Posts by Cassius

VS12. The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance. See PD17.

VS56. The wise man feels no more pain, when being tortured himself than when his friend is tortured.

VS55. We must heal our misfortunes by the grateful recollection of what has been, and by the recognition that it is impossible to undo that which has been done.

VS54. We must not pretend to study philosophy, but study it in reality, for it is not the appearance of health that we need, but real health.

VS53. We must envy no one, for the good do not deserve envy, and the bad, the more they prosper, the more they injure themselves.

VS50. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.

VS49. It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he does not know the Nature of the universe, but still gives some credence to myths. So, without the study of Nature, there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

VS48. We must try to make the end of the journey better than the beginning, as long as we are journeying; but when we come to the end, we must be happy and content.

VS46. Let us utterly drive from us our bad habits, as if they were evil men who have long done us great harm.

VS45. The study of nature does not make men productive of boasting or bragging, nor apt to display that culture which is the object of rivalry with the many, but high-spirited and self-sufficient, taking pride in the good things of their own minds and not of their circumstances.

VS44. The wise man, when he has accommodated himself to straits, knows better how to give than to receive, so great is the treasure of self-sufficiency which he has discovered.

VS43. The love of money, if unjustly gained, is impious, and, if justly gained, is shameful; for it is unseemly to be parsimonious, even with justice on one’s side.

VS40. "The man who says that all things come to pass by necessity cannot criticize one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity: for he admits that this too happens of necessity."

VS39. "He is no friend who is continually asking for help, nor he who never associates help with friendship. For the former barters kindly feeling for a practical return, and the latter destroys the hope of good in the future."

VS38. "He is a little man in all respects who has many good reasons for quitting life."

VS37. Nature is weak toward evil, not toward good: because it is saved by pleasures, but destroyed by pains."

On my first readings of DeWitt's references to the sorites ("heap") argument, I did not know whether to think DeWit was being accurate or exaggerating as to its reputation, but I see that Cicero goes on an on in Academic questions about its "viciousness" and therefore presumably its effectiveness in combating dialectical logic.

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What is there that can be perceived by reason? You say that Dialectics have been discovered, and that that science is, as it were, an arbiter and judge of what is true and false. Of what true and false?—and of true and false on what subject? Will a dialectician be able to judge, in geometry, what is true and false, or in literature, or in music? He knows nothing about those things. In philosophy, then? What is it to him how large the sun is? or what means has he which may enable him to judge what the chief good is? What then will he judge of? Of what combination or disjunction of ideas is accurate,—of what is an ambiguous expression,—of what follows from each fact, or what is inconsistent with it? If the science of dialectics judges of these things, or things like them, it is judging of itself. But it professed more. For to judge of these matters is not sufficient for the resolving of the other numerous and important questions which arise in philosophy. But, since you place so much importance in that art, I would have you to consider whether it was not invented for the express purpose of being used against you. For, at its first opening, it gives an ingenious account of the elements of speaking, and of the manner in which one may come to an understanding of ambiguous expressions, and of the principles of reasoning: then, after a few more things, it comes to the sorites, a very slippery and hazardous topic, and a class of argument which you yourself pronounced to be a vicious one.

### XXIX.

What then, you will say; are we to be blamed for that viciousness? The nature of things has not given us any knowledge of ends, so as to enable us, in any subject whatever, to say how far we can go. Nor is this the case only in respect of the heap of wheat, from which the name is derived, but in no matter whatever where the argument is conducted by minute questions: for instance, if the question be whether a man is rich or poor, illustrious or obscure,—whether things be many or few, great or small, long or short, broad or narrow,—we have no certain answer to give, how much must be added or taken away to make the thing in question either one or the other.

But the sorites is a vicious sort of argument:—crush it, then, if you can, to prevent its being troublesome; for it will be so, if you do not guard against it. We have guarded against it, says he. For Chrysippus's plan is, when he is interrogated step by step (by way of giving an instance), whether there are three, or few, or many, to rest a little before he comes to the “many;” that is to say, to use their own language, ἡσυχάζειν. Rest and welcome, says Carneades; you may even snore, for all I care. But what good does he do? For one follows who will waken you from sleep, and question you in the same manner:—Take the number, after the mention of which you were silent, and if to that number I add one, will there be many? You will again go on, as long as you think fit. Why need I say more? for you admit this, that you cannot in your answers fix the last number which can be classed as “few,” nor the first, which amounts to “many.” And this kind of uncertainty extends so widely, that I do not see any bounds to its progress.

Nothing hurts me, says he; for I, like a skilful driver, will rein in my horses before I come to the end, and all the more if the ground which the horses are approaching is precipitous. And thus, too, says he, I will check myself, and not reply any more to one who addresses me with captious questions. If you have a clear answer to make, and refuse to make it, you are giving yourself airs; if you have not, even you yourself do not perceive it. If you stop, because the question is obscure, I admit that it is so; but you say that you do not proceed as far as what is obscure. You stop, then, where the case is still clear. If then all you do is to hold your tongue, you gain nothing by that. For what does it matter to the man who wishes to catch you, whether he entangles you owing to your silence or to your talking? Suppose, for instance, you were to say, without hesitation, that up to the number nine, is “few,” but were to pause at the tenth; then you would be refusing your assent to what is certain and evident, and yet you will not allow me to do the same with respect to subjects which are obscure.

That art, therefore, does not help you against the sorites; inasmuch as it does not teach a man, who is using either the increasing or diminishing scale, what is the first point, or the last. May I not say that that same art, like Penelope undoing her web, at last undoes all the arguments which have gone before? Is that your fault, or ours? In truth, it is the foundation of dialectics, that whatever is enunciated (and that is what they call ἀξίωμα, which answers to our word effatum,) is either true or false. What, then, is the case? Are these true or false? If you say that you are speaking falsely, and that that is true, you are speaking falsely and telling the truth at the same time. This, forsooth, you say is inexplicable; and that is more odious than our language, when we call things uncomprehended, and not perceived.

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In Academic Questions XXVI, Cicero says that all the challenges against the possibility of knowledge fall into one of four categories about which the schools had split and been arguing for hundreds of years. Over time it would be good to develop some kind of chart explaining these and the Epicurean response to each:

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However, to abridge the controversy, consider, I pray you, within what narrow bounds you are confined. There are four principles which conduct you to the conclusion that there is nothing which can be known, or perceived, or comprehended;—and it is about this that the whole dispute is. The first principle is, that some perceptions are false; the second, that such cannot be perceived; the third, that of perceptions between which there is no difference, it is not possible that some of them can be perceived and that others cannot; the fourth, that there is no true perception proceeding from the senses, to which there is not some other perception opposed which in no respect differs from it, and which cannot be perceived. Now of these four principles, the second and third are admitted by every one. Epicurus does not admit the first, but you, with whom we are now arguing, admit that one too,—the whole contest is about the fourth.

Voula Tsouna, in her "Ethics of Phildemus," says:

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.... Section V deals with the issue of whether anger is a good or a bad thing. It elaborates Philodemus’
distinction between two kinds of anger, which he calls, respectively, ὀργή (translit. org¯e ) and θυμός (translit. thymos), as well as his contention that the Epicurean sage experiences the former kind of anger (org¯e ) but not the latter.

...

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Epicurus makes the puzzling remark that the wise man is more susceptible than other men to some passions without this impeding his wisdom (D.L. X. 117), and he asserts that the gods feel neither anger nor gratitude (KD 1)—which might imply that lesser beings feel both. According to Philodemus, Epicurus also claims that the wise man will experience thymos; similar statements are found in the writings of Metrodorus and Hermarchus as well (De ir. XLV. 5–15). In general, ‘the Great Men’ appear to have held that some sort of anger is unavoidable,and that some sages are more prone to it than others. However, they evidently did not clarify just what kind of anger is ineradicable or whether the wise man is susceptible to every form of anger. Later Epicureans debate these issues, each group giving a different interpretation of the canonical texts and citing scripture to defend it. The position that Philodemus advocates in On Anger (probably also held by Zeno of Sidon and his school) is one such view: the sage never experiences an unnatural kind of anger, but is liable to feeling a natural kind of anger compatible with moral perfection. Thus, Philodemus can be perceived as striking a wise compromise between the Peripatetics and the Stoics, and also as holding a middle ground between competing Epicurean factions.²²

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Since there is false reasoning of some sort induced by the word (sc. org¯e ), we do not make any simple pronouncement (sc. as to whether anger is a fine or an evil thing), but we claim that the emotion itself taken in isolation is an evil because it is painful or close to painful, whereas taken in conjunction with one’s disposition it can even be called a good, as we think. For it results from our understanding of the nature of things and from our holding no false beliefs in the matter of measuring the offences and of punishing the offenders. As a result, in the same way in which we called empty anger (cf. κ[ενὴν ὀρ]γήν: XXXVIII. 1) an evil because it arises from a thoroughly corrupt disposition and brings on countless troubles, we must call natural anger (cf. φυσική[ν]: XXXVIII. 6) not an evil—but, in so far as it is something biting,⁸⁰ [it lasts a very short time].
(XXXVII. 20–XXXVIII. 9)

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[To call anger] a weakness (τὸ ἀσθενές) and then apply it to the wise man, sothat we also make him weak, is no great problem to us, as it is to some thinkers. They, writing against the Κύριαι ∆όξαι, maintained that it was extraordinary that anyone had dared to claim that anger, gratitude and all these sorts of things occur in weakness, since Alexander, the most powerful human being of all, was subject to frequent outbursts of anger and did favours to countless men. However, it is not the weakness opposite to the strong constitution of athletes and kings that the (Epicurean) argument is talking about. It is rather a natural constitution subject to death and pain, of which Alexander and indeed every other human being have their share, and perhaps most of all those who, like him, are called the most
powerful in that other sense of the word.
(XLIII. 14–41)⁹⁵

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We shall tell our opponent that the sage will be profoundly alienated from, and indeed hates, the person who inflicts on him such great [injuries] or will obviously cause him [great] damage in the future—for this is a fitting consequence (ἀκ[όλο]υθον: XLII. 3–4)—but he does not suffer great mental disturbance. [Neither is any] external thing [all that important], since the sage is not even susceptible to great mental disturbance in the presence of great physical pain, let alone in the presence of angry feelings. For [to be in a state of dreadful suffering] derives from folly. So if one is a fool, this suffering can be [inevitable]. Indeed, there are infinite misfortunes both involved in his folly and consequent upon it, into which the wise man, having a completely clear vision of them (θεωρῶν: XLII. 19–20), would never fall.
(XLI. 39–XLII. 20)

Our material this week will start with Cicero discussing anger, and apparently taking the position that the wise man will never be angry.

We'll need to contrast that with what Philodemus has to say as discussed in this thread:

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RE: Philodemus' "On Anger" - General - Texts and Resources

Couple more quotes from the Philodemus text:

From page 41 of the Armstrong book:

37.24–39: “the emotion itself, taken in isolation, is an evil, since it is painful or is analogous to something painful, but if taken in conjunction with one’s disposition, we think that it is something that may even be called a good. For it (anger) results from seeing what the nature of states of affairs is and from not having any false beliefs in our comparative calculations of our losses and in our…

Cassius

April 1, 2022 at 6:00 PM