of it, as both a guide and good in itself. If you abstract it too far into some "definition" of the good it looses its meaning.
I also want to memorialize a couple of thoughts on earlier posts, primarily, the issue Todd raised about whether pointing to babies is the most sound argument, and then Charles saying that we really need to be looking at this in terms of what is persuasive.
I continue to think that we should look at Lucretius' poem as not just "physics" but what we call it in the intro to the podcast, something like "the only surviving complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world." (Caveat - I still want to explore Emily Austin's suggestion that there was a final section of the original plague of athens story that is missing and would have made a great finale.)
Whether Torquatus has his statement about Epicurus refusing o look to elaborate logical argument or not, it does seem pretty clear that he preferred arguments that go directly to the senses in a "seeing is believing sense." The best and most persuasive argument is "Look at what is right there in front of you."
And if we look at Lucretius I think it is easy to see the "hymn to venus" as not some flight of poetic fancy, but exactly such a "look there" argument. Lucretius never gives an elaborate logical argument for pleasure as the guide of life. But he does start off at the very beginning of his poem with what is essentially a "Look there!" --
MOTHER of Rome, Delight of Men and Gods, Sweet Venus; who with vital power does fill the sea bearing the ships, the fruitful Earth, all things beneath the rolling signs of Heaven; for it is by Thee that creatures of every kind conceive, rise into life, and view the Sun’s bright beams. Thee, Goddess, Thee the winds avoid; the clouds fly Thee and Thy approach. With various art the Earth, for Thee, affords her sweetest flowers; for Thee the sea’s rough waves put on their smiles, and the smooth sky shines with diffused light. For when the buxom Spring leads on the year, and genial gales of western winds blow fresh, unlocked from Winter’s cold, the airy birds first feel Thee, Goddess, and express thy power. Thy active flame strikes through their very souls. And then the savage beasts, with wanton play, frisk over the cheerful fields, and swim the rapid streams. So pleased with thy sweetness, so transported by thy soft charms, all living Nature strives, with sharp desire, to follow Thee, her Guide, where Thou art pleased to lead. In short, Thy power, inspiring every breast with tender love, drives every creature on with eager heat, in seas, in mountains, in swiftest floods, in leafy forests, and in verdant plains, to propagate their kind from age to age. [21] Since Thou, alone, doest govern Nature’s laws, and nothing, without Thee, can rise to light, without Thee nothing can look gay or lovely;
And I have one more thing to say about babies. Todd points out that it is questionable to look *only* at babies for data. We've also discussed that no could credibly suggest that we want to go back to an infantile state of existence in general, totally dependent on others and with very little ability to judge how to successfully avoid pain and pursue pleasure.
But there *is* one aspect of babies and the young of all species that I do think that Epicurus would have endorsed, and that is the absolute lack of doubt in the mind of infants that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the prime directive of nature. The "perversion" or "corruption" after that which is referenced in Torquatus is obviously not in *every respect*. As our minds mature we gain the ability to judge better and successfully pursue pleausure and avoid pain. But the way in which we often *do* get corrupted and perverted is that we are seduced by priests and supernatural religion and false philosophers who talk of "true worlds" beyond this one. We are infected by their poison and we lose our confidence in nature as providing the clear standard of feeling as the only way to ultimately base our decisions on as to what to choose and avoid.
So at the very least I do think that Epicurus would have compared the single-mindedness of new-born youth against the corruption that comes from religion and false philosophic influences that are primarily external and that turn us away from confidence that nature has provided pleasure and pain as our guides.
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If I once did, it was before I had any interest in Epicurus. I guess I will have to remedy this deficiency before I take up more of your time.
No, no, don't let that hold you back at all -- I always see something new in them eveytime I read i, so I am just letting you know that there's a lot more controversy where the part you've already quoted comes from!
Well, I haven't been thinking about it in terms of the highest good, but that's a good idea.
It's interesting that you seem not to have read the full or main part of the Torquatus dialog. Probably you'll have much more to say when you do!
Hmm...maybe that's all that's necessary?
I might agree with you on that, but I think Epicurus would say that ultimately it is important to take a stand on what is "objectively" the highest good, and not just rely on what you or others think personally to be the case. I would say that is probably why we are having the debate about how to tie this opinion to Nature.
And how do YOU arrive at the conclusion that pleasure is the highest good?
Todd can you clarify for me what your own current views are as to whether "pleasure" is the highest good, and the role of "reason" in the establishment of truth?
If we were clear on those things that might help light the way toward making some progress.
Why do you see looking to the newborn as rotten and pessimistic?
At least several days (or maybe a week or so) I changed the banner headline for page one to a fragment that seems to me directly applicable as another illustration of Epicurus' approach to base identification of "the good" on feeling rather than abstract analysis:
“That which produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about, prating meaninglessly about the good.” Epicurus, as cited in Usener Fragment U423
It's been an interesting thread and whether it is over or just starting, it is an important question. I take it your ultimate question is probably "Why" should we look to nature at all, regardless of whether we look at children or any other phase of life?
Why does "is" give rise to "ought"? And you definitely have another step in that process in getting from is to ought.
Of the alternatives in Torquatus it seems to me that "anticipations" makes some sense to look to as a foundation of pleasure, but why does pleasure exist at all for us to follow?
I think we're on very important territory here and the resolution comes very close to (paraphrasing Nietsche) whether we choose to say "yes" to nature or "no". Nature allows us to do either and it is ultimately up to us to decide and pay the price / reap the consequences for our decisions.
Regardless of what we as individuals decide, Epicurus seems clearly to have chosen to say "yes" to a view of nature based on sensation/ feeling, rather than abstract logic, as the standard of a proper human life.
So how would you restate your concern Todd, that looking to examples of people who have not had the time or exposure to ground their actions on "abstract reasoning" is a poor idea for getting at examples of the calling of Nature?
Why is that a poor way of looking at the question? Because they are not "educated" in some goal other than the one they were born with?
So as to the question of whether the cradle argument is reasoning, we have the cradle argument being a form of " direction of attention" rather than "proof and formal argument."
".. no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?"
just so we have the text in front of us:
[30] Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil, and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself prompts unbiased and unaffected decisions. So he says we need no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire, pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?
[31] There are however some of our own school, who want to state these principles with greater refinement, and who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense, but that thought and reasoning also enable us to understand both that pleasure in itself is matter for desire and that pain is in itself matter for aversion. So they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred conception leading us to feel that the one thing is t for us to seek, the other to reject. Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too condent about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings
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