Posts by Cassius

As to looking for a "first" or primitive form of life millions or billions of years ago I am always going to think that is the wrong approach from an Epicurean perspective. I think Epicurus would insist that there is life throughout the universe, and that the universe had no beginning date. So whatever he would point to as producing this mechanism, or to be it's key characteristics, I do not think he would think that to be time-dependent. I think the appropriate analogy would be that no matter how many monkeys and how many typewriters and how many years those monkeys would never produce the works of Shakespeare. I am thinking it's likely the discussion would be more on the lines of something swerve-like in the sense of "it must be there and be natural even though we don't yet understand the mechanism."

Of course I am very open to alternate possibilities including being completely wrong on my view there.

But I think any theory that posits a "first" is going to be incompatible, as would any theory that violates what we can glean from the views of "isonomia" and "nature never produces only a single thing of a kind."

That's why I think If we want to talk "soups" that is one thing, but simply assigning something to millions of years ago is not helpful. Where we are today is going to be "millions of years ago" when a couple more millions of years pass by.

1. I think you are on the right track comparing this with something derived from an anticipation. It is something we experience as true even almost like pleasure and pain. It is part of our natural experience of life and therefore it's a given that we take it and use it regardless of how it works.

2. I did not completely follow your final comment about anarchism. Perhaps you meant authoritarianism in the last sentence? The next to last paragraph about the problems with "losing the self" I think is very good. I do think it is permissible under our forum rules (and even necessary) to talk about systems in general, so as to discuss the last ten or so PDs. One point I would make among systems however is that I think just like we sometimes choose pain in the short term, and just as there is no absolute justice, it is probably the case that depending on circumstance it can be necessary to move from system to system as required by "temporary" facts. Even the Romans of the republican period apparently recognized that despite their traditional laws it might be necessary on occasion to have a dictator if survival of the community required it. So in my view the fundamental premise would be that there is no "one size fits all" system endorsed by nature. I say that of course as being someone who is personally in favor of the maximum personal freedom possible. Bit who acknowledges that there are times when survival demands otherwise.

For example, we are living through such a period today. In my view it is a fact question in which I don't think we should take a side here on the forum lest we get too political on exactly what response to Covid-19 is appropriate. But surely if we considered a hypothetical example like some kind of science fiction Andromeda Strain movie, or discovery of a huge meteor about to impact and destroy the earth, it is easier to make a case for extreme central authority to deal with that absolutely clear contingency..

I think discussions of hypotheticals like that are valuable and are fair game here, but I do think that it would be dangerous for everyone to start stating personal positions on (for example) Covid-19 responses. We all can and should have those positions. But here it is very likely best to use either a science fiction example or something from long ago history as the best way to discuss those issues unemotionally.

Yes I think "capacity" is another good word. It isn't fully developed at birth but improves with use and experience. And nobody forces us to use it - we can choose to ignore it. And it isn't some sort of infallible guide - we can still make mistakes in using it. All those things apply I think to what we're talking about.

And the reference to pleasure is a part I find fascinating too. Pleasure is where I think the deepest questions arise as to how that faculty came to be - because the others all seem to be channeling data to it, where alone the "stop" and "go" signals arise.

We know that all animate living things have these signals, and by recognizing them as canonical I think that means Epicurus recognized them as things which are inherent in us and simply have to be accepted as our stop and go signal from nature.

But it does strike me as a fascinating issue to consider the nature of pleasure and how it fits in with eternal / infinite universe and whether it therefore qualifies as the kind of "given" that arises just like life itself, etc.

But then overanalyzing it seems to be much of what Epicurus seemed to be warning against. Ultimately - whether we like it or not or analyze it or not - it's "the way things are."

I agree that that formulation is correct and useful in some contexts I think in other contexts the point would have to be stated more explicitly in order to communicate with the audience and especially to affirm that what is included in "pleasure" is extremely broad.

I used "one conceptual path" as a proxy for "one way to live" in a general everyday sense - almost in a political - cultural - social sense, because that's where I see the concepts going -- "communism, capitalism, the kind of 'system' that's usually advocated for on conceptual grounds.

1 - I suspect depending on time zone Camotero is going to have a good reply!

2- it's not so much that the words themselves are the issue as much as the way that they are employed. Words too are just tools, just like the virtues! :-). Even "greatest good" can be wielded helpfully - we agree on that - but the issue of "how" I think is deeper than it appears.

If wielded in a way that implies that there is but one conceptual path to follow, as if there is magic in numbers or words as Plato would imply, then that is very damaging.

If wielded using "true philosophy" however then it's the most helpful way of explaining life. Using words to explain that words cannot suffice to show us the way is tricky business!

Quote from Don

Cassius : I don't really understand your reluctance or uneasiness about "those words." Epicurus repeatedly uses telos (goal) and tagathon (the good) throughout his extant writings.

Maybe the context of my comments is that I personally am constantly looking to the way that non-philosoohers will take these formulations, and I think it is very easy to fall into phrasings that reinforce negative paradigms - such as the idea that there is one specific goal or one way of life that all people should follow. Presumably it is clear to us that we mean pleasure as a feeling and we are contrasting that with absolute systems of all types, but I am not sure that is the case even here sometime, and I feel absolutely sure it is a tremendous problem outside our hallowed walls here.

The whole paradigm is set up to reinforce absolutism in many ways, and breaking through is apparently a multi-thousand-year project that seems always in danger of being squashed entirely.

So certainly the words we are discussing must be used and exchanged, but we are playing in hostile territory so swords (for the anti-Epicureans) should remain at hand!

(And I do get the impression sometime that all of us would like to think that everyone in the world has everyone else's best interests at heart, but I do not think that is the case, and the texts we read from the ancient world were not written in that context either. I don't doubt but that Plato and even Cicero and no doubt many others saw their task as persuasion to their positions, so everything has a motive aspect to consider.

I'll bump this thread because we've had some recent discussions relevant to this. I am still not sure that I think the conclusions of this article are helpful, but it does contain numerous good references that need to be considered as we discuss anticipations.

Oh I don't think it is "magical" at all - I think they saw it (and I see it) as purely an extrapolation of what we see here, along the lines of the analogies I used. I bet you'll get more comfortable with seeing it as an extrapolation when you tackle Philodemus "On Methods of Inference." I suspect they saw isonomia as a great example of their extrapolation process.

But as to how useful it is, it's probably most useful in thinking about life throughout the universe, and the nature of the gods, neither of which are probably at the top of "immediate problems" list.

Some people I respect strongly reject the science of eternal and infinite universe, and they don't see any issue arising from that rejection. Isonomia is probably in that category as well. If a person isn't bothered by those issues then I see no problem -- BUT

I think that Epicurus saw them as crucial to "connecting" with "common-sense" questions that most laymen ask, and I think that way myself. So I see this as one of those issues that is relevant and important depending on you're talking to, and I doubt it makes sense to try to require either camp to see things the way the other camp does.

Quote from Don

Or What is the point of Epicurus's philosophy?

To me, that answer would be "the greatest good". I'm seeing the greatest good (is it good as in pleasing/right or good as in wares/household goods?), the goal, telos, etc as closely related if not synonymous myself.

Later.

Probably yesterday or the day before I would myself use exactly those words, and I may use them later today or tomorrow.

But I increasingly get the feeling that without strict qualification this approach is what Epicurus warned against, and that Godfrey is pointing the same way as Camotero who is stating the issue very well:

Quote from camotero

I think "the greatest good" is here being used as a platonic ideal. I think Epicurus philosophy pointed to something very material instead: Teaching how to care for the only object you can really possess (life) and how to give it the best use possible (following pleasure) while being able to resolve confusions about it (the canon).

Yes I think DeWitt says that is one of the few and maybe only occurrences of this (at least in the Epicurean texts) so it's hard to be sure what it means. Presumably we could reconstruct it if we rigorously thought about the basic Epicurean physics and all the issues involved in infinite universe, eternal time, limited number of shapes and methods of combination, application of analogies of what we see here to the rest of the universe, etc.

We know they thought about dust moving in a beam of light. I could see them contemplating things like "what happens when you take a jar of ocean water and shake it continuously without stopping? (I presume the particles get distributed somewhat evenly if not perfectly so.) And from that kind of thinking all sorts of analogies are possible.

I do think that math and geometry are useful and when not considered to be magical is valuable to know.

I consider the issues involved in the recurrence of the Fibonacci ratio in nature to be fascinating and no doubt informative of something.

So it's probably not just math and geometry that is useful for making oneself appear to be a wizard - just about any advanced knowledge can be employed that way with less-educated people.

Meaning that there's certainly nothing intrinsically wrong with them but rather the use to which they can be out in the "wrong" hands

Quote from Don

That being said, if you know of a reference to Epicurus making logical arguments for pleasure as the goal, please share!

I don't want to get too far off track here by over-focusing on this particular point, but I personally consider PD3-4 to be a "logical" argument (dealing with the issue of the limit of pleasure, which is not particularly relevant or important unless you are dealing with Plato's logical "pleasure has no limit and therefore cannot be the greatest good" argument). Aside from PD3-4 there is no clear and obvious and prominently placed statement of the role of pleasure in the opening PDs, and that in itself is something that has always struck me as a fascinating difference between the PDs and the letter to Menorceus. If the PDs were intended to be a prioritized list of important things to remember (and I think they are) and if Epicurus considered identification of "the greatest good" to be important to us (which I don't think is true) why does the top ten not include "Pleasure is the greatest good."? At least according to Torquatus / Cicero that is what "all philosophers agree" to be the ultimate question. It appears to me that Cicero should not have included Epicurus in that list of "all philosophers".

Well you have observed correctly there that I need to be more accurate. Logical discussion over pleasure certainly seems to be something Epicurus or at least some Epicureans engaged in at times, probably to respond to Platonic logical arguments. They didn't just say "I am not going to discuss it."

But he doesn't rely ultimately on those for his ultimate proofs - he "points" to young living things, and observes sugar is sweet, and uses the canonical faculties which are not themselves something that do or can require logical proofs themselves.

So I think he does both at separate times and from separate perspectives and that we have to be dexteritous enough to follow him / them in the different contexts.

This conversation is driving me ever deeper to the position that Torquatus abandoned, and which Epicurus asserted, that logical proofs over the nature of pleasure are not appropriate.

And I am taking more and more the attitude that they Plutarch quote (we need to see if we can agree on a good translation) was aimed at the same target - that attempts to define a "greatest good" are intrinsically Platonic and unproductive.

Which is not a complaint Camotero but a good thing!

Let's see how Don or others would respond to your question.

I am thinking this is an area, like anticipations, where DeWitt was going in the right direction but maybe did not go far enough. I think you are interpreting DeWitt's intent correctly, but I doubt his intent is fully satisfactory - there was more to be said.

Quote from Godfrey

so what's the point?

So what's the point?????

Tsk Tsk Godfrey you will never be one of Plato's Golden and mesmerize the world with your incoerent gibberish!

Unless you polish up on your geometry you will never figure out how to get the lower classes to defer to your every whim!

I hope you wise up before it is too late!!!

I agree with all that as a matter of one way of presenting the logic of stating that pleasure is the alpha and omega and all that. However in the end the logical statement comes back to the "feeling" of pleasure which is not something that can be uniformly defined for all people at all places and all times. So i think it's necessary to be very careful once you engage in this as a logical debate. Apparently Torquatus thinks that his position on this is better than that of Epicurus, which I think should not be accepted at face value.

Quote

Some members of our school however would refine upon this doctrine; these say that it is not enough for the judgment of good and evil to rest with the senses; the facts that pleasure is in and for itself desirable and pain in and for itself to be avoided can also be grasped by the intellect and the reason. Accordingly they declare that the perception that the one is to be sought after and the other avoided is a notion naturally implanted in our minds. Others again, with whom I agree, observing that a great many philosophers do advance a vast array of reasons to prove why pleasure should not be counted as a good nor pain as an evil, consider that we had better not be too confident of our case; in their view it requires elaborate and reasoned argument, and abstruse theoretical discussion of the nature of pleasure and pain.

And as to the issue of instrumental or practical end, which is the "greatest" end?

I think we have Cicero's definition through Torquatus (We are inquiring, then, what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else)

And that is the problem. We don't have Epicurus endorsing that specific formulation.

This formulation presumes that we have the ability to discover something that completely and accurately fulfills this definition for all times, all places, all people. I suspect rather strongly that that is not possible. THE end? Why should we presume that there is only one? Or that it is the same for all?

Quote from Don

Which is the definition of the "greatest good."

Well you SAY that, but I am not sure Epicurus would enthusiastically endorse that exact construction.

Is that in the PDS or even the letter to Menorceus? I don't think that "greatest good" appears there, does it?

I believe the "greatest good" discussion to be one of those things that Camotero is discussing that we seem to be unable to avoid, but which is in reality a "logic trap" that has to be approached very carefully.

My view is that Torquatus has to be viewed in that way as well -- I do not think Epicurus himself would have agreed to frame the issue the way Torquatus did without a lot of explanation, only some of which we probably have from Torquatus.

It depends entirely on your conceptual definition of "good" as to whether there is a "greatest good" -- and there is nothing that is INTRINSICALLY desirable other than pleasure itself. Add to that issue the issue that while the word pleasure is a concept, pleasure is itself ultimately a FEELING that we all experience individually, not a concept. So the entire discussion is a minefield in which contexts can be dropped at any moment to reach an erroneous result.