Posts by Cassius

(I didn't see Nate's post before posting this, which is more response to Don's last post.)

I think a lot of this battle is being fought subconsciously on the issue of the meaning of "truth." I think DeWitt almost surely has to be correct in his assertion that Epicurus did not understand "truth" as an absolute term, but in terms of something being "truly reported" as if by a witness in court, who is reporting without opinion, but who may well not have access to all the facts.

The Academic world, however, including Plato and Aristotle and Stoic derivatives, are fully invested in there being an "absolute" truth which is accessible, if at all, through conceptual reasoning. Therefore they cannot imagine themselves, and cannot tolerate in opposing views, any standard of "truth" which does not include conceptual reasoning as core to the definition of what is true or false.

But that seems to be exactly what Epicurus did, setting "Nature" as the provider of each and every criterion of "truth." At the same time , of course, Epicurus studied and discussed how the mind works with conceptual reasoning, in which opinion is involved. So that's why I think we see Epicurus discussing both conceptual reasoning as well as the set of tools given by nature by which conceptual reasoning must be tested for its accuracy and relevance to us as individuals.

And I guess in saying that we might see another reason for the hostility -- to suggest that the power and relevance of conceptual reasoning should be "tested" or in any way restrained by faculties of nature would be intolerable to the Platonic team. To them, reason and logic are absolutely supreme, and its easy to read into them (especially into the Stoics) the disposition to dispense with the senses and "reality" totally, in favor of what they see as the higher life attainable through the mind only.

Quote from Don

From my perspective, Anticipations (I'm going to say similar to "mental concepts" in the strict scientific sense of Barrett's and her peers' research) are used by the mind to assess, identify, and categorize sensory stimuli.

Yes, we remain at the very starting point of debate because that is the Bailey/Laertius position. The process of "asessing, identifying, and categorizing" is certainly (I think everyone would agree) a process of individual reasoning involving the use of opinion. The trademark characteristic of the five senses, and of pain and pleasure, is that they operate automatically and WITHOUT the use of opinion. If anticipations are viewed as concepts formed through the use of opinion, then you've introduced into the "canon of truth" a tool which has been formed by individual human opinion and not by Nature itself.

So to restate where we are (I think) for clarity, we have at least two major issues:

(1) Per Bailey/Laertius, anticipations are concepts built up through experience which are then used as the structure for the next floor in the building, going ever-higher but always on the basis of the concepts built up after experience.

The opposing position (Velleius/DeWitt) would be that while the conceptual reasoning process Bailey describes of erecting one concept after another certainly does exist, the original decision to erect the conceptual structure, and the tools by which the conceptual structure is shaped as we build it upward, are innate / instinctual, all of a class that includes the eyes, ears, taste, nose, and touch, as well as pleasure and pain, and among which would per Velleius/DeWitt to be "etchings" which dispose the structure of conceptual thinking to be erected like a fully-formed adult grows from the DNA of a microscopic cell.

The argument would be that the beaver is predisposed to recognize an opportunity for successful living in dam-building, from the moment of conception, and that similar processes take place throughout the animal kingdom, certainly influenced by experience after birth, but which would never have occurred at all but for the original "wiring" being present to allow the connections to be recognized.

So that's a description of the issue, with a further major aspect of this debate being:

(2) That the DeWitt/Velleius description of the faculty (and as far as I can tell those who advocate it) does not in any way foreclose the Bailey/Laertius description of the faculty, but those holding the Bailey/Laertius position fiercely advocate (dare I say they are predisposed to advocate?) that the DeWitt/Velleius description is bogus and something that needs to be eliminated from consideration completely.

I find this second aspect of the question almost as fascinating as the first aspect, but maybe with this caveat: I don't think there is anything in the Laertius material that leads to the ferocious denial of the Velleius position. And almost cetainly Velleius would have been aware of and had no issue with the Laertius "conceptual reasoning" posiiton (who could?)

I think the force of the anti-Velleius argument comes from Bailey and other "modern" commentators, not from the ancient sources.

Here's an example that might appeal to some. If (hopefully when) we are one day able to reconstruct Jurassic-Park style a new generation of ancient dinosaurs, would we not expect to see them exhibit behaviorisms that were typical of their ancestors eons ago, even though by the terms of their resurrection none of them ever met their parents?

Quote from Don

I don't know if you can separate "nature vs nurture."

Almost certainly they work together hand in hand as you say, and I suspect no one in their right mind who thinks "nature" is an influence would deny nurture also is at work. But the reverse is not true. Those who push "nurture" are heavily invested in a total "blank slate" and I think we are seeing that as we observe the surprising lack of research on instinct the results of that attitude.

There is no way in 2021 we should be lacking a conclusion on beaver-dam-building or many other aspects of animal behavior.

I think keeping good humor as with deal with factual debates like this is essential. I don't need to even get close to an allusion to the political world for us to recall how even today some science debates get caught up with a fervor that it would take a Galileo to appreciate!

But at risk of getting a slight bit more serious, I think we're about to open Pandora's box with Elli's references to Christos Y.'s position on the brain issues, given his status as a medical professional, and I have this gut field (instinct? ) that issues like this are percolating only slightly below the surface in the Greek Epicurean world.

We could easily find ourselves in a situation where we conclude based on a combination of personal observation and some number of studies that we conclude that instinct is a much more potent force in the animal kingdom than it's generally given credit for, and that might not at all be received well in certain circles which take a different position on the science as it relates to Epicurus.

"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" is clearly in my mind the right path to take, but it's probably going to take a mixture of good humor and articulation of a method for how educated laymen should approach "science" issues in order not to get caught in some explosions. I'm seeing a pattern that this kind of issue is popping up frequently, so we probably need some kind of "Order of Merit" badge to award for he/she/or they who come up with a good way to deal with the "educated layman" vs "expert" issue. In the legal world I'm very comfortable that I want my juries to be composed of ordinary people of good sense, rather than "experts," but I'm not sure that position is as widely embraced as it used to be, and I think i recall that it may always have been the "American" view as opposed to the Continent.

I know there are references in the Epicurean texts to these issues as well, not the least of which was the issue of how and why Epicurus held his views on the size of the sun. On that I'll still take the position that while he proved to be factually wrong, his reasoning and approach (especially if we knew more details of what he himself thought rather than what's said about what he thought) were probably valid and remain a model today of how to deal with conflicting information - with the main thing that's changed being that we have more information than was available then.

Another way of asking the method question is "Suppose Martin does some reading and on the podcast Sunday he says "I am now convinced that beavers do (or do not) need to be taught dambuilding." What is our proper approach for communicating something like that? Do we need to say who it is we are trusting, or explain our reason why we are sure? I think in our philosophy discussions it would be desirable to find a way to state opinions on issues like that in a firm but still friendly way, suggesting to people how it is that they themselves should go about deciding what they think is true.

I am not exactly a farm boy but I have some experience now and my gut tells me that the beavers don't need to be taught. However that is not a persuasive argument. I think it would be the wrong approach to turn every question of Epicurean philosophy into a course in reviewing science journals, but we do need a method that appears satisfactory for some of the basic points. I actually think this one ("instinct") is more fundamental then the eternal or infinite universe issue because it affects us more directly.

i suspect it will be easier to produce a consensus on beaver-dam-building than it will on a triune brain division.

And now we add to the list of fact issues: "is the brain triune like the godhead?".

Developing a method for dealing with fact disputes apparently is something we'll need to figure out!

Ok Godfrey you started this. What would you say to Elli's Greek beavers who need training in building dams?

Quote from elli

he did not mean only the insticts

That is a key sentence. You do agree that instincts do exist within humans too? So that both instincts at birth do exist, but also experience comes into play after birth? No one seems to argue that instincts alone exist, but many seem to want to argue that experience after birth is the ONLY mechanism that exists.

Would your Greek beavers build dams even if separated from their parents and other beavers at birth?

Just to restate a couple of points that are (or should be) obvious:

The suggestion before the house, based on the Velleius material as highlighted by DeWitt, is that there might be "inborn" / "present at birth" dispositions toward certain activities. Not fully formed ideas, not fully formed concepts, nothing with "information" or "opinion" in it, but "dispositions" that are "etched" as it were on the brain even at birth. Or in maybe more modern term, genetic encoding that disposes animals to act in certain ways depending on circumstances that arise in life.

If so, the potential analogy would be that an innate disposition at birth for beavers to grow up and build dams would be an example of a faculty that exists at birth, etched into the brain, which then flowers into a disposition to dam-building later in life when the circumstances present themselves. As per the article Don cited, maybe the sound of flowing water inspires them, or maybe they just recognize as part of their disposition that flowing water is a necessary prerequisite to successful dam-building, and they don't try it til the flow triggers them.

Carrying the analogy forward, Velleius would be saying that the disposition to form ideas of gods exists at birth, and develops as babies age, either without outside influence (in which case the constructed ideas are less perverted) or along with outside influences. But in either case the disposition to recognize an issue as to the existence of "gods" is present at birth.

As to the other recorded example of anticipations, justice, the same analogy can be drawn. Human babies (and others maybe) are born with the disposition to recognize that there is an issue involving social arrangements to be pursued. They find later, but this is not part of the anticipation, that agreements not to harm or be harmed lead to happier living than do other arrangements (random rule of the mob or the strong). But the initial disposition / faculty was the recognition that this social structure pursuit is an activity to be recognized and pursued, just as the beaver builds dams or the human brain contemplates the nature of potential gods.

To me, it is absolutely obvious, and would be obvious to a child, that this is the potential direction that Velleius was going. Why have not these issues been pursued and investigated in great detail? I am sure that there are many reasons that we aren't finding many articles on it, but I think one reason is that Academia / the intellectual establishment is wedded to the Aristotelian "blank slate" approach, and they are opposed to looking for or finding anything that would conflict with their model, in which "education" or "nurture" is everything. It's the old "nature" vs. "nurture" debate and does in fact have lots of implications.

And so I relate this back to the picture of Epicurus and the "This is the way things are" attitude. I don't want to know only those things that make me feel good and give a warm and fuzzy feeling. Just like with the inevitability of death I think that we ought to pursue the truth wherever it leads, confident in the conclusion that we'll find better ways to live happily when we know the truth than when we don't.

(Since I am suggesting we always ought to be planning our seminar presentations)

Quote from Cassius

(Note 2 if we have a patron animal for ethics and canonics that leaves us needing one for physics)

On the symbolism of pigs/hogs I think there is some material which help explain the reference. We surely know it it existed from the Boscoreale cup and the Horace reference. I think there is a church father comment also referencing it in which hogs are cited as pursuing pleasure singlemindedly.

Numerous animals would work for the others but any that are known for their instinctive behavior, beavers and their dams being a great example, would fit.

For physics the first thing that comes to mind is the characteristic of curiosity. Maybe animals that construct elaborate nests or communities (beavers again maybe) could be said to be implementing physics principles, but I tend to think that the way Epicurus emphasized the study of nature more for the relief it brings from fear and perhaps even enjoyment in itself, the more characteristic trait would be curiosity. Googling "animals that represent curiosity" brings up all kinds of weird examples that are to my view too obscure if I were doing a presentation; the animal that is more universally in my experience associated with curiosity would be the cat, but no doubt there are others.

Also Godfrey in terms of subsequent learned behavior, almost surely there would be types of behavior too which do not arise from anticipations. I dont see why the existence of the dispositions would rule out the invention of new activities as we grow older, in part or whole unrelated to the original dispositions

My first thought is that this would be similar to developing sharper use of eyes or hearing through use. The faculty exists at birth but can be sharpened / tuned with use. So I would not draw a sharp distinction - I would see all results from the faculty as separatr from the faculty , along the lines of separating the faculty of sight from things that we see.

Ha that article seems to imply they just want peace and quiet!

The pig may have to yield some of its place as an Epicurean symbol if this keeps up. Pig as symbol of pleasure and beaver as symbol of canonic anticipations

Maybe if they has had more beavers in Athens we'd already have the dual symbolism!

(For some reason I am questioning whether they have beavers in Greece. I know we have plenty in the USA.)

(Note 2 if we have a patron animal for ethics and canonics that leaves us needing one for physics)

I believe those Beaver dams are going to prove critical to this question!

You know, Don's comment has me thinking and combining a couple of things.The caption "This is PLEASURE" makes a lot of sense, but I think Epicurus would himself think something else was more appropriate. The connected point is something we rarely talk about, but it remains one of my favorite semi-poetic translations -- the translation by Rolfe Humphies.

So my proposal for the caption would be:

This is THE WAY THINGS ARE!

That's the intensity I see in these eyes:

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All fun aside, I do think more and more that Epicurus probably continued to think as he got older the same way he apparently approached life as a child, when he first wanted to get behind the inconsistency of the contention that the universe came from "Chaos."

I therefore doubt he saw his work on "pleasure"' as really the crowning achievement of his life work. I would think if we could talk to him today, he would say that what always drove him, from start to finish, and where he found his greatest pleasure, was in searching for the truth about "the way things are."

Exactly the kind of look i picture when he was going through that list of his least favorite philosophers!

Quote

He used to call Nausiphanes ‘The mollusk,’ ‘The illiterate,’ ‘The cheat,’ ‘The harlot.’ The followers of Plato he called ‘Flatterers of Dionysus,’ and Plato himself ‘The golden man,’ and Aristotle ‘The debauchee,' saying that he devoured his inheritance and then enlisted and sold drugs. Protagoras he called ‘Porter’ or ‘Copier of Democritus,’ saying that he taught in the village schools. Heraclitus he called ‘The Muddler,’ Democritus [he called] Lerocritus (‘judge of nonsense’), Antidorus he called Sannidorus (‘Maniac’), the Cynics [he called] ‘Enemies of Hellas,’ the Logicians [he called] ‘The destroyers,’ and Pyrrho [he called] ‘The uneducated fool.’

Who does Epicurus look like? For some reason I am thinking of Gerard Butler -the star of "300" -