Posts by Cassius

And i gather that this is why Dewitt referred to the mind as a "supersensory organ"

Well I am not sure I can go much further! I think we're seeing that Epicurus's response to issues of "skepticism" and "knowledge"" was to focus on what those words meant and define as clearly as possible what it means to be "true" and "real" -- with the result that the rigorous conclusion is that "truth" for is what is or could be revealed to us through the canonical faculties. Asking for more than that --- asking for "certainty" -- implies a standard of proof that is impossible for a human being and is not even relevant to a human being in any way.

Within that kind of framework, what is "true" is what can be ascertained through the canonical faculties, and nothing else is or can be "true" or "real" to us.

As DeWitt says, Epicurus needed a standard of truth in the realm of relationships or abstractions - we need to go back and get his exact words - but I think that the problem arises when we say that the anticipations are standards of truth in the realm of "ideas." IDEAS are fully-formed concepts, and fully-formed concepts necessarily involved opinion and serve themselves as canonical "truth." Fully-formed ideas / concepts are highly useful and much to be appreciated, but they can never in themselves be considered "universal truths" that rise to the level of them always being true and real to individual humans.

Don in my mind this is where I always fall back to a passage from the 1770's book that I quote from by Jackson Barwis, his book against John Locke's argument against "innate ideas." Barwise defended not innate "ideas" but innate "principles of thinking." The book was entitled "Dialogue on Innate Principles." In that book (primarily chapter one of that book) Barwis argues that there is a huge distinction between innate IDEAS vs innate PRINCIPLES. Barwis argues that Locke and others are wrong to assert that there are innate *ideas*, but that there certainly are innate *principles of functioning* that go into ideas.

Here is the important section. Underlining is my emphasis Barwis is talking about innate "moral" principles here, but I think the point applies more widely to the issue of how "principles" are different from "ideas." I think the faculty of anticipations is dealing with the "principles' as discussed below, not with "ideas." We are not born with innate ideas, but we are born with a faculty that processes information in certain ways (according to certain principles):

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When I take a general view of the arguments adduced by Mr. Locke against innate moral principles; and when I see what he produces, as the most indisputable innate principles, “if any be so," I am inclined to think there must have been some very great mistake as to the true nature of the things in question: for he lays down certain propositions, (no matter whether moral or scientific, so they be but true) and then proves that such propositions, considered merely as propositions, formed by our rational faculty, after due consideration of things, as all true propositions must be, are not innate. Nothing more obvious! But surely those whom he opposes, must, or ought to have meant, (though I cannot say I have read their arguments, nor do I mean to answer for anyone but myself) not that the propositions themselves were innate, but, that the conscious internal sentiments, on which such moral propositions are founded, were innate.

He looked on me, interrogatively. I said it might be so, and that I saw a great difference in those things.

Or perhaps, continued he, the mistake may have arisen from following too closely the mode, in which it is necessary to proceed, in order to acquire a knowledge of certain sciences, as in geometry: that is, by laying down some clear and self-evident axioms, or rational propositions. But even here it should be remembered that, in the natures of things, there were principles which had existence anterior to the formation of these axioms or propositions, and on which they are founded, and on which they depend for their existence: as, extension and solidity.

-- I gave an assenting inclination of the head.

I cannot, therefore, conceive, added he, that what we ought to understand by innate moral principles, can by any means, when fairly explained, be imagined to bear any similitude to such propositions as Mr. Locke advances as bidding fairest to be innate, nor to any other propositions. That is, I cannot conceive that our innate moral principles, our natural sentiments, or internal conscious feelings, (name them how you please) which we derive, and which result, from our very nature as creatures morally relative, are at all like unto any propositions whatever.

Who can discover any similitude to any conscious sentiment of the soul in these strangely irrelative propositions: "Whatever is, is."
"It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be?"

– Nobody. –

The innate principles of the soul, continued he, cannot, any more than those of the body, be propositions. They must be in us antecedently to all our reasonings about them, or they could never be in us at all: for we cannot, by reasoning, create any thing, the principles of which did not exist antecedently. We can, indeed, describe our innate sentiments and perceptions to each other; we can reason, and we can make propositions about them; but our reasonings neither are, nor can create in us, moral principles. They exist prior to, and independently of, all reasoning, and all propositions about them.

When we are told that benevolence is pleasing; that malevolence is painful; we are not convinced of these truths by reasoning, nor by forming them into propositions: but by an appeal to the innate internal affections of our souls: and if on such an appeal, we could not feel within the sentiment of benevolence, and the peculiar pleasure attending it; and that of malevolence and its concomitant pain; not all the reasoning in the world could ever make us sensible of them, or enable us to understand their nature.

...

Even in the abstracted sciences of arithmetic and geometry, reason can create no principles in the natures of the things treated of. It can lay down axioms, and draw up propositions concerning numbers, extension, and solidity; but numbers, extension, and solidity, existed prior to any reasoning about them.

And here I must observe that the assent or dissent that we give to propositions in these sciences, which are but little interesting to our nature, is drawn from a source widely different from that which we give to moral propositions. Thus, when we are told that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, and see the demonstration; we say simply, true. That they are equal to three right angles; false. These things being irrelative to morals, they move no conscious sentiment, and do therefore only receive our bare assent or dissent as a mere object of sense; in the same manner as when we say a thing is, or is not, black or white, or round or square; we use our eyes, and are satisfied. But the truth or falsehood of moral propositions must be judged of by another measure; through a more interesting medium: we must apply to our internal sense; our divine monitor and guide within; through which the just and unjust, the right and wrong, the moral beauty and deformity of human minds, and of human actions, can only be perceived. And this internal sense must most undoubtedly be innate, as we have already shown; it could not otherwise have existence in us; we not being able, by reasoning, or by any other means, to give ourselves any new sense, or to create, in our nature, any principle at all. I therefore think Mr. Locke, in speaking of innate moral principles, ought, at least, to have made a difference between propositions relative to morals, and those which have no such relation.

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If you get interested in the entire argument, it is here:.

So the argument that I would make is that there must be some kind of innate mechanism that assembles mental pictures, and that did this mechanism not exist, we would never experience mental pictures in the first place. This mental picture mechanism functions "innately" - pre-rationally, and it can function in ways that we conclude are not "true to all the facts."

An example of that would be in Epicurus's letter to Menoeceus: "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 [pre]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." (This is the Bailey version, and he insists on using "concepts." I inserted the [pre] because everyone else uses anticipations or prolepsis here rather than "concepts." This is why I am so unhappy with Bailey much of the time.)

Quote from Don

Are the epibolē and prolepses two facets of the same faculty? I believe we've discussed elsewhere on the forum the innate nature of the prolepses. The phrase phantastikē epibolē occurs in DL X.50 and 51

I would say almost certainly yes, they are two facets or descriptions of the same faculty. I agree with your comment that this listing of three almost certainly is intended to be a listing of the three legs of the canon. That is why I think there's so much work to do in understanding exactly what "an anticipation" really is. I think an anticipation/prolepsis/mental presentation/mental picture canNOT be a "concept" as we understand the term in logical reasoning, for example as with the concept of "capitalism" or the concept of "socialism" or whatever. Something that is "defined" in terms of "words" necessarily entails opinions about what to include, and therefore cannot be "canonical" or constitute a "mental picture" which is canonical.

But on the other hand a certain number of mental images probably constitutes at least part of the input that is eventually used to form a "concept." So what I am thinking is that these are parallel: the faculty of anticipations must be something like "sight." Sight is a faculty whereby the eyes assemble and process light. The anticipations would be parallel in that the "faculty of anticipations" assembles and processes mental pictures without thinking about them. But no single mental picture is a "concept" any more than a single photon or processing of light is a "sight." Cameras produce images but don't "think" about them. Our brains/minds presumably assemble all these things (input from eyes, ears, feelings, anticipations, etc) through pre-rational processes, and that "pre-rationality" is the essence of what I would think Epicurus would insist is required for a faculty to be described as canonical. If opinion is involved in producing something, then the result cannot be "trusted" or given the same level of authority as any of the three canonical faculties. If we do elevate a concept formed by reasoning to canonical status, then we have a feedback loop, and we have erased the distinction between the canonical faculties and opinions.

Error comes in opinion and the assembling and uses of opinions (the rational process). Whatever anticipations are, I firmly think that Epicurus saw them as "pre-rational," and that would fit a faculty that "automatically" assembles individual mental pictures just like the eyes and the ears assemble light and sounds without "thinking" about them.

What are our takeaways from this?

I would say first and most easily obvious he is saying that we should pay attention to all our faculties and the information that they provide to us (presumably because they are reported honestly and in this sense are "true"). That's probably pretty noncontroversial, except maybe if someone pursues the non-Epicurean reasoning that the senses are never to be trusted and should simply be ignored in favor of pure dialectical reasoning.

The deeper parts include:

(1) That the data from the "mental presentations' / anticipations" and also the feelings of pleasure and pain are entitled to equal consideration with the data from the five senses.

(2) That we should "wait" and hold open as at least potentially "true" all theories which have support from some date from some combination of the three faculties, and

(3) That we should be careful not to select from among the unrefuted possibilities any favorite or pet theory to hold as the only "true" possibility so long as other possibilities remain viable.

All of this is also presumably the foundation of affirming that "truth" comes to us through these three faculties and not from any other way which is NOT based on these three faculties (i.e. divine revelation, totally abstract logic / rationalism)

I would say one of the most continuously difficult parts is that of separating (1) instances of data provided by the "mental presentations/anticipations" from (2) conceptual reasoning, in which concepts are formed after a lot of thought and deliberation and reasoning. I continue to think that if we were to equate "mental presentations/anticipations" with "concepts" we would be confusing two distinct things (the process vs the result) into a single thing (the concept which the result of thinking) and we'd have a feedback loop which would introduce rationalism into the canon and would be why that Epicurus himself only had THREE legs, but the "other Epicureans (in my view mistakenly) came up with four.

Great work Don! Thanks for preparing that!

Yes I think that is an EXCELLENT analogy. I'm trying to generalize the observation so as to get the most meaning out of it possible. Maybe every math / geometry class from grade school on up ought to start on day one with.

"No matter how enthralled you get with this subject, remember: MATH CAN HELP US DESCRIBE REALITY, BUT MATH ITSELF IS NOT REALITY!"

(probably a better way to phrase that but you get the idea)

Quote from Don

"just because something can be shown to have a mathematical probability of happening doesn't mean it has a corresponding possibility in reality."

Yes but I wonder if that is specific enough. Like in the monkey analogy people seem to default to a position that "anything is possible but the possibility may be infinitesimally small." Well, but that's the question, isn't it? is there really ANY possibility of certain things happening, and can't we be pretty confident in saying that some things can never happen, and shouldn't we try to be rigorous in separating the two? If we think about the monkeys that exist in reality, even given an infinite time I would not expect them by nature to be interested in hitting all the keys randomly and persistently enough to come up with a sonnet.

The "anything is possible" cliche is a dangerous one, I'm thinking.

Thanks for posting that Charles!

Don thanks for the link to the wikipedia article. I woke up thinking about the monkeys and the aspect that struck me is that Epicurus might say that reasoning by analogy would include the fact that we can observe monkeys here in earth playing with typewriters and we observe that they are not in fact apt to randomly press all keys. The wikipedia article observed something similar. Changing the paradigm to reference some kind of random letter generator .... changes the hypothetical. I am tempted to say that Epicurus would say that even in an eternity of time a monkey could never be expected to produce even a single work of Shakespeare, and that it is always essential to be very clear as to ones statements so as to avoid overbroad and incorrect implications of infinity and eternality. Even in an infinite and eternal universe there are limits on what we should expect to happen, and *all things* are not possible.

I find this interesting because I don't think it is a small point - I think it's an important one.

Are we inferring that the monkey will learn or reproduce and generate more intelligent offspring? Or is the hypothetical that the same monkey keeps typing on the same typewriter for an infinite time? Does randomness expanded to an ever greater power ever produce something highly complex without there being something in the nature of the process under consideration that creates a tendency toward "organization"?

At this point I am not advocating a position just trying to think it through.

At least in my own mind I relate these questions back to the presumption that the Epicureans thought the universe eternally old into the past as well. Regardless of whether we think that violates modern physics, toward what conclusions would that presumption have led them? That life in the universe has existed eternally too? I personally think that must have been a conclusion of theirs but anyone care to comment?

I would think the common thread in the questions is whether there must be some kind of "disposition" to lead to the formation of life, or to monkeys typing Shakespeare, in order for that to happen.

Must there be something in the nature of certain elements that tends to produce organization?

Tim if you do take any steps at all I hope you will be sure to post them here at the Forum. I think it's highly motivational for people to see others trying, and highly helpful to each other to see what techniques seem to have worked and which do not work so well. After some ten years of watching I've only seen one ongoing "success story" and that is the meetup group in Australia. I attribute that largely to the leadership of one individual, which is much to his credit, but I'm not sure whether other leaders within that community have emerged, or to what extent they have become stronger Epicureans vs just having a good time (which is of course worthwhile in itself).

Tim -- I presume you're talking about the nature of the gods -- check out the opening of chapter 13 - the true piety.

As to the monkeys and Shakespeare, I don't mean to dismiss that question. I am inclined to think that the answer is "no" as I indicated but it would be good to articulate more clearly why not (or why he would) agree that "random" events (which is pretty much the meaning of monkeys on a typewriter) could or could not produce Shakespeare.

It immediately comes to mind that of course we generally think that natural events that are to a point "random" produce life, and life eventually produced humans, and humans eventually produced Shakespeare, and he eventually produced his body of work.

But I don't think that's really the fair way of analyzing the question. The question starts with a typewriter, and a monkey, so that kind of sets some parameters. Would ANY amount of time be sufficient for a monkey sitting in front of a typewriter to produce the work of Shakespeare? No doubt we could talk about the analogy from many different angles but the heart of the question seems to me to be some defined force of randomness eventually producing a highly organized result which would seem couinterintuitive given the starting point.

Any care to argue that such a result is "inevitable" given enough time? There may well be better ways to articulate the question but the I think there are useful lessons to be drawn from analyzing it and considering both the limits of the hypothetical results and how we reach the idea that there are in fact limits (if we do).

Time I moved this into our "Epicureans in Europe" where it might be more easily found by others asking the same question. At the moment I don't have much specific advice but look at the other postings in this thread:

Regional Epicurean Groups and Activities

and THIS thread especially: Live / Local Epicurean Groups, Meetings, and Seminars

Great topics to discuss Tim! I bet Don would agree with me that this is similar to what we're currently discussing here: Stoic Objections to Epicurean Doctrine on Infinity of The Universe

Here is the way I would begin to unwind your statement:

Quote from timrobbe

I think it was Bernard Shaw who stated that given enough time, a monkey would type a copy of Shakespearean works. Eternity would certainly be enought time.

This is almost exactly what Don and I are discussing, and my view is that Epicurus would NOT take this position. Yes over an eternity of time and an infinity of space and innumerable number of things are going to happen, but at the same time Epicurus was very focused on limits and bounds and that "everything" is not possible given simply time and space. That's a very important issue to discuss and I hope others will chime in but for the moment I just want to raise it.

Quote from timrobbe

I understand Epicurus deduced God(s) must exist because atoms and void are both eternal and limitless (leading to PD 1).

No, I do not think that Epicurus deduced that gods must exist because atoms and void are both eternal and limitless -- at least, that is only a relatively small part of the analysis. Important, yes, because it is important to everything, but as to the existence of "Gods" we have a couple of very specific lines of reasoning that are basically along the lines of (1) anticipations, as explained by Velleius in Cicero's "On the Nature of the Gods" and (2) images of the gods, which is referenced in Lucretius. Again here I would refer you to the much longer discussion of this in DeWitt's book. Do you have a copy of that? If not, let me know. But I think the main point is that there is a lot more to the "god" story than the eternal/limitless nature of the universe. I don't think there is anything in Epicurean theory that requires that gods exist purely because the universe is infinite and eternal.

Quote from timrobbe

Given that atoms and the void (and the swerve) are eternal and limitless, it is an almost certainty that after death our atoms once again will eventually form out bodies and minds again.

This argument appears in Lucretius but not in the form of admitting that it is true, but by saying that EVEN IF it were true, it would make no difference to us, since we can't remember past lives. That's not the same as saying that it is an absolute certainty, but I can see how someone could argue that, especially from a Nietzschean "eternal recurrence" perspective.

OK back to Lucretius - this occurs near the end of book three -- here, the HUMPHRIES version:

Death Is nothing to us, has no relevance

To our condition, seeing that the mind

Is mortal. Just as, long ago, we felt

Not the least touch of trouble when the wars

Were raging all around the shaken earth

And from all sides the Carthaginian hordes

Poured forth to battle, and no man ever knew

Whose subject he would be in life or death,

Which doom, by land or sea, would strike him down,

So, when we cease to be, and body and soul,

Which joined to make us one, have gone their ways,

Their separate ways, nothing at all can shake

Our feelings, not if earth were mixed with sea

Or sea with sky. Perhaps the mind or spirit,

After its separation from our body,

Has some sensation; what is that to us?

Nothing at all, for what we knew of being,

Essence, identity, oneness, was derived

From body's union with spirit, so, if time,

After our death, should some day reunite

All of our present particles, bring them back

To where they now reside, give us once more

The light of life, this still would have no meaning

For us, with our self-recollection gone.

As we are now, we lack all memory

Of what we were before, suffer no wound

From those old days. Look back on all that space

Of time's immensity, consider well

What infinite combinations there have been

In matter's ways and groupings. How easy, then,

For human beings to believe we are

Compounded of the very selfsame motes,

Arranged exactly in the selfsame ways

As once we were, our long-ago, our now

Being identical. And yet we keep

No memory of that once-upon-a-time,

Nor can we call it back; somewhere between

A break occurred, and all our atoms went

Wandering here and there and far away

From our sensations. If there lies ahead

Tough luck for any man, he must be there,

Himself, to feel its evil, but since death

Removes this chance, and by injunction stops

All rioting of woes against our state,

We may be reassured that in our death

We have no cause for fear, we cannot be

Wretched in nonexistence. Death alone

Has immortality, and takes away

Our mortal life. It does not matter a bit

If we once lived before.

Another reference, this one from Lucretius Book 2 (Bailey). This is one of the most specific that I remember:

And yet we must not think that all particles can be linked together in all ways, for you would see monsters created everywhere, forms coming to being half man, half beast, and sometimes tall branches growing out from a living body, and many limbs of land-beasts linked with beasts of the sea, and nature too throughout the lands, that are the parents of all things, feeding Chimaeras breathing flame from their noisome mouths. But it is clear to see that none of these things comes to be, since we see that all things are born of fixed seeds and a fixed parent, and can, as they grow, preserve their kind. You may be sure that that must needs come to pass by a fixed law. For its own proper particles separate from every kind of food and pass within into the limbs of everything, and are there linked on and bring about the suitable movements. But, on the other hand, we see nature cast out alien matter on to the ground, and many things with bodies unseen flee from the body, driven by blows, which could not be linked to any part nor within feel the lively motions in harmony with the body and imitate them. But lest by chance you should think that living things alone are bound by these laws, the same condition sets a limit to all things. For even as all things begotten are in their whole nature unlike one to the other, so it must needs be that each is made of first-beginnings of a different shape; not that but a few are endowed with a like form, but that they are not all alike the same one with another. Moreover, since the seeds are different, there must needs be a difference in their spaces, passages, fastenings, weights, blows, meetings, movements, which not only sunder living things, but part earth and the whole sea, and hold all the sky away from the earth.

This is the kind of exploration of this argument that I think is most useful. I agree with you Don that from my quick reading he seems to be alleging that Epicurus held that "all possible options possible, they actually exist in all possible infinite cosmos." This may be the first time we have discussed this here on this forum, but I think I have seen this before and in fact I think it is probably the argument that we'll run into frequently as soon as we seek out and discuss more often the general approach. So I think it will be very good for us to pick this apart and line up the responses, including not just that quote but a series of others that are even more specific that all things cannot combine in all "possible" ways. If I recall correctly too there is a "conceivability" aspect to this as well.

But at any rate, we have to very carefully articulate these issues about how to treat "possibilities." Otherwise this will always be a hurdle that will be thrown in front of us, and I think the best (or at least one of first) responses is simply to hunt out and marshal the sources which say that this is not so.

so it was that the lively force of his mind won its way, and he passed on far beyond the fiery walls of the world, and in mind and spirit traversed the boundless whole; whence in victory he brings us tidings what can come to be and what cannot, yea and in what way each thing has its power limited, and its deepset boundary-stone. And so religion in revenge is cast beneath men’s feet and trampled, and victory raises us to heaven.

OK yes something like that is what I too gather the thesis to be, but I definitely reject that as what Epicurus was saying, and I really don't think its even close as a reasonable construction.

I think it is clear that Epicurus is telling us how to approach issues where evidence is lacking (hold reasonable possibilities as "possible"rather than picking among them when there is insufficient evidence to do so). He is certainly not saying that all things are possible as that is specifically ruled out by the limitations in the way that atoms can combine, and this is stated in several ways in Lucretius and I think other places as well.

So when you say you can't rule out his thesis, what do you see his thesis being?

Because yes this seems valid to be a valid approach to me: "Epicurus does say all the alternatives are possible or permissible or allowed" ... when you qualify that these possibilities have some evidence to support them, even evidence by analogy, and you qualify that the particular alternative does not have evidence against it to disqualify it.

i haven't had time to read the paper yet and probably won't in the near future, so with that caveat I have two preliminary comments:

I suspect you are correct Don and he is distorting the doctrine. Sounds like an extreme variation the "all sensations are true" argument which Dewitt deals with, applied to attack the idea that we should not eliminate possibilities until there is evidence on which to do so.

Also, I think this article and the background probably helps show how the infinite universe argument was not so much a "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" debate as it was an example of logical fencing, originating with the Platonists et al, who were using their logic to persuade others toward a theocentric universe model. Given that playing field the Epicurean position was probably always intended more as an antidote to theism than anything else.

I think we are seeing a thread here that the real crux of many matters is this "methods of inference" question, turning on the question of what is the proper perspective to take when the evidence of our senses seems to us to be insufficient to establish the level of certainty we would prefer.

In such cases do we allow ourselves to follow "logic contrary to some evidence and to the experience here we can refer to by analogy" or do we "wait" and in the meantime accept that multiple possibilities may be true.

If in fact the Epicureans said "are true" rather than "may be true" (and I question that) then this must have been another example of a nonstandard definition of the word "true" just like they used "god" in a way that to us seems nonstandard.

We should not judge the Epicureans according to our own technology or according to our own definitions.