Posts by Cassius

RoseQuartzAxolotl (that's quite a user name!) tells us this:

Hello Cassius and all!

I'm 34 and I live in the Chicagoland area with my husband and our Shetland Sheepdog. I work on the systems side of education.

I grew up fairly conservative and fundamental Christian, and it took a long time to undo that knot. I've long considered myself an atheist/agnostic in my adult life, but as I enter my middle age years and leave my (relative) "youth" behind, I've looked for answers to existential and practical questions: What is the meaning of my life without religion? What set of ethics do I believe to guide my life? What legacy will I leave behind? How do I navigate this world "alone" without belief in divine intervention or an afterlife? Etc etc.

I had quickly come across Epicureanism a few years ago and I remembered it while reflecting on these questions. As I continue to delve deeper, I continue to find great truth. It's like every time I read a new (to me!) text, I laugh because I think "Aha! Finally some sense in this world!" and I feel I relate to Metrodorus when he fell to his knees after hearing Epicurus speak, feeling he had uncovered the secrets of the universe, so-to-speak. But I am not trained in philosophy at all! I received an earth science degree and most of my humanities classes revolved around arts, art history, and modern foreign language so I never even took a philosophy 101 class. I am trying not to be too intimidated by my current lack of knowledge in both philosophy AND the ancient. I remind myself learning has no age limit, the brain is extremely elastic even well into old age, and the only way to achieve the pleasure of competence is to push through the temporary pain of feeling like a fool. :p I am interested in applying Epicurean principles to modern life, learning more about how the ancient followers structured their day-to-day lives, how these principles can help modern mental health issues (alongside science, not instead of), etc. And just learning more in general!

I wanted to specifically join this forum as my husband does not seem to be nearly as thrilled as I am to discuss an ancient school of philosophy LOL. So for now, this will suffice as my Garden Community.

I appreciate your time! Please let me know if there's anything else I need to provide or questions I need to answer. Have a good day everyone!

Welcome RoseQuartzAxolotl

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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 and associated Terms of Use. Please be sure to read that document to understand our ground rules.

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 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 most other philosophies, 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 of truth and happy living through pleasure as explained in the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

One way you can be assured of your time here will be productive is to tell us a little about yourself and 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 already have.

You can also check out our Getting Started page for ideas on how to use this website.

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.

"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"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.

(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

Welcome to the forum!

I cross-posted with Bryan and just now see his #12

Quote from Bryan

This is contrasted (Academica 2.142) with "a different judgment exists for Epicurus – who thinks all judgment is established in the senses, in the acquaintance with things, and in pleasure"

This sentence covers a lot but I would think it would be true thaL

"judgment is ESTABLISHED in the senses" means more like "judgment is validated by or is tested against the perceptions of the senses , the anticipations, and the feelings."

With the key point being as in the other citations that judgment takes place in the MIND, not in any of the three categories of faculties, and this is where a major difference arises from the Stoics, who believe that some sensations are "true" and others "false" and that apparently some sensations are so "clear" that the wise man can recognize the true ones as true and the false ones as false, if he is really good at dialectic and syllogisms.

Ok we just finished recording and I am not sure that we hit your precise point Patrikios but I think you will be pleased with this episode and we can come back to that next week. The section we are in is very deep and what you are raising is definitely a part of that.

So it seems I've been repeating the Epicurean formulation "all sensations are true" for many years without fully appreciating that some people (the Stoics) say that some sensations are true and others are false.

I think I've tended to flip back and forth between the Skeptic view that NO sensations are true and the Epicurean ALL sensations are true without realizing that the Stoics tried to maintain that some sensations in themselves are true and others are false.

To me, specifically identifying the Stoic view and comparing it to the Epicurean view is very helpful.

I can't find a good authoritative page I can screen clip but at the hazard of it being wrong here is chatgpt:
VII.46 is where Diogenes is summarizing Stoic epistemology. The Greek wording varies slightly by edition, but the key line containing katalepsis is essentially:

Quote

κατάληψιν δέ φασιν εἶναι συγκατάθεσιν καταληπτικῇ φαντασίᾳ

A fairly literal translation:

Quote

They say that katalepsis is assent to a cognitive impression.

Here is a word-by-word interlinear layout:

A more natural English rendering:

Quote

“They say that apprehension consists in giving assent to a cognitive impression.”

Now to your specific concern: the form you wanted is not dictionary-form κατάληψις, but:

κατάληψιν

That ending -ιν marks the accusative singular form. Greek dictionaries list the nominative:

κατάληψις → katálēpsis

So the morphology is:

• κατάληψις = nominative (“apprehension”)
• κατάληψεως = genitive (“of apprehension”)
• κατάληψιν = accusative (“apprehension” as object)

The Stoic chain being described here is:

φαντασία → κατάληψις → ἐπιστήμη

• impression
• cognitive grasp
• knowledge

That sequence becomes particularly important for Epicurean comparisons because Epicureans accepted sensory impressions as criteria but rejected the Stoic notion of a special “cognitive” impression guaranteed by nature.

Here's the Perseus link from which we can look for variations of katalepsis:

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ Ζ

Apparently katalepsis is in here somewhere:

Lives of the Eminent Philosophers/Book VII - Wikisource, the free online library

45. The study of syllogisms they declare to be of the greatest service, as showing us what is capable of yielding demonstration; and this contributes much to the formation of correct judgements, and their arrangement and retention in memory give a scientific character to our conception of things.

An argument is in itself a whole containing premisses and conclusion, and an inference (or syllogism) is an inferential argument composed of these. Demonstration is an argument inferring by means of what is better apprehended something less clearly apprehended.

A presentation (or mental impression) is an imprint on the soul: the name having been appropriately borrowed from the imprint made by the seal upon the wax. 46. There are two species of presentation, the one apprehending a real object, the other not. The former, which they take to be the test of reality, is defined as that which proceeds from a real object, agrees with that object itself, and has been imprinted seal-fashion and stamped upon the mind: the latter, or non-apprehending, that which does not proceed from any real object, or, if it does, fails to agree with the reality itself, not being clear or distinct.

Dialectic, they said, is indispensable and is itself a virtue, embracing other particular virtues under it.^[27] Freedom from precipitancy is a knowledge when to give or withhold the mind’s assent to impressions. 47. By wariness they mean a strong presumption against what at the moment seems probable, so as not to be taken in by it. Irrefutability is strength in argument so as not to be brought over by it to the opposite side. Earnestness (or absence of frivolity) is a habit of referring presentations to right reason. Knowledge itself they define either as unerring apprehension or as a habit or state which in reception of presentations cannot be shaken by argument. Without the study of dialectic, they say, the wise man cannot guard himself in argument so as never to fall; for it enables him to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and to discriminate what is merely plausible and what is ambiguously expressed, and without it he cannot methodically put questions and give answers.

48. Overhastiness in assertion affects the actual course of events, so that, unless we have our perceptions well trained, we are liable to fall into unseemly conduct and heedlessness; and in no other way will the wise man approve himself acute, nimblewitted, and generally skilful in argument; for it belongs to the same person to converse well and to argue well, to put questions to the purpose and to respond to the questions put; and all these qualifications are qualifications belonging to the skilled dialectician.

Such is, summarily stated, the substance of their logical teaching. And in order to give it also in detail,^[28] let me now cite as much of it as comes within the scope of their introductory handbook. I will quote verbatim what Diocles the Magnesian says in his Synopsis of Philosophers. These are his words:

49. “The Stoics agree to put in the forefront the doctrine of presentation and sensation, inasmuch as the standard by which the truth of things is tested is generically a presentation, and again the theory of assent and that of apprehension and thought, which precedes all the rest, cannot be stated apart from presentation. For presentation comes first; then thought, which is capable of expressing itself, puts into the form of a proposition that which the subject receives from a presentation.”

50. There is a difference between the process and the outcome of presentation. The latter is a semblance in the mind such as may occur in sleep, while the former is the act of imprinting something on the soul, that is a process of change, as is set forth by Chrysippus in the second book of his treatise Of the Soul (De anima). For, says he, we must not take “impression” in the literal sense of the stamp of a seal, because it is impossible to suppose that a number of such impressions should be in one and the same spot at one and the same time. The presentation meant is that which comes from a real object, agrees with that object, and has been stamped, imprinted and pressed seal-fashion on the soul, as would not be the case if it came from an unreal object.

51. According to them some presentations are data of sense and others are not: the former are the impressions conveyed through one or more sense-organs; while the latter, which are not data of sense, are those received through the mind itself, as is the case with incorporeal things and all the other presentations which are received by reason. Of sensuous impressions some are from real objects and are accompanied by yielding and assent on our part. But there are also presentations that are appearances and no more, purporting, as it were, to come from real objects.

Thanks Don. By the time of DL he'd have been inundated by the Stoic v Skeptic debate and surely would have compared Stoic vs Epicurean views on prolepsis. "A sort of" presumably indicates parallels but not exactly the same (?)

I want to go looking for where DL describes Zeno's version o this in the Stoic section, but haven't got there yet.

For comparison, the key section of Diogenes Laertius 12:

EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side Diogenes Laertius Ten

I'll quote here the HICKS version just to highlight how the underlined part is a very critical section to look at closely. Bailey and Yonge say here that "he says the same thing" instead of "his own statements" so they plant the presumption that Epicurus agrees with "the Epicureans generally." This Hicks version does not convey that same conclusion. Whether it is correct to say that Epicurus agrees with "the Epicureans generally" is the central question. But if it was so certain that Epicurus agreed, why was it necessary to write that reference distinguishing "the Epicureans generally" at all?

31

They reject dialectic as superfluous; holding that in their inquiries the physicists should be content to employ the ordinary terms for things. Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth; the Epicureans generally make perceptions of mental presentations to be also standards. His own statements are also to be found in the Summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Sovran Maxims. Every sensation, he says, is devoid of reason and incapable of memory; for neither is it self-caused nor, regarded as having an external cause, can it add anything thereto or take anything therefrom.

This short section from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on "Ancient Greek Skepticism" is also right on point:

ii. Attack on the Stoics

In general, the Stoics were the ideal target for the skeptics; for, their confidence in the areas of metaphysics, ethics and epistemology was supported by an elaborate and sophisticated set of arguments. And, the stronger the justification of some theory, the more impressive is its skeptical refutation. They were also an attractive target due to their prominence in the Hellenistic world. Arcesilaus especially targeted the founder of Stoicism, Zeno, for refutation. Zeno confidently claimed not only that knowledge is possible but that he had a correct account of what knowledge is, and he was willing to teach this to others. The foundation of this account is the notion of katalêpsis: a mental grasping of a sense impression that guarantees the truth of what is grasped. If one assents to the proposition associated with a kataleptic impression, i.e. if one experiences katalepsis, then the associated proposition cannot fail to be true. The Stoic sage, as the perfection and fulfillment of human nature, is the one who assents only to kataleptic impressions and thus is infallible.

Arcesilaus argued against the possibility of there being any sense-impressions which we could not be mistaken about. In doing so, he paved the way for future Academic attacks on Stoicism. To summarize the attack: for any sense-impression S, received by some observer A, of some existing object O, and which is a precise representation of O, we can imagine circumstances in which there is another sense-impression S’, which comes either (i) from something other than O, or (ii) from something non-existent, and which is such that S’ is indistinguishable from S to A. The first possibility (i) is illustrated by cases of indistinguishable twins, eggs, statues or imprints in wax made by the same ring (Lucullus 84-87). The second possibility (ii) is illustrated by the illusions of dreams and madness (Lucullus 88-91). On the strength of these examples, Arcesilaus apparently concluded that we may, in principle, be deceived about any sense-impression, and consequently that the Stoic account of empirical knowledge fails. For the Stoics were thorough-going empiricists and believed that sense-impressions lie at the foundation of all of our knowledge. So if we could not be certain of ever having grasped any sense-impression, then we cannot be certain of any of the more complex impressions of the world, including what strikes us as valuable. Thus, along with the failure to establish the possibility of katalepsis goes the failure to establish the possibility of Stoic wisdom (see Hankinson [1995], Annas [1990] and Frede [1983/1987] for detailed discussions of this epistemological debate).

In today's episode I want us to take the time to read Wikipedia's definition of "kataleptsis" as I think it's going to help us to keep this in mind as we proceed further:

Katalepsis - Wikipedia

The current version is relatively short and straightforward so I'll memorialize it here. I note that it's kind of funny and illuminating that the main way the term "cataleptic" has come down to us today is the medical use of describing "pathological bodily rigidity":

Quote

Katalepsis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For pathological body rigidity described with the same word, see Catalepsy.

Katalepsis (Greek: κατάληψις, "grasping") is a term in Stoic philosophy for a concept roughly equivalent to modern comprehension.^[1] To the Stoic philosophers, katalepsis was an important premise regarding one's state of mind as it relates to grasping fundamental philosophical concepts, which was followed by the assent, or adherence to the truth thus understood.

According to the Stoics, the mind is constantly being bombarded with impressions (phantasiai).^[2] Some of these impressions are true and some false. Impressions are true when they are truly affirmed, false if they are wrongly affirmed. Cicero relates that Zeno would illustrate katalepsis as follows:

He would display his hand in front of one with the fingers stretched out and say "A visual appearance is like this"; next he closed his fingers a little and said, "An act of assent is like this"; then he pressed his fingers closely together and made a fist, and said that that was comprehension (and from this illustration he gave to that process the actual name of katalepsis, which it had not had before); but then he used to apply his left hand to his right fist and squeeze it tightly and forcibly, and then say that such was knowledge, which was within the power of nobody save the wise man.^[3]

Katalepsis was the main point of contention between the Stoics and the two schools of philosophical skepticism during the Hellenistic period: the Pyrrhonists and the Academic Skeptics of Plato's Academy. These Skeptics, who chose the Stoics as their natural philosophical opposites, eschewed much of what the Stoics believed regarding the human mind and one's methods of understanding greater meanings.^[4] To the Skeptics, all perceptions were acataleptic, i.e. bore no conformity to the objects perceived, or, if they did bear any conformity, it could never be known.^[5]

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I just realized that I forgot to include something that I always try to mention when the subject of Tim O'Keefe or any other professor comes up.

I try not to judge Tim O'Keefe or really even Emily Austin as primarily advocates for Epicurean philosophy. As far as I know they are professional educators and they aren't hired or for all I know allowed to be the kind of advocates for the philosophy that I attribute to the members of the school such as Lucretius or Diogenes of Oinoanda in the ancient world.

I've never read anything from Tim O'Keefe or most of these other academics either stating that they are personally endorsing what they write about. To some extent some sympathy with their subject is implicit, but they are not obligated to put the most sympathetic face on the Epicurean viewpoint. Certainly Cyril Bailey did not do that, and he is one of the authorities we rely on most for his translations. But I do keep in mind that Bailey very clearly stated that he did not agree with many of Epicurus' ethical positions.

So I just want to be sure to say that I've found a lot of valuable information whenever I've read Tim O'Keefe material. I just wouldn't look to him for an explanation of the Epicurean viewpoint from a position of advocating the most persuasive form of it that is possible.

The psychological hedonism discussion quickly began to overwhelm the original theme of this thread, so I moved that to the existing recent thread below. Let's continue "psychological hedonism" there and the the prolepsis issues here.

Quote from Todd

To summarize my understanding of DeWitt, the anticipations must anticipate something. That something can only be experience. To say that they result from past experience removes them as an independent criterion.

OK now I see what you are saying for sure - that clarifies it.

I'm going to have to think about this before responding further. I'm definitely under the influence of recent reading in Academic Questions.

The point i want to reflect about is this: As Don is saying, I am thinking at the moment that prolepsis is what picks out the patterns. And prolepsis as a faculty exists before the experiences are experienced. I think in the past we've said - and I still think - that prolepsis cannot be performing its function by comparing streams of data to prior ideas (or intelligent patterns). It must be assembling the patterns based on features of the experiences that are repated over time - and that does make sense to me.

Let me think further.

To add more there the recent podcast episodes on Academic Questions Book 2 are causing me to focus for maybe the first time on this kataleptic impression issue. So if I am reading all this correctly the Stoics seem to have made that the centerpiece of their rejection of radical skepticism. If so, then it was definitely going to have been talked about by the Epicureans after Epicurus, and it's easy to see the temptation to say that "some impressions are so clear that the prolepsis and/or the senses themselves can grasp the truth from them without anything else needed."

If that's what happened and that's what led to the adoption of this "fourth criteria" after Epicurus, then I'd lay that as a corruption entering in from the stoics rather than something truly advanced by Epicurus himself or as consistent with Epicurus' views.

In fact I've been thinking about a new thread on articulating better what is meant by 'true opinion."

For example when we talk about defeating the "motion is impossible" argument by demonstrating that you can walk across a room, we probably need to be very clear about what exactly defeats the "motion is impossible" claim.

We're talking as if simply "seeing it" alone is sufficient, and I think the truth is that Epicurus would say that -since the sensations alone contain no opinion" it's still important for us to stress that the mind is processing the sight of the person walking across the room before we can say that the "no motion" paradox is conclusively defeated.

Quote from Don

Doesn't Epicurus also include grasping concepts with the mind as a sense, too?

Well that's the three-criteria vs four-criteria debate as I see it, and I'm still firmly with DeWitt in the three camp on that. In fact given my new reading on the stoic view of kataleptic impressions i am more firmly with Dewitt on that than ever.

Now, I'd reject the "grasping through the prolepsis" as objectionable not only because it creates a circular feedback loop (we are talking opinions here, and "grasping" in the Stoic sense seems to be "grasping the truth" of something). I'm also now focusing on the idea that no matter how close to the tower we are, it's never a single sensation, or even a series of them, that "tells us" the truth of the matter. it's always the mind weighing the sensations where truth and error lies,

So I am reading "grasping" as very close to "understanding" and that sounds too much like an opinion to me.

So as per our prior discussions I think you too agree Don that just like the sensations, the "prolepses" are never "opinions."

Good to hear from you and I really appreciate your drilling down on the specifics:

If you ask that then it's possible I need to revise that because I didn't really mean to break any new ground from my prior posts.

I recognized while writing that that I was basically incorporating the DL position as to "see many horses and that's how you develop a preconception of a horse."

What I remember wanting to do in the past was to distinguish "preconceptions (prolepsis which does not incorporate opinion) from "conceptions" (the product of rational thought, which involves opinions).

I did not mean to deviate from that in this article, but it's possible I wrote too loosely.

Did you see something specific that you can point me to which you think might differ from that?

Possibly this paragraph is the issue:

Anticipations are the generalized pre-concepts and pattern-recognitions that the mind builds from repeated sensory experience. When you have encountered horses many times, your mind has assembled those experiences into a recognizable pattern — a "preconception" of what a horse is — that allows you to recognize a new horse immediately without having to process each feature from scratch. This is not a rational construction or a definition arrived at through dialectical method. It is an automatic, empirically grounded recognition built by nature through the accumulation of experience.

I think I definitely have been influenced by podcast review of Academic Questions to focus more on the "absence of opinion" and "repeated exposure" aspects as we compare Epicurean prolepsis to Stoic ideas of prolepsis. And from that point of view I am perhaps more sympathetic to DL focusing on the "repeated exposure" as the way of guaranteeing accuracy in opinions.

The point I am seeing new to me is that I think we need to emphasize that no matter how close we get to the tower, and no matter how many angles we use or people we consult, no sensation in itself is ever so clear that the sensation alone "tells us" the final opinion. That's what I think we have to distinguish as being the Stoic kataleptic impression idea.

But I didn't mean this to be anything different from past focus on "intuition" as a means of describing what is going on in the "faculty of pattern recognition," or that I wanted to limit prolepsis to 5-sense exposure to concrete objects (which I remember to have been a good point that Dewitt made).

If it's that last point - that prolepsis is limited to data from the 5 senses - then I see why you ask and I may revise that.

But before I jump to conclusions can you elaborate on your question when you have time?

Quote from Don

As is my wont, let's consult LSJ: The word Epicurus uses is φυσικός (physikos) "natural, produced or caused by nature, inborn, native; of or concerning the order of external nature, natural, physical." So, I take that to mean a desire which is aligned with the natural order of things, in other words, a desire which aligns with the natural order of seeking pleasure. If a desire leads to pain with no accompanying pleasure (I'm thinking the desire for the pleasure of a healthy body via the pain of exercise is natural) that's an "empty/vain/corrosive" desire.

Ok well now if I understand you that, that would be to consider nature as "aligned with the goal of nature" and NOT "inborn with us at birth." Presumably there could be something destructive inborn in us at birth that is NOT aligned with the goal of nature, thus those are two different things.

So you are in the "alignment with nature's goal" camp rather than "inborn at birth" camp?

This week we continue in Book One at line 483, where we will discuss how the term "bodies" can refer both to the elemental particles and things made from those particles, and how the first last forever but the latter change over time.

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