Posts by Cassius

Tyler I would start a classification system that rigidly separates:

(1) Books by declared Epicureans devoted to promoting Epicurean ideas, and

(2) Books by non-Epicureans which contain passing references to Epicurus.

And I would advise you, and think you will make the most productive use of your time, to stick with things that are in category one. And it sounds like the therapy book (and there are going to be a LOT of those) would be in group two. Which is not to say it isn't good to keep a list of them, but the ones to focus on are in group one.

A question from T.W. got me thinking about how to look at the validity of the senses, and for a cite from the texts to make that issue clear. We talk all the time about the issue of how to use the senses, and that an individual sensation can be "wrong to the facts" but still reported "honestly" and from that perspective be "true" ("true" not in the sense of being "accurate" but in the sense of "honest").

The basic point is that some sensations convey information that is distorted by intervening factors, and some sensations convey more detailed information. When we see the tower at a distance, the distance distorts the image, and we think it looks round when it is really square. Distance, fog, and other intervening issues can distort the images before they get to us. As in DeWitt's analogy to a witness in court, the eyes are testifying "truly" according to what they see, but what they see may not be in accord with the actual facts.

But there is a deeper issue: "How do we know that the senses are reliable in general"? Why should we have confidence that we are not living in a simulation? Is there some method of logical proof that will allow us to validate that the senses are reliable?

In a similar way, we can ask how Epicurus could be so sure that there are no supernatural gods. Is it because he has constructed a logical argument, based on "anticipations" or something else, that the "gods" have no supernatural powers? I would say "no" -- I would bet that if Epicurus were here, he would say that he used logical deduction to bolster his conclusion, but that the more fundamental starting point by which he reached the conclusion in the first place was **observation**. As is made clear in both the letter to Herodotus and in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, the starting point of the argument is the observation that nothing comes from nothing, followed closely by the second observation that nothing goes to nothing. it is by chain reasoning that starts at this single point that all of the system is based, and on which all of the system would fall if these points were proved to be incorrect.

So the question is then how do we know that our observations should be believed? Is there a clear reference in the Epicurean texts to establish why the senses, which sometimes produce sensations that are obviously distorted, should be given our confidence? I think here is such a text reference, from Diogenes Laertius, within the following passage:

"Nor is there anything which can refute sensations or convict them of error: one sensation cannot convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid; nor can one sensation refute another which is not kindred but heterogeneous, for the objects which the two senses judge are not the same; nor again can reason refute them, for reason is wholly dependent on sensation; nor can one sense refute another, since we pay equal heed to all. And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of our senses. But seeing and hearing are just as real as feeling pain."

This is the translation at Epicurus.net, and the key sentence is "The reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of the senses."

Hicks in the Loeb edition translates: "And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of our senses."

But there are less clear translations:

Epicurus Reader (Inwood / Gerson): "And the fact of our awareness of sense-perceptions confirms the truth of the sense-perceptions." This one seems circular and almost nonsensical. The fact that we are aware of them is what confirms their truth? I hardly think that makes sense or that Epicurus could have asserted this.

Yonge: "Reality and the evidence of sensation establish the certainty of the senses; ...." Again, circular at best.

Bailey: "Again, the fact of apperception confirms the truth of the sensations." it frequently appears to me that Bailey translates in a way geared to produce a meaning he prefers. Here he uses an obscure word ("apperception") that seems unlikely to have been the style used in the original Greek by a philosopher who was accused of being overly plain.

Comparing all these translations, especially Epicurus.net and Hicks, I suggest this passage means that the fact the reason for our confidence in the senses is that through repeated observations over time, under the same conditions, we receive the same result. It is that repetition over time which is the guarantee that the senses as a faculty are valid and to be trusted.

It is clear Epicurean theory that it is impossible by abstract reason or theoretical logic or by divine revelation or by any other alleged method to "go behind" the senses and ultimately prove them to be worthless. As Epicurus says, each sensation is relayed without opinion, so each sensation is entitled to equal respect as being unbiased. But over time, and through many observations under separate conditions, it is possible to compare them with each other and see that the information they are providing converges toward a single conclusion.

It is therefore our experience that the sugar we taste is sweet under most every condition in which we taste it; that water feels "wet" under most every condition we feel it; that fire feels warm under most ever condition we feel it, etc. which gives us confidence that the senses are to be trusted. Yes we understand that disease can alter our sense of taste or touch, or that temperature can change the consistency of water, and that all sorts of distortions in observation can occur, but it is the reality that over time separate perceptions converge toward a limit, and that a picture emerges that is consistent over time and conditions, on which our confidence must rest.

There's no way to "reason" ourselves to the conclusion that the senses are valid (or invalid) without reliance on the senses themselves as data to consider. Repeated observation is the ultimate basis for confidence in all areas of Epicurean reasoning.

Should we see with our own eyes a series of humans come back to life from the dead at the command of Jesus or his disciples, we would immediately become Christians.

Should we see with our own eyes that dead warriors are rewarded for eternity with some large number of sexually attractive playthings, we would immediately (or most likely) choose to become Islamic activists.

Should we learn in the future through our rockets and telescopes that indeed everything revolves around the earth, we would immediately reevaluate our perspective on religion and start looking for the prime movers or the personal saviors or the Yahwehs who made humanity the center around which all things revolve.

But none of those things have ever been observed by us, nor do we have reason to believe that they will be observed in the future, or that those in the past who made such assertions should be given more credibility our own experiences.

All of this leads to the ultimate point that we should not look for justification for our conclusions in abstract theoretical "logic" or "reason." Logic and reason are tools, and cannot function without our natural faculties of perception. The thing in which to ground our confidence that our conclusions are correct - the guarantee of the reliability of our senses - is the reality of separate perceptions. It is the reality that separate perceptions, which again and again over time, produce the same results under the same circumstances, that is the basis of our confidence that the process of thinking based on factual experience is valid.

So it seems to me that even though this brief passage may be a summary by Diogenes Laertius, and not a direct quote from Epicurus, it probably stands up there with "nothing comes from nothing" and "nothing goes to nothing" in significance for us to remember:

"The reality of separate perceptions guarantees the truth of the senses" or "The reality of separate perceptions is the guarantee of the truth of the senses."

Yes I think that is the source they are talking about. I'm not familiar with it (not since college anway) but yes I think that is the source.

For most of my life I have heard attributed to Thomas Jefferson the phrase "that government governs best which governs least." However after I learned that Thomas Jefferson was so much an admirer of Epicurus, I began to question whether Jefferson would really have made a statement that tends toward an "absolutist" position in stating that one form of government will always be the best.

Turns out the internet has several good pages that point out that there is no documentation that Jefferson ever said that. Here is the page from Monticello.org and here is another from the Foundation for Economic Education.

It looks like the true source of the quote is many years later from either Thoreau or the "United States Magazine and Democratic Review."

Given Jefferson's many Epicurean viewpoints, I don't think he would likely make a statement like this without qualifiers that would stem from the same principles that Epicurus quoted in PD 30 - 40. Whether a government governs a little, or a lot, is going to depend on the circumstances of its people at a particular time and place, and it's not always going to be "least" any more than it's always going to be "most."

There are many fascinating letters and other documents in which Jefferson illustrated that he was an acute student of Epicurus, and I have collected links to many of them here.

Welcome @philknecht ! When you get a chance please let us know something about your background and interest in Epicurus.

Yes I have used HTTrack too and it works well. Possibly the epicurism.info doesn't work because of a problem they introduced when they migrated it from epicurus.info. Maybe the archive.org version of epicurus.info would work better.

Thank you for all this work Tyler. I'll take a look and see if I have any suggestions as soon as I can.

I may be overlooking it but have you downloaded and included Epicurus.net and Epicurism.info? Both of those have lots of good materials.

Also Elayne I have put some significant work lately into updating the FAQ. It still has a long way to go but is much better than just a few weeks ago. I can see that a FAQ would have special interest to people who are totally new to the study, so if you see questions that ought to be added or see any way to make it more helpful to the Meetup initiative let me know.

Elayne all that sounds absolutely outstanding. Of course you have permission to use any materials that you desire from this website - that's what they are here for. Yes I also always planned that this site be an adjunct for any operational meetup or other local groups, so I'll certainly appreciate your forwarding them here. You can certainly also refer the ones who use Facebook to the Facebook group, but as you see we can sometimes have an uneven presentation there with people from "outside" making statements that can be very confusing. I have always thought that being able to point people to an online resource where the can participate and talk between local meetings would be a great synergy.

And your post is an example of how things here can encourage others. Your summary of what you plan to do, and any updates that you are able to give later, will remain here as resource material for others everywhere to copy. Your approach sounds outstanding.

Also specifically on the handouts, as you get practical experiences you may think of other handouts that you need, and we can certainly all try to collaborate to produce them and make them available to others. Elli has produced a lot of graphics over the years, and it's probable that some of them might lend themselves to handouts or similar uses.

Everything sounds excellent and it will be exciting to hear reports on how it works!

That comment raises in my mind that it would be good to write an article comparing the books that are available as a general introduction to Epicurus. I'll have to do some work even to pull a list together because I'm not sure that there are even many who try to do the kind of general summary for non-academic readers that DeWitt has done.

Godfrey I think you will eventually find that while anticipations are a fascinating subject, they are not quite so central to understanding the core issues as might appear at first. As I think DeWitt points out, Lucretius goes through his whole poem without much, if any, direct discussion of anticipations. it's possible it's there and we don't really recognize it, but it's pretty clear that he does not devote a great deal of emphasis to it, with the implication that (like "the gods") it was considered either an advanced subject, or something pretty obvious (maybe all animals have "instincts"?) so there was not much need to dwell on it in fundamental texts.

I think you said you were reading DeWitt, right? If you finish that, and then maybe tackle Lucretius before long, I think you will see that there's a pattern of analysis where you start with fundamentals and then make sure everything after that is consistent with the fundamentals.

So in terms of gods, whatever you end up conceiving them to be, they are clearly NOT supernatural or omniscient or all-powerful or anything like that, because nothing exists eternally except matter and void, and everything is made up of that, so if you apply that rigorously you never entertain supernatural concepts at all.

LIkewise with anticipations, whatever they are, they are natural faculties that operate similarly to the sense and the feelings of pleasure and pain, so there's clearly some aspect that we're born with, and some aspects that we train and develop over time.

The reason I keep focusing on DeWitt is that if you take the time to read that, you'll get a good view of the overall forest, and then you'll be able to dig deeper into individual trees without losing sight of the big picture.

In years past I kept trying to read various academic books on details which never gave the full picture, and I was never able to put everything into some sort of order until I found DeWitt's presentation.

And at this point even though I have lots of questions about the details of what they thought about gods and anticipations, I really don't worry about it as much as I used to, because I am confident that whatever they thought was a logical extension of the fundamentals that are fairly easy to grasp.

Godfrey as to whether to continue here or post new threads, of course that's up to you, but here's what I suggest: If you're talking mainly about improving the outline itself as a high-level summary, I would continue here. However in many cases you're going to likely want to go deeper into a particular subject, and in many cases those subjects already have a forum of their own, so it would be ideal to start new threads there. But don't worry too much about starting them in the wrong place, because it's easy to move threads to new locations after they get going.

The big benefit of this forum software as opposed to other methods is that enhances the ability to organize topics and find things easily later, but nothing's perfect. We'll always have the search box to help find things too. But if you haven't scrolled through the forum list, it would be good to spend a moment doing that just so you'll be aware of what is out there already,

Participants here should be aware that there are a significant number of controversies in how to interpret Epicurus. In many cases, academic orthodoxy has reached one conclusion, while writers outside the orthodoxy reach another. The major example of a non-orthodox-position writer is Norman DeWitt, who is rarely cited in modern academic articles because many of his ideas are outside the academic consensus.

The loss of texts, the complexity of the issues, and the fact that Epicurus' philosophical enemies have prevailed for centuries have all contributed to these controversies. As a result they are not easily resolved, and each reader must reach his own conclusion about who is correct. Nevertheless these controversies apply to almost all of the most interesting aspects of the philosophy, so you should be aware from the very beginning that they exist, and be alert to whether the position you are reading is truly unassailable.

I have prepared the chart in this blog article to summarize these controversies, without attempting to resolve them. Whether you start out with a background in the academic orthodoxy, or whether you start out reading DeWitt from the beginning, it will be of great help to you to know that these controversies exist.

Discussion of this chart can continue in this thread, or, if you prefer, start your own thread in the sub-forum devoted to this topic.

OOPS I should have asked you this: If you are a philosophy student in college somewhere, please let me know, because I don't want you to flunk out because you're reading DeWitt and all the teachers think he's full of bunk!

These three of course are both central and controversial:

- The ultimate good is life itself.

- Pleasure is the goal of life. This is because it is the end goal of all other goals.

- Pleasure is defined as: freedom from mental and physical disturbance.

Especially "Pleasure is defined as freedom from disturbance." That's perhaps true from some respects (in terms of quantity, I think, is likely) but probably not true in other respects (is it really fair to say that pleasure EQUALS IN EVERY RESPECT freedom from disturbance?)

That's the big issue of the nature of pleasure which is debated so much and is really worthwhile to explore. If you've not seen my page here, you'll find I've collected some references on that issue: https://newepicurean.com/foundations-2/…pleasure-model/

"- It is impossible to verify the existence of the gods through the senses, therefore knowledge of their existence or non-existence is based solely on the information of the preconceptions and the feelings and, after that, reason."

On this one, this is part of the big debate on gods on which there are many opinions. The majority academics argue that Epicurus' opinion that "gods" exist was based ONLY on perceptions through the senses, the opposite of what you wrote there. Of course DeWitt argues that the primary knowledge of gods come through preconceptions and presumably reasoning based on isonomia and "no single thing of a kind."

And another way to look at this is that Epicurus tended not to frame things in terms of "it is impossible to verify....." i think I am correct in saying that he starts with evidence, and builds on what is there, but he doesn't generally emphasize the impossibility of getting evidence later. What you're saying is no doubt generally correct, and would apply to things like "impossible to fly to the heavens to check them out. Or maybe it would be more accurate too to say "it's impossible (at least for now) to verify the existence of the gods through the FIVE senses."

Part of my hesitancy here too is there is a lot of discussion of "images" and perhaps the brain being able to receive non-visible images. Again, rather than trying to jump to my own conclusion, I'm trying to start like deWitt with thinking about the texts and what is actually said, rather than what's wrong or right. But this is just a minor point in your outline....

Another comment on this bullet point:

- Science needs to be studied only to the degree that it brings relief from fear.

Yes I think that is a good summary of several textual references, but of course I personally would think that this statement must have had a context. Some people like to highlight the "ONLY" and use this to argue that Epicurus was disdainful of knowledge in general, but I think he had a consistent position that everything should bring happiness, and that he meant mental AND physical. Surely we need knowledge of medicine and other natural devices to make life easier and more comfortable, and I can't believe he would have written off those uses. So I tend to think that this is a reference to "theoretical knowledge" and wasn't intended as a slam at the practical sciences which do so much to make life more pleasant and happy.

Godfrey thank you for the time it took to post this! I will have more detailed comments but I see that you are interested in the anticipations aspect, and I have just tonight been exchanging some comments with Elayne, so this is a good place to post and preserve them. I have tried to edit this to make it less choppy, but here is sort of where we started, talking about anticipations and "justice."

We know (1) what Epicurus said explicitly in PD30-40 about justice and he referred to agreements, and we know (2) also the general background that there is a faculty of anticipations that operates to generate "preconceptions." I think also that we should analogize that anticipations work like the faculty of sight and all the others, for example in that the eyes report what they perceive, producing data that our **minds** then process and organize into higher-level information. (With the important point there being that opinion error occurs in the mind, and that the faculties are just reporting, not assembling conclusions. Remember that Epicurus referred to false conclusions from anticipations about the gods.)

We have to find a way to combine (1) and (2).

My first stab at organizing this would be to suggest that the leash law is an example of a high-level arrangement to which the people in that locality more or less "agree" to by the fact that they remain in the society and aren't in open revolt, even though they may not like or follow the leash law. To the extent that the neighbor has violated the leash law, that probably constitutes an "injustice" which would be analyzed as a species of the abstraction we call "justice."

But just like sight processes all kind of perceptions all the time, I would say that to consider anticipations as a faculty means that they are operating all the time as well. If anticipations are an "organizational faculty," (I'm using scare quotes, not quoting anybody) then organizing things that happen into relationships allows us to recognize that once we have met someone, shaken hands, exchanged gifts, etc, we are in the process of generating a relationship that leads to certain expectations. Then, if those expectations are violated, the anticipatory faculty would probably lead you to organize that violation into something that more or less approaches something you would eventually call injustice. Then as part of the process of organizing these potentially violation events into something that is recognizable (not necessarily fully formed concepts), the faculty of pleasure / pain has something to evaluate and process into a feeling of "painful."

I think the main point would be that if you didn't have a faculty of anticipations that predisposed you to begin to assemble handshakes and smiles and interactions into progressively more complex relationships, it would never occur to you to begin to categorized these events into a relationship which would eventually call for a label of "just" or "unjust" or "pleasurable" or "painful." So I agree with you that these things can happen at an "intuitive" level and that the reactions of pain and pleasure can occur even before the event is organized into the fully-formed concepted of "my neighbor violated the leash law."

In contrast, no matter how many times you pet the spider, the spider will never grasp that you are trying to be its friend and that you want a relationship of justice or injustice. (Possibly we may even need to go further down the line to be absolutely sure of that, but I've never been particularly fond of spiders so I doubt that they have much conceptual organizing power )

All this is just my opinion of course, as an attempt to organize the possibilities.

Then further I encourage Elayne to study this further and said:

Just please please please be prepared for the blowback, and remember that the DeWitt position on this (which I am channeling) is held in low esteem in the academic community. Of course maybe "low esteem" isn't accurate -- how about "banished from memory as if he never existed"? Whenever I say something like this don't think I am hedging, it's just that I am one of those people who believes that all of this is useless if we can't document our position, and if blur over the fact that disputes exist. I am fully persuaded that DeWitt is correct and the "anticipations are conceptions" majority is wrong, but at this point with the set of texts that are remaining it's certainly "possible" to argue both sides. I think it's clear why DeWitt argues as he does, and it's easy to see where it leads if we consider anticipations to equal conceptions - but there are many scholars who disagree.

On the other hand anyone who takes on the assignment of supporting Epicurus in giving the central role to "pleasure" will probably find the argument about anticipations to be a tea party in comparison.

And --

David Sedley is a well-known Epicurean scholar and he wrote an article called "Epicurus' Theological Innatism" in which he explores the Epicurean argument for the existence of gods and how that relates to anticipations. We can get that article for you if you'd like it but like most academic articles it really just explores the issues without coming to many conclusions. I recall that there was a subsequent article after that, commenting on Sedley's views of anticipations, and I'll look that up and post a reference. I have it now, it is a 2016 article by Voula Tsouna entitled "Epicurean Preconceptions."


Godfrey I post all that to encourage you to continue to read DeWitt's explanation as the best introduction, but to prepare you for the controversy about this that you will read in other sources. If you read only the academic sources, you will think DeWitt never existed, and his arguments don't even merit mentioning.

Let me stop there for the moment and comment on the articles:

It has been a while since I read the Tsouna article and I recall being dissatisfied with it, but I do think I recall that it dealt somewhat fairly with the argument I am describing as Dewitt's I think I am correct in saying "of course, she never mentions that DeWitt exists...." yep, I thought I remembered this -- her position is "preconceptions are concepts" --

While I am not sure that Tsouna summarizes him correctly, she does address the "innatist" argument by addressing Sedley:

Here she states what is I think pretty close to the DeWitt position:

but then she goes off into the necessity for visual input, which is the point of contention, really, so in the end she digs in to the "preconceptions are concepts formed after exposure to evidence" position. But here I'll leave you -- it is a fascinating argument i think!

I'll just leave you with the thought that I think "predispositon" is the key word here, and that if in fact it is a true "predisposition" then that predisposition is something that exists BEFORE exposure to any sensory examples, which I analogize to "when I was born I was born made up in such a way that I would eventually find vanilla ice cream pleasing before I ever tasted ice cream" or "when I was born I was born predisposed to see light between certain wavelengths before I ever opened my eyes" or whatever.

Thanks a good suggestion and thanks particularly for the link!!

Thanks to godek for this reference to someone I've not read before:

Saint-Evremond has an interesting take with which I someone agree, except for the implication that Epicurus changed his position over time. S.E. points out that Epicurus embraced BOTH active and "restful" pleasures (as we tend to discuss them) but he attributes that to different phases of Epicurus' age. There's no need to look to age for the answer, however, because it's right in front of him that Epicurus taught that we should pursue the pleasures that are available and suit our circumstances -- and some pleasures are more available with less pain during youth, some more appropriate to old age. So I think S.E. is wisely rejecting the austerity view of Epicurus, he's just not quite there in viewing the arguments sympathetically and seeing that there is no contradiction. Overall I think this SE letter is a very worthwhile read. Here's the concluding paragraph:

Link to Google Books

I presume this is who we are talking about, although the name is slightly different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Saint-Évremond