Posts by Cassius

Followup to the original thread:

Henrik Eberhardt

I think there is - though I cant really say where - examples of epicureus or at least ancient epicureans say its prudent to say that at the point we dont know the answer to this problem though it surely is one. I think there is two important things to say about the atomism point that everyone can have an opinion on in addition to what Cassius Amicus mentions - 1) if something is put forth that is in direct conflict with observable reality (like I would say part of quantum mechanics is) then there is something wrong with the theory, not nature. A cat is either dead or alive thats observable logic. 2) there is no need to go to any supernatural explanation just because the exact nature of the phenomena is unknown. We dont know why eels migrate as they do but there is nothing indicating its supernatural. Some day we might know. Surely the nature of existence has greater implications but the logic is the same. We dont assume supernatural eel-explanations as we have no indication of this (and if we had that would change the nature of nature just as much). Same - that we dont know exactly the nature of the substance of nature does not make the direct (or indirect) empirism of epicureanism less valid. I even think that the epicurean atoms more represent a concept then an exact description but that is a more diffuse argument and not really the essence of the matter I would say. Hope this has some validity for you

NOW WAIT A MINUTE!

Now we're going in zig-zag fashion to find the code?

And only two letters - the "V" and the "M" (in the wrong order!)- is referenced in "signing his name?"

Quote

Castelletti accounts for the inversion of Vergil's tria nomina (from [Publius] Vergilius Maro to [Publius] Maro Vergilius) by claiming that Vergil drew inspiration from the Greek poet Aratus, who included a similar acrostic sequence.

Don, are you signing on to that one too?

I know I've been campaigning for years against skepticism but do I now need to worry I've gone overboard? Have I been too hard on poor Pyrrho?

I think you're right Godfrey and that even in fun this is a good example of the issue.

My first inclination is to say that we consider the evidence from "all of the above" sources that you suggest be possibilities.

Quote from Godfrey

posit that there are two different prolepseis on display here as to what constitutes a poem

I am not sure what you mean there, however (?) I have a feeling that you are using the word "prolepsis" in that sentence as if it is interchangeable with "concept." I am still not ready to embrace that "anticipations" = "concepts." Are you?

Quote from Godfrey

One approach to the current evidence is to blindly accept the statements of classical scholars, one of which we have among us in the person of Joshua.

This would be an example of the "rely on the experts" method. No doubt we do in many situations rely on experts. That's an issue in itself as to how we do that, because sometimes experts do make mistakes, and there are differences of opinion as to who constitutes an expert. Someone wanting to write up a paper on that would find some good material in US Federal litigation case law, as there is an extensive line of cases that discusses issues revolving around the admissibility of expert testimony in court. No doubt there are significant differences in context but there is this important analogy: In court issues for fact determination, we think generally that the most fair result comes from a panel of impartial jurors; we want the jurors to make the decision in disputed issues to get the most "fair" result. What happens when jurors don't have the experience or training to be able to judge the issue? We let "experts" testify, and the task of the jurors switches to judging the credibility and persuasiveness of the experts, not of the ultimate facts directly. There is lots of interesting discussion about these issues in the legal system.

Quote from Godfrey

Yet another approach is to examine the odds of a given acrostic occurring and to make inferences from that.

This would be a statistics-based approach. That too can be helpful, but there too we have some helpful rules of thumb about how to separate statistics from "damned lies."

Quote from Godfrey

One could also say that we need to understand the motivations of each person making assertions

This kind of analysis of "bias and prejudice" is definitely a part of the legal frame of analysis.

So in short we could take your examples and generalize them into a series of bullet points on how generally to approach "methods of inference" in making judgments about the unknown.

Yes that rings a dim bell from the distant past, as indicated by the red circle. I didn't absorb much of it then but maybe today I / we would get a lot more out of it, especially since we're now used to the fact that the title given to these scrolls isn't necessary an accurate reflection of the contents.

I seem to remember reading that On rhetoric was one of the first ones that much progress was made on, and there is an old book somewhat equivalent to DeLacys version of On Methods of Inference......

Thank you that is interesting on many levels, not the least as the explanation under item two bears on our recent "logic" discussions.

I wonder where this comes from? The "on rhetoric" papyrus?

Item four seems cryptic.

"an accurate judgement of how to lead pupils from the known to the unknown" seems to be a good description of what we are looking for.

Joshua (or anyone) do we have record from the ancient world of an ancient writer discussing this as an intentional technique, or is it all surmise by the modern world?

In other words we are sure we are not talking some "Bible Code" nonsense?

I am fully prepared to accept this if there is enough evidence of intent.

Quote from Godfrey

. Or are you saying that logic belongs in the canon? I've understood logic, or reasoning, as a process that we use to evaluate our sensations, anticipations and feelings. Is logic/reasoning then "mental focusings"

I think Joshua's answer is the right track with the word "slippery."

What I am concluding is that the word "logic" is like the word "reason" in the way we use them colloquially.

From a technical point of view (I know Martin uses the term this way) "logic" has a very precise meaning, but both terms can be used colloquially to refer generally to a "manner of thinking," and I think this is where the confusion is arising.

Used colloquially there does seem indeed to be a "Stoic logic" as opposed to an Epicurean view of logic, and so the words "logic" and "reason" are not precise enough for our needs.

To me the key issue seems to be that to be considered persuasive any form of reasoning must be tied to premises thst can be verified perceptually through the three canonical faculties. It seems to me that logical or reasoning constructions that are internally valid, but not tied to perceptual data, are being held by Epicurus to be in a category of their own and especially dangerous to practical living. Epicurus seems to be warning us to specifically identify this activity as uniquely threatening to sound principles of living. However it looks to me like we today are so conditioned agsinst this by the arbitrariness and wishful thinking of religion, combined with a radical skepticism in which, because science is moving so fast that we have come to accept the appearance that everything we understand today will be necessarily understood differently tomorrow. Therefore we have come to think that radical skepticism has forever won the philosophical battle, and that the worst sin is to ever consider anything to be certain.

So I think the challenge is that of avoiding the Frances Wright "I don't care" position and instead articulating in understandable form the areas that can and do change (practical or applied science, for lack of better term) vs a set of metaphysical assumptions that do not change (the universe as whole is eternal; death is the end of our unique consciousness; there are no "absolute" standards of the way to live / virtue; nature gives us only pleasure and pain as ultimate guides; maybe a few more).

These are not ethical positions but in fact "natural science" positions that have to be viewed as entitles to a special place in our thinking, a special place that gives them a status in which we regard them as inherently unchallengable by non-perception-based theorizing and speculation.

That's the best way I can articulate this at present.

Wait a minute!

I just read an entire article based on going through thousands of lines of poem and finding four lines of which the first letters seem to spell out a synonym for "light"??????

Don are you impressed by this? Or is it much ado about nothing?

Yes indeed Joshua is right but I am thinking of he was off his game I am sure my wandering in the topic contributed to it. I will get it edited into something coherent as soon as possible but in the meantime Godfrey I do think that a "position on the role of logic" (rather than logic itself) does fall under the "canonical" heading.

I presume you're reading other recent threads like the one by Eric and my goal is that we come up with a presentation on these issues understandable enough for the average junior high age student.

The physics gets combined with the logic I think mainly because a theory of how the senses work (including "images") is tied to physics so that's the intersection point.

That intersection is probably also a key to our answer on how speculative logical assertions must necessarily be given a secondary role to that which we derive from things that are perceptible, but that's the link that needs further work to articulate. WHY is that the case? Why should speculation without evidence be seen as a waste of time or even harmful or at least viewed with suspicion?

These are questions addressed by Lucretius in book 4 so we have some answers, but we need to draw them out and highlight them with greater force.

Quote from Nate

With respect, I am proposing that these questions are incoherent. We're chasing ghosts.

The part of this conversation that I want to emphasize is that even though I think this ("chasing ghosts") is true in at least a figurative sense, I think these "ghosts" are very real in the sense that they inhabit (or "possess") probably 90% or more of the people in the world.

Of course a forum like this has multiple reasons for existence, and from at least one perspective we are talking to people who are highly educated and sympathetic with Epicurus' positions, so we can use shorthand to remind each other of particular traps or lines of thought that are dead ends.

But I think if we stop there (as we often do) we're missing one of the greatest hurdles in front of us, which - if we could get over it - would really open a new world of "Philosophy for the Millions" (DeWitt's term).

The "millions" out there are trapped every day by fallacies of reasoning which we ought to be able to do more to address. I am all in favor of us continuing to strain out ever bit of meaning we can about the "pleasure" discussions, and I'll continue to engage in that as always in the past.

But I just want to emphasize that the issues being discussed in this thread need to be addressed in a similar way -- we need more materials dedicated to explaining from the ground up (and yes to younger people too) how these questions arise and how they can be met and defeated.

There's a very unatrractive "logic game" side of this that is distasteful to deal with, but all of us want more "Epicurean Friends" in our daily local lives, and I think this "thinking" issue poses as much of an obstacle to that as anything regarding pleasure vs virtue.

So what I would say is that yes the arguments that Eric is suggesting are probably defective in a number of ways, but we need to be able to point to a well-developed explanation that addresses from the ground up how the different varieties of incorrect assumptions arise, and have to be defeated.

And that's a project we've hardly - if at all - begun.

We can and should address the individual questions like Eric is raising, but we've got to integrate them into a broader presentation so we can not only say "that's incorrect reasoning" but point to a clear explanation as to how that is so.

This is gonna take a lot of effort and won't be accomplished quickly but it has to be done.

Going back to the post that started this thread, it seems to me that even the most devoted proponent of whatever latest theory is out there in the scientific community ought to be experienced enough to see that over and over and over the "latest theory" gets turned to dust by something newer sooner or later.

If we accept that likelihood, then we either turn to Francis Wright style "forget the whole thing" compartmentalization (because she's still very firm on certain conclusions) or we take a broader position on "going with the best we have available to us" which recognizes that there is a balance between the latest science vs never letting "the latest science" trump the conclusions that are based on the three-legged canonical analysis.

It seems to me that's the direction that needs explanation and articulation but it's the direction that Epicurus was headed based on sound reasoning.

Quote from EricR

There are serious philosophical arguments involved in this, but they take us a long way from EP and what I think is its strength, a practical set of principles for achieving happiness in the world.

Eric the only thing that you have typed that I disagree with is the "they take us a long way from EP." And I say that because I think its strength IS a practical set of principles for achieving happiness, and I think also that Epicurus agreed with you that one of the tool sets that is necessary for the greatest happiness is the ability to deal with epistemological questions with dexterity.

What you're talking about here is pretty much what I see as the number one weakness of "modern" Epicureans - we're focusing too much on the broad ethical generalizations and not enough on the reasoning process that supports it.

I have been convinced for a long time, and am getting more convinced every day, that the looseness and ambiguity with which many people seem to interpret the ethical pronouncements derives from this failure to understand the metaphysical / epistemological approach that Epicurus was teaching.

In that sense "Modern Epicureanism" in many camps has become a lot like "Modern Stoicism": Divorce the philosophy from its physics and epistemology and you end up with a gooey (and ineffective) self-medication for pain that is 180 degrees away from what the founders of both schools were trying to accomplish. Both modern Stoics an modern Epicureans would be better off just checking themselves into a psychiatric or medical clinic if "freedom from pain" or "apathy" is all that they want from life.

That's why I think the best term for what we should doing here is "Classical Epicurean" philosophy - and one of the main things on the agenda needs to be to make more progress on the issues we're discussing in this thread.

Quote from EricR

I genuinely stumble over this point. Frankly, without solidly finding firm philosophical ground for asserting there is "nothing other than atoms and void" and being able to explain this, EP is in the same position as other systems of thought, and yes, religions. ie: a metaphysical belief system.

I completely agree. I think the footing is essentially there, but that's my personal opinion and as far as I know there is no one currently in the "Epicurean movement" who is articulating it sufficiently.

Yes I would say that us a fair conclusion.

But I think Epicurus was looking for greater precision in describing the problem and addressing it.

Part of it is no doubt " the canon of truth" in which had his three categories of tools by which to judge that which is perceptible.

But - anticipating and negating Frances Wright's "don't worry about it" position, I think it's clear that Epicurus thought we can develop some "rules of thought" by which to judge the imperceptible. He was clearly willing to take firm positions on things like infinite divisibility, and I think he was right that we can develop some pretty clear bright line rules along the line of -

1. The conclusions which we find to be confirmable by using the three legs of the canon of truth (both as to the perceptible and the imperceptible) are never to be considered overthrowable by opinions reached through reasoning which cannot be confirmed through the canon of truth.

2. The goal of life set by nature is to beings who live happily by following the lead of pleasure and pain, not to be beings who are professional speculators wasting time on questions which can never be answered and on activities which are not consistent with nature's goal.

No doubt we can do better than that to articulate the principle but I think that is the right direction.

You may not be one of them, and I grant that some aren't, but I truly believe that is a small minority of people, and under pressure, that number shrinks even more dramatically.

I think that Epicurus was attempting to deal with EXACTLY what you are raising here, and I think he thought that we could do very much better than had been done previously - and I would say since then too - to explain this issue and provide an answer to people of relatively normal intelligence.

Yes it does require some degree of brainpower and experience "to be able to figure the problem out" (a phrase in one of the PD's or fragments) but I think that's exactly what Epicurus was working on, and I frankly think that it constitutes probably the most important part of his project both then and now for us today.

Yes Epicurus was good with observations, and good with coming up with logical deductions, but this issue of "how to think" constitutes pretty much the ultimate challenge where religion beats (or nihilism) beats us back again and again.

We can do much better than we've done already to reconstruct Epicurus' work in this area.

Quote

I'll get our podcast from yesterday up as soon as I can while these issues are fresh in our minds, because I think we're talking about exactly the point introduced in Herodotus as:

[38] For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded, and that there should be no need of explanation, if we are really to have a standard to which to refer a problem of investigation or reflection or a mental inference. And besides we must keep all our investigations in accord with our sensations, and in particular with the immediate apprehensions whether of the mind or of any one of the instruments of judgment, and likewise in accord with the feelings existing in us, in order that we may have indications whereby we may judge both the problem of sense perception and the unseen. Having made these points clear, we must now consider things imperceptible to the senses.

It's when we turn to "things imperceptible to the senses" that we need to observe his process of reasoning and use that to explain statements such as PD22-25. Right now we largely skip over them fairly superficially, but it's likely Epicurus thought they were key to unwinding exactly what we are asking.

PD22. We must consider both the real purpose, and all the evidence of direct perception, to which we always refer the conclusions of opinion; otherwise, all will be full of doubt and confusion.

PD23. If you fight against all sensations, you will have no standard by which to judge even those of them which you say are false.

PD24. If you reject any single sensation, and fail to distinguish between the conclusion of opinion, as to the appearance awaiting confirmation, and that which is actually given by the sensation or feeling, or each intuitive apprehension of the mind, you will confound all other sensations, as well, with the same groundless opinion, so that you will reject every standard of judgment. And if among the mental images created by your opinion you affirm both that which awaits confirmation, and that which does not, you will not escape error, since you will have preserved the whole cause of doubt in every judgment between what is right and what is wrong.

PD25. If on each occasion, instead of referring your actions to the end of nature, you turn to some other, nearer, standard, when you are making a choice or an avoidance, your actions will not be consistent with your principles.

Yes Eric you're now fully focusing on the epistemology issue, which is where we need to focus here and in your recent question about what keeps you from fully embracing Epicurean Philosophy.

If we can't answer which confidence a child's question such as "There COULD be pink ponies dancing on the other side of the moon, right Dad?"

...then we can't answer anything with confidence at all.

So we need to address questions such as:

1. "Under what circumstances, if any, do we admit as 'possibilities' things for which there is no evidence whatsoever of any kind?"
2. "Under what circumstances, if any, do we admit as 'possibilities' things for which the evidence that is asserted is through reasoning that is consistent within itself, but which cannot be validated through evidence perceptible to the senses?"
3. "Under what circumstances, if any, do we admit as 'possibilities' assertions about which we have no experience whatsoever, neither positive nor negative, either inferential or perceptible?"

We got into this issue to degree in our last podcast (not yet posted) but we didn't make much progress.

My suggested questions are amateurish and need a lot of polishing, but I am convinced that this is a direction we need to explore. The hints in the principal doctrines and in Philodemus (On Signs) and other places give us a starting point, but what's left to us is not articulated in way that most normal people in 2022 can grasp the direction.

One of the issues that came up in this podcast goes beyond some of our prior discussions of syllogisms and propositional logic.

This section of Epicurus makes the transition from discussing how we make decisions about things we can observe with our senses versus those things that are not perceptible to our senses.

We quickly discovered that it is not so easy to describe the reasoning that is involved.

Is it "deductive"? If so, what are examples?

Is it "inductive"? If so, what are examples?

Is it both? If so, what are examples and how do we distinguish?

Do we need either term "deductive" or "inductive"?

Is this related to references to "comparison" and "analogy" in Torquatus' narrative?

How is this related to Philodemus' work known variously as "On Signs" or "On Methods of Inference"?

These are issues that need to be readily articulable, and this episode will give us a chance to discuss this.

The edited session -