Posts by Cassius

Interesting fourteen year copyright!

This will kick off a general thread about Pythagorus.

Our friend Chatgpt starts off the comparison pretty well I think:

Epicurus was highly critical of Pythagorean philosophy, particularly its mystical and mathematical approach to understanding the universe. The Pythagoreans, following the teachings of Pythagoras, believed in the fundamental role of numbers in the cosmos, the transmigration of souls, and the idea that reality was governed by abstract mathematical principles. Epicurus, on the other hand, adhered to a materialist and empiricist philosophy rooted in the atomism of Democritus, rejecting any notion of supernatural forces or mystical structures governing existence.

One of his key criticisms was directed at the Pythagorean doctrine of the immortality and transmigration of the soul. Epicurus argued that the soul was composed of fine material atoms and that it perished with the body, thereby dismissing the idea of reincarnation and any posthumous existence. He saw such beliefs as a source of irrational fear, particularly the fear of divine punishment after death, which he aimed to eliminate through his philosophical teachings.

Moreover, Epicurus rejected the Pythagorean reliance on mathematical abstraction as a means of explaining the natural world. While he acknowledged the utility of mathematics for practical purposes, he insisted that knowledge of nature should be based on empirical observation and direct sensory experience rather than on numerical speculations. He viewed the Pythagoreans' emphasis on mathematical harmony as an unnecessary detour from a correct understanding of the physical world.

Thus, Epicurus regarded Pythagoreanism as an obstacle to true wisdom, as it promoted superstitions and unfounded speculations that led people away from a clear and naturalistic understanding of reality.

When asked to provide cites for that, Chatgpt says (but keep in mind that these "Quotes" are more like paraphases):

Epicurus’ critiques of Pythagorean philosophy are not preserved in full, but we can infer his position from surviving texts and references by later authors. Here are some key sources that support his opposition to Pythagorean ideas:

1. Critique of the Immortality of the Soul

   • In Letter to Herodotus (Section 63), Epicurus explicitly states that the soul is made of fine atoms and disperses upon death:

     Quote

     "Moreover, we must grasp the concept that the soul is a body of fine particles distributed throughout the entire aggregate, most closely resembling breath with an admixture of heat."

   • This directly contradicts the Pythagorean doctrine of the soul’s transmigration and immortality.
2. Rejection of Divine Governance and Fate

   • In Letter to Menoeceus (Sections 133–134), Epicurus denies divine intervention in the world:

     Quote

     "The gods exist, but they do not trouble themselves with human affairs."

   • This contradicts the Pythagorean belief in an ordered cosmos governed by divine numerical principles.
3. Criticism of Mathematical Abstraction

   • In Letter to Pythocles (Sections 86–88), Epicurus warns against unnecessary speculation in celestial phenomena:

     Quote

     "We must not adopt empty assumptions and arbitrary conjectures in explaining celestial phenomena but rather adhere to what is grounded in evidence."

   • This can be read as a rejection of the Pythagorean tendency to prioritize numerical and mystical explanations over empirical observation.

These passages provide strong evidence that Epicurus viewed Pythagorean philosophy as a source of superstition and unnecessary abstraction, favoring instead an empirical and materialist understanding of nature.

Pythagoras - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In answer to your comment Kalosyni about where to file your post, I have renamed a subforum under Physics and I will look for other threads that bear on similar issues (Pythagorean or Platonic forms or geometry and mathematics) and make sure they appear there.

If there are "General Discussion" threads that fit under that category, we can "move" those threads there.

If there are discussions under sections of the forum devoted to Plato or Pythagorus that should appear both in those forums and under the following physics thread, let's change them to "announcements" and tag them to appear both places.

This is a recurring and important topic and for example Bryan's recent posts on Timaeus need to appear in both places.

Rejection of Geometric / Mathematical / Ideal Form / Essentialist Basis Of The Universe

Quote from Bryan

I wanted to highlight this section:

"God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers.

As to posts like this one I don't think the reaction icons do justice. Maybe the thank you is best so that's what I will use but I do think enthusiastically that all these issues need to be drawn out!

Yep that works, and this link takes you to the English

Plato, Timaeus, section 17a

It sure would but Don that link doesn't work for me.

I like Perseus for a lot of reasons but I also like having my own standard PDF for security reasons. It bothers me that the full Jowett available more easily on Archive.org. I thought it was in the past (?) Also, the text in the old editions s often annotated in creative ways. Actually I don't know what Jowett's reputation really is. I recall my college professor sort of joking about him as the authority but I don't know if that's true or not, or if Jowett has a reputation for being unjustifiably opinionated.

I do see that Jowett's editions have very very long introductory summaries which might be useful in themselves, especially for word searching.

Benjamin Jowett (1817–1893) is one of the most well-known translators of Plato into English. His translations, first published in the late 19th century, were widely influential and helped popularize Plato’s works among English-speaking audiences. However, his reputation as a translator is mixed.

Chatgpt:

Strengths of Jowett’s Translation:

1. Elegance and Readability: Jowett’s translations are often praised for their literary quality. He sought to render Plato’s dialogues in smooth, flowing English that was accessible to a broad readership.
2. Influence on Classical Studies: His work played a crucial role in shaping the study of Plato in the English-speaking world. Many generations of students and scholars first encountered Plato through Jowett’s translations.
3. Extensive Commentary: Jowett’s introductions and notes provided valuable philosophical and historical context, making his editions useful for both students and general readers.

Criticisms of Jowett’s Translation:

1. Paraphrasing and Interpretation: Jowett often paraphrased rather than strictly translating Plato’s Greek. He sometimes imposed his own interpretations, which may not always align with the original text.
2. Moral and Victorian Bias: His translations reflect the moral and intellectual climate of Victorian England. Some scholars argue that he sanitized or altered certain passages to conform to 19th-century sensibilities, particularly regarding issues like sexuality and religion.
3. Lack of Precision: Compared to more modern translations, Jowett’s work can be imprecise, particularly in capturing the nuances of Plato’s philosophical arguments.

Modern Alternatives:

While Jowett’s translations remain influential and readable, many scholars prefer more recent translations that strive for greater accuracy and fidelity to the Greek text. Translations by scholars such as Thomas G. West, G. M. A. Grube, C. D. C. Reeve, and John M. Cooper (who edited Plato: Complete Works) are often recommended for academic study.

In summary, Jowett’s translations are valuable for their literary quality and historical significance, but they should be read with awareness of their interpretative nature and potential biases.

Quote from Bryan

This is readable and has line numbers. The pages are a little thin, but they do hold up to writing and highlighting: Link

I didn't click on this link immediately so i didn't realize it was to a printed version.

I guess in addition to that we need a link to something public domain at Archive.org in PDF - presumably a Jowett translation (?) - that has line numbers and potentially annotations. An older Loeb edition?

A quick search of Archive.org has not been productive. It looks to me that for best word-searching ability we need a single PDF containing all of Jowett's edition of Plato's dialogues, which was apparently in seven volumes, with the last version being a third edition. It's well over a hundred years old so should be freely available.

Strangely there does not seem to be a free older Loeb edition -- possibly because the Jowett pre-dated that and was considered the gold standard (?)

I also see a Thomas Taylor edition but I don't know the reputation of that.

Further notes:

Archive.org seems to be damaged from its problems last year. The older Jowett editions which ought to be public domain are not downloadable easily, which chatgpt points to this edition which is much newer.

I will check Hathitrust - not productive.

It appears that the Online Libreary of Liberty has the full Jowett Series.

Timaeus volume is here.

This appears to be a master link from which the full set can be assembled.

This is great stuff Bryan - keep it coming!

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Here are two generic references in Book 5 that perhaps holds open the possibility that such stories might be true, but definitely doesn't say that they are:

Quote

[324] Moreover, if there was no birth and beginning of the earth and sky, and they were always from everlasting, why beyond the Theban war and the doom of Troy have not other poets sung of other happenings as well? whither have so many deeds of men so often passed away? why are they nowhere enshrined in glory in the everlasting memorials of fame? But indeed, I trow, our whole world is in its youth, and quite new is the nature of the firmament, nor long ago did it receive its first-beginnings. Wherefore even now certain arts are being perfected, even now are growing; much now has been added to ships, but a while ago musicians gave birth to tuneful harmonies. Again, this nature of things, this philosophy, is but lately discovered, and I myself was found the very first of all who could turn it into the speech of my country.

[338] But if by chance you think that all these same things were aforetime, but that the generations of men perished in burning heat, or that cities have fallen in some great upheaval of the world, or that from ceaseless rains ravening rivers have issued over the lands and swallowed up cities, all the more must you be vanquished and confess that there will come to pass a perishing of earth and sky as well. For when things were assailed by such great maladies and dangers, then if a more fatal cause had pressed upon them, far and wide would they have spread their destruction and mighty ruin. Nor in any other way do we see one another to be mortal; except that we fall sick of the same diseases as those whom nature has sundered from life.

[351] Moreover, if ever things abide for everlasting, it must needs be either that, because they are of solid body, they beat back assaults, nor suffer anything to come within them, which might unloose the close-locked parts within, such as are the bodies of matter, whose nature we have declared before; or that they are able to continue through all time, because they are exempt from blows, as is the void, which abides untouched nor suffers a whit from assault; or else because there is no supply of room all around, into which things might part asunder and be broken up—even as the sum of sums is eternal—nor is there any room without into which they may leap apart, nor are there bodies which might fall upon them and break them up with stout blow. But neither, as I have shown, is the nature of the world endowed with solid body, since there is void mingled in things; nor yet is it as the void, nor indeed are bodies lacking, which might by chance gather together out of infinite space and overwhelm this sum of things with headstrong hurricane, or bear down on it some other form of dangerous destruction; nor again is there nature of room or space in the deep wanting, into which the walls of the world might be scattered forth; or else they may be pounded and perish by any other force you will. The gate of death then is not shut on sky or sun or earth or the deep waters of the sea, but it stands open facing them with huge vast gaping maw. Wherefore, again, you must needs confess that these same things have a birth; for indeed, things that are of mortal body could not from limitless time up till now have been able to set at defiance the stern strength of immeasurable age.

[380] Again, since the mighty members of the world so furiously fight one against the other, stirred up in most unhallowed warfare, do you not see that some end may be set to their long contest? Either when the sun and every kind of heat have drunk up all the moisture and won the day: which they are struggling to do, but as yet they have not accomplished their effort: so great a supply do the rivers bring and threaten to go beyond their bounds, and deluge all things from out the deep abyss of ocean; all in vain, since the winds as they sweep the seas, diminish them, and so does the sun in heaven, as he unravels their fabric with his rays, and they boast that they can dry up all things, ere moisture can reach the end of its task. So vast a war do they breathe out in equal contest, as they struggle and strive one with another for mighty issues; yet once in this fight fire gained the upper hand, and once, as the story goes, moisture reigned supreme on the plains.

[396] For fire won its way and burnt up many things, all-devouring, when the resistless might of the horses of the sun went astray and carried Phaethon amain through the whole heavens and over all lands. But, thereupon, the almighty father, thrilled with keen anger, with sudden stroke of his thunder dashed high-souled Phaethon from his chariot to earth, and the sun, meeting him as he fell, caught the everlasting lamp of the world, and tamed the scattered steeds, and yoked them trembling, and so guiding them along their own path, replenished all things; so forsooth sang the old poets of the Greeks: but it is exceeding far removed from true reasoning. For fire can only prevail when more bodies of its substance have risen up out of infinite space; and then its strength fails, vanquished in some way, or else things perish, burnt up by its fiery breath.

[411] Moisture likewise, once gathered together and began to prevail, as the story goes, when it overwhelmed living men with its waves. Thereafter, when its force was by some means turned aside and went its way, even all that had gathered together from infinite space, the rains ceased, and the strength of the rivers was brought low.

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Quote from Bryan

It makes sense to split, because Atlantis is a distracting introduction (which I brought up) but it is not address by Epikouros, who is focused instead on the restrictive geometry that Plato assigns to the elements.

It may be distracting to the original topic, but I won't be surprised if over time it turns into a popular thread.

Quote from Bryan

In book 14, Epicurus appears to interpret the Timaeus literally.

And that (including what parts of Timaeus?) is what I am definitely looking forward to hearing about!

Bryan if it makes sense NOT to split these threads we can add them back together.

Two questions that occur to me are whether any of these referenced writers are known to have been sympathetic to Epicurus, or were all of them of other schools? Also, are any of the references in Lucretius to the development of civilizations and/or destruction of worlds relevant to this story?

But the main aspect that I think would be interesting to discuss would be whether the Epicureans would have interpreted the Atlantis story as an example of Plato weaving ridiculous tales, in a way related to his cave analogy or discussion of ideal forms?

From the wikipedia article:

Some ancient writers viewed Atlantis as fictional or metaphorical myth; others believed it to be real.^[30] Aristotle believed that Plato, his teacher, had invented the island to teach philosophy.^[21] The philosopher Crantor, a student of Plato's student Xenocrates, is cited often as an example of a writer who thought the story to be historical fact. His work, a commentary on Timaeus, is lost, but Proclus, a Neoplatonist of the fifth century AD, reports on it.^[31] The passage in question has been represented in the modern literature either as claiming that Crantor visited Egypt, had conversations with priests, and saw hieroglyphs confirming the story, or, as claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to Egypt.^[32] Proclus wrote:

Quote

As for the whole of this account of the Atlanteans, some say that it is unadorned history, such as Crantor, the first commentator on Plato. Crantor also says that Plato's contemporaries used to criticize him jokingly for not being the inventor of his Republic but copying the institutions of the Egyptians. Plato took these critics seriously enough to assign to the Egyptians this story about the Athenians and Atlanteans, so as to make them say that the Athenians really once lived according to that system.

The next sentence is often translated "Crantor adds, that this is testified by the prophets of the Egyptians, who assert that these particulars [which are narrated by Plato] are written on pillars which are still preserved." But in the original, the sentence starts not with the name Crantor but with the ambiguous He; whether this referred to Crantor or to Plato is the subject of considerable debate. Proponents of both Atlantis as a metaphorical myth and Atlantis as history have argued that the pronoun refers to Crantor.^[33]

....

Other ancient historians and philosophers who believed in the existence of Atlantis were Strabo and Posidonius.^[37] Some have theorized that, before the sixth century BC, the "Pillars of Hercules" may have applied to mountains on either side of the Gulf of Laconia, and also may have been part of the pillar cult of the Aegean.^[38][39] The mountains stood at either side of the southernmost gulf in Greece, the largest in the Peloponnese, and it opens onto the Mediterranean Sea. This would have placed Atlantis in the Mediterranean, lending credence to many details in Plato's discussion.

The fourth-century historian Ammianus Marcellinus, relying on a lost work by Timagenes, a historian writing in the first century BC, writes that the Druids of Gaul said that part of the inhabitants of Gaul had migrated there from distant islands. Some have understood Ammianus's testimony as a claim that at the time of Atlantis's sinking into the sea, its inhabitants fled to western Europe; but Ammianus, in fact, says that "the Drasidae (Druids) recall that a part of the population is indigenous but others also migrated in from islands and lands beyond the Rhine" (Res Gestae 15.9), an indication that the immigrants came to Gaul from the north (Britain, the Netherlands, or Germany), not from a theorized location in the Atlantic Ocean to the south-west.^[40] Instead, the Celts who dwelled along the ocean were reported to venerate twin gods, (Dioscori), who appeared to them coming from that ocean.^[41]

I want to pursue Atlantis further, but that would divert this thread so I'll split that off

So let's take up Atlantis here:

Post

Was Atlantis An Allegorical Flight of Fancy Like Plato's Cave And His Ideal Forms?

CASSIUS ADMIN NOTE: I am splitting this off from another thread (link here)so as not to divert that one. My main interest at the moment is to trace back in outline form the question of what the Epicureans and/or other ancients might have thought about this question, given the importance of the Timaeus in Greek ideas about world history and the nature of the world as a whole. Don's links may answer that question already but I think the topic is worthy of being clear so we can relate that aspect…

Don

January 28, 2025 at 8:22 AM

Quote from Bryan

The inclusion of all void and all space as something everlasting makes sense and is consistent with Epikouros, who says that only the (1) void and (2) atoms are whole, unchanging, natures. The Whole is everlasting, but always changing.

The addition of the "change" factor to "eternally the same" is an interesting thing to think about.

Does change in "location" constitute change? If so, atoms are constantly moving, and in that sense, void is constantly relocating.

So atoms and even may move or at least change location, but does the fact that something moves constitute always being in a state of "becoming?"

The whole approach of thinking that something is not real unless it is totally unchanging in every respect smacks of being bogus and the ultimate problem. However before you can be sure the approach is bogus you have to understand what is being asserted.

Sounds like Diogenes of Oinoanda was on exactly the right track:

Quote

Fr. 5
[Others do not] explicitly [stigmatise] natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge [this], but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?
Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing [is] at no time apprehensible by sense-perception. And indeed [in no way would the upholders of] the view under discussion have been able to say (and this is just what they do [maintain] that [at one time] this is [white] and this black, while [at another time] neither this is [white nor] that black, [if] they had not had [previous] knowledge of the nature of both white and black.

Anyone want to suggest an edition that is both readable and has line numbers?

Bryan also the quote that starts off the basic assertion of your post is:

Quote

First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is.

(that gutenberg page does not have line numbers so I need a better source.

Hard to find a more clear statement than that to the effect that what the senses present to us is not real at all! It never really "is."

Whereas to Epicurus it is exactly the reverse, that which we cannot sense is nothing to us.

Also Bryan thanks for posting that reminder of the purpose of the thread.

I agree it's very important for everyone (and not just for purposes of our book review) to have a working knowledge of the basic assertions of Timaeus.

This is the source (or part of the source) of the story of Atlantis, so it's interesting for lots of reasons.

A first start would be an outline of the basic topics covered in it. Jowett's introduction is far too long to serve as a general introduction to tell us what to expect is relevant to Epicurus. Anyone have a topical outline of the subjects? We need to develop one from an Epicurean perspective.

Timaeus

www.gutenberg.org

Quote from Bryan

For Epíkouros the closest we have to a realm of (1) what always is, is the whole natures (ὅλαι φύσεις) of the atoms and the void,

Bryan it seems like lately I came across in Lucretius a list of three things with unchanging natures, and the list was atoms, void, and something to the effect of "the universe as a whole." It struck me at the time that that would be an important cite to remember so of course I've forgotten it, but I will see if I can find it.

Not that it's necessarily super important, but it seems to go with your observation.

UPDATE: I think this is what I was remembering:

Lucretius Book 3 around 806 (Bailey) (I added the 1, 2, and 3)

Moreover, if ever things abide for everlasting, it must needs be either that, (1) because they are of solid body, they beat back assaults, nor suffer anything to come within them which might unloose the close-locked parts within, such as are the bodies of matter whose nature we have declared before; or (2) that they are able to continue throughout all time, because they are exempt from blows, as is the void, which abides untouched, nor suffers a whit from assault; or (3) else because there is no supply of room all around, into which, as it were, things might part asunder and be broken up—even as the sum of sums is eternal—nor is there any room without into which they may scatter, nor are there bodies which might fall upon them and break them up with stout blow.