Posts by Cassius

VS43. The love of money, if unjustly gained, is impious, and, if justly gained, is shameful; for it is unseemly to be parsimonious, even with justice on one’s side.

VS40. "The man who says that all things come to pass by necessity cannot criticize one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity: for he admits that this too happens of necessity."

VS39. "He is no friend who is continually asking for help, nor he who never associates help with friendship. For the former barters kindly feeling for a practical return, and the latter destroys the hope of good in the future."

VS38. "He is a little man in all respects who has many good reasons for quitting life."

VS37. Nature is weak toward evil, not toward good: because it is saved by pleasures, but destroyed by pains."

On my first readings of DeWitt's references to the sorites ("heap") argument, I did not know whether to think DeWit was being accurate or exaggerating as to its reputation, but I see that Cicero goes on an on in Academic questions about its "viciousness" and therefore presumably its effectiveness in combating dialectical logic.

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What is there that can be perceived by reason? You say that Dialectics have been discovered, and that that science is, as it were, an arbiter and judge of what is true and false. Of what true and false?—and of true and false on what subject? Will a dialectician be able to judge, in geometry, what is true and false, or in literature, or in music? He knows nothing about those things. In philosophy, then? What is it to him how large the sun is? or what means has he which may enable him to judge what the chief good is? What then will he judge of? Of what combination or disjunction of ideas is accurate,—of what is an ambiguous expression,—of what follows from each fact, or what is inconsistent with it? If the science of dialectics judges of these things, or things like them, it is judging of itself. But it professed more. For to judge of these matters is not sufficient for the resolving of the other numerous and important questions which arise in philosophy. But, since you place so much importance in that art, I would have you to consider whether it was not invented for the express purpose of being used against you. For, at its first opening, it gives an ingenious account of the elements of speaking, and of the manner in which one may come to an understanding of ambiguous expressions, and of the principles of reasoning: then, after a few more things, it comes to the sorites, a very slippery and hazardous topic, and a class of argument which you yourself pronounced to be a vicious one.

### XXIX.

What then, you will say; are we to be blamed for that viciousness? The nature of things has not given us any knowledge of ends, so as to enable us, in any subject whatever, to say how far we can go. Nor is this the case only in respect of the heap of wheat, from which the name is derived, but in no matter whatever where the argument is conducted by minute questions: for instance, if the question be whether a man is rich or poor, illustrious or obscure,—whether things be many or few, great or small, long or short, broad or narrow,—we have no certain answer to give, how much must be added or taken away to make the thing in question either one or the other.

But the sorites is a vicious sort of argument:—crush it, then, if you can, to prevent its being troublesome; for it will be so, if you do not guard against it. We have guarded against it, says he. For Chrysippus's plan is, when he is interrogated step by step (by way of giving an instance), whether there are three, or few, or many, to rest a little before he comes to the “many;” that is to say, to use their own language, ἡσυχάζειν. Rest and welcome, says Carneades; you may even snore, for all I care. But what good does he do? For one follows who will waken you from sleep, and question you in the same manner:—Take the number, after the mention of which you were silent, and if to that number I add one, will there be many? You will again go on, as long as you think fit. Why need I say more? for you admit this, that you cannot in your answers fix the last number which can be classed as “few,” nor the first, which amounts to “many.” And this kind of uncertainty extends so widely, that I do not see any bounds to its progress.

Nothing hurts me, says he; for I, like a skilful driver, will rein in my horses before I come to the end, and all the more if the ground which the horses are approaching is precipitous. And thus, too, says he, I will check myself, and not reply any more to one who addresses me with captious questions. If you have a clear answer to make, and refuse to make it, you are giving yourself airs; if you have not, even you yourself do not perceive it. If you stop, because the question is obscure, I admit that it is so; but you say that you do not proceed as far as what is obscure. You stop, then, where the case is still clear. If then all you do is to hold your tongue, you gain nothing by that. For what does it matter to the man who wishes to catch you, whether he entangles you owing to your silence or to your talking? Suppose, for instance, you were to say, without hesitation, that up to the number nine, is “few,” but were to pause at the tenth; then you would be refusing your assent to what is certain and evident, and yet you will not allow me to do the same with respect to subjects which are obscure.

That art, therefore, does not help you against the sorites; inasmuch as it does not teach a man, who is using either the increasing or diminishing scale, what is the first point, or the last. May I not say that that same art, like Penelope undoing her web, at last undoes all the arguments which have gone before? Is that your fault, or ours? In truth, it is the foundation of dialectics, that whatever is enunciated (and that is what they call ἀξίωμα, which answers to our word effatum,) is either true or false. What, then, is the case? Are these true or false? If you say that you are speaking falsely, and that that is true, you are speaking falsely and telling the truth at the same time. This, forsooth, you say is inexplicable; and that is more odious than our language, when we call things uncomprehended, and not perceived.

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In Academic Questions XXVI, Cicero says that all the challenges against the possibility of knowledge fall into one of four categories about which the schools had split and been arguing for hundreds of years. Over time it would be good to develop some kind of chart explaining these and the Epicurean response to each:

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However, to abridge the controversy, consider, I pray you, within what narrow bounds you are confined. There are four principles which conduct you to the conclusion that there is nothing which can be known, or perceived, or comprehended;—and it is about this that the whole dispute is. The first principle is, that some perceptions are false; the second, that such cannot be perceived; the third, that of perceptions between which there is no difference, it is not possible that some of them can be perceived and that others cannot; the fourth, that there is no true perception proceeding from the senses, to which there is not some other perception opposed which in no respect differs from it, and which cannot be perceived. Now of these four principles, the second and third are admitted by every one. Epicurus does not admit the first, but you, with whom we are now arguing, admit that one too,—the whole contest is about the fourth.

As with last week, let's go down the list of major doctrines we focus on at EpicureanFriends, and discuss the implications of the universe being infinite in size and eternal in time - primarily how they serve to support the Epicurean contention that the universe was not created or ruled over by supernatural forces.

Again as with last week, we'll also tend to questions and other topics that participants would like to discuss.

Please join us if you can. If you're not on our current invitation list, let us know in this thread that you'd like to attend future sessions.

Classical Epicurean Philosophy - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

Voula Tsouna, in her "Ethics of Phildemus," says:

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.... Section V deals with the issue of whether anger is a good or a bad thing. It elaborates Philodemus’
distinction between two kinds of anger, which he calls, respectively, ὀργή (translit. org¯e ) and θυμός (translit. thymos), as well as his contention that the Epicurean sage experiences the former kind of anger (org¯e ) but not the latter.

...

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Epicurus makes the puzzling remark that the wise man is more susceptible than other men to some passions without this impeding his wisdom (D.L. X. 117), and he asserts that the gods feel neither anger nor gratitude (KD 1)—which might imply that lesser beings feel both. According to Philodemus, Epicurus also claims that the wise man will experience thymos; similar statements are found in the writings of Metrodorus and Hermarchus as well (De ir. XLV. 5–15). In general, ‘the Great Men’ appear to have held that some sort of anger is unavoidable,and that some sages are more prone to it than others. However, they evidently did not clarify just what kind of anger is ineradicable or whether the wise man is susceptible to every form of anger. Later Epicureans debate these issues, each group giving a different interpretation of the canonical texts and citing scripture to defend it. The position that Philodemus advocates in On Anger (probably also held by Zeno of Sidon and his school) is one such view: the sage never experiences an unnatural kind of anger, but is liable to feeling a natural kind of anger compatible with moral perfection. Thus, Philodemus can be perceived as striking a wise compromise between the Peripatetics and the Stoics, and also as holding a middle ground between competing Epicurean factions.²²

...

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Since there is false reasoning of some sort induced by the word (sc. org¯e ), we do not make any simple pronouncement (sc. as to whether anger is a fine or an evil thing), but we claim that the emotion itself taken in isolation is an evil because it is painful or close to painful, whereas taken in conjunction with one’s disposition it can even be called a good, as we think. For it results from our understanding of the nature of things and from our holding no false beliefs in the matter of measuring the offences and of punishing the offenders. As a result, in the same way in which we called empty anger (cf. κ[ενὴν ὀρ]γήν: XXXVIII. 1) an evil because it arises from a thoroughly corrupt disposition and brings on countless troubles, we must call natural anger (cf. φυσική[ν]: XXXVIII. 6) not an evil—but, in so far as it is something biting,⁸⁰ [it lasts a very short time].
(XXXVII. 20–XXXVIII. 9)

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[To call anger] a weakness (τὸ ἀσθενές) and then apply it to the wise man, sothat we also make him weak, is no great problem to us, as it is to some thinkers. They, writing against the Κύριαι ∆όξαι, maintained that it was extraordinary that anyone had dared to claim that anger, gratitude and all these sorts of things occur in weakness, since Alexander, the most powerful human being of all, was subject to frequent outbursts of anger and did favours to countless men. However, it is not the weakness opposite to the strong constitution of athletes and kings that the (Epicurean) argument is talking about. It is rather a natural constitution subject to death and pain, of which Alexander and indeed every other human being have their share, and perhaps most of all those who, like him, are called the most
powerful in that other sense of the word.
(XLIII. 14–41)⁹⁵

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We shall tell our opponent that the sage will be profoundly alienated from, and indeed hates, the person who inflicts on him such great [injuries] or will obviously cause him [great] damage in the future—for this is a fitting consequence (ἀκ[όλο]υθον: XLII. 3–4)—but he does not suffer great mental disturbance. [Neither is any] external thing [all that important], since the sage is not even susceptible to great mental disturbance in the presence of great physical pain, let alone in the presence of angry feelings. For [to be in a state of dreadful suffering] derives from folly. So if one is a fool, this suffering can be [inevitable]. Indeed, there are infinite misfortunes both involved in his folly and consequent upon it, into which the wise man, having a completely clear vision of them (θεωρῶν: XLII. 19–20), would never fall.
(XLI. 39–XLII. 20)

Our material this week will start with Cicero discussing anger, and apparently taking the position that the wise man will never be angry.

We'll need to contrast that with what Philodemus has to say as discussed in this thread:

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RE: Philodemus' "On Anger" - General - Texts and Resources

Couple more quotes from the Philodemus text:

From page 41 of the Armstrong book:

37.24–39: “the emotion itself, taken in isolation, is an evil, since it is painful or is analogous to something painful, but if taken in conjunction with one’s disposition, we think that it is something that may even be called a good. For it (anger) results from seeing what the nature of states of affairs is and from not having any false beliefs in our comparative calculations of our losses and in our…

Cassius

April 1, 2022 at 6:00 PM

Welcome to Episode 289 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we continue our series covering Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" from an Epicurean viewpoint.

Today we continue in Part 3, which addresses anger, pity, envy, and other strong emotions. We'll continue reading today with Section IX.

This is to provide a cross-reference to where the sorites argument is discussed in DeWitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy"

DeWitt's References On The Sorites Question - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

I agree Don....

Quote from Don

Cicero seems to equate pathē with ταραχή (tarakhē) "disturbance of mind; dis-ease" which is the opposite of αταραξία (a-taraksia) "lack of disturbance."

Which is not to say that Cicero was wrong as to the general usage of the term, if indeed that is what the other philosophers besides Epicurus were doing. I gather Cicero was correct about that, unless there is some reason in other literature to disbelieve him (?)

Also from Section XII the same issue of knowledge is explained by Cicero:

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Then I replied — Arcesilas, as we understand, directed all his attacks against Zeno, not out of obstinacy or any desire of gaining the victory, as it appears to me, but by reason of the obscurity of those things which had brought Socrates to the confession of ignorance, and even before Socrates, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and nearly all the ancients; who asserted that nothing could be ascertained, or perceived, or known: that the senses of man were narrow, his mind feeble, the course of his life short, and that truth, as Democritus said, was sunk in the deep; that everything depended on opinions and established customs; that nothing was left to truth. They said in short, that everything was enveloped in darkness; therefore Arcesilas asserted that there was nothing which could be known, not even that very piece of knowledge which Socrates had left himself. Thus he thought that everything lay hid in secret, and that there was nothing which could be discerned or understood; for which reasons it was not right for any one to profess or affirm anything, or sanction anything by his assent, but men ought always to restrain their rashness and to keep it in check so as to guard it against every fall.

For rashness would be very remarkable when anything unknown or false was approved of; and nothing could be more discreditable than for a man's assent and approbation to precede his knowledge and perception of a fact. And he used to act consistently with these principles, so as to pass most of his days in arguing against every one's opinion, in order that when equally important reasons were found for both sides of the same question, the judgment might more naturally be suspended, and prevented from giving assent to either.

In this episode and next week as well we are dealing with questions about whether the wise man will experience grief, and whether the strong emotions should be considered to be a disease, topics on which the schools differed, and it's sometimes hard to tell Cicero's own views.

Here in Academic Questions is how Cicero explains the Stoic view (see especially the second paragraph):

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X.

Zeno, then, was not at all a man like Theophrastus, to cut through the sinews of virtue; but, on the other hand, he was one who placed everything which could have any effect in producing a happy life in virtue alone, and who reckoned nothing else a good at all, and who called that honourable which was single in its nature, and the sole and only good. But as for all other things, although they were neither good nor bad, he divided them, calling some according to, and others contrary to nature. There were others which he looked upon as placed between these two classes, and which he called intermediate. Those which were according to nature, he taught his disciples, deserved to be taken, and to be considered worthy of a certain esteem. To those which were contrary to nature, he assigned a contrary character; and those of the intermediate class he left as neutrals, and attributed to them no importance whatever. But of those which he said ought to be taken, he considered some worthy of a higher estimation and others of a less. Those which were worthy of a higher esteem, he called preferred; those which were only worthy of a lower degree, he called rejected. And as he had altered all these things, not so much in fact as in name, so too he defined some actions as intermediate, lying between good deeds and sins, between duty and a violation of duty; — classing things done rightly as good actions, and things done wrongly (that is to say, sins) as bad actions. And several duties, whether discharged or neglected, he considered of an intermediate character, as I have already said. And whereas his predecessors had not placed every virtue in reason, but had said that some virtues were perfected by nature, or by habit, he placed them all in reason; and while they thought that those kinds of virtues which I have mentioned above could be separated, he asserted that that could not be done in any manner, and affirmed that not only the practice of virtue (which was the doctrine of his predecessors), but the very disposition to it, was intrinsically beautiful; and that virtue could not possibly be present to any one without his continually practising it.

And while they did not entirely remove all perturbation of mind from man, (for they admitted that man did by nature grieve, and desire, and fear, and become elated by joy,) but only contracted it, and reduced it to narrow bounds; he maintained that the wise man was wholly free from all these diseases as they might be called. And as the ancients said that those perturbations were natural, and devoid of reason, and placed desire in one part of the mind and reason in another, he did not agree with them either; for he thought that all perturbations were voluntary, and were admitted by the judgment of the opinion, and that a certain unrestrained intemperance was the mother of all of them. And this is nearly what he laid down about morals.

From Cicero's Academic Questions we see the same issue of the flux being too fast to be apprehended by the senses developed:

Quote from Cicero's Academic Questions Part 1

VIII.

The third part of philosophy, which is next in order, being conversant about reason and discussion, was thus handled by both schools. They said that, although it originated in the senses, still the power of judging of the truth was not in the senses. They insisted upon it that intellect was the judge of things. They thought that the only thing deserving of belief, because it alone discerned that which was always simple and uniform, and which perceived its real character. This they call idea, having already received this name from Plato; and we properly entitle it species.

But they thought that all the senses were dull and slow, and that they did not by any means perceive those things which appeared subjected to the senses; which were either so small as to be unable to come under the notice of sense, or so moveable and rapid that none of them was ever one consistent thing, nor even the same thing, because everything was in a continual state of transition and disappearance. And therefore they called all this division of things one resting wholly on opinion. But they thought that science had no existence anywhere except in the notions and reasonings of the mind; on which account they approved of the definitions of things, and employed them on everything which was brought under discussion. The explanation of words also was approved of — that is to say, the explanation of the cause why everything was named as it was; and that they called etymology. Afterwards they used arguments, and, as it were, marks of things, for the proof and conclusion of what they wished to have explained; in which the whole system of dialectics — that is to say, of an oration brought to its conclusion by ratiocination, was handed down. And to this there was added, as a kind of second part, the oratorical power of speaking, which consists in developing a continued discourse, composed in a manner adapted to produce conviction.

With the result that the "intellect" is the judge of things.

Episode 288 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Will The Wise Man Feel Grief Or Other Strong Emotions?"

Yes Dave those are several of the most key references to prolepsis in the major texts. I would say that any good interpretation of prolepsis needs to be reconcilable with them. I don't find that DeWitt's choice of words is always the best, in that he sometimes comes close to calling them innate "ideas," but his list of the examples there is as I understand it correct.

I think it's very relevant to point out that Velleius pretty clearly divides the core attributes of blessedness and imlerishability from any other speculations, diving that from what the mind strives for further:

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We have then a preconception of such a nature that we believe the gods to be blessed and immortal. For nature, which bestowed upon us an idea of the gods themselves, also engraved on our minds the belief that they are eternal and blessed. If this is so, the famous maxim of Epicurus truthfully enunciates that "that which is blessed and eternal can neither know trouble itself nor cause trouble to another, and accordingly cannot feel either anger or favor, since all such things belong only to the weak."

If we sought to attain nothing else beside piety in worshiping the gods and freedom from superstition, what has been said had sufficed; since the exalted nature of the gods, being both eternal and supremely blessed, would receive man's pious worship (for what is highest commands the reverence that is its due); and furthermore all fear of the divine power or divine anger would have been banished (since it is understood that anger and favor alike are excluded from the nature of a being at once blessed and immortal, and that these being eliminated we are menaced by no fears in regard to the powers above). But the mind strives to strengthen this belief by trying to discover the form of god, the mode of his activity, and the operation of his intelligence.

And later on he says:

XVIII. With regard to his form, we are directed partly by nature and partly by reason

"I can't find any arguments that would justify Epicurus' claims..."

To what claims are you referring? I see no claim other than that a god is a totally happy and totally deathless being. And I see examples of some things that are happier than others, and some things that love longer than others, all around me.

Now you may object to happy and death as being concepts, but those concepts arise from real particular examples whether I label them or not.

I would see prolepsis as an ability or disposition to pick out similars from among randomness.