Posts by Cassius

Quote from Bryan

Many things are "greater than the sum of their parts" and have emergent qualities that absolutely exist, even if those qualities do not exist in-and-of-themselves.

And a key issue is focusing in on what is mean by "absolutely exist."

I've taken to focusing on those things that have "an eternal and unchanging existence" (atoms, void, the universe as a whole) vs those things that do not -- things that can change over time.

But that's only one way to look at it, and I suspect it really means "real to us" in the sense that Epicurus is saying that if our senses, anticipations, and feelings, register it, then we should consider it to be "real." just don't make the mistake of thinking that everything that they register has an eternal unchanging existence, or that everything is equally significant to us.

You picked out a very interesting comment that does get to the heart of the issue:

Quote

First, the mind is a real thing, but it is nothing above and beyond the atoms that constitute it. An example of this sort of thing would be a flock of sheep. A flock of sheep is a real entity, but it is nothing above and beyond the group of sheep gathered together. Second, although the mind has properties and powers which none of its atoms have, it has these only in virtue of the properties of and relationships amongst its constituent atoms, and the possession of these properties can be explained by reference to these properties and relationships. Third, appeals to structural and formal elements are permissible, but only if they are ultimately reducible to relationships amongst atoms, e.g., the tendency of a group of atoms to clump together because of the atoms' hooks getting entangled.

I do not think that Epicurus would recommend the formulation "First, the mind is a real thing, but it is nothing above and beyond the atoms that constitute it. An example of this sort of thing would be a flock of sheep. A flock of sheep is a real entity, but it is nothing above and beyond the group of sheep gathered together."

As I see it, the entire point of Epicurus' canonism is to emphasize exactly the point that the mind IS something above and beyond the atoms that constitute it. To say that the mind is "nothing" other than the atoms and the void is to ignore the entire "event" and "emergent property" analysis as if it is "nothing" separate from the particles themselves.

Yes I acknowledge that O'Keefe' is bouncing back and forth and saying in the same sentence that "it is a real thing" and "a real entity," but he is also insisting that in the end these emergent characteristics are "nothing" separate from the atoms moving through the void.

And I don't see Sedley as skirting "woo" at all - he's simply seeing that Epicurus insisting that we see what our canonical faculties tell is real as no less significant and real as what our minds tell us that these events are ultimately composed of indivisible atoms and void. And Epicurus goes all the way to the ultimate conclusion - it is only because the study of natural science and the identification of atoms and void gives us confidence to live our lives properly that we really have need of natural science and atomism in the first place.

These are points that appear to me not only absent in O'Keefe's presentation, but points which it appears he's not comfortable with, thus leading to the entire project of making a point of disagreeing with Sedley's conclusions.

So when you say....

Quote from Don

Scholars can argue (and I enjoy it!) over whether that's an omicron or an upsilon in the text that completely changes the word. Where there is ambiguity, obscurity, or simply absence of text, we need to step back - if we're going to think of ourselves as Epicureans and try to figure out the big takeaway UNTIL more evidence comes to light. That's where the value of scholarship comes in in this argument. As Epicureans, we withhold final judgement on a thorny problem until more evidence is available. Was Epicurus a reductionist or a determinist or an eliminativist or a fatalist or a compatibilist or a ....? We can be more or less sure on each of those; however, we can be sure that he taught we live in a material universe with no need of supernatur

... I would say that where texts conflict as to placement of an omicron it's perfectly appropriate to "wait" until more evidence is found. Such an issue is not essential to day to day life.

However issues of determinism or fatalism or reductionism are essential to day to day life, and they directly relate to Epicurus' overall focus on our place in the universe and our relationship to the biggest issues such as supernatural control and life after death. I think that Epicurus would say that most everyone of normal education should have a working view on these issues that informs the way they live their lives daily. I see such a workable view in Sedley's formulation but i do not see it in O'Keefe's.

In the end, I have the uneasy feeling that one of the major takeaways of O'Keefe's point is that he is ultimately trying to defend Democritus from Epicurus' attacks. To the extent that is what he is doing, I see nothing to be gained from that. The Epicureans had much more of Democritus' texts than we will ever dream to have, and they concluded based on those texts that Democritus had crossed a red line over into skepticism and determinism. I see very little to be gained from an approach that amounts to "maybe Epicurus was wrong about Democritus."

It's worthy of note that I wasn't the one who started this conversation - that was Bryan! And it's also worthy of note that for those of us who wade through these details, I think we come out on the other side with a stronger appreciation for how important these issues are, no matter which commentator we decide is doing a better job.

I've reread the thread and I can certainly see that it's legitimate to say that O'Keefe winds up in the same place as Sediey ultimately, with O'Keefe agreeing that the idea that our reality is unreal is bad, but saying that reductionism doesn't necessarily mean that our reality is unreal.

But that observation just leads me back to Bryan's initial inclination that O'Keefe was "splitting hairs." The real question is not how to get the finest dictionary definition of the term "reductionism," but to understand what the philosophical issue is and why it has practical importance. That's what David Sedley did very eloquently in his original observations in Hellenistic Philosophers and his later article.

If all someone has time for is the big picture, I'd suggest that page 34 of Dr. Sedley's article will give them most everything they really need to know about the relationship between Epicurus and Democritus on this point. But if someone finds that the additional points made in "Epicurus On Freedom" provides them a more clear picture, or fills in some gap that they find missing in Sedley's viewpoint, then of course that's helpful.

Quote from Don

Sorry, I'll admit I don't understand to what you're referring with that maxim here. [Comment from post #5 above.]

What I think I am trying to get at is that I see Dr Sedley's statement of the general situation as a very reasonable and understandable description of the issue. The problem Epicurus faced and we face too is that we need to honor both of the two levels of apparent truth. We have to reconcile both (1) that the only thing of eternal unchanging nature is atoms, void, and the universe as a whole, with (2) that the things the senses reveal to us are also "true," even though they are not eternally unchanging. It seems to me that's the whole motivating force behind the "all sensations are true" canonical approach that Epicurus developed.

If normal people are going to find a way to resist supernaturalism, they have to have a graspable method of reasoning that explains to them in a sufficient way how the universe operates naturally. I think Sedley's perspective is essentially decoding for us today exactly what Epicurus was up to, and I think he's right that this is something that is very underappreciated about Epicurus. It explains not only his physics approach, but it also puts into context the justification for his reasoning in ethics, in taking such positions as "there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain" which is the keystone of the entire pleasure / pain analysis. It's easy for opponents from Cicero to today to argue that this either/or approach is gross oversimplification, but it's very similar to the logic-based reasoning by which we categorize everything as either matter or void. Just like Sedley is saying, that the theory has to be able to explain what we see, but not every minute step along the way, we don't have to worry about the details of atoms forming brains any more than we need to worry about the details of fitting every experience of life into the pleasure/pain framework. We can be confident that no matter what the development of science eventually tells us the detailed mechanism actually is, the detailed mechanism will fit within our global theory of how things should be categorized. If it exists and can affect us, it is "material," no matter what we choose to call the details of the "matter." If it's not painful then it is pleasurable, no matter what we choose to call the details of the particular pleasurable experience.

I read Tim O'keefe's perspective as attempting to go further than is possible in looking for detailed explanation. That's why I say that we have to be careful that we don't make the mistake of looking for "the perfect" by focusing on a perfect explanation of exactly how things work and being disappointed when we can't find it. All we need is a "good" explanation of the big picture, and that good explanation is that while we don't know exactly how the atoms do it, we are confident that that atoms do it naturally and without supernatural control. By all means we should always look for more information, because that will improve our quality of life in any number of ways. but we should not get confused by thinking that we are failures if we aren't disappointed with what we are able to find with the effort available to us.

"Reductionism" is a pretty good term, it seems to me, for those who ignore this issue and argue (as apparently Democritus did or was tempted to do) that only the atoms and void are "truly real." The implication I read in O'Keefe's perspective is that we should not consider reductionism to be a bad word, and I don't see him kicking back aggressively against the implication that reductionism leads exactly to Democritus' conclusion that our level of existence is not truly real. I can understand that he is adopting a more a technical perspective, but to stop there leaves the layman back in the same place as before. Embracing "reductionism" without focusing on its limitations leaves the laymen defenseless and without an understandable theory for having confidence that things are natural rather than supernatural. Graspable lines have to be drawn, and it's exactly the wrong thing to do to leave laymen without a way to understand the dangers of improper views of reductionism no less than determinism or skepticism.

Again, I'm not on a crusade against Tim O'Keefe's work, but I can see a legitimate charge that he's "missing the point" that both David Sedley and Epicurus are trying to make. From a practical perspective we'll never in our lifetimes (and probably many more lifetimes, if ever) have a 100% explanation of every step from atom to human brain, and we have to get comfortable with that fact. No one in history has had that level of knowledge, and we won't either, but that didn't mean that the ancient Epicureans had to admit the possibility of supernatural explanation any more than we do.

I forget whether it was DeWitt or Sedley or both who make the comment that "intellectuals" are not put off by the implications of determinism, and the same goes for reductionism / skepticism. Intellectuals revel in "what if" games that have no end.

So those who wish to can save this post and use it against me in the future, but I don't think Epicurus was concerned about playing to intellectuals, and I don't think we should be either. Our concern should be for ourselves and our families and friends, very few of whom are professional intellectuals who revel in the doubt and uncertainty of radical skepticism and determinism and atomic (or material) reductionism.

To the contrary, most normal people see these views as a total cop-out on the necessity of making important decisions in their own lives. I don't see Epicurus' response to the dialecticians or the determinists or the skeptics as anti-intellectual at all. In fact, given the conclusions of the philosophy , Epicurus was more intellectual than any of the rest, because he took into account the outcome rather than all the often insignificant details that surround it.

No doubt I've rambled and repeated myself but I do think this is a fascinating topic on which to get a handle. And it's on my mind because it's basically the subject of the podcast tomorrow .:-)

I find this highly interesting and worth discussing, especially this:

The most influential is David Sedley’s thesis that for Epicurus the self is an emergent phenomenon that acquires a power of volition that transcends the laws that bind atomic motion and can even ‘reach down’ and cause changes at the atomic level. (As Sedley puts it, the self is radically emergent. ......

..... seems to me to be a very understandable and acceptable way of untying the knot of reconciling the two levels (atomic level and "our" level.

It may well be academically true that talking about "eliminative" terminology can bring greater precision to the specialist, but I doubt very much whether the normal person has any need to go that deep. The level at which Sedley is speaking seems to me to be the "practical" level of understanding how "our world" relates to "atoms," and that's the level of practical guidance that most people need.

Focusing specifically on the context that the purpose of this forum is to bring practical Epicurean philosophy to normal people who are not and are never going to be academic specialists, I'm interested in any comments anyone wants to make on that issue.

I'm not trying to be overly critical of Tim O'Keefe, either, because he's an academic writing for academics. Our goal here ought to be always focused on looking for practical constructions that deal with the great majority of a problem.

Not to say that any individuals here should not look for greater precision, but as a "group" we ought to swing for the sweet spot of aiming at the "middle class" that Cicero was complaining about picking up Epicurean philosophy on the crossroads of Rome.

We don't want to let the "perfect" explanation that Tim O'Keefe might be looking for become the proverbial "enemy of the good" -- in this case the good being defined as a practical and beneficial worldview for normal people.

Sedley seems clearly right in his broad strokes that excessive reductionism is akin to excessive skepticism and excessive determinism, and those are almost as much the enemy of Epicurean philosophy as supernatural religion. (And arguably more so, given what Epicurus said in the letter to Menoeceus.)

So if anyone disagrees specifically with where Sedley is coming from I'd definitely like to hear that commentary.

For those who might be lurking, what we're talking about (at least in part) is discussed in O'Keefe's "Epicurus on Freedom," which includes:

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6.3.2. Those Who Think Like David Sedley

Members of another family of interpretation, the ‘anti-reductionist’ interpretation, agree with the ‘traditional’ interpretation that Epicurus is dealing with the ‘traditional’ problem of free will and determinism, and that Epicurus finds this problem vexing because of his Democritean inheritance. 16 However, they think that Epicurus’ main concern is to combat the unacceptable consequences of Democritus’ reductionist atom ism – his contention that, in truth, only atoms and void exist. Epicurus denies that the mind and its powers can be exhaustively explained in terms of the motions of atoms, because doing so would lead to rejecting the reality of emergent psychological properties like volitions. (This supposedly parallels Epicurus’ response to Democritus’ skepticism: Democritus denies the reality of emergent qualities like colors, which leads him to doubt that the senses can be a source of knowledge, whereas Epicurus affirms their reality.) The remains of On Nature 25 that discuss psychological development provide the main textual support for anti-reductionist interpretations. This anti-reductionism is related to Epicurus’ denial of determinism in various ways by different advocates of anti-reductionism. The most influential is David Sedley’s thesis that for Epicurus the self is an emergent phenomenon that acquires a power of volition that transcends the laws that bind atomic motion and can even ‘reach down’ and cause changes at the atomic level. (As Sedley puts it, the self is radically emergent. For this reason, I label Sedley’s view the ‘radical emergence’ interpretation.) Okeefe P 17 …. Proponents of anti-reductionist interpretations include David Sedley (Sedley ( 1983 ) and ( 1988 a); Long and Sedley ( 1987 ) section 20 ); Julia Annas (Annas ( 1992 ) chapter 7 and ( 1993 )); and Philip Mitsis (Mitsis ( 1988 ) chapter 4 ).

And in turn there, O'keefe is talking about Sedley's article "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism," in which Sedley expands on an argument he first developed in "The Hellenistic Philosophers, and which he expanded to include this on page 34, which is at the heart of what Okeefe is objecting to:

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Epicurus' response to this is perhaps the least appreciated aspect of his thought. It was to reject reductionist atomism. Almost uniquely among Greek philosophers he arrived at what is nowadays the unreflective assumption of almost anyone with a smattering of science, that there are truths at the microscopic level of elementary particles, and further very different truths at the phenomenal level; that the former must be· capable of explaining the latter; but that neither level of description has a monopoly of truth. (The truth that sugar is sweet is not straightforwardly reducible to the truth that it has such and
such a molecular structure, even though the latter truth may be required in order to explain the former). By establishing that cognitive scepticism, the direct outcome of reductionist atomism, is self-refuting and untenable in practice, Epicurus justifies his non-reductionist alternative, according to which sensations are true and there are therefore bona fide truths at the phenomenal level accessible through them. The same will apply to the pathe, which Epicurus also held to be veridical. Pleasure, for example, is a direct datum of experience. It is commonly assumed that Epicurus must have equated pleasure with such and such a kind of movement of soul atoms; but although he will have taken it to have some explanation at the atomic level, I know of no evidence that he, any more than most moral philosophers or psychologists, would have held that an adequate analysis of it could be found at that level. Physics are strikingly absent from Epicurus' ethical writings, and it is curious that interpreters are so much readier to import them there than they are when it comes to the moral philosophy of Plato or Aristotle.

Sedley's article was published in 1983.

The OKeefe article Bryan is referring to was published 2001.

O'Keefe's Epicurus on Freedom book was published in 2005.

Yep, and you've also got to know when good enough is good enough vs when the perfect becomes the enemy of the good. I think Sedley has that balance better struck in this case.

At this point I still side with David Sedley's view of the general issue as correct, and that OKeefe is risking muddying the water by introducing the term "eliminative.." But for someone really into the academic fine points probably the distinction makes sense.

My first view though is that Sedley's view covers at least 98% of the issue that is important for most people to know, and that the extra 2% probably isn't worth the effort. Here I am referring to the quote from Sedley's article (Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism) that there are truths at both levels and neither has a monopoly on the full picture.

I think you're referring to an article which I haven't read, and I am going on my review of OKeefe book that we mentioned in the recent podcast on determinism.

So maybe at some point I will find the article and see if it changes my mind.

Don and Bryan that site Elli is linking to looks interesting. Quite possibly we've seen it before but my memory doesn't recall at the moment, just wanted to be sure you saw it -

From Elli Pensa:

First of all, I would like to express my warm congratulations to all Epicurean friends who will participate in this special livestream! Indeed, this will be a great opportunity to clear up many misunderstandings surrounding the name of our beloved philosopher Epicurus.

I would also like to suggest an idea to our friends: as an introduction and just before this special livestream begins, there could be a nice "sound effect", for example, with this paragraph from Epicurus' letter to Menoeceus, which has been reconstructed in the ancient Greek-Attic dialect by Mr. Ioannis Stratakis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO2A01oI_ic

Also, as a conclusion and at the end of the livestream, we could ask our friend Bryan to read a small excerpt from Lucretius' DRN in Latin. In my opinion, it will be like hearing these two great figures, Epicurus and Lucretius, speaking to us live in their own languages!

The presentation by me will indeed be short!

Actually however the reason for the topic was intended to be related to "new year resolutions" -- setting goals for ourselves and similar "ambitions"

Here's a search result which gives some of Cicero's approach to translation that we need to keep in mind in reading his renderings of Epicurean material.

1. Literal versus Sense-for-Sense Translation

In De Optimo Genere Oratorum (14), Cicero famously contrasts verbum pro verbo (word-for-word) translation with his own approach:

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"Nec converti ut interpres, sed ut orator; sententiis isdem et earum formis, tamquam figuris, verbis ad nostram consuetudinem aptis." Translation: "I did not translate as an interpreter but as an orator, preserving the ideas and their forms, as it were, but using language suited to our way of speaking."

Cicero insists that the translator must aim to render the spirit and essence of the text, ensuring that the translation resonates within the linguistic and cultural framework of the target audience. His purpose was not to reproduce the exact wording but to capture the rhetorical force of the original.

2. Adaptation of Greek Philosophical Terms

In Tusculanae Disputationes (Book 1), Cicero demonstrates the challenges of translating complex Greek philosophical terms into Latin. For example, he often struggles with terms like katastematicos (pleasure as a state of rest) and kinetikos (pleasure involving movement). Rather than force awkward direct translations, Cicero invents or adapts Latin terms, such as voluptas and tranquillitas, to approximate the Greek concepts while making them more accessible to Roman readers.

This principle reflects his belief that the translator should create terminology that aligns with the target language's intellectual and cultural framework.

3. Clarity and Accessibility

In De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (Book 1.1), Cicero justifies his translations of Greek philosophical texts by emphasizing his desire to make these works accessible to Roman audiences:

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"Graecos libros Latine vertere non ut interpres, sed ut auctor, ut tamquam aliud ex alia re formarem." Translation: "To translate Greek books into Latin, not as an interpreter but as an author, as though creating something new from the original."

Cicero saw translation as an act of creation, wherein the translator becomes a co-author who molds the source material into a new literary and cultural artifact.

Sometimes people are tempted to deal with conflicting translations of text by throwing up their hands and concluding that no certainty is possible. While that is definitely the right conclusion in some cases (such as texts which are clearly fragmentary or corrupted) it's not at all always true. Many times there are many texts making a similar point in a the different language, and the general point from many statements becomes so clear that you can be very confident what is being said even when a particular text is somewhat corrupted. At some point also the existence of many translators - especially those who are trained academics who compete against each other for accuracy and fluency - begin to converge on a consensus in which you can have confidence. It's necessary for us to have a reasonable approach on what can be trusted to be true and what cannot. To a large extent this is what "canonics" is all about.

If it were true that we had to be proficient in speaking a language ourselves before we could comment on a text, then no one could ever comment on a language that they did not grow up learning themselves. We're all relying on translators. Even when we take the trouble to learn a language ourselves, we're relying on the compiler's of the dictionaries. The compilers of the dictionaries we use today relied on generations of translators who came before themselves. We're all relying on what is essentially "hearsay" evidence - and that really applies to children learning, as well, because they are learning to use words as others tell them the words should be used.

This topic is dealt with in Lucretius and probably other places as well because it is o important. We are always relying to some extent on people more knowledgeable than ourselves.

We therefore need a logical system for approaching language or anything else that we don't already know ourselves. Just like with atoms, which we never see or touch, we have to make logical deductions from what evidence is available to us.

Especially in the case of relying on translations, we have to decide who we trust and who we don't. With translations, it seems to me that the general method is to validate as best we can what we're told by comparing translations against each other and against things we can validate -- perhaps for example against inscriptions where a picture accompanies a word. We never take anything totally on faith, but that means we have to compare translations and observations to see which are consistent and which are not and how everything compares with facts that we can observe ourselves. Ultimately that is as much a test as anything else for what we choose to believe.

I suspect that there's a parallel here with how "code-breakers" unravel encryption - they look for clues in the text and compare the text to experience on frequency of words and the like.

If we can't have some degree of confidence in our conclusions about translations and everything else, then we devolve into radical skeptics.

So I started this thread to discuss whether we can suggest a general approach to deciding what to have confidence in and what not to trust. Obviously the more time we spend trying to learn a language from standard dictionaries, the better off we are likely to be, because we have more points of contact by which we can check a translator's choices against literal text. On the other hand, i gather that it is widely recognized that familiarity with idiomatic terminology means that literal translation can sometimes be laughably off from the real meaning that was intended. Sarcasm and irony and all sorts of literary constructions cause meanings to shift.

Given that we are so heavily reliant on translators and the work of commentators who have come before us, is there any way we can develop a general approach that makes sense and responds to feelings of hopelessness that no conclusions we reach can be reliable?

Happy birthday Julia! Thanks for your many contributions in 2024!

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This would be one instance where I might not give Cicero's proximity in time quite so much credit. I am with DeWitt that Cicero probably had superior "knowledge" of Epicurus, on issues like prolepsis and images, given the proximity in time and probably number of teachers. But something like the name of an addressee of a letter doesn't require philosophic attention, and could more likely be a "slip of the pen" that wouldn't be reviewed so closely. \

But reading the comments above I am very strongly in the middle on what the real answer is and i have no confidence which is the right answer.

Happy new year to all EpicureanFriends. We're closing 2024 with one of our most detailed episodes on one of the most important Epicurean doctrines: "Death Is Nothing To Us." Thanks to all who tuned in this year, and we're looking forward to another strong year here at EpicureanFriends.com.

Would it make sense that Hermarchus was present and would not need a letter, while Idomeneus may have lived somewhere else?

Great catch!