Posts by Cassius

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Ok I've watched the full video. Here's my commentary:

The main thrust of the video with which I can completely agree seems to be that "satire" is used in Lucretius. Clearly Lucretius does "make fun" of opposing schools in a number of passages in the book.

However the title of the book "Laughing Atoms, Laughing Matters" and several comments in the video indicate that THM is making an argument that the entire poem should be taken less than seriously, and that it's more of a literary "satire" in the mode of Horace or similar, where it's maybe a side point to "make the world a better place" but the main point is more something like that of displaying the writer's literary talents.

Obviously I don't agree with that last point, but I can't tell how deeply the book goes into specifically arguing that Lucretius was in fact not a devoted Epicurean attempting to teach Epicurean philosophy, and that instead he was merely a poet following his muse to create a work of art.

If you're the kind of person who finds that kind of literary argument interesting, then you'll probably find the video interesting. If you're not, then you won't.

I do want to state that I was pleased to see that THM did include reference to his article on the size of the sun, and what he said was I thought "spot on" with his article: To say, as Epicurus' opponents did, that Epicurus thought the actual size of the sun was no greater than a "foot" or a basketball is absurd. Epicurus is quoted as saying that the sun is "the size that it appears to be" and this can easily be argued to be consistent with Epicurus always calling attention to the senses, and that the senses have to be used and processed properly, much as we have to process what a tower looks like up close to understand why it looks different at a distance.

I'll find a link to that article and link it here, with my recommendations that it's well worth reading.

Thread

"Lucretius on the Size of the Sun", by T.H.M. Gellar-Goad

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I've just received this collection of essays, published in February, with an excellent paper concerning the size of the sun by one T.H.M. Gellar-Goad.

I may attempt an outline; in the meantime, here's a good bit toward the end;

[…]

aporia; doubt, or a difficulty in resolving the available data into established truth.

The author is thoroughly familiar with Epicurean…

Joshua

June 9, 2022 at 6:04 PM

Thanks Julia for pointing out this video, as I had not seen it.

Always keeping in mind here that his article on Epicurean views of the size of the sun is excellent.

To the extent he is arguing that Lucretius employs satire in his argument I have no problem with what I am hearing. To the extent he is arguing that Lucretius is not a devoted Epicurean and considers Epicurean philosophy cynically and as a laughing matter, I just respectfully think he is flat wrong.

But I am only 20 minutes in

Thanks for posting that - we have heard of and discussed Professor Gellat-Goad before, but I am not aware of this video. Will review and comment further later!

Eikadistes you are considerably younger than I am. Are the implications of "feeling no pain" changing among younger people? Would very young people today jump to the same association that "feeling no pain" still means "stoned" or "under the influence of some drug"?

Info from Joshua:

Julius Caesar | Act 4, Scene 2

If you do a control F search for 'Portia' it will take you to the part of the scene where Brutus first informs Cassius of his wife's death, and subsequently pretends not to know of it when a messenger brings news.

I was listening to an old song earlier this week, and one set of lyrics struck me as worthy of discussion here:

Quote from Harry Chapin: Sequel

You see, ten years ago it was the front seat
Drivin' stoned and feelin' no pain
Now here I am straight and sittin' in the back
Hitting Sixteen Parkside Lane

I think those lyrics are now so ingrained in me that I will never be able to disassociate use of the term "feeling no pain" in conversation from "feeling stoned." And I associate "stoned" as meaning "on drugs."

I expect that a lot of readers here will understand this association, but maybe this terminology has passed out of common usage and younger people don't feel the same association.

So this is a question to which I'd appreciate feedback. I expect different answers from different people, but I don't know exactly how those differences will break down.

I expect at some point this association won't be so automatic, and with the passing of boomers and subsequent generations the old association will break down. But I don't know how to test this other than ask.

The question is: To what extent does hearing someone say that they are "feeling no pain" automatically invoke an association that what they mean is that they are "stoned?"

Great catch! You don't see that in the duplicates but it adds to the piercing serious effect.

Thanks for replying Shier! Happy to have you here and look forward to hearing more from you.

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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)

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Welcome to the forum!

Well after further thought.... Social Media Can Be Anti-Epicurean - 101 Reasons Why (?)

It definitely has its uses when kept under control, and in the end this is probably another example of how a tool is neutral and its results for pleasure or pain depends on context / how it is used.

I suspect my comments seem self-contradictory but I think it's an essential point. The problems which we're pointing out result from how it is used. If used with great care, it can be very powerful for pleasure. We would not be here today in this forum were it no for the Facebook of the 2010 era.

I altered the thread title slightly to firm it up rather than say "considering," but I'm still not necessarily happy that "Social Media's Anti-Epicurean Aspects" is the ultimate title. Julia feel free to continue to adjust, especially with the goal of making it something that people are likely to find by searching. Given the content of the thread and the strong consensus I think most of us have that social media has major negative issues, I thought "considering" might not be strong enough.

Thank you Don! Looking forward to it.

Great post Julia! That really develops the detail of what I think most of us sense to be true but have not fully expressed. I'll look for a way to pin this one for greater exposure, and I also wonder if it doesn't point to the need for additional steps or conclusions of some kind.

Very nice -- is it ok for me to move this to the "Technology" public forum?

Quote from Pacatus

Wouldn't appeal to some common prolepsis (on the question of gods’ existence) be subject to the ad populum fallacy?

Yes, it would be such a fallacty if Cicero/Cotta's interpretation of what Epicurus is saying were correct, that Epicurus held that he believed in gods "because 50 million Frenchmen say that there are gods."

But that's not the correct interpretation of prolepsis. Cicero should have known (and probably did know) better than that.

If prolepsis is a "canon of truth" (which it is), then prolepsis is no more an opinion than any other perception or sensation is an opinion. We don't test opinions against other opinions - that would be circular reasoning. A test of an opinion cannot itself be an opinion, but must be evidence in the form of an irreducible given against which we compare and then process in our minds to determine what is true and consistent with that given. If so, a prolepsis is best thought of as an irreducible perception, just like a sensation of sight or sound or a feeling of pleasure and pain.

Quote from Lucretius 4:478 (Brown / Dunster)

[478] But you will find that knowledge of truth is originally derived from the senses, nor can the senses be contradicted, for whatever is able by the evidence of an opposite truth to convince the senses of falsehood, must be something of greater certainty than they. But what can deserve greater credit than the senses require from us? Will reason, derived from erring sense, claim the privilege to contradict it? Reason – that depends wholly upon the senses, which unless you allow to be true, all reason must be false.

A true opinion corresponds with what we conclude are the facts of reality after repeated observations produce the same results. A single glimpse of light or color by the eyes is not an opinion, a particular sound heard by the ear is not an opinion, and neither is a single "anticipation" an opinion. A true opinion (what we label to be a "fact") is an opinion concluded by the mind after the receipt and processing of streams of evidence. An "opinion" is held to be true if it is consistent with the evidence, and not contradicted by evidence. Therefore individual perceptions, whether received by the senses, or by prolepsis, or by feelings of pleasure and pain are not "opinions" or "facts." True opinions require consistent streams of perception over time, and individual perceptions (even those of prolepsis) can and often are interpreted incorrectly in ways that are not true to what we eventually conclude to be the ultimate facts after we receive additional data.

Quote from Diogenes Laertius

[34] Opinion they also call supposition, and say that it may be true or false: if it is confirmed or not contradicted, it is true ; if it is not confirmed or is contradicted, it is false. For this reason was introduced the notion of the problem awaiting confirmation: for example, waiting to come near the tower and see how it looks to the near view. The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined. Of investigations some concern actual things, others mere words. This is a brief summary of the division of their philosophy and their views on the criterion of truth.

The opinion that gods are living beings blessed and imperishable is an "opinion" which is held by Epicurus to be true for reasons that are not stated in full in the letter to Menoeceus. As Joshua is saying, the letter is definitional: Epicurus tells us the true opinions, and that the opinions of many about the gods are false. He also tells us why the opinions of the many are false: the opinions of the many are false because they are logically inconsistent with a being that is truly blessed and imperishable.

But that does not mean that the many did not base their false opinions about the gods on anticipations they received about the gods, it only tells us that the many misinterpreted the anticipations that they received by not processing them correctly. They let their disposition to believe that the gods are like themselves prejudice their opinions, rather than sticking strictly to the first premises that gods are fully blessed and do not suffer from the weakness of needing to reward friends and punish enemies.

What is an anticipation then? I think the best definition as to what Epicurus was saying (which various people here on the forum have stated in the past) is that prolepsis is a form of "pattern recognition." Through prolepsis we perceive relationships between the data (perceptions) that we receive. These patterns can be found in any or all of the perceptions, not only through the perceptions of the five senses and the feelings of pleasure and pain, but also by the perceptions of the mind received through the "images." But perceiving patterns in these perceptions does not in itself give us a correct opinion about what the perceptions are reflecting. We may in fact be perceiving a centaur in the images, but we know that centaurs do not exist in reality.

In the context of gods, a pattern we perceive about one or more gods in dreams, images received by the mind, seeing paintings or statues of gods, hearing mystical music, feelings of holiness or fear of lightning, or perceptions in any other manner do not in themselves constitute true or false opinions. Just as with centaurs, people can receive all sorts of anticipations about the gods, some of which we will conclude to be true and some of which we will conclude to be false. Epicurus gives us the core opinions that we conclude to be true (living beings blessed and imperishable), and says in the letter to make sure that any other opinions you form about the gods are consistent with those basic truths. If any other opinion you consider is inconsistent with total blessedness and imperishability, that opinion is immediately ruled out of court and deemed to be false.

As Joshua indicates, the reasons given by Epicurus for belief that the gods about which we have anticipations are blessed and imperishable are not in the letter, but and the best indication we have of those reasons are as given by Velleius. The foundations seem to include the "supremely potent principle of infinity," wherein we conclude that in an infinite universe, those things which are possible will occur an infinite number of times. Living beings which are happy and continue to live over time are known to use through our experience here on earth, and logical extensions of those things (including Joshua's example of the existence of oceans even if we have only seen small bodies of water in the past) are believable and expectable to be true.

Those things which are not possible (supernatural gods or supernatural anything) will never occur because they are not possible. I do not think the concern that this amounts to an ontological argument is valid because these ontological arguments for the existence of supernatural gods rely on imagination which postulates supernatural things which cannot exist by definition (based on experience). The principal of infinity may be very powerful, but it cannot break the laws of nature, and the supernatural is impossible - full stop.

I think most of us have come to the conclusion that a prolepsis is not an opinion, but that's clearly the first step in this chain of thought which has to be confronted. If you think that a prolepsis is an opinion, and that the opinion in this case is that there are gods, and you should believe in gods because lots of people say that there are gods, then you've reached the conclusion that Epicurus believed in gods because 50 million Frenchmen say that there are gods, and if you believe that then Epicurus was such a fool that nothing else Epicurus held should be believed either, and if you're a fan of Epicurus at all it's because you're a Stoic or Buddhist looking for justification for your devotion to tranquility in the phrase "absence of pain." Obviously in my case I reject that entire line of thought as absurd.

The second key issue is the implication of infinity, which Epicurus clearly tells us to study as a central matter, and Velleius tells us why. Were it not for Cicero preserving this in "On The Nature of the Gods" we'd have almost nothing to go on about why Epicurus stressed that it is important. In the case of infinity, we're facing another set of headwinds similar to the Stoic/Buddhist problem. A certain set of modern scientists allege that the universe is not infinite, and that Epicurus has been refuted on that point. As with the Buddhists and Stoics, Epicurus rejected the logic of that conclusion and considered it to be absurd to argue that the universe has an "end" on the other side of which there is something "outside" of reality.

There are all sorts of ways to respond to those who say the universe is not infinite today, but the one I would point to primarily is that they are misinterpreting the data in a way that they should have rejected out of hand because it never made and can never make any sense. The "universe as a whole" is all that there is, and it can never have a "limit" or an "end" outside of which is "something else" or "nothing." Infinity has always been and always will be the most compelling opinion as to the nature of the universe, regardless of the religions who say that "god" created the universe, or anyone else on any other theory, has to say.

Quote from Joshua

Also of note is the passage from Cicero wherein he suggests that an Epicurean would deny the existence of the sea if he had never seen it with his own eyes. On this point I would echo Christopher Hitchens; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There's nothing extraordinary about water in quantity, so the existence of the sea can be provisionally accepted pending confirmation. The existence of ghosts would be extraordinary, and so merits skepticism.

And just to be clear, you are disagreeing with Cicero (in this case Cotta). An Epicurean who lives inland would not deny the existence of the sea, because he knows that water can accumulate into bodies, and there is no physical reason why under the right circumstances into very large bodies.

1 - I wonder why it suspended it!?

2 - I think we ought to have a forum for posts like this on use of technology for Epicurean creation, even if we don't have one already.

We sort of do for the thread here - Using New Technology To Produce More Effective Memes

If it's ok with you Joshua I would suggest moving this thread to here:

Technology and Epicurean Educational Content

Quote from Plantpierogi

Don’t fear god,

Just out of curiosity, how would you interpret that one for yourself, or to someone to whom you want to be as clear as possible?