Posts by Cassius

OK I don't think that answer really gets to where we need to go so maybe I should drop back even further to the issue of:

What is a "mental examination of a confirmed concept" if one were to accept that version of the doctrine?

In asking about a "non-aggression principle" maybe that is too complex an example. If the suggested translation were to be accepted as accurate, what would be an example of a "mental examination of a confirmed concept" that would then be considered a canonical standard of truth?

Again, I am not convinced this translation is a good one, but in order to examine it let's presume that it is and look for an example of how to apply it on its own terms. Can this construction be applied consistently with what we know about the rest of Epicurean philosophy?

No one has responded yet to my question in this post:. RE: PD14 - Alternate Translations

Anyone? I Want to check my thinking in this issue.

Wow great research JJ thank you! That helps put things in perspective against today, where I gather such things are "somewhat" less prevalent

Quote from Godfrey

Does anybody have any information on Strodach? I like some of his translations but find his commentary disturbing. All I can find with a Google search is that he was born in 1905.

Do you have a copy of his book? I do but it doesn't seem to contain much bio information other than that he seems to have been a professor perhaps at Northwestern which published his book?

To All Who Care To Comment:

Suppose I decide that I am absolutely completely convinced by all my faculties and life-long experiences that "ALL KILLING IS WRONG" which I identify in my mind as a concept I entitle the "Non-Aggression Principle."

I am persuaded of the truth of the non-aggression principle beyond any need for seconds further data or reflection.

Has "the non-aggression principle" now entered into what I should understand from Epicurus that my canon of truth should be?

Argh now I am going to have to go through and move some of this to the sections for particular doctrines (such as 24) but I think it's probably best to let the thread develop first.

Note how Sedley and Long treat 24 (thanks Nate):

24. “(1) If you are going to reject any sensation absolutely, and not distinguish opinions reliant on evidence yet awaited from what is already present through sensation, through feelings, and through every focusing of thought into an impression, you will confound all your other sensations with empty opinion and consequently reject the criterion in its entirety. (2) And if you are going to treat as established both all the evidence yet awaited in your conjectural conceptions, and that which has failed to <earn> attestation, you will not exclude falsehood, so that you will have removed all debate and all discrimination between correct and incorrect.” (87)

I think they are properly too conservative to use "concepts" there, although it looks to me like they would be happy to do so.

Now if Epicurus were wanting to be a total subjectivist and say "things are to be judged as true in part according to the concepts I have formed of them" he might win an award for self-assertiveness or for starting a semi-modern school of subjectivity, but I don't think that was his intention at all.

I think he was setting up a standard of truth for the very exact purpose of always having a method to go back to, based on data provided through natural senses, by which to check the continued validity of concepts previously or currently formed.

If he had said " I include in my list of the standards of truth the opinions I have already formed," then he'd be doing exactly what he warned against (confounding your other opinions with empty opinion."

Of course I realize that a premise of my argument is that a concept is always an opinion, and that there is no way to objectively define any concept as "true for all times, places, people, etc." That's probably the direction this debate has to go to be decided. Is there any way to validate a concept as something that we should consider to be a criterion of truth for all people, all times, all places? Yes we take the position that some "facts" are established (such as no supernatural gods, no life after death, etc.) Do THOSE concepts we accept as "universally true" become part of the "criterion of truth"?

I can see someone arguing that position, but I am not at all sure that Epicurus was going in that direction. If he WAS going in that direction, then IMHO he was strictly limiting the number of positions that are "absolutely true" to those forcefully supported by his philosophy. And I don't think you can get from "one of three natural faculties" to "a list of the core positions of Epicurean Philosophy."

THANK YOU AGAIN NATE -- that deserves an all caps thank you!

A couple more comments on those of Geer that strike me as unusual. 39 and 40 strike me as questionable too, but the one I object to the most is 24:

I kind of like "the boundary of pleasure...." but he's removing "the limit of quantity" which is probably more exact.

Pretty good.

Pretty good

Pretty good on a hard one, I think. BUT here is 24:

I have to object to this one because he is assuming the controversial conclusion that the anticipations part is well translated as "the mental examinations of confirmed concepts." That is a dramatic raising of the flag in support of the position that "concepts" are part of the canon of truth. As I've said ad nauseam, as far as I am concerned that is the end of the game when you adopt that, because you have then adopted your own opinion as part of the standard of truth. Got to hand it to Greer, though - he makes his position on anticipations absolutely clear.

Ah I see from Nate's pages that Geer annotates 14 as very uncertain.

Quote from Don

If you "borrow" it, is the whole book there?

It's just a free account to borrow.

Looks like borrowing would give access to the full book. I'll just have to find the time. Bobbs-merrill is a reputable publisher, but I'd like to know his credentials, especially since the one we're talking about seems pretty far off.

I see that is on Archive.org. I wonder who Geer was and what were his credentials?

Letters, Principal Doctrines and Vatican sayings : Epicurus : Geer, Russel M : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

archive.org

Oops - only partly

Quote from Nate

“When reasonable security from men has been attained, then the security that comes from peace of mind and withdrawal from the crowd is present, sufficient in strength and most unmixed in well-being.” Geer (1964)

Now THIS is unusual. Nate what source is that? Given the departure from the norm in that one we may see something similar in the other ones by Geer.

Quote from Nate

the power to fight them off

Ha! "The power to fight them off" --- as usual St Andre comes through with something memorable - and I like it!

Again, THANK YOU NATE for the work in these recent postings.

Quote from Don

Approaching it as "Epicurean fan fiction" written by a teenage fan of Epicurus might allow for some leniency with her writing. With that it mind, too, it's more sophisticated than what I would initially expect from a teenager.

I suspect that you are going to have many of the same questions I did. The book is VERY maturely written, and it indicates a knowledge of details from the other ten books of Diogenes Laertius that one would expect would take years of study.

I haven't focused recently on her age when she wrote it, so I need to verify that aspect of it. Certainly at some point she was capable of writing every bit of it herself, because her later work is written in much the same style and from the same viewpoint.

But the maturity shown in AFDIA is very deep, and the younger it is postulated that she was when she wrote it, the more in my own mind its almost certain that she had at very least "good coaching." I am not trying to take anything away from FW in these comments because she was clearly a remarkable person, but I don't want you beating yourself up Don that you're a couple of years older now than she was when this was published and you still haven't written anything comparable. For sure, neither have I!

One last note is that I think it's probably an indication of something going on that she wrote such a lengthy and detailed introduction about the "anonymous" background of the manuscript.

Quote from Don

now that I know she wrote it when she was a teenager.

For sure, this is not a work by an average teenager!

Don I am thinking that you have not read this one yet? I think Godfrey has and I am not sure about Joshua and Martin and others. This would be a good thread in which we can update our comments on Wright, and we can move it to the Wright section as well.

Quote from Paquin

Happy birthday! I'm looking forward to reading A Few Days in Athens after finishing the Lucretius podcast.

In many ways it is excellent; in some ways it is disappointing. We have some good commentary in it in our section on Frances Wright, including some pretty blunt (but I think accurate) criticism of it by Elayne. Problems in Frances Wright's "A Few Days in Athens"

There is much additional good material in that subforum as well.

First, to repeat, there's a lot of good material in it and it is well worth reading, which is why it's on our reading list. However:

In general, the issue is that some people are turned off by the "flowery" writing style of the early chapters. That doesn't strike me as too serious a flaw (I ignore it as an aspect of the style of that time) but there are more serious issues too. Frances Wright doesn't seem to follow Epicurus on "agency," nor does she go by the book on the existence of the "gods." Most interestingly, she hints at (and carries further in some later writing) her view that we need to be so careful of "theories" that we essentially reject all of them. If carried to an extreme (as perhaps she did in her later writing) this can itself turn into a form of skepticism that I think went well beyond what Epicurus taught.

Quote from Don

She wrote A Few Days in Athens while she was still a teenager? Did not know that!

That relates to our brief recent podcast discussion that we should learn Epicurean philosophy when we were children.

I've never been able to find any further leads, but apparently several members of her family were philosophically and/or politically active and presumably led her in the right direction from an early age. We can't wait til we're in advanced age (where's my walking stick?) before we start studying Epicurus!

"A Few Days In Athens" shows not only a deep understanding (though not always agreement) with Book Ten

looks very nice!

Copenhagen Amber Museum - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Great catch Joshua!