Posts by Cassius

Episode 28 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available:

And later today I will post episode 28 of Lucretius today

Samj these comments are pretty much an ongoing theme for me, but I try not to be TOO heavy-handed, especially when dealing with someone like MFS for whom I have tremendous respect. I am afraid the comments apply more so to the current/younger generation of Epicurean commentators, who I think probably have less excuse than does MFS who is hopefully going to be around a long time, but is getting up in years. I want to see Epicurean philosophy appeal to everyone, especially younger people who can start a new generation of it, and I think that it's important to stress to younger people, most of whom are not naturally stoic, that the "Stoic" interpretation of Epicurus is by no means the only one. And in large part this is also why I stress DeWitt so much, because his approach to teaching Epicurus, in my experience does not lead toward the "stoic" interpretation.

I am going to get today's recording processed as soon as I can too.

Even more directly

Also:

I am making this comment right after the recording, but before producing the show, as a reminder: In this episode we go into a discussion of the Pontius Pilate question "What is truth?" Part of the discussion included the possibility that the Epicurean perspective on "truth" might include that it is a practical issue that may be a matter of prolepsis/anticipation. I hope people will feel particularly free to comment on that aspect and whether they agree or disagree with this part of the podcast. The subject of truth" was not discussed directly in today's text from Lucretius, nor did we prepare beforehand to tackle it, so the discussion was extemporaneous. The topic probably deserves a lot more discussion, both in the podcast and here at the forum, in the future.

I "liked" Elayne's comments and I agree with her conclusions about proper procedure, but I think that I am also aware of my own limitations in studying the details of what Lucretius is presenting, so I don't think I would characterize Lucretius in the way stated there I think someone who was trying to advocate for Lucretius' particular presentation could probably argue that Lucretius *does* ultimately point to observable facts such that he is in the end reasoning in the way that Elayne is advocating.

Trying to resolve any particular point in dispute (as to whether Lucretius goes "too far" on a particular conclusion) would require us to get really specific about exactly what he said on that point, and compare it to what else he said in the remainder of the book, plus whatever other record we have from the Epicurean texts, and that would probably take a Martin Ferguson Smith or some other true "expert" to marshal all the evidence for and against that particular point.

In general, from my personal point of view, the "higher level" conclusions about the nature of the universe, infinity and innumerably, etc, remain very convincing, and I personally take what I understand to be modern theories to be just that - theories - which are in some instances an improvement but probably no more the "final word" than many other theories that have come about in the past.

That's why I am much more comfortable saying in many cases that Lucretius' views "appear to conflict with current theories" before I would say "Lucretius was *wrong*" Of course there are some specific examples where I agree and would say "Lucretius was "wrong" about some specific phenomena, but the closer the issue comes to bigger-picture issues of infinite/boundless universe, life elsewhere in the universe, etc, the more comfortable I am that his views probably remain the most persuasive.

Having said all that I want to come back to the big picture that I think Elayne's stress on proper procedure is correct and that is the take-home point. Whether or not Lucretius's particular statement in a particular passage fits the definition of "wrong" is a much less important question to me.

Yes saw that and thanks for posting the link. I read it and discussed it with a couple of others but we decided not to "promote" it because MFS personally seems to have more of a "minimalism" view of Epicurus than I think I am comfortable with promoting. He's undoubtedly one of the greatest living scholars on Epicurus and certainly on Diogenes of Oinoanda, and of course when he says something it deserves respect.

My concerns relate to the recent ongoing discussion that we have had in the thread primarily started by Don

For example:

Well, yes, and we all know the passage about Epicurus saying that bread and water is basically all he needed to compete with the gods in happiness. And yet I don't think it is correct to say flatly that "godlike happiness" will necessarily be experienced "by those who lvie a simple life, satisfying those desires that are natural and necessary, and eliminating ... those that are unnecessary....

I think we who are deeply read in Epicurus understand the context in which MFS is writing, but is this really clearly enough stated to promote to those who don't understand the contextual nature of these considerations?

Also:

Again, well - yes -- but would Epicurus have had nothing to say about the specific actions that should be taken to guard against contracting the disease, against spreading it, and doing the research necessary to find cures? Would Epicurus just have passively accepted the situation and not considered it to be a challenge to his scientific nature, a challenge to be met with vigorous research and action?

(and that's the analogy i draw to the conversation with Don. I see Epicurus as an ACTIVIST, as a scientific researcher and "crusader" for more pleasure and less pain, and not as the kind of stoic-like personality who is concerned primarily with controlling reactions to things that we resign ourselves to be out of our control.

I hate to make these negative comments and that's why I haven't affirmatively posted about the article. It doubtless contains a lot of good scholarship and I have nothing but respect and appreciation for Martin Ferguson Smith.

But I do see our work here in the forum as a matter of both understanding and getting a more clear picture of what Epicurus really taught, and I am afraid in regard to MFS (at least in this article, I don't know what else he has published lately) I am afraid that his viewpoint represents a consensus that isn't really informed by the DeWitt perspective, and (if I thought it were completely accurate) would be a major turn-off to me in pursuing Epicurus as of more than historical interest.

So as a final word, in terms of how the article relates to the points raised in this thread by Eoghan, I am afraid I think that the article probably is more reflective of the kind of viewpoint that Eoghan is posting against, rather than for.

But this is very good addition to the thread and I hope others will comment on this.

Here is a related thought on this topic. Don please correct me if I am wrong, but speaking for myself, at least, and I bet this applies to you too:

What gives us our confidence or persuades us or attracts us to the viewpoint that the pursuit of science MUST be the correct answer? Or that the pursuit of pleasure as the ultimate goal has to be the right answer?

Even though we are talking about science and philosophy, to me the answer is that it's FEELING, and not "logic" or "rationalism," that ultimately motivates us toward the view that to be correct, Epicurus "had" to have take the position that we intuit can be the only "best" position on these issues.

There's NO WAY that Epicurus would ultimately have been satisfied with a life of bread and water if it were "reasonably" available to him (unless he was compelled to accept it) and NO WAY that Epicurus would turn away from the pursuit of more scientific knowledge if it were "reasonably" available to him either. But the meaning of "reasonably" in this context is not some question of abstract logic, but a question of "reasonable cost" in terms of pain and pleasure. We're not choosing science just for the sake of the abstraction, but because it leads to the most pleasurable life, just like with virtue. All Epicurus was doing was describing science just like he described virtue and everything else, within the global framework of judging it in terms of its instrumentality in the pleasure/pain question.

That's one of the places I generally place "reason" in quotes, or refer to it as "logic" or "abstract reason" or "rationalism" - since it hardly seems "reasonable" from an Epicurean point of view to cut off one of your main faculties of gathering information about the world. I suppose my preferred term of all is "rationalism" but it's always good to come up with new ways of describing the problem.

Quote from Eoghan Gardiner

In this regard we Epicureans have a “friendly” relationship with our healthy emotions (non clinical) even if they are painful.

Yes I completely agree with this characterization and approach, and with what Don said. We do want to experience as much pleasure, and as little pain, as possible, but that doesn't come by "dumbing down" the faculty of feeling but by organizing our physical and mental lives so that we have as many pleasurable experiences / events, and as few painful experiences / events, as possible. If we were ever truly successful in suppressing the faculty of feeling pain we would doubtlessly veer off into disaster, which is pretty much exactly what Stoics do -- by suppressing feeling they deny themselves the only things in life that are worthwhile -- experiences of pleasure.

My sense from reading this is that you are eventually going to come out in the right place in all this once you satisfy yourself by rereading the texts and then go back to the basic fundamentals, which include that the observations that there no "absolute truths" in the universe that apply to everyone everywhere, and you focus on the practical aspects of using the canonical faculties to do the best that you can with any given situation, and especially on what the conclusion is about the "ultimate end" - which is the search for pleasure and avoidance of pain within the context of what is possible to each entity.

I think DeWitt rightly stresses how much Epicurus was devoted to practicality, and how also he was developing a general philosophy that applies to everyone regardless of their capabilities and circumstances, and that as a result he is giving broad guidelines about the nature of things rather than specific advice to specific people (since that differs so much according to circumstance).

Formulations like this would bother me greatly too if I thought they accurately reflected Epicurus:

Quote from Don

Do we go after the "real" cause or surmise a "good enough" cause and wait for someone else to say

But I reject the idea that this is what Epicurus was saying, for the same reason I reject the "absence of pain" interpretation of Epicurus: the goal of life is PLEASURE, which means as much pleasure as possible and is reasonable to us under our circumstances -- we should NEVER simply go for "anesthesia" and waste our lives avoiding pain as the ultimate goal. The reason that science would advance more under an Epicurean regime than any other, in my view, is that science is the lever by which we use our minds to achieve pleasures and avoid pains in ways that would never be possible without that lever.

So in other words, I think your motivation to see Epicurus as a champion of science and opponent of ignorance is the same reason I see Epicurus as a champion of pleasure and a crusader against pain, without there being any real tension between the two sets of goals.

Quote from Don

And once we come up with a satisfactory explanation that dispels terror, we can stop our investigation. Or do I have that wrong?

That's why an Epicurean would never be satisfied with anesthesia, or accepting a "least common denominator" approximation of an explanation in scientific matters when a better one is possible. The reason - to restate it - is that the goal of life is the pursuit of pleasure, and we will never achieve the pleasure that is possible to us if we accept a "good enough to avoid pain" strategy toward living.

To wheel back and cover a specific point, my interpretation of the difference between astronomical issues and issues about atoms appeared to Epicurus to be another issue in practicality: with the stars, we simply have no way to get "up close and personal" to really get our hands on what is going on.

With atoms, on the other hand, we CAN get up close and personal with the bodies that are formed from the atoms, and even though we can't see or touch the atoms themselves, we can (to use an example from the Lucretius covered in Episode 17) see enough around us to conclude that EVERYTHING we can see and touch is divisible, thus we are justified in concluding that atoms never grow large enough for us to touch ourselves, and thus we conclude that there is a limit to their size.

The standard question that seems to me that follows after that is always going to be "Well what about atoms on the other side of the moon, or other places you can't see? How do you know that there aren't super-huge atoms there?" And there I think we have to turn to the arguments in "on Methods of inference" or other fragments that are left to us. I don't recall that the material there is particularly as clear as I would like it to be either, but in referring to the DeLacy commentary (which I recommend probably before even reading the text itself) I think the main issue becomes choosing between inferences based on human senses/anticipations/feelings vs inferences based on dialectical/logical/syllogisms. I gather Epicurus interpreted the conflict as posing a choice between (1) we do the best we can with our human faculties, and (2) we defer to an inhuman form of "logic" which is not tied to reality but which is ultimately mystical even in the way that Plato and Aristotle advocated it.

And I think the final answer therefore involves coming to terms with our limitations as human beings and our willingness to be like all other animals, and to work within the confines of our abilities without being cowed into the submission of priests and other manipulators who are willing to lie to us that they have access to a superior knowledge to which we, due to our lesser status, do not have access. That's a lie, and we avoid it by understanding that in the nature of things no one has such knowledge, nor is it proper for us to think that it can exist.

In case someone jumped over the quote in the first post in this thread, here is the clip of Frances Wright's argument on this topic:

https://archive.org/stream/fewdays…ge/110/mode/2up

Issues to be discussed in this podcast are also being discussed here: References to Epicurus' Attitude Toward The "Place of the Sciences And Liberal Arts"

Issues raised in this podcast are also being discussed here: References to Epicurus' Attitude Toward The "Place of the Sciences And Liberal Arts"

Don's questions are great, and Godfrey's short reply is too. Mine is early in the morning and necessarily going to be short too, but here's a start, focusing on one part of Godfrey's answer:

Quote from Godfrey

But my take is that Epicurus was dealing with theorizing, as he didn't have the technology to verify many of his conclusions.

Epicurus didn't have the technology, and Epicurus (nor any single man) didn't have the time, to put in an unending 24/7 exploration of all of natural science.

And here's the big point:

NOR DO WE! Nor does ANY individual person!

And yet we must live, and yet we need a single overarching perspective which allows us to organize our lives, and not live in fear from moment to moment that we are totally wasting our time because we are not on our knees before god, and not facing eternal damnation in hell, and not hopelessly doomed by "fate," nor blindly needing to follow some ideal form that would condemn us to needing to acknowledge the concept of "a horse" without ever being confident that the large animal with hoofs and mane and tail in front of us is actually a horse.

Before I read these comments I was going to say that I was confident that Epicurus, if he had the opportunity, would strap himself into a spaceship and be among the first to blast himself off into space, because he clearly had that kind of drive to know more so that he could improve his understanding of nature.

But we need to realize that that might NOT in fact be what Epicurus would do, if he were alive today. He might look at the risks and benefits of space travel and decide that as for himself, particularly depending on his health and his age and his likelihood of return, that it was more satisfying for him personally to stay here on earth and, using whatever time and resources were open to him, to improve his philosophy and share it with his friends and gain enjoyment from that while acknowledging that his choice would forever deprive him of personally seeing (for example) the other side of the moon.

Does everyone have to devote themselves to being a physicist in order to make the best use of their lives? Certainly not. But how do we are they have confidence that we are "making the best use of our lives"? These are philosophical issues (questions of epistemology, and ethics, and the study of nature) where we cannot demand "perfect knowledge" before having confidence in our answers, because "perfect knowledge" is NEVER available to ANY of us, nor will it ever be so long as mankind continues to exist.

What we have instead are our canonical faculties - the senses, feelings/affections, and anticipations/preconceptions, and we judge our success at life by how well we use those, just as we judge a dog or a cat by how well they employ their own natures as dogs and cats. We can't / shouldn't hold ourselves as humans to a higher standard than we would hold any other living thing, but that is what is going on when we look for "perfection" and criticize anyone who has confidence in their decisions on how to live life simply because they are consumed with doubt because they don't have "perfect and complete knowledge of everything."

We don't have that, we never will, but we need a philosophy for living now in our current state of less than "perfect" knowledge. That, it appears to me, is the direction Epicurus is pointing.

Yes please post your thoughts Don. When I was editing today I realized that I did a very poor job of digging in to this issue, and that is why in the notes for Episode 28 I am going to go back to the basics of the epistemology before we go further. This is a subject that needs to be very clear so that there is no hint that any advance in science would or could conflict with Epicurean theory - unless that "science" supposedly came up with something supernatural, and that would be unacceptable because it would violate the position that is set by the anticipations that true gods are totally self-sufficient andnot involved in such mundane affairs

This is an example of the "tension" between the observational side and the logical side. I personally differ a little with those who think there is a tension, because I do not believe Epicurus saw it that way, because he would say that his logical positions were ALWAYS tied back to observation. And that is what I should have hit home in Episode 27 - ultimately the issue on the size of the atom being limited in size is tied to OBSERVATION - we have never seen a visible object that is undividable, rather than resting purely on logic.

But then there is the question of "well there are a lot of things we haven't seen" and how do we deal with those questions. Ultimately those are issues which need development through study of Philodemus' "On Methods of Inference" and there is always going to be the "logical" question of whether it makes sense to entertain the idea that the conclusions we derive from observation should ever be suspended just on the "possibility" (which is without observed evidence) that something different "could" exist elsewhere. That is a very thorny question but I am solidly convinced that Epicurus would say that it is NOT logical to accept that observed rules "could" be violated just on pure speculation without a shred of evidence. That may get uncomfortably close to "faith" for some people (and therefore I think we see part of the reason DeWitt was willing to "go there") but ultimately I do think it rests on sound reasoning.

Don it would be very good if you would hammer home questions and observations about this topic as much as you possibly can, for the reasons I mention above. This is something where there should be NO room for a "passivist" or "anesthesia" interpretation of Epicurus!

This is a very important topic where we need to be absolutely clear so that the best people - the people who ARE curious and want to pursue science - are not turned off. It is so ironic that Epicurus, who spent so much of his time studying nature rather than dialectical logic, should be accused of a position of anything less than full scientific inquiry. But that's just one of the ways his arguments are twisted. Yes, in the end, he comes to the conclusion that pleasure is the final and ultimate goal, so therefore even scientific inquiry has to be judged by whether it brings pleasure or pain. But surely for most of us in so many ways it's absolutely clear that it DOES bring pleasure and reduce pain, in so many ways, and so within the scope of the observation that everything is contextual, surely scientific inquiry is probably right up there with "friends" and other high level "instruments" for the achievement of pleasure and reduction of pain.