Eikadistes' commentary on the poem:
Posts by Cassius
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We have a graphic on the forum to which Eikadistes added some commentary. I'm not sure that discussion is findable through the gallery, so I am setting up this thread to make discussion about it easier to find.
Here's the graphic:
Seikilos Poem - Epicureanfriends.comwww.epicureanfriends.comAnd I'll paste some of the discussion here too.
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Right - the burden of proof issue is certainly relevant to standards of proof so let's discuss that too.
In these philosophic questions does the burden of proof rest on the person asserting something that is contrary to observable evidence? Or on the person asserting what all observable evidence supports? And will we ever allow circumstantial evidence alone to be the basis of "knowledge."
In our courtroom situation, the burden of proof is on the side bringing the charge or claim, and the proof standard is higher in criminal cases than in civil cases due to how much is at stake. Importantly, circumstantial evidence is allowed to be the basis of decision in both circumstances. (In fact I was reading this morning about the Utah woman found guilty this week for murdering her husband with fentanyl. It appears this is an example of a murder conviction based largely or fully on circumstantial evidence. Certainly no one saw her administer the poison.)
The most important questions in life stem from whether we are created and governed supernatural forces, and whether we have supernatural souls that survive after death. It is reasonable to assert that these issues determine everything else in ethics. If there are in fact supernatural forces beyond our senses, those forces would provide benefits or penalties that overwhelm any lesser ethical judgment based purely on sensation. (In this discussion I think Epicurus would include anticipations and feelings of pleasure and pain as also being direct natural faculties equivalent in status to the five senses.)
We do not have control over how long we live. No moment that passes in which we have made choices based on wrong presumptions can ever be retrieved, and in every case our lives are over far too quickly. We only live once, so the need for finality is urgent.
Given the implications of the options and implications as to whether the universe is natural and whether we have souls that survive death., Epicurus held that "I don't know" is not a proper or sufficient answer. I would analogize his decision here to his decision to revolt against his teachers who could not reasonably explain the theory of the universe being organized out of chaos by an outside force.
As to the available evidence, there is no observable evidence of supernatural forces or life after death. We are not born having those conceptions in our minds. If someone is going to argue that we should live life based on those contentions, it is reasonable to take the position, as Epicurus did, that those people provide very strong evidence and meet a very high burden of proof.
And what kind of proof is most important and definitive? This is what book 4 of Lucretius is devoted to, all around the section in which Lucretius discusses the problems of illusions that make proof of things difficult, but that in the end we come to the conclusion that knowledge is possible, and the standard of knowledge is met by the evidence of the sense, from which we can make conclusions based either on direct sensation or reasoning from circumstantial evidence which does come from sensation.
Quote from Lucretius 4:469"If anyone thinks that he knows nothing, he cannot be sure that he knows this, when he confesses that he knows nothing at all. I shall avoid disputing with such a trifler, who perverts all things, and like a tumbler with his head prone to the earth, can go no otherwise than backwards." (Lucretius 4:469)
Epicurus saw no reason to suggest that supernatural souls or forces are "possible," and thus there is no reason to consider those issues under a standard of probability. And there are many important reasons NOT to do that.
In short I do agree that we need to be clear on who has the burden of proof, what level of "proof" is required, and be clear that we do take the position that knowledge is possible.
If we don't address these then we are left of the position of the person who says that nothing can be known, and we never make any progress towards deciding how to live.
Last comment: And as you also reference, we have to decide who is the factfinder. In court the factfinder is either the judge or jury. In our own lives, we have to decide whether we are going to make decisions for ourselves, defer our decisionmaking to others, or try to avoid decisionmaking completely. Epicurus never appeals to authorities other than the sensations, anticipations and feelings, and I think the strong implication of that is that he thought we have to make these decisions for ourselves.
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As in another recent post I just came across this in Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols.' It strikes me on first reading as very persuasively consistent with Epicurus' defense of the senses and criticism of what we might call "otherworldliness." I'm posting it here for reference and future comment. Source link.
"REASON" IN PHILOSOPHY
1 You ask me which of the philosophers' traits are really idiosyncrasies? For example, their lack of historical sense, their hatred of the very idea of becoming, their Egypticism. They think that they show their respect for a subject when they de-historicize it, sub specie aeternitas--when they turn it into a mummy. All that philosophers have handled for thousands of years have been concept-mummies; nothing real escaped their grasp alive. When these honorable idolators of concepts worship something, they kill it and stuff it; they threaten the life of everything they worship. Death, change, old age, as well as procreation and growth, are to their minds objections--even refutations. Whatever has being does not become; whatever becomes does not have being. Now they all believe, desperately even, in what has being. But since they never grasp it, they seek for reasons why it is kept from them. "There must be mere appearance, there must be some deception which prevents us from perceiving that which has being: where is the deceiver?" "We have found him," they cry ecstatically; "it is the senses! These senses, which are so immoral in other ways too, deceive us concerning the true world. Moral: let us free ourselves from the deception of the senses, from becoming, from history, from lies; history is nothing but faith in the senses, faith in lies. Moral: let us say No to all who have faith in the senses, to all the rest of mankind; they are all 'mob.' Let us be philosophers! Let us be mummies" Let us represent monotono-theism by adopting the expression of a gravedigger! And above all, away with the body, this wretched idée fixe of the senses, disfigured by all the fallacies of logic, refuted, even impossible, although it is impudent enough to behave as if it were real!" 2 With the highest respect, I except the name of Heraclitus. When the rest of the philosophic folk rejected the testimony of the senses because they showed multiplicity and change, he rejected their testimony because they showed things as if they had permanence and unity. Heraclitus too did the senses an injustice. They lie neither in the way the Eleatics believed, nor as he believed--they do not lie at all. What we make of their testimony, that alone introduces lies; for example, the lie of unity, the lie of thinghood, of substance, of permanence. "Reason" is the cause of our falsification of the testimony of the senses. Insofar as the senses show becoming, passing away, and change, they do not lie. But Heraclitus will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction. The "apparent" world is the only one: the "true" world is merely added by a lie. 3 And what magnificent instruments of observation we possess in our senses! This nose, for example, of which no philosopher has yet spoken with reverence and gratitude, is actually the most delicate instrument so far at our disposal: it is able to detect minimal differences of motion which even a spectroscope cannot detect. Today we possess science precisely to the extent to which we have decided to accept the testimony of the senses--to the extent to which we sharpen them further, arm them, and have learned to think them through. The rest is miscarriage and not-yet-science--in other words, metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology--or formal science, a doctrine of signs, such as logic and that applied logic which is called mathematics. In them reality is not encountered at all, not even as a problem--no more than the question of the value of such a sign-convention as logic. 4 The other idiosyncrasy of the philosophers is no less dangerous; it consists in confusing the last and the first. They place that which comes at the end--unfortunately! for it ought not to come at all!--namely, the "highest concepts," which means the most general, the emptiest concepts, the last smoke of evaporating reality, in the beginning, as the beginning. This again is nothing but their way of showing reverence: the higher may not grow out of the lower, may not have grown at all. Moral: whatever is of the first rank must be causa sui. Origin out of something else is considered an objection, a questioning of value. All the highest values are of the first rank; all the highest concepts, that which has being, the unconditional, the good, the true, the perfect--all these cannot have become and must therefore be causes. All these, moreover, cannot be unlike each other or in contradiction to each other. Thus they arrive at their stupendous concept, "God." That which is last, thinnest, and emptiest is put first, as the cause, as ens realissimum. Why did mankind have to take seriously the brain afflictions of sick web-spinners? They have paid dearly for it! 5 At long last, let us contrast the very different manner in which we conceive the problem of error and appearance. (I say "we" for politeness' sake.) Formerly, alteration, change, any becoming at all, were taken as proof of mere appearance, as an indication that there must be something which led us astray. Today, conversely, precisely insofar as the prejudice of reason forces us to posit unity, identity, permanence, substance, cause, thinghood, being, we see ourselves somehow caught in error, compelled into error. So certain are we, on the basis of rigorous examination, that this is where the error lies. It is no different in this case than with the movement of the sun: there our eye is the constant advocate of error, here it is our language. In its origin language belongs in the age of the most rudimentary form of psychology. We enter a realm of crude fetishism when we summon before consciousness the basic presuppositions of the metaphysics of language, in plain talk, the presuppositions of reason. Everywhere it sees a doer and doing; it believes in will as the cause; it believes in the ego, in the ego as being, in the ego as substance, and it projects this faith in the ego-substance upon all things--only thereby does it first create the concept of "thing." Everywhere "being" is projected by thought, pushed underneath, as the cause; the concept of being follows, and is a derivative of, the concept of ego. In the beginning there is that great calamity of an error that the will is something which is effective, that will is a capacity. Today we know that it is only a word. Very much later, in a world which was in a thousand ways more enlightened, philosophers, to their great surprise, became aware of the sureness, the subjective certainty, in our handling of the categories of reason: they concluded that these categories could not be derived from anything empirical--for everything empirical plainly contradicted them. Whence, then, were they derived? And in India, as in Greece, the same mistake was made: "We must once have been at home in a higher world (instead of a very much lower one, which would have been the truth); we must have been divine, for we have reason!" Indeed, nothing has yet possessed a more naive power of persuasion than the error concerning being, as it has been formulated by the Eleatics, for example. After all, every word and every sentence we say speak in its favor. Even the opponents of the Eleatics still succumbed to the seduction of their concept of being: Democritus, among others, when he invented his atom. "Reason" in language--oh, what an old deceptive female she is! I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar. 6 It will be appreciated if I condense so essential and so new an insight into four theses. In that way I facilitate comprehension; in that way I provoke contradiction. First proposition. The reasons for which "this" world has been characterized as "apparent" are the very reasons which indicate its reality; any other kind of reality is absolutely indemonstrable. Second proposition. The criteria which have been bestowed on the "true being" of things are the criteria of not-being, of naught, the "true world" has been constructed out of contradiction to the actual world: indeed an apparent world, insofar as it is merely a moral-optical illusion. Third proposition. To invent fables about a world "other" than this one has no meaning at all, unless an instinct of slander, detraction, and suspicion against life has gained the upper hand in us: in that case, we avenge ourselves against life with a phantasmagoria of "another," a "better" life. Fourth proposition. Any distinction between a "true" and an "apparent" world--whether in the Christian manner or in the manner of Kant (in the end, an underhanded Christian)--is only a suggestion of decadence, a symptom of the decline of life. That the artist esteems appearance higher than reality is no objection to this proposition. For "appearance" in this case means reality once more, only by way of selection, reinforcement, and correction. The tragic artist is no pessimist: he is precisely the one who says Yes to everything questionable, even to the terrible--he is Dionysian. -
I just came across this biting criticism of Socrates and his embrace of dialectice from Nietzsche's "Twilight of The Idols." I'd say a significant number of these arguments are consistent with the Epicureans' criticisms of Socrates. Posting it here for reference and future discussion. Source.
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
1 Concerning life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is no good. Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths--a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life. Even Socrates said, as he died: "To live--that means to be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius the Savior a rooster." Even Socrates was tired of it. What does that evidence? What does it evince? Formerly one would have said (--oh, it has been said, and loud enough, and especially by our pessimists): "At least something of all this must be true! The consensus of the sages evidences the truth." Shall we still talk like that today? May we? "At least something must be sick here," we retort. These wisest men of all ages--they should first be scrutinized closely. Were they all perhaps shaky on their legs? late? tottery? decadents? Could it be that wisdom appears on earth as a raven, inspired by a little whiff of carrion? 2 This irreverent thought that the great sages are types of decline first occurred to me precisely in a case where it is most strongly opposed by both scholarly and unscholarly prejudice: I recognized Socrates and Plato to be symptoms of degeneration, tools of the Greek dissolution, pseudo-Greek, anti-Greek (Birth of Tragedy, 1872). The consensus of the sages--I comprehended this ever more clearly--proves least of all that they were right in what they agreed on: it shows rather that they themselves, these wisest men, agreed in some physiological respect, and hence adopted the same negative attitude to life--had to adopt it. Judgments, judgments of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms; in themselves such judgments are stupidities. One must by all means stretch out one's fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by the living, for they are an interested party, even a bone of contention, and not judges; not by the dead, for a different reason. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life is thus an objection to him, a question mark concerning his wisdom, an un-wisdom. Indeed? All these great wise men--they were not only decadents but not wise at all? But I return to the problem of Socrates. 3 In origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest class: Socrates was plebs. We know, we can still see for ourselves, how ugly he was. But ugliness, in itself an objection, is among the Greeks almost a refutation. Was Socrates a Greek at all? Ugliness is often enough the expression of a development that has been crossed, thwarted by crossing. Or it appears as declining development. The anthropologists among the criminologists tell us that the typical criminal is ugly: monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo. But the criminal is a decadent. Was Socrates a typical criminal? At least that would not be contradicted by the famous judgment of the physiognomist which sounded so offensive to the friends of Socrates. A foreigner who knew about faces once passed through Athens and told Socrates to his face that he was a monstrum--that he harbored in himself all the bad vices and appetites. And Socrates merely answered: "You know me, sir!" 4 Socrates' decadence is suggested not only by the admitted wantonness and anarchy of his instincts, but also by the hypertrophy of the logical faculty and that sarcasm of the rachitic which distinguishes him. Nor should we forget those auditory hallucinations which, as "the daimonion of Socrates," have been interpreted religiously. Everything in him is exaggerated, buffo, a caricature; everything is at the same time concealed, ulterior, subterranean. I seek to comprehend what idiosyncrasy begot that Socratic equation of reason, virtue, and happiness: that most bizarre of all equations which, moreover, is opposed to all the instincts of the earlier Greeks. 5 With Socrates, Greek taste changes in favor of dialectics. What really happened there? Above all, a noble taste is thus vanquished; with dialectics the plebs come to the top. Before Socrates, dialectic manners were repudiated in good society: they were considered bad manners, they were compromising. The young were warned against them. Furthermore, all such presentations of one's reasons were distrusted. Honest things, like honest men, do not carry their reasons in their hands like that. It is indecent to show all five fingers. What must first be proved is worth little. Wherever authority still forms part of good bearing, where one does not give reasons but commands, the dialectician is a kind of buffoon: one laughs at him, one does not take him seriously. Socrates was the buffoon who got himself taken seriously: what really happened there? 6 One chooses dialectic only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to erase than a dialectical effect: the experience of every meeting at which there are speeches proves this. It can only be self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons. One must have to enforce one's right: until one reaches that point, one makes no use of it. The Jews were dialecticians for that reason; Reynard the Fox was one--and Socrates too? 7 Is the irony of Socrates an expression of revolt? Of plebeian ressentiment? Does he, as one oppressed, enjoy his own ferocity in the knife-thrusts of his syllogisms? Does he avenge himself on the noble people whom he fascinates? As a dialectician, one holds a merciless tool in one's hand; one can become a tyrant by means of it; one compromises those one conquers. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he makes one furious and helpless at the same time. The dialectician renders the intellect of his opponent powerless. Indeed? Is dialectic only a form of revenge in Socrates? 8 I have given to understand how it was that Socrates could repel: it is therefore all the more necessary to explain his fascination. That he discovered a new kind of agon, that he became its first fencing master for the noble circles of Athens, is one point. He fascinated by appealing to the agonistic impulse of the Greeks--he introduced a variation into the wrestling match between young men and youths. Socrates was also a great erotic. 9 But Socrates guessed even more. He saw through his noble Athenians; he comprehended that his own case, his idiosyncrasy, was no longer exceptional. The same kind of degeneration was quietly developing everywhere: old Athens was coming to an end. And Socrates understood that all the world needed him--his means, his cure, his personal artifice of self-preservation. Everywhere the instincts were in anarchy everywhere one was within five paces of excess: monstrum in animo was the general danger. "The impulses want to play the tyrant; one must invent a counter-tyrant who is stronger. When the physiognomist had revealed to Socrates who he was--a cave of bad appetites--the great master of irony let slip another word which is the key to his character. "This is true," he said, "but I mastered them all." How did Socrates become master over himself? His case was, at bottom, merely the extreme case, only the most striking instance of what was then beginning to be a universal distress: no one was any longer master over himself, the instincts turned against each other. He fascinated, being this extreme case; his awe-inspiring ugliness proclaimed him as such to all who could see: he fascinated, of course, even more as an answer, a solution, an apparent cure of this case. 10 When one finds it necessary to turn reason into a tyrant, as Socrates did, the danger cannot be slight that something else will play the tyrant. Rationality was then hit upon as the savior; neither Socrates nor his "patients" had any choice about being rational: it was de rigeur, it was their last resort. The fanaticism with which all Greek reflection throws itself upon rationality betrays a desperate situation; there was danger, there was but one choice: either to perish or--to be absurdly rational. The moralism of the Greek philosophers from Plato on is pathologically conditioned; so is their esteem of dialectics. Reason-virtue-happiness, that means merely that one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark appetites with a permanent daylight--the daylight of reason. One must be clever, clear, bright at any price: any concession to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downward. 11 I have given to understand how it was that Socrates fascinated: he seemed to be a physician, a savior. Is it necessary to go on to demonstrate the error in his faith in "rationality at any price"? It is a self-deception on the part of philosophers and moralists if they believe that they are extricating themselves from decadence when they merely wage war against it. Extrication lies beyond their strength: what they choose as a means, as salvation, is itself but another expression of decadence; they change its expression, but they do not get rid of decadence itself. Socrates was a misunderstanding; the whole improvement-morality, including the Christian, was a misunderstanding. The most blinding daylight; rationality at any price; life, bright, cold, cautious, conscious, without instinct, in opposition to the instincts--all this too was a mere disease, another disease, and by no means a return to "virtue," to "health," to happiness. To have to fight the instincts--that is the formula of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct. 12 Did he himself still comprehend this, this most brilliant of all self-outwitters? Was this what he said to himself in the end, in the wisdom of his courage to die? Socrates wanted to die: not Athens, but he himself chose the hemlock; he forced Athens to sentence him. "Socrates is no physician," he said softly to himself, "here death alone is the physician. Socrates himself has merely been sick a long time." -
Welcome to Episode 325 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most 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 we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus. This week will will continue in Section 6Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackam translation here:And these are those three kinds which most people believe the Peripatetics speak of: and so far they are not wrong; for this division is the work of that school. But they are mistaken if they think that the Academicians — those at least who bore this name at that time — are different from the Peripatetics. The principle, and the chief good asserted by both appeared to be the same — namely, to attain those things which were in the first class by nature, and which were intrinsically desirable; the whole of them, if possible, or, at all events, the most important of them. But those are the most important which exist in the mind itself, and are conversant about virtue itself. Therefore, all that ancient philosophy perceived that a happy life was placed in virtue alone; and yet that it was not the happiest life possible, unless the good qualities of the body were added to it, and all the other things which have been already mentioned, which are serviceable towards acquiring a habit of virtue. From this definition of theirs, a certain principle of action in life, and of duty itself, was discovered, which consisted in the preservation of those things which nature might prescribe. Hence arose the avoidance of sloth, and contempt of pleasures; from which proceeded the willingness to encounter many and great labours and pains, for the sake of what was right and honourable, and of those things which are conformable to the objects of nature. Hence was generated friendship, and justice, and equity; and these things were preferred to pleasure and to many of the advantages of life. This was the system of morals recommended in their school, and the method and design of that division which I have placed first.
But concerning nature (for that came next), they spoke in such a manner that they divided it into two parts,— making one efficient, and the other lending itself, as it were, to the first, as subject matter to be worked upon. For that part which was efficient they thought there was power; and in that which was made something by it they thought there was some matter; and something of both in each. For they considered that matter itself could have no cohesion, unless it were held together by some power; and that power could have none without some matter to work upon; for that is nothing which is not necessarily somewhere. But that which exists from a combination of the two they called at once body, and a sort of quality, as it were. For you will give me leave, in speaking of subjects which have not previously been in fashion, to use at times words which have never been heard of (which, indeed, is no more than the Greeks themselves do, who have been long in the habit of discussing these subjects).
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This week we'll start at about line 265 and discuss the implications of the invisibility of atoms:
EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side LucretiusMulti-column side-by-side Lucretius text comparison tool featuring Munro, Bailey, Dunster, and Condensed editions.handbook.epicureanfriends.com -
Episode 324 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is Pleasure The Good, Or The Enemy of The Good?" I want to particularly commend Joshua's references to Socrates' discussion of the cave analogy as important in this episode.
As to Emerson's statements about consistency Joshua reminded me in the most recent podcast (324 - not yet posted as of this writing) about what Cicero had to say in Tusculan Disputations. In this section he's arguing against Epicurus, but what he's saying about consistency I think most of us would agree with. I think Epicurus would agree too, and that Epicurus would defend his position on the grounds that he WAS being consistent. This particular argument shows why the meaning of "Good" is so important, and why it is so important to understand Epicurus' argument that all good ultimately resolves down to "pleasure." And that leads us directly to the expansive meaning that Epicurus gives to the term "pleasure," refusing to restrict it to physical stimulation (as Cicero accuses Epicurus of doing) but including within "pleasure" all living experience that is not painful:
Quote from Cicero in Tusculan DisputationsX.
But it is the duty of one who would argue accurately, to consider not what is said, but what is said consistently. As in that very opinion which we have adopted in this discussion, namely, that every good man is always happy; it is clear what I mean by good men: I call those both wise and good men, who are provided and adorned with every virtue. Let us see, then, who are to be called happy. I imagine, indeed, that those men are to be called so, who are possessed of good without any alloy of evil: nor is there any other notion connected with the word that expresses happiness, but an absolute enjoyment of good without any evil. Virtue cannot attain this, if there is anything good besides itself: for a crowd of evils would present themselves, if we were to allow poverty, obscurity, humility, solitude, the loss of friends, acute pains of the body, the loss of health, weakness, blindness, the ruin of one’s country, banishment, slavery, to be evils: for a wise man may be afflicted by all these evils, numerous and important as they are, and many others also may be added; for they are brought on by chance, which may attack a wise man: but if these things are evils, who can maintain that a wise man is always happy, when all these evils may light on him at the same time? I therefore do not easily agree with my friend Brutus, nor with our common masters, nor those ancient ones, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemon, who reckon all that I have mentioned above as evils, and yet they say that a wise man is always happy; nor can I allow them, because they are charmed with this beautiful and illustrious title, which would very well become Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, to persuade my mind, that strength, health, beauty, riches, honours, power, with the beauty of which they are ravished, are contemptible, and that all those things which are the opposites of these are not to be regarded. Then might they declare openly, with a loud voice, that neither the attacks of fortune, nor the opinion of the multitude, nor pain, nor poverty, occasion them any apprehensions; and that they have everything within themselves, and that there is nothing whatever which they consider as good but what is within their own power. Nor can I by any means allow the same person, who falls into the vulgar opinion of good and evil, to make use of these expressions, which can only become a great and exalted man. Struck with which glory, up starts Epicurus, who, with submission to the Gods, thinks a wise man always happy. He is much charmed with the dignity of this opinion, but he never would have owned that, had he attended to himself: for what is there more inconsistent, than for one who could say that pain was the greatest or the only evil, to think also that a wise man can possibly say in the midst of his torture, How sweet is this! We are not, therefore, to form our judgment of philosophers from detached sentences, but from their consistency with themselves, and their ordinary manner of talking.
All these are difficult issues that everyone has to address, but the first step is seeing that they are in fact issues.
OK. But surely you don't have a problem with relying on expert opinion and consensus of experts on any specific issue when we as average people have zero ability to know about the topic. We all have to draw the line somewhere on what we believe is true, like your 1 to 3 above, and where we don't believe them to be true. We have to trust expert consensus on specific topics that are far beyond our knowledge when making important decisions. For example, I don't ingest anything that the experts say causes cancer in mice, even though I have no idea if it is possible I'll get cancer, too.
Certainly if I want brain surgery I am going to look for someone I conclude to be an "expert." Even in recent years regarding such things as diet and covid and many other chemicals there is raging debate on safety. It's probably not useful to get too far into specific examples but when there are experts who say exactly opposite things it's not sufficient to rely on expert consensus. At those points you simply have to bring to do your best to educate yourself on the conflicting opinion and use your best individual judgment on which expert to follow.
And it's good to hear from you DavidN!
And, a big challenge is updating the philosophy to make it compatible for modern thinkers (and science).
"Modern thinkers" are in many cases the problem, not the solution, and you can't make opposites compatible. It would be more accurate to say that it is desirable to use new methods and technologies to explain to such "modern thinkers" as are open to the discussion the superiority of the Epicurean viewpoint.
mainly the refusal to see how making contracts for peace between countries is the only avenue of peace
That's not the "only" avenue for peace. When people refuse to agree, they can fight and in some cases successfully eliminate the other side. It doesn't help the situation to imagine otherwise - thinking this only makes it more likely that it is YOUR side that is going to eliminated. That's why Epicurus regularly says that all means necessary to preserve your safety are a natural good, and that some people can and do refuse to enter agreements of mutual safety.
So Epicurean philosophy which holds that gods/God is not interactive with the world or listening to prayers may appeal to some, but not appeal to others.
That is a fact that always has proven to be the case, and likely will continue to prove to be the case. And therefore those who think as we do have to take all appropriate steps to make sure that we are not eliminated. We've come far too close to exactly that result over the last 2000 years.
In your response to me, you quoted Thos. Jefferson; is he the modern philosopher you referred to and I asked about? I must not understand your train of thought. I was thinking perhaps you were referring to 20th century philosophers as being somehow out in left field.
I am definitely considering Jefferson, who embraced Epicurus in my view very accurately, as correct in most all of his statements on these issues. I have the most relevant of his statements relating to Epicurus here: https://newepicurean.com/jefferson/
And in general it's fair to say that I am speaking against the more modern philosphers, who seem in most cases to be in agreement with Socrates that nothing is really "knowable."
Your referral to radical skeptics, has me confused again. Am I wrong to conclude that in your use of those two words, radical skeptics mean the philosophers of ancient Greece BCE? With respect, you seem to have a bone to pick with the skeptics of old and their influence on some. I believe I understand the battle of ideas between the school of Epicurus and the Skeptics with a capital S.
"radical skeptics" is a term i use to describe anyone who claims that no knowledge of any kind is possible. This would include Socrates, although Socrates apparently was content with the contradiction that he was confident that he know nothing. This does NOT include all Greek philosophers BCE, as some taught specific doctrines. Yes it's bad to be wrong, as many of theme were in arguing things like it is impossible to walk across a room, but worse than being wrong is to take the position that it is impossible ever to be right about anything. As long as you have a standard to declare something to be "right," then you eventually have hope of being right. If you say that it's impossible to be "right" about anything, then you are in the position of the skeptics who Diogenes of Oinoanda criticized when saying that no one will ever seek the truth if they consider it impossible to find.
In general I agree that it is useful to distinguish the worst of the Skeptics with a capital "S", but unfortunately it's not sufficient to do that in many cases because the depth of this problem is not recognized in general conversation. Many people tend to think that ALL skepticism is "good" just like they thing ALL dogmatism is "bad," because they are aren't familiar with the depth of the issue.
We tend to attract here - as is our goal - people with an interest in philosophy but not deep training in it, and this becomes one of the most important initial questions to cover, which is why it's a constant topic of conversation,
However, I'm not clear if you are referring to ancient Skepticism that has at best only a remote similarity to the modern scientific methods of finding truth only after experimental testing of any concepts of any nature until there is a consensus to rule-out or rule-in unproven opinion.
The "until there is s a consensus" illustrates the problem of generic references to "modern science" and "the scientific method" and "experts" as if using those phrases actually means anything final. There are only particular experts and scientists and particular assertions of results using any method at any time. Consensus is not a logical goal, especially in ethics, and often is later decided to be wrong.
The Epicurean viewpoint was never the "consensus" view in the ancient world, and it will never be in the future. Yet it in my view it held and holds the correct answers as to the absence of (1) supernatural forces (2) life after death, (3) absolute standards of virtue. It also presents a practical and logical approach to having confidence in the best way to live in the absence of those fictions. Therefore Epicurus makes many statements to the effect that he prefers to speak and teach correctly rather than to be concerned about the praise and acceptance of the crowd.The short answer is that I think Epicurus was all in favor of a generic attitude of questioning claims of authority, especially when those claims do not rest on evidence observable to the senses. But Epicurus was strongly against the conclusion that confidence in any conclusion is impossible. Epicurus makes conclusion after conclusion about many topics, but he never takes "because I or he or she said so" as a reasonable basis for those conclusions.
refers to whatever is completely within my control versus whatever is completely out of my control – then it is an idealistic abstraction, and not useful. (And I suspect that idealism is exactly how the Stoics saw it.)
....ith regard to happiness, I equate it with pleasure (mental or physical, kinetic or katastematic). If I’m happy, I’m enjoying some pleasure. In that sense,
which calls to my mind Pacatus the question of whether to view happiness as *complete* pleasure or as some predominance of pleasure over pain. That seems to be a major point of dispute - whether to consider someone happy even when they are experiencing some degree of pain.
That's a hurdle that has to be overcome in the analysis of "absence of pain." Those who want things COMPLETELY under their control seem likely to insist on happiness being TOTAL absence of pain. I don't think Epicurus viewed it as helpful to see things in such black and white terms. Pleasure may be the "opposite" of pain, and pain not be present when pleasure is present, but if someone thinks that "I can't have any pleasure, or any happiness, at all so long as I am experiencing any pain," then they have set themselves up for failure.
Which I why I don't think Epicurus thought in those terms, and why we have to parse the meaning carefully.
Yes and thank you for this post. This is good information tokeep on hand. Tim Okeefe has written some very good stuff on Epicurus, but this part of his attitude has to be kept in mind. This sutuation reminds me of Cyril Bailey, whose work is extremely helpful to us, but who personally assessed Epicurus perhaps in even more negative terms that does O'Keefe here.
Here, the main problem is that he's not even trying to be open-minded about the big picture. As Okeefe well knows, Epicurus was not a technician. It's clear from Epicurus' arguments that he's basing his positions on a combination of logic AND observation. The terminology used to describe "atoms" matters only to the extent that the point is that there is at SOME point a limit of divisibility. It's totally ridiculous to talk as if just because Epicurus used different terminology than than we do now that we should throw out everything he had to say. The point is the ultimate one: We don't live forever and we know everything and we never will, so what do we expect the truth to be based on the best information at our disposal?
The big-picture conclusions are that there is nothing outside or above nature, no human life after death, and no universal ideas or moral absolutes, Those conclusions are absolutely valid today. That's the level at which Epicurus was focusing his attention, and it's ridiculous to pretend that Epicurus was doing anything else. Protons and electrons and neutrons are not big-picture conclusions. The big-picture conclusions are that everything operates naturally and without supernatural guidance, and the simple fact that we are alive doesn't give us the ability to dictate to nature what we think might be or should be the way things are.
All this is a matter of being reasonable and charitable in assessing the big picture. No doubt it possible to take that statement from Okeefe and excuse it and say Okeefe meant it in a limited way. After all, if O'keefe really thought that everything Epicurus had to say was obsolete, it's unlikely that OKeefe would have devoted so much of his career to talking about Epicurus.
Perspective is the problem we're constantly confronting. We always need to focus on the big picture and never get so lost in details that we lose sight of the real take-away.
We really need to ask every writer: Where do THEY stand on whether there are supernatural forces? Where do THEY stand on life after death? Where do THEY stand on whether the same laws should apply in Rome and Athens vs Jerusalem, and at all times past present and future? If a writer can't clearly communicate that they agree that there are no supernatural forces, that there is no life after death, and that morality and justice is contextual and not absolute, then whatever else they might be they are not in a trustworthy position to provide leadership in Epicurean philosophy.
Examining people on motives is what we do in court with Experts. Lawyers' cross-examine experts to determine how much they were paid for their opinions, and about other opinions those experts have given in other cases. Everyone brings their own biases and prejudices when they give opinions, and I don't see a better way to make decisions than we do in court. Bring to every question a sweeping and thorough examination not just of what the "expert" says is the truth, but also examine the biases and prejudices of the expert, and then in the end let each listener draw their own conclusion. In judging their credibility on interpreting Epicurus, It's important to know that Bailey was highly critical of Epicurus' conclusions about ethics, and that Okeefe has a problem with Epicurus' approach to physics.
There's no perfect system and no guarantee of success, but at least examining backgrounds and motives allows for the possibility of success, and it doesn't allow for bias and prejudice to gain a totally impregnable hold on everyone.
Of course when I approach a complicated subject I want information from experts to help me form my conclusion. But when it's a matter of life and death and I need brain surgery, it's relevant to know whether the surgeon has some personal motivation to do his best to help me, or whether he is motivated to hate my guts.
QuoteThat's a high price to pay to just to win a pat on the back from modern philosophers.
Agreeing with your post, but I don't catch your meaning of this part.
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My explanation for this applies to much of the reason that Dave and I appear to disagree - but I don't think we are really that far apart.
I would like to be proven wrong, but my own perception is that the problems posed by skepticism and how to unwind them are much deeper than what many seem to think.
Dave and I have a legal background and we are familiar with the position that "the law" requires finality. You can't go on debating who is right and who is wrong forever on legal matters, so you have to come up with a standard of proof and a mechanism for applying it. In the English-speaking countries that has generally been done by a jury system in which we have rules of evidence as to what types of evidence can even be submitted to a jury, which is held to have the ultimate authority to find the facts of a case. It is a major issue in legal theory as to whether juries should be allowed to be ultimate factfinders, or whether that should be delegated to "experts" in particular fields.
The English common law system has traditionally held that randomly selected "jurors of our peers" are best positioned to deliver justice, even though they are not "experts" in their fields. In fact, judges instruct jurors that even where "experts" are allowed to testify as to their opinions about a case, the jurors do not have to accept their opinions. The jurors are specifically allowed by our system of justice to accept or reject some or all or none of what an expert says.
And a large part of the reason for that rule is that it is almost always possible - depending on how much money you have to spend - to find an expert who will say almost anything. Trials turn into 'battles of experts" with highly-credentialed experts on totally opposite sides of almost every question. Our system of justice has traditionally held that we are not going to delegate final decisions to anyone but the "jury of our peers" because that is where we find the most common sense and the least prejudice.
This is as stated in Jefferson's letter to Peter Carr in referencing ploughmen vs professors:
QuoteMoral Philosophy. I think it lost time to attend lectures on this branch. He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his Nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality, and not the [beautiful], truth, &c., as fanciful writers have imagined. The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, & often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules. In this branch, therefore, read good books, because they will encourage, as well as direct your feelings. The writings of Sterne, particularly, form the best course of morality that ever was written. Besides these, read the books mentioned in the enclosed paper; and, above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, &c. Consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties & increase your worth.
Right. Everyone today is marinated in the negative meaning of "dogmatism" just like they are in the narrow and negative view of "pleasure" as an ethical guide.
I'm by no means proud or happy of every aspect of the legal profession, but there are good analogies between "the law" and what we're doing with philosophy.
In both cases we have only a limited time, and we have to find ways to come to conclusions that we can implement while we are alive. Short of war or trial by violence, the legal system gives us a method where those who can agree to accept the framework resolve disputes among themselves and move on after that.
Something very similar is going on with Epicurus. Once you decide that you can't expect to live on after death, you have to adopt a set of rules for living today and every day you have left. By no means does every question about life have to be answered, but some are so important that by getting out of bed in the morning you are taking a position on certain things being true or false.
I am often seeing comments such as "but the Socratics / Skeptics" weren't nearly as extreme as you portray them! It's always wrong to take a firm position on anything! NEVER SAY NEVER!
Some people aren't bothered by being inconsistent. They think that Emerson was great in saying "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," but they go even further and abbreviate him to leave out the foolish part and they begin to think that consistency is never of value.
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Gosh in looking up that reference it's worse than I remembered. here's what appears to be a more complete version:
Quote“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
That's quite a list of people who Emerson apparently admired. I'd cut him some slack for Newton and Galileo and Copernicus at least to a degree, but if someone finds themselves identifying with the majority of the rest of the names on that list they are in the wrong place with Epicurus!
--- Getting back to Pacatus' comment, I think most of us agree that Epicurus clearly held that there are times and places to be "dogmatic" and times and places not to be dogmatic.
And there are times when "consistency" is of more value than others.
But if Emerson really spoke so broadly as to say this, I'd have to conclude that he's going far beyond "poetic license." --> With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.
Thank you for your frank and clear post. I hope you'll find the PDF helpful.
I would also suggest our reading list material, especially the two key books that we recommend (depending on one's background and level of interest) by Norman DeWitt and Emily Austin.
I would like to think that what distinguishes this forum from other locations on the internet is the seriousness and focus which we place on this very issue:
I didn't think such a philosophy focused on the rejection of the supernatural and the pursuit of pleasure (in its proper form and understanding) existed. Subsequently, it piqued my interested as someone who had left Christianity not long ago and is looking to deconstruct from the supernatural and superstition.
Many come here because they are thinking they will find advice on simple living. There are many other places better than here to do that.
Many come here because they are focused on getting rid of mental anxiety with the least possible changes in their thoughts or lifestyle. Those people are much better off somewhere else.
Others come here because they are looking to reinforce their Buddhism or their Stoicism or their Humanism or their Nihilism with pithy quotes from another philosopher. Those people are wasting their time and need a major readjustment in perspective.
If I had to name one "target group" of people who can best profit from what we are doing here, it is those who have become disillusioned with any version of Abrahamic religion and who are looking for a clean break "from the supernatural and superstition." That's exactly what Epicurus developed 2000 years ago, and the primary focus of this forum is to help people rediscover exactly what he stood for before the Abrahamic world brushed him aside.
That's right, and it's not easy but what's the alternative? You can throw up your hands and not even try to get it right. That's what is advocated by Socrates and the radical skeptics who say it's never possible to be confident of anything. And what do you do then? - You give up studying nature and you retreat to wishful thinking about "virtue" - and let others make decisions for you.
That's a high price to pay to just to win a pat on the back from modern philosophers.
ludenbergcastle has established to me by email that this account is that of a real person who accepts the terms of service of the forum. Welcome.
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