Posts by Cassius

Quote from Pacatus

Just to react generally and off-handedly thus far: there would seem to be a wide gulf between being "overwhelmed by sexual passions" and "selective sexual prudence.

I agree, and it seems to me prudent to remember that every kind of "ethical" advise is a matter of context and still is judged in terms of all pleasure being desirable by nature (even though not all is to be chosen) and "what will happen to me if I pursue this course and what will happen if I do not?" There is a wide gulf between how events unfold in different contexts, and if you are confident that you have arranged circumstance so that a particular pleasure will not bring more pain than it is worth due to your preparations, then I would think Epicurus would say it would be appropriate to engage in it. Rules of thumb are good general guides but there is no god or fate guaranteeing results so the calculation of the risks is yours to do contextually.

I am pasting here some private discussions that we have had in the last few days in preparation for this upcoming podcast, in which Don is going to join us. What follows are comments from several sources, noted with the author at the start:

DON:

In all seriousness, I'll put my cards on the table prior to the recording here. And I'm going to try and pin these to things I've read... however, I don't have the citations at hand. Thoughts are, of course, welcome!

• IF prolepseis are part of Canonic (criteria of truth), they have to be pre-rational, a faculty that isn't involved in concept-formation.
• Therefore, a prolepsis is NOT like a stored word in lingustics. The word does not come first.
• I believe I got this from Glidden but it made immediate sense. I hope I'm interpreting his paper correctly:
  • Aisthesis - sensation simply registers incoming stimuli
  • Pathe - pleasure and pain - register an emotional, pre-rational reaction to stimuli
  • Prolepsis - recognizes patterns - especially recurring patterns - from the sensations. It is those recurring patterns that cognition and reason work on to assign names to.
• The prolepseis recognize recurring patterns. The sensations - aisthesis - cannot assemble forms or recognize patterns. I'm making the analogy of pixels. The sensations will determine what color an individual pixel is. The sensations cannot recognize a pattern of pixels. The prolepsis does assemble collections of pixels into patterns. These patterns are recognized repeatedly. When the patterns re-occur over time, reason and cognition take over and assign a name in a particular language to that pattern. As that pattern gets recogized repeatedly by the prolepseis - the non-rational - it reinforces what name has been given to that pattern, thus reinforcing that pattern.
  • That said, the prolepseis works in babies, too, before language. They can begin to recognize patterns and discern the form of something - they can recognize animals and so on. They may call all four-legged animals a "doggy" for awhile, but over time their faculty of prolepseis discerns finer and finer patterns from the pixels registered by their sensations.
  • And by pixels, I mean discrete units involved in the sensations. Pixels is probably the closest analogy to sight. But smells would be the individual units of molecules or smells. If we recognize a particular pattern in a smell over time we can begin to recognize this as distinct then we will eventually assign "cinnamon" or "skunk!" to a pattern of a smell. Same way with sound waves sensed by our ears. The sensation of touch leading to a pattern we finally recognize as "soft" "fluffy" "scratchy" even before we can assign a name to it.
• The prolepseis can also recognize patterns of behavior, as in a prolepsis of "justice." I maintain this is the innate sense of fairness that is tested in babies and toddlers. They recognize a pattern of behavior - equity in the number of cookies, etc. - and what we would call a prolepsis of "justice/fairness" is recognized. Note that the babies are NOT assigning words yet, they can't. They don't have the capacity for language. But the pattern is recognized, will be reinforced, and will eventually be given a name/word by the language of the baby's parents and culture.
• I'm still working on the prolepsis of the gods - of divinity - BUT I think it has something to do with the innate ability to recognize awe and wonder - to be in awe, to be amazed, to be transfixed in wonder.

I'm certainly not saying I have this all figured out. FAR from it. This is where my head is at right now... but I could change my mind before Sunday, too!

CASSIUS:

That appears to me to be very close to what I am reading from Glidden and it is also not far from Dewitts position. I think it differs significantly from Sedley and I am confident it differs totally from Bailey. I can't recall where Tsouna comes down other than that I seem to recall she favors Laertius over Vellleius.

So I think I agree with all your bullet points. We just need to be careful to point out that:

- this conclusion is Not easy to reach based on a simple reading of Laertius alone.

- ultimately too this gets wrapped up in whether an anticipation of gods is inscribed in all men at birth (Vellleius) or whether it only occurs after receiving mental "images" after birth .

And we also need to stick with our pattern of following chapter 8 by using the book as the discussion guide, but that should be easy because Dewitt conducts the analysis the same way most everyone does.

CASSIUS:

"IF prolepseis are part of Canonic (criteria of truth), they have to be pre-rational, a faculty that isn't involved in concept-formation."

And yes that strikes me too as a very critical part - and it is an important part of Dewitts position too. Dewitt gets loose and occasionally uses the word idea but the essence of his position is that it is prerational. I think we are likely to agree that a fully formed "idea" is never equivalent to "anticipation.". Ideas require formation in the mind after observation and thought (they don't come from a Platonic world) and anticipations must be something that go in at the start of the process before an idea is formed. It's a pre-idea, not an idea. It can't be a description of the process of taking an idea and matching it against new observations, which is what Laertius describes.

That is one reason I would really like to see Glidden's full article to see whether he specifically agrees with all or part of Dewitt - the short article does not mention sources.

No matter what else we stress about anticipations, this point of what it means to be canonic seems to me to be absolutely fundamental and something we are safe taking a position on.

And I don't think that Tsouna or maybe even Sedley honor it - they dont seem to be as bothered by the feedback loop that would be created as Glidden is and I think we are.

But I am not by any means on top of all the articles and that is the main reason I think there is lots we have to hedge on.

One more thing I would like to see us mention - I don't know where it is but I see reference to Epicurus saying that names are more precise that definitions - that it is better to say "there is Socrates" than to say "there is famous philosophy man and teacher of Plato etc etc etc."

That seems to me to he helpful in showing that Epicurus warned away from definition-obsession and that seems related to how real life isn't a process of constant definition-mongering.

I can see the possibility that Epicurus was saying that in real life we test the truth of opinions by comparing them first against patterns recognized / assembled prerationally, rather than by a syllogistic reasoning process of converting everything into words and constantly comparing things against definitions.

Thus the mind would have principles of operation that control how it processes patterns just like the eyes have principles of operation that control how it processes light. The eyes don't tell us what we are seeing and neither do anticipations give us fully formed ideas. Both are inputs and not conclusory opinions.

That's great Nate! That post ought to maybe be the beginning of another project or article - we can't keep it buried here. i am sorry I have been very busy today and haven't yet absorbed what this is - is it the beginning of a collection of classical poetry related to Epicurus? I would think Joshua has his own such collection especially with the Shakespeare material?

Added to the file archive here are:

File

Epicurean Prolepsis - David Glidden

Excellent article on Epicurean Prolepsis, arguing that both the account of Cicero and of Diogenes Laertius give distorted views of preconceptions.

Cassius

February 21, 2023 at 8:00 PM

and

File

Method and Evidence - Epicurean Proconceptions - Morel - Konstan

Morel and Konstan paper on Preconceptions

Cassius

February 21, 2023 at 7:55 PM

It looks like the full article that Glidden wrote later is:

Glidden, D. (1985), ‘Epicurean Prolepsis’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy

Until I can track that down I just want to again indicate my appreciation to Don because the article he found has already converted my views on this subject to Glidden's camp, which I had never read before today. It might be a good way to summarize it to say that Dewitt was right in not trusting Diogenes Laertius but he should not have trusted Cicero either! Whenever I see someone pursue the argument that our understanding of Epicurus has been altered by Stoicizing it I tend to find that path very helpful.

This is the one we need 1985 Volume III:

Last night in our zoom session Godfrey reminded us that there is discussion of the issue of anticipations in the book recently released by the Athens Greece Epicurean group. We need to link here the discussion we have had previously.

This is particularly good too:

Quote

From the examples we do have in Epicurus it seems that prolepsis is concerned with the character of a thing or a state of affairs — what it is to be just, as opposed to what the instantiations of justice are, what the character of the gods is, as opposed to who the gods are. Given Epicurean epistemic realism, these claims on the character of some thing or state must be seen as claims on the world, so that prolepsis, like aisthesis for a realist, is ambiguous between the psychological act of apprehension and the content discerned, some feature of the world. In the case of prolepsis what is discerned should be some abiding character in things, as opposed to some temporary appearance. Not surprisingly. Epicurean atomism suggests the need for these two different kinds of information. Since all that exists are simply atoms moving in the void, on any occasion what one perceives is, as it were, a time slice of a continuous process ----so the apple looks green now. It is also the case that certain atomic configurations are relatively abiding in any particular cosmos. And so in our world water has a particular atomic arrangement and iron another. Information about the one, the state of current appearances, is not the same as information about the other, the relatively abiding state of nature.

The history of Plato's Forms and Aristotle*s natural kinds should have made Epicurus more sensitive to this issue than Democritus would have been, and in any case this sensitivity to the abiding structures in nature is certainly obvious from the De Rerum Natura. There is clearly a need for information about these abiding structures in natural philosophy and this need can be satisfied in part by Epicurean inference and confirmation.

But it also appears that we can recognize the abiding character in perceived things and states· We recognize justice to be what serves social interest, the gods to be blessed and immortal. Such recognitions are part of the evidence, not part of our inferences· And prolepsis, it seems, constitutes such recognitions.

Thanks to Don for this very helpful article: Epicurean Prolepsis by David Glidden.

I am reading that article now and it shoots at a lot of what seems generally accepted about anticipations. I read Glidden to agree with DeWitt in being very critical of Diogenes Laertius, but he is also critical of Cicero, on the grounds that both of them have too much Stoic influence. I like what I am reading so far.

For example:

Quote

Consequently I see no foundation for the most common interpretation, that Epicurean prolepsis is some kind of conceptual device. The most popular version of this thesis has been that prolepseis are the meanings of individual words, as they might also have been for the Stoics, individual concepts which when strung together in the appropriate way would provide meaning to sentences, constituting lekta· Now I have argued against this interpretation in "Epicurean Semantics,” where I pointed out that we should take the evidence of Plutarch and Sextus seriously, that there is nothing in Epicureanism comparable to what the Stoics claimed was the significance ( t_o semainomenon ) of voiced sounds. The Epicureans made do with just voiced sounds, or utterances, and the events happening in the world which those utterances referred to. Attention to everything which the Epicureans say about the origin and character of language suggests that utterances label states of the world, or else they are vacuous sounds. The prolepseis, then, are not vehicles of meaning, but conveyances of evidence making claims on the world, not making sense of our vocabulary.

Some would maintain that nevertheless prolepseis are mental representations, though what they represent are complex ideas about the world. This too seems unlikely. The authority of perception and the authority of our feelings would be called into question, with disastrous consequences for Epicurean empiricism, were it the case that what it iswe see or how it is we feel were somehow dependent upon our own subjective perspective and viewpoint· The Epicureans were adamant on the mechanical, automatic character of perception and feeling, which somehow guaranteed the information we received from our senses was information about the state of the world, as opposed to our state of mind· The purely referential character of what it is we perceive and the pleasure and pain we feel is what guarantees the epistemic authority of aisthesis and pathe.

Welcome to Episode 163 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 with "Anticipations."

This may not seem like a lot in comparison to Facebook or other locations, but I wanted to note that I don't think I have ever seen our "Online in the Last 24 hours" count fill up three whole lines and most of a fourth. Almost certainly we have lots of lurkers as well, but this represents participating "users" who have taken the step of creating an account so they can fully engage. Thanks again to everyone who is participating, because the more input and interaction we have the more we all get out of this.

Episode 162 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we continue in Chapter 8 of the DeWitt Book and begin our discussion of anticipations. Unfortunately Joshua is not with us this week so we go slow and set the stage for more detailed discussion next week - and we hope to have Don join us next week as well.

Welcome @lusan !

Note: In order to minimize spam registrations, all new registrants must respond in this thread to this welcome message within 72 hours of its posting, or their account is subject to deletion. All that is required is a "Hello!" but of course we hope you will introduce yourself -- tell us a little about yourself and what prompted your interest in Epicureanism -- and/or post a question.

This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.

Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.

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.

1. "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
2. The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.
3. "On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
4. "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
5. The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."
6. Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
7. Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
8. The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
9. A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
10. Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
11. Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
12. "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

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.

Welcome to the forum!

•  Edit

Charles I am thinking this is more in your department?

We will miss you Don! Hope to see you Saturday.

Welcome @deniz.karakullukcu

Note: In order to minimize spam registrations, all new registrants must respond in this thread to this welcome message within 72 hours of its posting, or their account is subject to deletion. All that is required is a "Hello!" but of course we hope you will introduce yourself -- tell us a little about yourself and what prompted your interest in Epicureanism -- and/or post a question.

This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.

Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.

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.

1. "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
2. The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.
3. "On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
4. "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
5. The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."
6. Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
7. Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
8. The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
9. A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
10. Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
11. Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
12. "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

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.

Welcome to the forum!

Quote from Adrian

I find the concept of a space outside the universe for the universe to expand into difficulty to conceive since all space is surely within the universe?

And to me this is an issue of word-play as much as it is of anything else. If we are defining the "all" as everything, then it seems to me the only way you end up with these seemingly-conflicting positions is by ignoring the definition issue. If, like Lucretius and his javelin, the universe is "expanding" - then whatever it is expanding into would seem to be by definition part of the universe.

I can't help but being suspicious that there is something more behind these formulations than good-faith science. Every time I have tried to dig deeper into these questions it seems to me I have found that the issue is that those who are postulating some kind of weirdness are fudging that they are considering the universe as a whole to be "what is observable as of now" which is NOT the definition of "the all" traditionally meant as the definition of "the universe."

A very good observation on the "mole." The Epicurean gods are invulnerable (apparently) but we are not. And as long as we have vulnerabilities then the ability to sense something to worry about is extremely valuable. I suppose we have discussed that too but while it seems appropriate to reduce our experience of pain to as close to zero as possible, we would not want to "eliminate" the sense of pain itself, as it serves effectively as a requirement of human life.

Stoics and those who are willing to hypothecize the superiority of some "other world" are probably naturally drawn to eliminate all feeling of all kind, but in THIS world, feeling both good and bad is a necessity.

Ha - another question: If anxiety must be avoided and never accepted at all costs, would anyone ever choose to have a boyfriend or girlfriend, or get married, or have children?

Unfortunately Joshua was not able to join us for this episode, so it is shorter than usual and will serve mainly as a short introduction to the topic. We'll grapple with it in much more detail when Joshua is able to rejoin us, which will hopefully be our next episode. Editing should be complete and the episode released by mid-week.

I had time to come back and make another comment:

When I refer to the conflation of tranquility and pleasure as "one of the most dangerous" ideas I don't mean "dangerous" in the sense of evil or something malicious in and of itself. I mean dangerous in the hands of those who aren't thinking through the implications.

What I think I observe is that there is a great tendency in the non-Epicurean intellectual world to do everything possible to take the focus off of "pleasure." I don't think that is because such people dislike the experience of pleasure themselves, because of course they do. What they see - and what I think Epicurus saw - is that this question is a subtext for the deeper and more volatile question of "their" (again referring to non-Epicurean intellectuals) desire to maintain control of the narrative over others. If "they" can keep the focus on ideal forms, or essences, or virtue, or tranquility, or frankly *anything* other than pleasure itself, then "they" can define the narrative of how to life, and "they" can keep control over others who disagree with them.

I think Epicurus saw that, but I think it's always been a problem that people of good will are often slow to recognize that this tension exists. Some of them want to maintain the same power to define "the good" that Plato and similar wanted to keep for themselves, but some of them (especially in relatively good times) just don't find it in themselves to understand how important these questions are, and how "others" can use this issue to manipulate them. If someone doesn't have a manipulative personality then the desire to manipulate can be hard to understand. "I just want to be left alone to live my own life - doesn't everyone?" Unfortunately the answer to that is "No, everyone doesn't just want to be left alone."

We've noticed before that many of "us" tend to be introverts, and it's just not in our nature to want to spend our time scheming about ways to manipulate other people. That's very consistent with Epicurus' advise not to make a career in politics / control over others. But that is pretty much what "organized religion" is, whether it's in the form of the most super-primitive Christianity of the "west" or the most ultra-"enlightened" eastern viewpoints. I think that's one reason why those of us who only want to live our own lives find it appealing to pick and choose elements in other viewpoints that we think are desirable, while charitably glossing over or ignoring the negative elements in those viewpoints.

So of course that is not what I am thinking you are doing at all, but I do think that the overall massive tendency of the great majority of intellectuals in the last 2000 years has pushed in that direction. They think that if they can define the goal for other people as something other than the sense of pleasure and pain that Nature implanted in everyone then they have a leg up on controlling the narrative and controlling society. And I think that technique does work, and it has been very successful for them, which is why they identify pleasure in general and Epicurus in particular as such an enemy.