Posts by Cassius

I see I have uncovered a major new problem: Mike and I are time zone incompatible, and he gets going right when I am about to fall asleep! I will see what I can do to fix that, but in the meantime I am afraid I am out for the night. Keep up the posting and I will catch up tomorrow! (And stay away from the Volcano!)

Ha - I am going to make a somewhat embarrassing admission as to the Jackson Barwis material: Even though it is a computer voice, I had the Dialogue on Innate Principles rendered into "ivona voice" format, and linked it from that website to this location on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/JacksonBarwisCollectedWorks

At that location you can listen to a computerized British female voice read the Dialogue, and there is something about the presentation that I find mesmerizing to listen to - it is almost like Shakespeare or some kind of poetry, and to my personal taste it just sounds very compelling. It reminds me somewhat of the way
Frances Wright wrote about Epicurus in "A Few Days In Athens," which i also think was writ
ten in fine literary style even apart from the excellent content.

Ok I forgot I set this page up: https://newepicurean.com/resources/jack…ate-principles/

Probably I will never forget these two paragraphs, particularly the second one:

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.

That last paragraph resonates with me as exactly the way I feel after reading Epicurus explain the nature of things -- I "feel" that his appeal to feeling as the guide is correct, and I think to myself that not all the reasoning in the world could ever explain to me why I take pleasure in the things I take pleasure in, and the way I am repelled away emotionally by the things i find painful. And whatever this faculty or mechanism is, it is at least partly mental, and I don't think it is active only in the area of pleasure and pain.

Great question JLR, and of course I cannot answer it with certainty, but I can tell you the direction i think the answer will be found: anticipations, in the DEWITT model, not the Bailey / Laertius model.

I think DeWitt is clearly correct that anticipations cannot simply result AFTER experience, or else they would never have been called PRE-Conceptions (and for other reasons DeWitt mentions).

I think the physics rules out "universal concepts" as being possible, even from atomic origin. However as DeWitt argues (I think I recall in several places) it is valid to talk about "human nature" as the accumulation of something over large amounts of time, and I think the answer is in following that line of thought.

DeWitt's chapter on anticipations I think is one of his most important contributions.

I will also say personally that I think he occasionally goes too far in calling them innate "ideas." I do not think they constitute innate "ideas" but rather dispositions toward the formation of ideas, not ideas themselves.

I do not expect you to take the time to follow this suggestion, but in my own mind I associate this with a theory that I have seen asserted in a particular place in a particularly engaging way: Jackson Barwis' 1776 work: "Dialogues on Innate Principles" written in response to John Locke's theories (and the "blank slate" argument in general). It seems to me that Barwis is correct in distinguishing innate "principles" from innate "ideas" which is the thrust of that fairly short but very entertaining dialogue.

I am not sure how i came across that but I found it on Archive.org, and set up this website to make it easier to read: https://jacksonbarwis.com Each of his works is very well written, but "Dialogue on Innate Principles" makes an argument that I think Dewitt would have done well to follow. Strip away the obviously superficial references to a creator and religion in Barwis' work and I think the potential parallels to anticipations being an "innate" facility are obvious.

I also relate this in my mind to Thomas Jefferson's observation of a similar type as to there being an innate faculty that does not rest on "knowledge" or "Experience" but on something else, which is again not "divine' but a part of human nature:

Moral Philosophy. I think it lost time to attend lectures on this branch. He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his Nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality, and not the [beautiful], truth, &c., as fanciful writers have imagined. The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, & often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules. In this branch, therefore, read good books, because they will encourage, as well as direct your feelings. The writings of Sterne, particularly, form the best course of morality that ever was written. Besides these, read the books mentioned in the enclosed paper; and, above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, &c. Consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties & increase your worth.

Quote from JLR

This ability to categorize particular things as the “same thing” (horse, human, etc.) seems to point to universal concepts that are difficult to account for as strictly material (atomic) in origin.

So in sum I think your sentence there is very important, but that what you are observing does not point to "universal concepts" but to a human faculty - the faculty of anticipations, which disposes us in the direction you are looking - and gives us the disposition, which not all of us use, to exercise the ability to organize things into relationships, even though there is no divine order, no "essence," and no possibility of truly universal concepts.

Great post Mike.

"Besides, Epicurus is not big on definitions or essences of things."

I think there is a deep point here. Clearly he was not "big on definitions" in the sense of wordy and elaborate logical constructions, but it seems to me, especially in reading Lucretius, that Epicurus was focusing on definition by examples. It strikes me regularly that in Lucretius and I think Epicurus letters too that Epicurus uses the device of giving a lineup of examples each time he wants to identify something, such as when Lucretius first references atoms and immediately says he will call them by different names. Seems to me that this is a conscious form of "definition by example" which would be consistent with the premises of the philosophy being grounded in the senses.

Watch for that especially in Lucretius and I think it begins to jump out at you. They were teaching by pointing to real world examples rather than by setting up word-play definitions.

Thank you for the kind words JLR! Don't feel the need to accumulate the questions unless you prefer it that way. Ask them anytime, together or separately, here or in any specific subforum.

Glad to have you, and thank you for affirming my confidence that DeWitt's contribution to Epicurean studies really does stand out from the pack.

And also, thanks for the reference to the "others" - it's community and participation which make this work and there is no way we could be here without the active support of our moderators and regular users.

Ha! And that reminds me that a common language is no guarantee of understanding anything either, with the well known joke that America and England are two nations divided by a common language!

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Note: interesting history of that quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/03/common/

Quote from elli

for the purpose to give us with clarity what was the classic greek world that inspired the classic roman world.

Yes clarity is the issue! "Eudaemonia" spoken and used by Elli in explaining the benefits of the wisdom of Epicurus is a wonderful and clarifying thing. "Eudaemonia" or "ataraxia" or "aponia" spoken and written by a philosophy professor in a manner used to imply that the concept of the best life can only be understood by a Greek - or more precisely, only understood by a Doctor of Philosophy with a degree from a University -- is a very bad and misleading thing.

A professor who insists that only the original word form is acceptable the modern equivalent of Plato saying "Let no one ignorant of Geometry enter here!"

So I would contend that one need not know a word of Greek to understand Epicurus, or a word of German to understand Nietzsche, or a word of French to understand Gassendi, or a word of English to understand Jefferson. It certainly helps, though, to make sure that we aren't being misled by the translators and commentators!

But of course, I will definitely admit that if we never learn Greek we will never be able to speak with the gods, even if we could reach them in the intermundia!

The plan is to do the whole book cover to cover, even knowing what a huge project that will be.

I'd like to do more podcasts in addition to this one, but going through cover to cover gives a unifying thread from episode to episode. No doubt some episodes will be longer and shorter than others, and no doubt also as the discussion gets really technical we'll spend as much time talking about the methodology and the context as we will the details of the passage.

To me the methodology of the book is what is so important, so we can hit on that week after week after week and never run out of material as to how to apply that methodology.

I agree with Elli and will go further. There was never any need, nor is there any need now, to use the word "eudaimonia" in English discussion of philosophy, whether Aristotelian, Epicurean or any other kind, because the word is just the original Greek word for "good spirits," as stated in wikipedia:

Etymologically, it consists of the words "eu" ("good") and "daimōn" ("spirit"). It is a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and political philosophy, along with the terms "aretē", most often translated as "virtue" or "excellence", and "phronesis", often translated as "practical or ethical wisdom"

Extending the prior recent comments about there being no bright line distinctions between men and other higher animals, there are no bright-line distinctions between Greeks and other humans. No matter how high a regard I may hold for Epicurus, he was a human being just like us, and he spoke an ordinary language just like all of us do, and unless and until he (or Aristotle or some other philosopher) specifically designated a technical term as having a technical meaning, we should presume that a word he used had the ordinary meaning and significance that it had to ordinary people. And so far as I am aware they did not - it is just a "catch-all" term that euphemistically describes what people regard as a good life, but that statement in itself "a good life" tells us nothing whatsoever.

To leave the word untranslated and focus on it as something mysteriously untranslatable - as in this video cited above- is just more woo-woo by philosophy teachers designed to hide the ball and imply that they themselves have access to some kind of esoteric wisdom that normal people who don't speak Greek do not.

And I would say the same about ataraxia and aponia - I would assert that "absence of disturbance" and "absence of pain" contain all the precision that those words have ever meant to convey.

Comments on other slides from the Aristotle / Eudaemonia presentation:

(1) (1:50 in the presentation) I think this one is significant because the implication, which is pretty much express, is that "first principles" are a source of knowledge. The lecturer is implying that E=mc2 is a "first principle" which is an independent source of knowledge separate and apart from observation. I believe that Epicurus would dispute this, and contend that E=mc2 is derived from observation, and is not itself an independent source of knowledge. The contention that "first principles" which are implied to be arising from logic alone, or from god, or from nature through reason alone, is something that Epicurus rejected and presumably for that reason removed "reason" from the canon of truth, leaving only the senses, anticipations, and feelings, which are direct contacts with reality and thus the ultimate source of everything that we believe to be true.

(2) This "middle ground" / golden mean wordplay by Aristotle is so superficial as to hardly need discussion. There is no basis for this categorization whatsoever other than Aristotle's personal assertions.

(3) For Aristotle, eudaemonia has nothing to do with pleasure, but is the sum of intellectual virtues + virtue of character. WHY, Aristotle, WHY would we care about these if they did not bring pleasure?????

(4) More groundless "moderation" wordplay, allegedly tied to "reason," by which we are to recognize "good" and "bad" behavior! All totally groundless. Why would be concerned about any of this gymnastics if it did not bring pleasure?

In sum: Epicurus would say that good and bad, right and wrong, are contentless abstractions that are meaningless apart from a particular context, and that context does not come through REASON, but through the feelings of pleasure and pain, which alone tell us what to choose and to avoid so as to make life worth living. It is as ridiculous to say that life gains meaning through reason as it would be to say that life gains meaning through "the English language' or "through the German language" or "the Spanish language" or through hammers or screwdrivers or yardsticks - or "friendship." All of those are nothing more than tools for the achievement of pleasure.

Elli correct me if I am wrong but you are discussing the general Greek background meaning of the word correct? In specific philosophies my observation is that eudaemonia as a term is most frequently associated today with Aristotle rather than Epicurus, and the Aristotelian definition is generally considered to be that stated in the graphic below.

I note that in the opening of that video the lecturer says that the argument against pleasure (he says bodily pleasure) is that it is not "peculiarly associated with human beings" and that a life of pleasure is fit only for "cattle."

That's the Ciceronian argument cited above - as if that were a reason to deny pleasure the guideship of life, simply because that's what all other living things do!

and so then of course what separates us from other animals according the video/Aristotle? REASON!

Thus pleasure is displaced as the goal to be replaced with "reason."

And thus we have the ambiguity and the dispute about the meaning of the word "happiness" which means one thing to an Aristotelian and something entirely different to an Epicurean:

"Pleasure is how we EXPERIENCE the good. Pain is how we EXPERIENCE evil."

Does that formulation not imply that good and evil exist even if we do not experience it? I think that is likely untenable in Epicurean theory.

Quote from Oscar

I don't know that we have only two feelings, there's also a feeling of indifference -- unless one thinks indifference as not being a feeling at all?

I think that that is one of the basic premises of Epicurean analysis, established in both the letter to Herodotus and in Diogenes Laertius, and that if this principle is not accepted then we're outside the bounds of Epicurean argument. That is an argument that needs to be addressed but I will personally have to postpone it until later. Suffice it to say for the moment that I think it is reasonable to state that any feeling which we can experience, if we experience it, is either going to be felt as desirable or undesirable, and that that is what is meant by pleasure and pain.

Hiram made the comment earlier today that it might be hard to explain to someone in the Phillipines facing a volcano that pleasure should be their concern.

How much harder would it be to explain to someone that they needed to lead an armed charge into an enemy line, or to order their own child to be killed for disobeying orders in that fight, all for the sake of pleasure? But that is exactly what Torquatus the Epicurean gave us as our example, and he is not ultimately arguing for absence of pain, but for pleasure, obtained by temporarily choosing to endure pain:

This being the theory I hold, why need I be afraid of not being able to reconcile it with the case of the Torquati my ancestors? Your references to them just now were historically correct, and also showed your kind and friendly feeling towards myself; but the same I am not to be bribed by your flattery of my family, and you will not find me a less resolute opponent. Tell me, pray, what explanation do you put upon their actions? Do you really believe that they charged an armed enemy, or treated their children, their own flesh and blood, so cruelly, without a thought for their own interest or advantage? Why, even wild animals do not act in that way; they do not run amok so blindly that we cannot discern any purpose in their movements and their onslaughts.

Can you then suppose that those heroic men performed their famous deeds without any motive at all? What their motive was, I will consider later on: for the present I will confidently assert, that if they had a motive for those undoubtedly glorious exploits, that motive was not a love of virtue in and for itself.—He wrested the necklet from his foe.—Yes, and saved himself from death. But he braved great danger.—Yes, before the eyes of an army.—What did he get by it?—Honor and esteem, the strongest guarantees of security in life.—He sentenced his own son to death.—If from no motive, I am sorry to be the descendant of anyone so savage and inhuman; but if his purpose was by inflicting pain upon himself to establish his authority as a commander, and to tighten the reins of discipline during a very serious war by holding over his army the fear of punishment, then his action aimed at ensuring the safety of his fellow citizens, upon which he knew his own depended.

And this is a principle of wide application. People of your school, and especially yourself, who are so diligent a student of history, have found a favourite field for the display of your eloquence in recalling the stories of brave and famous men of old, and in praising their actions, not on utilitarian grounds, but on account of the splendor of abstract moral worth. But all of this falls to the ground if the principle of selection that I have just mentioned be established,—the principle of forgoing pleasures for the purpose of getting greater pleasures, and enduring, pains for the sake of escaping greater pains.

"For now, the main point for philosophical discussion is that pleasure is a feeling, and happiness would be desirable because it is a type of pleasurable feeling, otherwise happiness would not be desirable."

To extend this further, it clearly incorrect to say "happiness is not a subset of pleasure, but happiness is desirable in and of itself," because that would create the logical dilemma of there being something other than pleasure which is desirable. That conclusion cannot be true because it is ruled out by the foundational premise that Nature gives us only two feelings by which to choose and avoid, pleasure and pain, of which only the feeling of pleasure is desirable in and of itself.

To say that happiness is not pleasure but is desirable in and of itself would be no different than making that claim about wisdom or friendship or courage or prudence or anything else. All of those are desirable only because (and if) they bring pleasure.

There is no doubt here but that we are working with logical constructions, and that we have to deal with all the hazards that that entails. Some might say that we are playing word games. But that is where DeWitt's observation that Epicurus is the ultimate anti-Platonist comes into play. We can choose to ignore the Platonist logicians and tell them just to go jump in a lake, or we can beat them at their own game and show them that logic can be used to identify accurately the goal of life (as opposed to gods, or virtue, ideals, or rationality itself). It seems to me that since he was teacher in Athens surrounded by logicians of all stripes, Epicurus felt it prudent to equip his students with logical arguments with which to fight off the Platonists. And that reasoning seems to me to be compelling today, since so many people find so many reasons to shrink back from the word "pleasure."

So this appears to be the path in which Epicurus used logic to establish that the feeling of pleasure, rather than an abstraction such as Aristotle tried to do with "happiness/eudaimonia," is the correct answer and antidote to gods/virtue/idealism/rationalism.

You haven't derailed the thread yet as you are the first post Your goal seems excellent to me and that would surely be helpful if it is doable. I do much the same in citing Thomas Jefferson and Frances Wright, who specifically cited and endorsed Epicurus.

As I just added in point 8 in my list above, it seems to me that it is a telltale sign as to whether the writer specifically embraces the word "pleasure" and also specifically mentions Epicurus himself as uniquely the leader on this issue. Absent either one of these attributes I would be reluctant to call the writer "Epicurean," as clearly the Epicureans of the ancient world did both.

Quote from Oscar

Can you clarify the difference between happiness and pleasure.

That is exactly the point under discussion and it is not easy. What is clear is that (1) Epicurus stated that "pleasure" (using hedone or other Greek words) is the goal, not "happiness" (eudaimonia). Perhaps we should ask the Greeks what the difference is For now, the main point for philosophical discussion is that pleasure is a feeling, and happiness would be desirable because it is a type of pleasurable feeling, otherwise happiness would not be desirable. I do not think it would be appropriate to do the reverse, and describe pleasure as a type of happiness feeling. Nor would it be appropriate to attempt to define happiness as an abstraction which is the single goal of everyone's life, as Aristotle tried to do by defining precise requirements for happiness. Nature gave us only feelings to help us determine how to choose and to avoid, and did not define particular goals or give faculties other than pleasure and pain.

Quote from Oscar

It seems a lot of people are seeking happiness, how would you convince them that happiness is not the goal of life, that pleasure is the ultimate goal/chief good in life?

Same answer as above, for the moment: Pleasure is a feeling, and happiness would be desirable because it is a type of pleasurable feeling, otherwise happiness would not be desirable. I do not think it would be appropriate to do the reverse, and describe pleasure as a type of happiness feeling. Nor would it be appropriate to attempt to define happiness as an abstraction which is the single goal of everyone's life, as Aristotle tried to do by defining precise requirements for happiness.

Nature gave us only feelings to help us determine how to choose and to avoid, and did not define particular goals or give faculties other than pleasure and pain.

Quote from Oscar

actually, on second thought, a rocking chair can probably induce ataraxia, no need to wait

That's mostly a joke more than a precise philosophical statement but I "liked" it anyway Jokes are good!

Quote from Mike Anyayahan

In other words, pleasure and happiness are not the same thing while pleasure and the absence of pain are two different states as well.

I agree that these words are not describing identical things. Whether one or more of them is a "state" however may be a different question

Quote from Oscar

I don't view life along a spectrum or continuum and I caution anyone against that notion, because such notions impeded the development of biology for millennia; formally known as the chain of being.

Maybe it would be helpful to explain that statement. All I meant by being on a spectrum is the lack of a bright line difference that distinguishes them into some kind of ideal categories, so I presume you are making another point(?)

Quote from Oscar

We humans are animals (apparently this truth makes Texans especially uncomfortable). But it's also true that we humans are unique, in many respects, relative to the rest of life -- for the better and for the worse!

I was thinking about this very point earlier today. Once again I think precision is key. If by "unique" would be meant some kind of bright dividing line by which humans are of a different essential nature, or that humans have some kind of divine spark that ants (for example) do not, then I think that would be incorrect. I think the proper view would be that life exists on a spectrum, with humans occupying the most sophisticated intellectual role that we are currently aware of, but that there is no chasm/bright line/ difference in nature between humans and higher animals, all of which are on the same spectrum of "life." What do you think of that way of phrasing it?

The idea that humans are of some kind of unique higher nature that makes it cosmically special is inherent in Cicero's argument, and I think that argument must be held to fail.

Quote from Hiram

If we dismiss ataraxia without discussing what it is and what its role is, that does not serve the teaching mission.

I agree that we cannot dismiss ataraxia and leave it alone, because 98% of people studying Epicurus are confusing it for the end, and we must disabuse them of that notion if they are to understand that the goal is pleasure and not something else.

Quote from Hiram

To dismiss ataraxia is to impede our teaching from being contextualized and lived.

I would say this differently, and would say that "ataraxia as it is generally understood" is what impedes teaching Epicurus correctly as properly contextualized and lived.

Quote from Hiram

You can't live pleasantly if you don't study nature enough to understand that this is unnecessary. So ataraxia, the demeanor and disposition of someone who is without apprehensions about natural phenomena

This is an example of the problem. You are talking about ataraxia as if it is somehow outside the framework of pleasure as the goal. It is INSIDE the framework, and pleasure is not a threat to ataraxia properly understood. By backing away from pleasure you are implying that the framework is not solid and needs reworking.