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ReiWolfWoman tells us:
My background in Epicurus is that I was first exposed to him in an undergrad philosophy class, where we read some of his remaining work and that of Lucretius. Then in an online community where we discuss philosophy and improving quality of life, (as I have some previous exploration in stoicism as well as modern philosophy from childhood onwards). Then I read more of the book attributed to Epicurus and now I'm in the middle of Catherine Wilson’s How to Be an Epicurean.....
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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 most other philosophies, 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 of truth and happy living through pleasure as explained in the principles of Epicurean philosophy.
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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.
"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.
"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."
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
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 the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.
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. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.
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.
(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).
Welcome to the forum!
As to the work of Steve Patterson outside the video, I can save people some time about where he stands:
OK i have watched the video and now I have another way of asking my last question:
What explains the very different reactions to the video between two people who (by virtue of being here at EpicureaFriends) presumably look at basic issues of reality from a somewhat similar perspective?
Maybe that's just another way of asking the same question, or maybe that's more interesting and more useful for forum purposes than the question presented in the video itself.
@Lamar_44 I note Martin's comment and as soon as I have time will watch that myself.
What conclusion do you reach based on that video?
The entire question of imagination and thought experiments definitely has interest for some people. If Zeno wants to imagine infinite divisibility and construct hypotheticals based on it, then in a free world he has a right to do that, and if it gives him pleasure then more power to him.
I see that the video starts out asking whether a series of math statements getting increasingly smaller really "equals" zero, and the obvious answer is that of course it doesn't because you're defining the question in a way that doesn't mean exactly the same thing as zero.
Do such experiments have practical uses? Probably so - math has lots of practical uses.
But if the purpose of thought experiments is to confuse other people and make them doubt practical reality, then that is not just innocent fun and games, but harmful to real people.
Where do you see all this going and what benefits derive from exploring the things that people can imagine without first establishing that what they imagine is real?
LAMAR__44 thank you for your posts in the forum so far. You have asked some good questions that are asked regularly, so I am glad we've had the opportunity to discuss them.
However I note that you have not said much about your own positions or offered much in the way of your own personal agreement or disagreement with Epicurean philosophy.
Can you please elaborate on that?
While asking good questions is helpful, we are not a general philosophy forum, and we do want to make sure our time is being used most productively toward the goals of the site.
Thanks
Presuming first that we are communicating as to "universe" meaning "the all" and not just "our universe" then I'd go back to the very first part of your first post.
Essentially, it argues that the universe could not be eternal, since this would require an infinite past.
I doubt Epicurus would go much past that without stating that "the universe / the all" must be eternal, because it is inconceivable that there was ever a time in which "the all" did not exist. It certainly appear to us that the we exist, and that it makes no sense to consider that there was ever a time that the all did not exist, so I would rule out of hand any supposition (it would require an infinite number of steps to get here and that's not possible) that conflicts with what all appearances tells us does exist.
I'm sure someone here can probably do better than that for an answer but any fundamental logical paradox like that has to be resolved in the end by relying on the apparences (sensations) which in the end are all we have as contact with reality. The mind can image all sorts of constructions that defy reality, but devotion to what nature has given us is why in the end we go with sensations and not with pure logic that ultimately cannot be reconciled with the senses.
Of course "arrangement of atoms" is clearly just a shorthand, and calling something "emergence" is just slapping another label on it. But I am wondering if there are others ways to describe the process that help distinguish it from "randomness"
I think what I am considering is whether it is the best we can do to say that -for example - memory is simply a very precise arrangement of atoms.
Again not implying that it is anything non-natural, but there are many things which clearly CAN be that. I am not sure about memory
Patrikios I wonder if "emergence" is not part of this answer too. I think it's reasonable to say that if we were taking an atomic reductionist point of view that the "atoms" of our current forms could in fact be reunited in exactly their same positions over the course of infinite time and space. In fact I think some here (including Martin and me perhaps) think that that is logically compelled by the infinite universe/eternal time thesis.
And probably that goes far enough to say that that can/will happen, and since we've had an eternity of time and infinity of space already, it already HAS happened an infinite number of times, and yet we don't remember any past lives, and so that settles the question.
But probably as we work on describing what "emergence" really entails, which is more than just identical atoms "arranged" in identical ways, we might be able to add an additional layer of description to the discussion of it. Maybe just additional explanation of what "combination" or 'arrangement" might imply, but still something additional that would give a greater explanatory power to the discussion and explain why simple "rearrangment" through motion might not be enough to reconstitute the memory that you are referring to.
Essentially, it argues that the universe could not be eternal
This point is consistent with Epicurean physics, which teaches that each kósmos is temporary.
And I agree with Eikadistes there Lamar_44. Eikadistes is using what is apparently the current terminology. I use the terminology I grew up with - "universe means everything - the all." As I read it we end up in the same place.
I'm speaking personally here, but I disagree with this on the premise of Karl Popper's delineation between verification versus falsifiability. Verification says that we have to experimentally verify things for statements to be true.
This is a recurring theme of some recent discussions here. Call it a matter of terminology or whatever, but I (and I think Epicurus and those who followed him on canonics did so) maintain that it is ridiculous to assert that before you can "know" something you must have "been there done that yourself."
But, here again, it might be better not to use ancient categories to organize the concepts we derive from modern observations.
And I would say that it also would be better not to let modern observations cause us to lose sight of ancient categories when those categories still serve a useful purpose and those categories are not comprehensively contradicted by those modern observations.
For example I would say that just because the observable universe appears to be expanding, that does not compel us to conclude that the universe as a whole is not infinite in size or eternal in time. Some disagree, but I think those conclusions remain logically persuasive. And if you say "no the universe is neither eternal nor infinite" then the practical result is not "truth," (which the "no" chorus does not advocate for anyway) but the opening of the door to the presumption that 'god' is what existed before the universe (it if came into being at some point) or outside the universe (if the universe is not infinite in size).
Again, not everyone here agrees with my point of view on that, but (1) as far as I can tell that is what Epicurus held, and (2) the position that Epicurus held is of far greater understandability and practical benefit for non-specialists than the unending and unverifiable speculation that many want to substitute in its place.
If someone disagrees with my reading of Epicurus, please be sure to correct me.
Thanks to Eikadistes for an excellent post.
It appears for some reason that this thread was closed in error, as I don't see another one treating the same article by Sedley. It's directly relevant to issues of knowledge and probability so I am bumping it for reference in current discussions.
Sound to me like that's a variation of the Zeno argument that you cannot move or walk across the room because there are infinite steps in between.
Someone else ( Joshua ) probably can state the response better than me, but Epicurus rejects the argument that matter is infinitely divisible so as to make motion impossible, and that presumably would apply to this question as well.
As to conceptualizing infinity that's an excellent question too. I presume part of the answer there is that it would be more difficult to conceptualize an END to space or number of atoms than it would be to conceptualize unlimited amounts of both. That's the argument that is stated at length in Lucretius Book One at 968 in more detail (including the javvelin argument) than is included in the letter the Herodotus.
Again as with your other question I think you're touching on something where we have at least some relevant information in Philodemus' "On Signs," this time under the heading of "inconceivability."
Perhaps it’s that we wouldn’t feel a continuation of existence like we do now,
Perhaps Tau Phi's post mentions this (haven't read it yet) but your specific question is addressed by Lucretius. His answer is as you indicate, that our exact atoms could reassemble in the future, but that we would have no memory of it so it would not be us in actuality.
I think your question of why the memory would not reassemble is also a good one, but as I understand Lucretius his answer is that we would not expect that because human experience is indeed that we now have no memory of past lives, so we would not expect that past experience to change. That's an issue that bleeds over into Epicurean canonics in general and Phildemus' On Signs in particular, as a question of when we have enough information to infer that we are confident of the answer. I would expect this to be one of those times.
And even if the nature of mind and the power of soul has feeling, after it has been rent asunder from our body, yet it is naught to us, who are made one by the mating and marriage of body and soul. Nor, if time should gather together our substance after our decease and bring it back again as it is now placed, if once more the light of life should be vouchsafed to us, yet, even were that done, it would not concern us at all, when once the remembrance of our former selves were snapped in twain. And even now we care not at all for the selves that we once were, not at all are we touched by any torturing pain for them. For when you look back over all the lapse of immeasurable time that now is gone, and think how manifold are the motions of matter, you could easily believe this too, that these same seeds, whereof we now are made, have often been placed in the same order as they are now; and yet we cannot recall that in our mind’s memory; for in between lies a break in life, and all the motions have wandered everywhere far astray from sense.
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Given that many of our recent discussions have focused on identifying the Epicurean position as to knowledge, and whether "probability" is the best we can do on any topic, I've produced using Claude an initial outline of the analysis of Philodemus made by DeLacy and Sedley. The current result seems to me to accord with my prior reading from both sources, and this outline brings the sources and references together in a much tighter presentation that we've had available before.
Just to be clear, it is a primary goal of EpicureanFriends.com to produce accurate and understandable material to help new people develop a general level of understanding of Epicurus. Even after ten years of online activity, we've previously only scratched the surface of review of this work by Philodemus, despite the fact that it clearly and firmly addresses one of the most controversial aspects of Epicurean philosophy. These are issues we are grappling with now on the Lucretius Today Podcast, and we're going to turn even more directly to them when we finish Academic Questions and move directly to this book.
if you have an absolutist rejection of all use of AI in philosophical work, you certainly are under no obligation to read any of all of this document. If, on the other hand, you're in tune with the urgency and desirability of using any tool possible to better understand Epicurean philosophy and explain it to others, then I welcome your review of this summary and your suggestions for improving it. Please post those in the thread linked below.
The full version of the current analysis outline at EpicurusToday.com:
Philodemus - On Methods of Inference - Outline and Analysis
Forum thread for discussion, comments, suggestions:
Robert I have completed my first review of the full Claude summary, and it appears to me to be excellent. For ease of followup I would appreciate further comments on this topic being made over there so we can keep most of the discussion in the Philodemus subsection:
I have asked ClaudaAI to take the DeLacy translation and commentary, as well as Sedley's essay On Signs, and produce a detailed outline and analysis of the work based on those two authorities. After reviewing the result it looks pretty good to me, and extremely useful.
Given it's length and easier presentation in markdown format than here, I'll link it first (where it is easier to read). The full text follows after the link. Given the duplicate effort in maintaining two copies I will probably update the epicurustoday.com version more frequently, so I advise referring to that one. (especially since at the moment the forum version is irritatingly converting some punctuation to smiley faces!)
EDIT -- As of 4/7/26 I have already made significant revisions to the document, and I see that it's not going to be feasible to maintain two copies at least until the revisions begin to slow. Please refer to the version at EpicurusToday.com for the latest version.
What conclusion would you reach if there were such influence?
At this meeting Robertbravely attempted to summarize aspects of Philodemus' "On Methods of Inference / On Signs" as to where Philodemus comes down on whether positions can constitute"knowledge" or rise only to "probability."
If i recall correctly Robert thought that Philodemus came down on the side off "probabiiity." I was not able to confirm or deny that.
At this moment I still can't, and firm positions are going to have to wait until we can devote more time to review of that work.
However I don't want to leave the conversation as is without some degree of followup, so here is what Claude says when I asked it to compare the Delacy commentary and the Sedley commentary with the DeLacy translation. I'm going to pursue this much further but here is the summary. Take it for what it is worth, but I will say that the following makes sense to me given my current state of understanding Epicurus.
IX. SUMMARY OF PHILODEMUS' POSITION
Philodemus defends the following set of claims, which together constitute the Epicurean philosophy of knowledge:
In short, Philodemus' position is a robust empirical foundationalism: the senses give us infallible access to appearances; properly-made inferences from appearances give us genuine, necessary knowledge of the unperceived world. This is neither scepticism (knowledge is impossible) nor rationalism (knowledge requires a priori foundations). It is a demanding empiricism that claims genuine knowledge of atoms, void, and unperceived objects throughout the universe.
