Posts by Cassius

Here's the quote I was looking for above about the repeatability of the senses being the guarantee of their accuracy. Someone might say that's not exactly the same point as being discussed, but I think it pretty much is, because it seems implicit that if we're talking about the truth of our senses we're talking about the truth of the opinions that we can confidently reach based on what the senses repeatedly tell us:

**Diogenes Laertius, _Lives of Philosophers,_ X.31:** They reject the dialectic as superfluous; holding that in their inquiries the physicists should be content to employ the ordinary terms for things. Now in _The Canon_ Epicurus states that the sensations, the prolepses, and the passions are the criteria of truth; the Epicureans generally make perceptions of mental presentations to be also standards. ... Every sensation, he says, is devoid of reason and incapable of memory; for neither is it self-caused nor regarded as having an external cause, can it add anything thereto or take anything therefrom. Nor is there anything which can refute sensations or convict them of error: one sensation cannot convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid; nor can one sensation refute another which is not kindred but heterogeneous, for the objects which the two senses judge are not the same; nor again can reason refute them, for reason is wholly dependent on sensation; nor can one sense refute another, since we pay equal heed to all. And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of our senses. But seeing and hearing are just as real as feeling pain. Hence it is from plain facts that we must start when we draw inferences about the unknown. For all our notions are derived from perceptions, either by actual contact or by analogy, or resemblance, or composition, with some slight aid from reasoning. And the objects presented to madmen and to people in dreams are true, for they produce effects – i.e., movements in the mind – which that which is unreal never does.

All of what I see you raise are good questions so while I appreciate your last statement I firmly think the discussion we're having is very valuable. I do think, however, in general, that we are suffering from the difficulty of really having a bright line definition of many of these words (logic, reason, dialectic, dialectical logic, etc). And much of the reason for that is they these words are commonly used in very similar ways, so each discussion about each word almost requires a clarification each time it is used.

Quote from camotero

So, rhetoric? Which may have been considered logic, but it's not. Am I wrong?

Rhetoric is another word that in my view isn't so clear in common usage.

Quote from camotero

So he is not talking at all about reason, as in what we understand as logic

Just citing that to reinforce the issue that "reason" seems to have a number of connotations that may or may not make it similar in usage as logic depending on context.

Quote from camotero

Also, it's been stated over and over again that while that sensations can and are always true (in that they bring a pure impression) they can be, as DeWitt puts it, valueless as a criterion (the round/square tower example). And how are we going to discern this if not by reason?

Of all the comments this is probably the most important to articulate better. We confirm that the tower is in fact square by walking toward it, viewing it from different angles, touching it, etc. It is never reason *alone* which does the confirming, it is the reliability of subsequent multiple sensations. There's a really good cite from Epicurus directly on that point (that the reliability of our conclusions / opinions comes from the repeatability of the sensation) that if my mind were quicker I'd like to post, but can't. If someone else can I hope they will add this to the thread.

Now someone may want to argue, "Well, comparing multiple sensations to see which is reliably repeated IS a form of "reason" or even "logic!" If someone goes down that path then they've really got to disentangle what they mean by reason and logic, because such a wide definition essentially converts every example of looking for consistency into reason and logic and that clearly is not Epicurus' target.

Quote from camotero

Otherwise we are perceiving reality, alright, but if we don't process it with reason, we're no different than other animals.

Ok now on that point it is my position (and I think Epicurus') that there IS no essential difference between humans and other animals. And that precise argument is stated very clearly by Cicero who complains that Epicurus reduces us to the state of animals by not worshiping reason/logic as he (Cicero) does. Can't easily remember the cite there but I think it's in Academic Questions.

Quote from camotero

: "How do we know something is true? I can feel when something is true". I don't think this is true, but I'm open to be corrected. I'm pretty sure the person who said this didn't mean it and said it rhetorically or lightly as no one objected it.

This is very valuable for you to call this into question. Are you talking about something Elayne said? I don't suppose you have a time cite do you? I remember being uneasy with certain formulations of some of that discussion and it might be that it would be good to make some notes on that episode to clarify. I am remembering that it was Elayne who said something like that and (if I recall) I considered it a reasonable formulation of the "feeling of certainty" that we do in fact get when we are legitimately convinced that our conclusion is correct. And in a way (depending on the words that were used) it is correct to argue that certainty / confidence in Epicurean terms comes from our ability to confirm our opinions through the data we observe through the senses and all the canonical faculties.

It is also possible that what you're referring to was in discussion of "abstractions'" and I also think there may have been some statements made at times that may have been more critical of abstractions than would be warranted. But there is an important point there too about the limitations of abstractions, so it would be necessary to pull out the precise statements and consider them carefully.

Anytime you (or anyone) feels like certain statements in the podcast might warrant clarification or revision please make note of it (preferably in the discussion for that episode) and try to record the time it appears and we'll go back and address those. It would be very valuable for everyone to do that.

The real heavy lifting / lot of work seems to be getting an series of "courses" off the ground. In the end it might be necessary to start small with Quizzes here on the forum rather than a full "moodle' package, but hopefully all these intermediate steps like the reading list will help build the momentum toward full "courses"

Quote from camotero

perhaps that game wouldn't make sense at all to me. I may be at fault of not remembering it well enough

1 - I first read DeWitt over ten years ago now and I frequently misremember it.

2 - Plus I suppose to be clear about deWitt, his goal and his merit is in providing the wide overview that gives us an orientation, and the book isn't nearly long or detailed enough to give us all the raw material and argument that we'd like to have, so that's where we have to fill in the gaps. I think DeWitt's usually right or close to right in most of his views, but in all of the details we have to work through them ourselves.

Quote from Godfrey

how do "signs" fit into this discussion? It seems that words are signs; what about "first mental images," concepts... what else can be considered a sign? Do the Stoics have a different idea of what constitutes a sign than the Epicureans do? Just defining the language with which to discuss logic and methods of inference is confusing!

Godfrey if you are getting started in Philodemus I hope you will post all sorts of things like that in the Philodemus thread. Yes it appears that signs are a big issue, as well as the terms "contraposition" and also "reasoning by analogy"

Articulating this question of what signs means and how the Epicureans took a position on them is going to be key to unwinding all these issues. They clearly took the position that "contraposition" is not the key to truth.

One way of stating what i remember the ultimate point to have been is that Plato and the boys were taking the position that nothing can be said to be "true" unless the proposition could be stated in some form of symbolic logic (if A=B and B=C then A=C, might be an example, but I think their examples were much more complex).

The Epicureans took the position that truth has to be "defined" in terms of evidence from the canonical faculties, not from symbolic logic.

But that is a very primitive way of stating the issue and our goal ought to be to make things a lot more clear than that.

Don I appear to have access to the Sedley chapter on Dialectic but I have absolutely no confidence that I will be able to read it anytime soon, so I hope you'll lead us through that one by commenting when you get it.

LOL I see that I have just accused Camotero of not reading DeWitt, and now I see THIS from the new poll of what people have read:

Ha someone has some adjusting to do -- either I am dramatically mis-remembering what is in DeWitt, or I need to get to work on that Quiz to help test how closely people have really read what they think they've read

Maybe you skimmed chapters Seven and Eight Camotero? Or maybe DeWitt wasn't as convincing as I remember him being

Either way we'll figure it out and it will be fun doing so.

Quote from Don

That sounds like a lot of work.

LOL indeed it will be - but it will be fun too!

Quote from Don

Wasn't one of Epicurus's big gripes against Socrates that Socrates just ignored the commonly accepted definitions of words or he made up new definitions?

That actually sounds to me more like Cicero's gripe against Epicurus, that EPICURUS was not using words like pleasure in a standard way.... Don't hold me to that but I think so.

Quote from camotero

and reason is particular faculty of our own, how come reason is not part of the Canon of Truth? If you ask me, it seems more plausible to find truth in by way of reasoning as the article explains, and the canon is more a canon of morality, rather than of truth.

Camotero with all due respect and affection many of your comments in the recent posts above are (I am confident you are going to find) very off-base as to Epicurus' position. I think you're instinctively taking the majority Platonic / Aristotelian / Stoic position that logic is the center of good reasoning, and I think you're going to find that that (depending on the definition of "logic' and focusing in dialectical logic) is exactly what Epicurus rejected as the focus.

Of course working through these issues is exactly what we are here to do, so it will be fun.

However, this thread is already serving as an important reminder to me that it is going to remain a very good idea to jump up and down and shout and all the rest to READ DEWITT FIRST AND/OR EARLY because no one who reads DeWitt will be surprised or taken aback by any of these arguments that deprecate "logic." DeWitt drives home throughout the book how this rejection of Platonic logic is at the heart of his philosophy. So even now I would recommend reading DeWitt's chapters One (for the overview) and Seven and Eight for the focus on these canonical / logical issues. Although due to the way DeWitt presents things telescopically, the same issues appear at multiple places in the book and that's why I recommend the whole thing.

Now don't anyone misinterpret what I just wrote -- I am not chiding anyone. Going through these arguments is extremely helpful to everyone. But the real problem with approaching Epicurus through anyone but DeWitt - even trying to read Diogenes Laertius and Lucretius first - is that it's hard to pick up the significance of the full extent of Epicurus' revolution against virtually ALL who went before him. I am convinced that Epicurus' revolution wasn't based nearly as much on the role of "pleasure" as it was on these issues of the canon and the role of logic. The ethics of Epicurus are strictly secondary and derive from the physics, and the physics analysis is tightly tied to the canonics.

Of course the bitter truth is that most people are going to come here having read mainly the Cambridge and the Warren and the O'Keefe material. They are mostly as a result going to be so hamstrung on "absence of pain" that they have a long hill to climb to get to the real issues. But these issues of the canonical faculties and the role of logic/conceptual reasoning are where the real battle lies, in my humble opinion! And the opponents of Epicurus are almost more worked up about his rejection of "logic" than they are of his rejection of "virtue" and "religion" -- maybe more so, because the canonics/logic argument is the key to defeating their virtue/piety arguments.

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[38] For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded,

As I see it the key issue would also include whether this "first mental image associated with each word" functions automatically or consciously/rationally, because if it is consciously/rationally assigned then that involved (in my view) the injection of opinion and the possibility of error, and that's the point in the process where error is made. If we accept a word/concept as something that is given to us by nature and that we processed involuntarily, without reason/opinion, then we've just injected into our canon of what is supposed to be "truth" our own opinion. And then once you consider your own opinions to be canonical, you're going to consider them as equal to "seeing is believing" and you're going to do exactly what Epicurus warned against in losing your true standard of judgment:

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PD24. If you reject any single sensation, and fail to distinguish between the conclusion of opinion, as to the appearance awaiting confirmation, and that which is actually given by the sensation or feeling, or each intuitive apprehension of the mind, you will confound all other sensations, as well, with the same groundless opinion, so that you will reject every standard of judgment. And if among the mental images created by your opinion you affirm both that which awaits confirmation, and that which does not, you will not escape error, since you will have preserved the whole cause of doubt in every judgment between what is right and what is wrong.

I would really like to dig into what this means here, as I think this is where people go wrong and think that there's something mystical about the "first mental image" reference. As I read them they are thinking that "concepts" formed in our mind after reflection (such as are described by Diogenes Laertius in his statement of preconceptions) become primary evidence of truth. I do not think Epicurus would agree with that, and I think I would argue that all concepts are essentially "words" - they are the map and not the terrain and can never be confused with the reality itself. I think he would argue that words can never fully describe reality, and that "reality" is what is given to us by the pre-rational faculties (including not only the five senses but also by (2) pleasure and pain and (3) the non-idea-based anticipations):

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For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded,

And of course there is this from the Letter to Herodotus, and I think the key to the point is in the last sentence, and not in the direction that some apparently took to think that there was a picture-based "fourth leg" of the canon. Reasoning based on words that ultimately have no way to be checked back against the canonical faculties are the main danger, I think, but that takes a lot of explanation too:

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First of all, Herodotus, we must grasp the ideas attached to words, in order that we may be able to refer to them and so to judge the inferences of opinion or problems of investigation or reflection, so that we may not either leave everything uncertain and go on explaining to infinity or use words devoid of meaning.

[38] For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded, and that there should be no need of explanation, if we are really to have a standard to which to refer a problem of investigation or reflection or a mental inference. And besides we must keep all our investigations in accord with our sensations, and in particular with the immediate apprehensions whether of the mind or of any one of the instruments of judgment, and likewise in accord with the feelings existing in us, in order that we may have indications whereby we may judge both the problem of sense perception and the unseen.

Yes it's pretty much a direct attack at what so many people today praise as the "Socratic Method" -- which also takes us back to the material we have on the "Epicurean Criticism of Socrates" as preserved in Plutarch.

Yep and then we have the question, "What is dialectic?" and it appears that's probably a reference to "dialectical logic" which also is probably a reference to the "Socratic method" or the methods used in Plato's Dialogs.

I think there's also a relevant reference in On Ends when Torquatus begins his monologue and says that rather than question-answer he wants to use a narrative format. I think it's right before the section we usually start quoting:

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I quite agree with you, said Torquatus; for one cannot dispute at all without finding fault with your antagonist; but on the other hand you cannot dispute properly if you do so with ill-temper or with pertinacity. But, if you have no objection, I have an answer to make to these assertions of yours. Do you suppose, said I, that I should have said what I have said if I did not desire to hear what you had to say too? Would you like then, says he, that I should go through the whole theory of Epicurus, or that we should limit our present inquiry to pleasure by itself; which is what the whole of the present dispute relates to? We will do, said I, whichever you please. That then, said he, shall be my present course. I will explain one matter only, being the most important one. At another time I will discuss the question of natural philosophy; and I will prove to you the theory of the divergence of the atoms, and of the magnitude of the sun, and that Democritus committed many errors which were found fault with and corrected by Epicurus. At present, I will confine myself to pleasure; not that I am saying anything new, but still I will adduce arguments which I feel sure that even you yourself will approve of. Undoubtedly, said I, I will not be obstinate; and I will willingly agree with you if you will only prove your assertions to my satisfaction. I will prove them, said he, provided only that you are as impartial as you profess yourself: but I would rather employ a connected discourse than keep on asking or being asked questions. As you please, said I.

From the "motivational" point of view, the answer is probably going to be to have something that shows up in the user profile (at least when viewed on the desktop, and it may prove to be the case that the only way to do that is through the trophy system, and we'll just have to manually ask people to "claim their trophy" and message an admin so that it can be assigned to them manually.

This first sentence from Diogenes Laertius taken out of context probably contributes people to being overbroad. And to add to the list above, a significant part of the target seems to be "Dialectical Logic"

Logic they reject as misleading. For they say it is sufficient for physicists to be guided by what things say of themselves. Thus in The Canon Epicurus says that the tests of truth are the sensations and concepts [preconceptions / anticipations] and the feelings; the Epicureans add to these the intuitive apprehensions of the mind. And this he says himself too in the summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Principal Doctrines. For, he says, all sensation is irrational and does not admit of memory; for it is not set in motion by itself, nor when it is set in motion by something else, can it add to it or take from it. Nor is there anything which can refute the sensations. For a similar sensation cannot refute a similar because it is equivalent in validity, nor a dissimilar a dissimilar, for the objects of which they are the criteria are not the same; nor again can reason, for all reason is dependent upon sensations; nor can one sensation refute another, for we attend to them all alike. Again, the fact of apperception confirms the truth of the sensations. And seeing and hearing are as much facts as feeling pain. From this it follows that as regards the imperceptible we must draw inferences from phenomena. For all thoughts have their origin in sensations by means of coincidence and analogy and similarity and combination, reasoning too contributing something. And the visions of the insane and those in dreams are true, for they cause movement, and that which does not exist cannot cause movement.

Quote from Don

I need to check the texts but do I remember correctly that Epicurus didn't necessarily write against logic so much as rhetoric?

I think the answer to that is once again "Logic" has to be defined. Saying that he attacked "all logic" is almost certainly overbroad. Lucretius talks about "true reason." The real target is probably better stated as "logic based on nothing that can be verified through the senses." Use of the term "abstractions" is probably overbroad, and "abstract logic" isn't clear enough.

So I do think that Epicurus' target was definitely against more than "rhetoric" and there you have to consider his comments on poetry.

The work "Against the Megarians" seems to be part of what we 're talking about.

And you'll find what I am suggesting to be confirmed, with much more detail, in Delacy's comments to Philodemus including:

Appendix 1 - Sources of Epicurean Empiricism

Appendix 2 - Development of Epicurean Logic and Methodology

Appendix 3 - Logical Controversies of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics

Ok I have just set up a new "poll" to get started working on this project: EpicureanFriends Participants Reading List Report

It's going to take some time to decide whether the poll feature is usable in this project or not. It looks like there is a result page sorted by answer, so that will give us an indication of who has read what, but doesn't easily give us a list by user of what they have read.

The Quiz feature has a results option that integrates in the user panel, so it might be possible to set up eight separate relatively short Quizzes about each work, and then the result may show in the user badge or user information page. That's what we need to investigate next.

Recent discussions with Mathitis Kipouros and others has led me back to the issue of how to deal with a suggested reading list of core texts. Eventually it would be good to have some kind of overall report or badge on the user profile enabling each user to state which of the core texts they have read, because that is probably as much an indicator of the "depth of understanding" that users have as is anything else. As you know, we don't require real names on the forum, so when new users arrive there's no way for existing users to know if they are talking to a rank novice or the equivalent of David Sedley or other recognized authority.

At present we don't have an integrated mechanism to display the depth of reading along with the user gravator or other information (such as Activity Points) that is currently displayed at various places in the site. There doesn't seem to be a way currently to give Activity Points by numbers of references read. Likewise there is always going to be the issue of whether new users have really read the material or are just saying so. On that last point it likely makes sense to try to make use of the "Quiz" system to get at least a broad indication of whether a user is in fact familiar with a particular work.

As a first step in the direction of giving people some kind of a way to estimate their own and others' depth of study, in this post I will set up a "poll" and list some key texts. (My original goal was to list five but as I write it I am up to eight.) It would be optimal to be able to do this is in a very granular way, and list each of Epicurus' letters, each of the books of Lucretius' poem, and go in detail as to various articles. Just to get off the ground, however, I'm going to set up the poll with just a few choices.

Also, I know it's going to be a controversial choice as to where to rank DeWitt's book on this list, if at all. Because this is an open forum where (I hope) we have lots of casual readers and young people who have not completed a lot of study of general philosophy, I will make the executive decision that a young person who has read start to finish in Lucretius or even Diogenes Laertius Book Ten may well not have a clue as to what they've just read. I think it's essential to have a grounding in the overall subject matter and Epicurus' place in the history of Western and Greek philosophy to even begin to understand the issues involved, so I am going to rank DeWitt's book as number one on this list. Obviously that creates a dilemma if, for example, someone like David Sedley or Voula Tsouna wants to join and he or she has not read DeWitt's book. In addition, I believe I am correct in saying that some of our best core people here may not have read some or any of DeWitt's book.

We'll iron those kinks out over time, especially since "compliance" with this reading list is not mandatory at all and isn't linked to any benefits of the forum or otherwise. Speaking as the Administrator I have always targeted this forum toward "non-specialists" and people who may not know much about Epicurus at all, so in my view such people need to be strongly urged to read an overview before they get bogged down in details, especially in the detailed controversies. For example, I think most of us here would agree that it's a bad idea to introduce a new student to the disputes about "anticipations" and ask them to wade through that material, and come to conclusions about it, before reading the rest of the philosophy.

The results are restricted to those who have voted only, so if you're curious about the results you'll have to answer it first yourself! (That's of course a motivation to get as many people as possible to answer.) So as a test that we will refine over time to make this ever more useful, here is an initial "poll" as to what books you have read.

The referenced works can be found at the following links:

1. "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
2. The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius Book Ten. (Includes letters to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.)
3. Lucretius' "On The Nature of Things"
4. "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
5. Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
6. Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
   
7. The Vatican List of Epicurean Sayings
8. The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation