Episode 21 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available.
Hello and welcome to the forum Mathitis Kipouros !
This is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.
Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.
All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.
One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.
In that regard we have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.
- The Biography of Epicurus By Diogenes Laertius (Chapter 10). This includes all Epicurus' letters and the Authorized Doctrines. Supplement with the Vatican list of Sayings.
- "Epicurus And His Philosophy" - Norman DeWitt
- "On The Nature of Things"- Lucretius
- Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
- Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
- The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
- A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
- Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
- Plato's Philebus
- Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
- "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially on katastematic and kinetic pleasure.
It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read.
And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.
Welcome to the forum!
Wow that looks great! I took a quick look at google sites and that looks to be a good resource. Looks easy to use and the results no doubt look great.
They Are Self-Refuting
For this sort of account [Determinism] is self-refuting, and can never prove that everything is of the kind called 'necessitated'; but [the proponent of Determinism] debates this very question on the assumption that his opponent is himself responsible for talking nonsense. And even if he goes on to infinity saying that this action of his is in turn necessitated, always appealing to arguments, he is not reasoning it empirically so long as he goes on imputing to himself the responsibility for having reasoned correctly and to his opponent that for having reasoned incorrectly. But unless he were to stop attributing his action to himself and to pin it on necessity, he would not even be consistent. On the other hand, if [he uses] the word 'necessity' of that which we call our own agency, he is merely changing a name.... [Epicurus On Nature, D.S. translation]
Lastly, if anyone thinks that he knows nothing, he cannot be sure that he knows this, when he confesses that he knows nothing at all. I shall avoid disputing with such a trifler, who perverts all things, and like a tumbler with his head prone to the earth, can go no otherwise than backwards. And yet allow that he knows this, I would ask (since he had nothing before, to lead him into such a knowledge) from whence he had the notion what it was to know, or not to know; what was it that gave him an idea of Truth or Falsehood, and what taught him to distinguish between doubt and certainty? [Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book 4, Daniel Browne edition]
They Are Impossible to Live By In Practice
The first men to give a satisfactory account of causes ... turned a blind eye to themselves ... in order to hold necessity and accident responsible for everything. Indeed, the actual account promoting this view came to grief when it left [them] blind to the fact that in [their] actions [they] were clashing with [their] doctrine; and that if it were not that a certain blindness to the doctrine took hold of them while acting, they would be constantly perplexing themselves; and that wherever the doctrine prevailed, they would be falling into desperate calamities, while wherever it did not they would be filled with conflict because of the contradiction between their actions and their doctrine. [Epicurus On Nature, D.S. translation]
And though reason is not able to assign a cause why an object that is really four-square when near, should appear round when seen at a distance; yet, if we cannot explain this difficulty, it is better to give any solution, even a false one, than to deliver up all Certainty out of our power, to break in upon our first principle of belief, and tear up all foundations upon which our life and security depend. For not only all reason must be overthrown, but life itself must be immediately extinguished, unless you give credit to your senses. These direct you to fly from a precipice and other evils of this sort which are to be avoided, and to pursue what tends to your security. All therefore is nothing more than an empty parade of words that can be offered against the certainty of sense. [Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book 4, Daniel Browne edition]
Yes exactly that is what I was thinking too. Plus I am not sure i realized that it appears to be at the end of a hallway.
I had presumed that maybe these pictures were zoomed in on one section of a much larger mosaic, like we often see when they uncover rooms of old buildings.
All my life I've seen pictures of that guard dog without anyone in the photo, and I never had any idea of what size the mosaic really was. Unless this woman is very small, that guard dog is a lot bigger than I ever suspected!
Looks like a great start!
Moderation comment that hopefully isn't necessary here: Theo raised a general point about use of the word "emergent" that should be addressed. However as a caution as the thread continues, please let's try to keep the discussion focused around the arguments raised by Epicurus and Sedley in the article. A back and forth repetition of the general arguments used in the debate over "free will" won't be as helpful as if we read and discuss the points in the article.
Another aspect of this discussion that IS relevant is the physics observations on the relationship between the eternal properties of the atoms themselves vs the qualities of the bodies which arise from combinations of atoms and void. This is discussed in book one of Lucretius and probably elsewhere too:
[420] All nature therefore, in itself considered, is one of these, is body or is space, in which all things are placed, and from which the various motions of all beings spring. That there is body common sense will show, this as a fundamental truth must be allowed, or there is nothing we can fix as certain in our pursuit of hidden things, by which to find the Truth, or prove it when 'tis found. Then if there were no place or space, we call it void, bodies would have no where to be, nor could they move at all, as we have fully proved to you before.
[431] Besides, there is nothing you can strictly say, “It is neither body nor void,” which you may call a third degree of things distinct from these. For every being must in quantity be more or less; and if it can be touched, though ne'er so small or light, it must be body, and so esteemed; but if it can't be touched, and has not in itself a power to stop the course of other bodies as they pass, this is the void we call an empty space.
[439] Again, whatever is must either act itself, or be by other agents acted on; or must be something in which other bodies must have a place and move; but nothing without body can act, or be acted on; and where can this be done, but in a vacuum or empty space? Therefore, beside what body is or space, no third degree in nature can be found, nothing that ever can affect our sense, or by the power of thought can be conceived. All other things you'll find essential conjuncts, or else the events or accidents of these. I call essential conjunct what's so joined to a thing that it cannot, without fatal violence, be forced or parted from it; is weight to stones, to fire heat, moisture to the Sea, touch to all bodies, and not to be touched essential is to void. But, on the contrary, Bondage, Liberty, Riches, Poverty, War, Concord, or the like, which not affect the nature of the thing, but when they come or go, the thing remains entire; these, as it is fit we should, we call Events.
[460] Time likewise of itself is nothing; our sense collects from things themselves what has been done long since, the thing that present is, and what's to come. For no one, we must own, ever thought of Time distinct from things in motion or at rest.
[465] For when the poets sing of Helen's rape, or of the Trojan State subdued by war, we must not say that these things do exist now in themselves, since Time, irrevocably past, has long since swept away that race of men that were the cause of those events; for every act is either properly the event of things, or of the places where those things are done.
[472] Further, if things were not of matter formed, were there no place or space where things might act, the fire that burned in Paris' heart, blown up by love of Helen's beauty, had never raised the famous contests of a cruel war; nor had the wooden horse set Troy on fire, discharging from his belly in the night the armed Greeks: from whence you plainly see that actions do not of themselves subsist, as bodies do, nor are in nature such as is a void, but rather are more justly called the events of body, and of space, where things are carried on.
TH:
General comment. wrote it before there are two ways to approach free will:
1) brain vs mind. in that case free will is an illusion (because there is no such thing as the "mind")
2) brain vs the world. in that case free will exists because the world is bigger than the brain and each moment the brain must choose a way to function.
Emergence is the invention of atheists to replace god 
Cassius Amicus:
As I understand the use of the term "emergence," Theo, it is simply being used as a placeholder to describe that on our level of function we observe these things to be true, without offering any explanation of the precise mechanism or relationship with the underlying atoms. I believe that to be the point that Sedley is making in the article, drawing on the statements of Epicurus. It's not necessary to use the word "emergence" and I am sure alternatives could be better. But the basic point of the argument in the article is that what is being described is something (the world of our senses) is very real to us in our functioning as humans/animals, and not a fantasy such as the religious arguments for the supernatural.
Another comment: The information in this article has implications far beyond the often-tedious and never-ending arguments about "determinism vs free will." What's really being discussed here is how we can integrate in our minds that we are in fact made up of combinations of atoms and void, without concluding erroneously from that observation that we're no more than dirt. People think that atomism leads to nihilism, and it can definitely be used that way in the wrong hands, but that's not Epicurus. Epicurus observes the workings of the atoms and the void and doesn't end up with a despairing scream, but with an understanding of the reverse, that life is too precious to waste in confusion about the true nature of things and by giving in to fantasies about the way we might *wish* the world would be.
The information contained here could just as well lead to an article entitled "Epicurus' Refutation of Skepticism and Nihilism."
Key terms and categories of the Epicurean argument: "Self-Refuting" and "Untenable in Practice." That's Determinism, That's Skepticism, and that's Nihilism.
[Note: This is such an important topic that I am going to try to preserve some of the most helpful comments here in this thread, even if they are posted elsewhere like this one. ]
Charles: Good to know that Sedley is identifying which brand of determinism that Epicurus is so strongly against, though it wouldn't be too far to include pleasure and desire within that sphere of "atomic billiard balls", in which case it would then serve as a good rebuttal to our pons asinorum problem that's so common with the 18th Century French Epicureans.
Cassius: Charles there is a lot in this article, and I personally have a hard time sorting through all the different "brands of determinism" that are out there. To me, perhaps the key aspect of this article is to observe how Epicurus avoids the "reductionism" that some take as a necessary application or implication of atomism. While everything is ultimately composed of atoms and void, that is not the same as saying that the emergent properties that arise from atoms and void [such as we ourselves] are themselves equivalent in every respect to their constituent atoms. The article contains a lot of details about this perspective which are well worth reading, because this issue applies on so many levels, probably not only skepticism, as referenced in the graphic I include, but to all types of "nihilism."
This is the thread for discussion of the Sedley article on Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism. This is BY FAR the best treatment of this subject I have ever read, and I highly recommend it to everyone who participates in this forum.
David Sedley is an outstanding scholar who is generally very sympathetic to Epicurus, and this article brings together the familiar passages from Lucretius with Sedley's interpretations of Herculaneum fragments from Epicurus' "On Nature." The result is a persuasive picture of the approach Epicurus took to refuting determinism, and how the swerve fits in as a physics observation that allows human agency, without an understanding of the precise mechanism being necessary to the broader logical argument in favor of agency. I highly recommend this article on this important topic to all serious readers of Epicurus.
Key thought: Epicurus' version of atomism was not of the "reductionist" variety.
The article is available here:
Sedley: "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism"
Yes I have seen and like that one too. Is that from the wikipedia page? I agree that one is really creative and well done, I wish we had information on its background.
Hello and welcome to the forum CraigontheCoast !
This is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.
Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.
All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.
One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.
In that regard we have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.
- The Biography of Epicurus By Diogenes Laertius (Chapter 10). This includes all Epicurus' letters and the Authorized Doctrines. Supplement with the Vatican list of Sayings.
- "Epicurus And His Philosophy" - Norman DeWitt
- "On The Nature of Things"- Lucretius
- Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
- Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
- The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
- A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
- Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
- Plato's Philebus
- Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
- "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially on katastematic and kinetic pleasure.
It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read.
And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.
Welcome to the forum!
i wonder if there was any basis for any of those other than artist imagination. The one of Horace looks like a boy - is it likely that any image of him survived the ancient world other than as am adult?
The one of Epicurus is the clearly erroneus "bald" figure that hardly seems like it could be anything other than imagination.
Is the Metrodorus any better?
Apparently artists from this period seemed to think it a cool thing to do to make artwork based on nothing whatsoever and label them as if they were accurate?
That image of Lucian on the Wikipedia page seems to be another example.
Seems to me to be a weird thing to think that such use of imagination was a good idea.
On the same theory Joshua could decide to sketch one of his girlfriends and label it "Leontion"
Hardly seems like a good idea, but maybe I just lack imagination 
THANKS DON! A quick scan is a little disappointing and sounds like a religious apology for Epicurus, but i will read the whole thing ASAP.
it's always good to find "encyclopedia" style articles on Epicurus that can serve as introductions, but most of them have unfortunate huge flaws on major issues, at least from my perspective.
Concerning Epicurus, I have read Bayle's magnificent article in his Historical and Critical
Dictionary and Gassendi's work, De Vita et
Moribus Epicuri. With this equipment, I have become one of the disciples of the master.
OK this is a point we don't want to overlook. We now have access to the thomas stanley translation of Gassendi's work, so that is accessible.
But I have never heard, found or read "Bayle's magnificent article."
We need to go looking for that and presumably it will merit its own thread or subforum.
I remember reading that on one of the pages too somewhere - that NEAPKOY was the engraver, so that's what I am thinking too. Although I sometimes do have doubts whether the images that some say are Epicurus are really him. Some of the images can seem so generic that it's hard (for me) to be sure.
No picture yet but:
https://books.google.com/books?id=M0RAA…0Horace&f=false
I wonder if this was done per the ring:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1914-0228-2525
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