Posts by Cassius

So far we've primarily been referring to anticipations, but of course there is a great deal of text material on idols / images / spectres or whatever term you prefer. It is going to be several weeks before we reach this point in the podcasts, so we have no had occasion to review the details of this as a group, but of course this discussion can hardly even begin before we review the material on images in book four of Lucretius, starting here:

https://archive.org/details/lucretiusepicureanfriendsreferenceeditionversion01/page/n1026/mode/1up (That's page 1027 of the PDF if the link doesn't go to the right place.)

I don't myself rule out at all the possibility that some form of this theory has some validity, but I wouldn't even want to start speculating on what parts or how that validity could occur without going through the details of what was being asserted, how it relates to light and all the issues of waves and energy and particles and gravity and action-at-a-distance that science discusses today, how our sense organs work,, how the brain works, and all sorts of other things.

However, such a review is exactly what a thorough consideration of this part of Epicurean theory would require. I've rarely seen much of this treated in modern commentary at all - it's always dismissed out of hand, but I definitely do not think it should be.

Especially since the discussion of images leads right into the discussion of epistemology about dismissing those who say that no knowledge is possible, we must rely on the senses, etc.

Thanks for assembling that Don!

Ha - even after I finished that last post I have one more thing to add.

It is not lost on me at all that in my opinion the force that destroyed Epicurean philosophy and the rest of the ancient world was "organized religion." Organized religion is clearly a potent and destructive force in the world, and it can't be just ignored, because apparently it does address a deep-seated aspect of human psychology that raises questions in this area in which most people will not accept "I don't know" as an answer. I don't think "agnosticism" can ever be self-sustaining for that reason. I suspect Epicurus thought that probably the majority of people will always require some kind of position to be taken in this department, and no matter how much we might wish otherwise that is likely always to be the case. As a result some kind of organized response is probably required lest Epicurean communities get steamrolled by the opposition. That may sound like another "pragmatic" argument, but if it seems that there's some kind of innate programming that disposes us to address these questions, then it would be irresponsible or foolhardy to fail to address that if you're working toward setting up a cultural reform movement like the Epicureans were in many ways doing.

This is a trite example, but I remember when I was growing up and trying to learn to play tennis that people would constantly make the suggestion that i should get a much practice as possible playing with older and better players, because that's how you learn to improve yourself.

Many of the suggestions of Epicurus about contemplating eternality and infinity and the gods seem to me sort of the same kind of thing - that we make our lives better by regularly visualizing "better" examples of what we would like to be ourselves.

But remember, I am the one who holds open the door to the possibility of ancient astronauts and the whole "Star Trek" kind of universe as possibilities, and in fact probabilities in some form or fashion, but always only of speculative / aspirational value without some direct reason to consider them of personal relevance to me in a particular situation.

Even saying that, I don't discount that what we are discussing can have a very important role in life. I am with Nietzsche in thinking that nihilism and similar kinds of radical "nothing makes any difference" attitudes requires a strong antidote. I don't follow his view that "eternal return" is particularly helpful with that, but if the cultivation of feelings of reverence and awe toward "life" or whatever we conclude makes the most sense, then that would be an important tool to keep in the quiver.

Seems to me that there are several references (for example better to believe in the myths of religion than in hard determinism) that would support the probability that everybody doesn't have the constitution of a Socrates or a Plato to want to go around sparring with words every day, and that type of personality is going to be attracted to different parts of the Epicurean philosophy than are others. I don't think it would ever be permissible to stoop to out and out "noble myths" that are patently false, but there is enough logical foundation (isonomia, eternality, infinity) plus enough raw direct "sensation" (the feelings we are talking about) to provide an important part of an Epicurean culture.

And I do think they were headed toward an Epicurean "culture," or at least that would have been a natural evolution of the school. Honor the founders on the 20th and regular occasions, look upon Epicurus as a father figure who we can almost think of as "godlike," and surround yourself with a community of friends who regularly talk about unanswerable questions about an infinite and eternal universe with no life after death, and you've got a formula for a day-to-day culture in which contemplation of "divinity" would be a natural part.

Edit: I don't want to stop on that note. I never want to underestimate the intelligence of the ancient Epicureans. I really have no clue where the "limit" is of what is possible in terms of what goes on in the universe, so I don't want to sound like every aspect of what I am saying amounts to a pragmatic argument that "it's useful even if it isn't true." I really don't know what "it" is in this context, and I think a close reading of the texts will lead in some very interesting directions.

Quote from Elayne

As to whether a pig could be a god-- IMO we can't say that isn't possible. We would have to establish a standard for rationality and virtue for another species whose minds we can only guess at. We do not propose any absolute virtues, so how would we know how to recognize them in another species?

Here I agree and would say that we still need to be more accurate as to our standard for what is a "god." Did Epicurus himself qualify? If so, how? I don't think we are sure whether that assertion was intended to be figurative or "literal" or what, so there's a lot of room for discussion of what we mean by these words. Where is the dividing line, if there is a dividing line?

OK I have a few minutes to come back to this.

Quote from Susan Hill

These things are real. But if we adopt an epistemology that fundamentally rejects all of these experiences as valid or valuable, and completely rejects them as a means of knowledge of the divine or of connection with the divine, then we are rejecting a very significant proportion of Epicurean doctrine, not to mention human experience. It leaves no room for further exploration, let alone personal spiritual development.

I do not read anyone as saying that we should, or the texts say to, reject any data from any of the three legs of Epicurus' canon. I see everything as a question of verifiability combined with questions that relate to "inference" as discussed in Philodemus. If I read Elayne correctly she is pointing out that there is a tendency to see organization where it does not exist, but that to me simply raises the issue that we need to be especially careful to make sure that our conclusions are well supported.

But there are very deep questions and that is just a superficial comment. It is easy for us to jump to conclusions about what each other are saying. The best way to avoid miscommunication is to be very clear.

I suggest we keep going on the details of the texts, and perhaps even after we have identified enough specific texts and issues, we schedule a special skype call to discuss it.

Hola! I added this to the current announcements:

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I suspect I have found myself alone here in these ambitions, which is awkward. So I really think it would be appropriate for me to wrap it up now and stop forcing my agenda.

Susan thank you for taking the time to write all that! I do not think your statement I quoted is correct. As far as I can tell your quotations from Dewitt are 100% accurate, and though I have less confidence in Sextus Empiricus I think the strong weight of the quotes go in the direction you are headed.

I am less comfortable with "communication" but even that is subject to the ambiguities involved - did the Epicureans really consider Epicurus to be a god? If so, there were certainly humans who communicated with Epicurus, and also those who came after Epicurus has died have an awful lot of info about him as a person.

I see our project as entailing much division of labor and many different specialties, so I for one welcome this.

Is it possible that Voula Tsouna released a paper with her talk or handouts to which we could get access?

Also, do you know more details about a new translation of Epicurean texts? Compiled / translated by whom?

Michele I was only able to check in once on Saturday morning, and when I did I was not able to figure out how to make a connection. Did you (or anyone reading this) get to view it and have any general comments about how it went?

If someone wants to make a suggestion as to how we organize the discussion of these several different issues/threads, feel free. Failing any brilliant suggestions otherwise, I suggest we plow ahead here. Maybe at some point we "pin" a post that consists mostly of links to the various parts of the discussion. - or perhaps a paragaph describing the general reason for the topic, and then within the paragraph we link the terms to the proper threads. This isn't a "wiki" here but that's not a detriment I don't think - we want discussion, not just tons of links, we just need to discussion to be findable and manageable.

I know one thing that is going through my mind, is that we're really at the very tip of the beginning of discussing these issues. Most of the commentators simply don't take the issues seriously and they dismiss them immediately after raising, if they even raise them at all. We've got to be patient and methodical in retracing all the steps.l

As for Don's reference to seeing images as light, yes I think that is a normal reaction. However in the case of smells, at least, I think it's probably pretty clear that the Epicureans held there to be atoms drifting from the object to our nose, and in that case I presume we still think they were correct.

In the case of hearing and sight, however, I am not so sure even what the current science is. I presume that we think sound is the transmissions of vibrations in the intervening atoms between us and the drum, so there's not really any atom from the drum hitting us.

Likewise, with light, is there any atom from the drum impacting our eyes? I'm really not sure what light is and that our current definitions exclude the view that there are particles of some kind (better word than atoms) from the object that come to our eyes.

And I am not really sure whether the issue of whether there are actually particles traveling through space is a bright line difference that would lead to different conclusions.

But as a basic observation, I am recalling that the texts seem to imply or actually state that images arise because particles travel from the surface of the drum to our eyes. Again there's a lot to explore there as I am not sure that there ends up being a big difference whether we think of the thing traveling as "particles" or "waves" or whatever.

Then there's the whole issue of "action at a distance" which probably gets wrapped up into this, and it is my understanding that there's no solid interpretation of that.

If I recall too there's an explicit discussion of magnetism and how that would work which would be relevant to this too.

Quote from Elayne

As far as knowledge requiring 3 legs not in conflict... the feelings give us a different type of information than senses, so I am not sure they could ever conflict with sense knowledge.

RIght -- that would be comparable to the point that the eyes don't contradict the nose, etc. The way I stated the issue there needs to be reworked.

Wow great pictures! I suppose we could compose a list of similar views, and also consider whether to include all of the many amazing space photographs (I presume yes). The feeling is clearly real, and can be spurred by non-living things.

Everybody knows that we have a copy of the Velleius section here, right? https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/index.php?…re-of-the-gods/

We might almost want to number each of these lines and talk about them individually. The section I referred to earlier as fascinating to me is this paragraph below, which has been extensively commented on with the conclusion that it really does say that the endless train of images does stream TOWARD the gods, which would appear to us to make no sense, but which must have an explanation. Either the writer or transmitters are wrong about the direction of the stream, or there is something we are missing about which this might give us a clue:

Quote

Epicurus then, as he not merely discerns abstruse and recondite things with his mind's eye, but handles them as tangible realities, teaches that the substance and nature of the gods is such that, in the first place, it is perceived not by the senses but by the mind, and not materially or individually, like the solid objects which Epicurus in virtue of their substantiality entitles steremnia; but by our perceiving images owing to their similarity and succession, because an endless train of precisely similar images arises from the innumerable atoms and streams towards the gods, our mind with the keenest feelings of pleasure fixes its gaze on these images, and so attains an understanding of the nature of a being both blessed and eternal.

I don't want to commit that I think the text is correct and the stream does go TOWARD them. I just think this is an example of how we need to try to start at the very foundation of what "images" are all about so we can try to reconstruct what they most probably have thought. I always think that trying to reconstruct what they were saying is the essential first step in understanding them, even if we end up disagreeing with the final result.

In this case, it seems the theory entailed that images are always streaming constantly off everything, and that would include both the gods and us and everything in between. So it is certainly possible that the Epicureans were considering the atoms streaming away from us in the big picture, however it seems more likely and more consistent with the other references that the images (atoms) we're talking about were originating with the gods.

And I'll say as I think I said in the podcast we recorded today, that I don't think that our modern understanding of light waves and sound waves really by necessity invalidates their general conclusions. There's a lot of complexity to consider before reaching that conclusion. it's easy for me to imagine as I spin my head around that indeed "something" is headed my direction from all directions all the time, and thus presumably headed outward from me as well.

Just thinking in terms of how to advance the thread, I am not sure that I am really comfortable that we have a precise enough definition of where we want to go. Do we need to further explain what we mean by "reverence" and "awe" such that might take those words out of the realm of relatively ordinary emotions (of pleasure) or are we focusing on "the nature of the gods" and the texts which refer to receiving and benefiting from the images of them?

Quote from Elayne

Because he put so much weight on trusting our senses, it's hard for me to imagine he would propose belief in a prolepsis which violated sense data.

I think this is an essential part of the picture we can't lose sight of. The three legs of the canon are supposed to function together, and while the data received from all is entitled to respect, the opinions/conclusions we accept as "true" have to be tested and conformed to all three. Now sometimes we aren't going to have as much, or as credible, data from some as we have from the others, and so we're constantly concerned about when to "wait" and when to consider an opinion as sufficiently confirmed to act on it or consider it to be confident.

But the reason I single out that quote is that I definitely agree that where we have clear evidence from one leg of the canon that actually contradicts the evidence from another leg, we definitely should not consider such a state to be worthy of considering it to be confirmed. There will be perhaps lots of instances where we have some evidence from some legs that isn't strong enough to be confident of on its own, combined with *no* evidence from the other legs. Then we have to treat the situation in its own context and decide whether we have enough at that point or need to "wait." But where we have some affirmatively contradictory evidence from one of the legs, I presume that at least in most cases that means that we definitely don't have enough evidence to consider the matter settled.

All of which leads to an ad-hoc reasoning process that doesn't allow for magical bright lines, but I think that's just the kind of "reality" that an atomistic universe implies, so it's probably the right position.

EDIT: I suppose we have to go even further and say that there might be *some* evidence that contradicts the rest, like in some kind of sensation trick where we are blindfolded and have to speculate without sight (I am sure some of you can easily come up with an example). But even in those cases, the contradictory evidence is generally temporary, and can be ultimately corrected when we take the blindfold off, or get more data. So I would think in most all cases we can still say that we wouldn't accept a conclusion where there is contradictory evidence that isn't limited in time or scope or in some other way we have evidence of its limitation, by which we can explain the contradiction.

Just so we don't forget the Star Trek analogies, I also want to interject that I have never felt that the Epicurean position of "no supernatural gods" rules out all sorts of other phenoma, whether it's "ESP" or whatever. The test of whether something is real is whether it is real - whether it is testable and verifiable. As I see it, the formula Epicurus was advocating meets the Platonic/Stoic/Etc position at the very highest level -- there is no supernatural power OVER THE UNIVERSE. In that sense it's one of those logical positions, like "the universe has no boundary" that is still controversial today (or at least controversial to people like me who don't want to just defer to the current generation of astrophysicians). But the proof that the UNIVERSE has no gods over it, and it was not created or superintended by such a god, is not a limitation that says that there's nothing between us as humans and the Epicurean gods who have truly reached the "perfect state" that might be a logical construct as much as it is a physical reality.

I say this of course to further cement my Star Trek credentials that I am prepared to accept (and think Epicurus would too) that all sorts of things that are strange to us are possible -- but I demand PROOF of it!.

Quote from Susan Hill

Would it be more helpful if I replied to your objections with quotes from our approved texts?

I think I may have previously commented on this but I strongly think this is the best way to proceed. There are many questions to which the standard answers are not very satisfying, such as "What was Lucretius doing in his opening hymn to Venus in book one?" Was it totally, primarily, secondarily, or not at all a part of his "rimming the cup with honey" just to make a connection with people who followed the standard religion? I think it's important to have a position on that, even though I accept that more than one position is possible among people who are sincerely Epicurean. I don't want to suggest that's the place to start, but any passage gives us something concrete to work with rather than being totally off the cuff.

As one of the primary proponents of the position that the Epicureans meant what they said about their theology, I've never been satisfied with the treatment by the commentators (except for DeWitt, who as Don says can be maddening in his Christianity references) and I do think that this topic deserves extended exploration.

Just to interject this again here for people reading along:

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First of all believe that god is a being immortal and blessed, even as the common idea of a god is engraved on men’s minds, and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness: but believe about him everything that can uphold his blessedness and immortality. For gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision. But they are not such as the many believe them to be: for indeed they do not consistently represent them as they believe them to be. And the impious man is not he who popularly denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many. For the statements of the many about the gods are not conceptions derived from sensation, but false suppositions, according to which the greatest misfortunes befall the wicked and the greatest blessings (the good) by the gift of the gods.

So in that context we have to answer this question:

Quote from Susan Hill

...but you suggested that we are hard-wired for animism in a way that deludes us about the existence or nature of gods, so how could you then accept any kind of prolepsis as conveying true information?