Posts by Cassius

This section contains an extended treatment of Epicurean views, especially the following:, in which we will have to be cautious, as Cicero himself seems to say that he is stating them differently than would the Epicureans:

Quote from Part 3 Section XV

But I shall speak more particularly on these matters after I have first considered Epicurus's opinion, who thinks that all people must necessarily be uneasy who believe themselves to be in any evils, let them be either foreseen and expected, or habitual to them; for, with him, evils are not the less by reason of their continuance, nor the lighter for having been foreseen; and it is folly to ruminate on evils to come, or such as, perhaps, never may come; every evil is disagreeable enough when it does come; but he who is constantly considering that some evil may befal him, is loading himself with a perpetual evil, and even should such evil never light on him, he voluntarily takes upon himself unnecessary misery, so that he is under constant uneasiness, whether he actually suffers any evil, or only thinks of it. But he makes the alleviation of grief depend on two things, a ceasing to think on evil, and a turning to the contemplation of pleasure. For he thinks that the mind may possibly be under the power of reason, and follow her directions; he forbids us, therefore, to mind trouble, and calls us off from sorrowful reflections: he throws a mist over our eyes to hinder us from the contemplation of misery. Having sounded a retreat from this statement, he drives our thoughts on again, and encourages them to view and engage the whole mind in the various pleasures with which he thinks the life of a wise man abounds, either from reflecting on the past, or from the hope of what is to come. I have said these things in my own way, the Epicureans have theirs: however, let us examine what they say; how they say it is of little consequence.

Welcome to Episode 288 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we continue our series covering Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" from an Epicurean viewpoint. This series addresses five of the greatest questions in human life (Death, Pain, Grief/Fear, Joy/Desire, and Virtue) with Cicero speaking for the majority and Epicurus the main opponent.

Today we begin in Part 3, which addresses Grief or pain of mind. We'll first comment on some general points Cicero makes, and then begin reading with Section IV.

Quote from Kalosyni

Could we say that prolepsis is an inborn ability that is required for reasoning - prolepsis is the ability to have pattern recognition.

I think that's a pretty logical conclusion. Calling it "ability to have pattern recognition" does not presume that the mind already has in it the particular patterns that are to be recognized. The problem comes when we begin to think (and there is a great temptation to do so) that some particular pattern is inborn within us at birth.

I think most of us agree that we are not a "blank slate," but describing what it is that IS inborn is hard to do. Lucretius gives examples of how different animals have different temperaments, and that's somewhere in the ballpark, but there might not be much better way than to just call it "the ability to have pattern recognition."

To repeat, this is an area where we should welcome back and forth discussion and debate and exploration of options from anyone who's looked into the issues at all.

3-288

Moreover the mind possesses that heat, which it dons when it boils with rage, and the fire flashes more keenly from the eyes. Much cold breath too it has, which goes along with fear, and starts a shuddering in the limbs and stirs the whole frame. And it has too that condition of air lulled to rest, which comes to pass when the breast is calm and the face unruffled. But those creatures have more of heat, whose fiery heart and passionate mind easily boils up in anger. Foremost in this class is the fierce force of lions, who often as they groan break their hearts with roaring, and cannot contain in their breast the billows of their wrath. But the cold heart of deer is more full of wind, and more quickly it rouses the chilly breath in its flesh, which makes a shuddering motion start in the limbs. But the nature of oxen draws its life rather from calm air, nor ever is the smoking torch of anger set to it to rouse it overmuch, drenching it with the shadow of murky mist, nor is it pierced and frozen by the chill shafts of fear: it has its place midway between the two, the deer and the raging lions.

3-307

So is it with the race of men. However much training gives some of them an equal culture, yet it leaves those first traces of the nature of the mind of each. Nor must we think that such maladies can be plucked out by the roots, but that one man will more swiftly fall into bitter anger, another be a little sooner assailed by fear, while a third will take some things more gently than is right. And in many other things it must needs be that the diverse natures of men differ, and the habits that follow thereon; but I cannot now set forth the secret causes of these, nor discover names for all the shapes of the first atoms, whence arises this variety in things. One thing herein I see that I can affirm, that so small are the traces of these natures left, which reason could not dispel for us, that nothing hinders us from living a life worthy of the gods.

Rolf, TauPhi's post is a useful example of how on an issue like this where there is fragmentary or even conflicting evidence with which to work, different people are going to come to different conclusions, and each person in the end has to reach their own conclusion pending discovery of more texts.

I gather Tau Phi is saying that the same process that applies to unicorns applies to gods and justice. I would disagree. I would argue that a unicorn is an example of a concept/idea that arises from combining examples of horses with examples of horned animals, and that thus something very different is involved in abstractions such as justice or divinity.

This is why I argue the starting point for analysis should be the alleged paradox of Meno and the assertions of Plato.

I think most here agree that we don't have a prolepsis of atoms.

I would also say myself that your question is why DeWitt argues that Diogenes Laertius' description of prolepsis (examples as to humans and oxen) is at best incomplete and at worst just wrong as a description of prolepsis. And as you know DeWitt concludes that Cicero's understanding of the issue as expressed through Velleius (as something that exists BEFORE an individual's first exposure to an example) is much more accurate.

Our process of concluding that atoms exist is outlined at length by Lucretius in Book One. We come to the conclusion that atoms exist through deductive reasoning about things that we do see exist. I would say that is just how we come to the concept of humans and oxen as well. Our senses (trustworthy as without opinion, just like prolepsis) tell us that bodies in general exist. It is our minds that have to use reasoning to deduce the categories from atom to human and everything in between into which we place those bodies and assign names to them. As to the assignment of names that too arises from nature in the trial and error experience of men, and there is no god-given assignment of classes or names to them.

As to gods (divinity) or justice however, the two best-documented examples in the major surviving texts, those are more in the nature of abstractions of which we never touch or "see" or smell or hear examples directly. That is why deductive reasoning alone does not work for gods and justice. Did we not have some kind of faculty for recognizing the patterns involved, our five senses would never recognize that these relationships / abstractions exist.

Maybe an even better example would be lower organisms - all the way down to single cell amoeba. We would not expect - and do not associate in our minds - the actions of amoeba in competing for food to be just or unjust. We do not expect that amoeba have any appreciation at all for such issues, and for amoeba no justice or injustice exists.

Somewhere up the line of advancement living things become capable of "thinking," and at some point they begin to appreciate that there is an issue or question involved in their relationships to other living beings. Somewhere in that range they begin to have "prolepsis of justice" which allows them to even begin considering that their relationships with other living beings might be divided into categories of relationships, and they begin to consider whether one type of relationship is more productive for them than another type of relationship. At that point they begin to consider some things "just" and other things "unjust" - but those are just words that we assign to the concept. I would say that you are long past the "prolepsis" stage at that point.

But if the "prolepsis" of justice or gods did not exist, we would never begin considering or discussing those concepts in the first place.

It's much better in my view to start analyzing prolepsis from the point of view of philosophy and the Meno problem than it is to start with some particular clinical phenomena (like monkeys or beavers) and try to analyze the issue in terms of specific animals or their conclusions. Otherwise you just transfer to the monkeys the same question we ask about ourselves: "Where does the whole idea of "justice" come from in the first place?"

I will write more in response to Rolf''s question but my first comment would be that I think most of us agree that a prolepsis comes before any opinion or conclusion. So anytime the statement is something like "sharing food is fair" that is a conclusion and not a prolepsis.

If prolepsis is a PRE-conception, I would describe it more as "the ability to recognize that an issue is involved." The monkeys recognize that there is an unequal distribution of food in this example, but that in itself does not tell us or them what a "fair" distribution of food would be.

Lucretius argues that the gods could not have created the universe because it makes no sense that the gods had any inkling of the possibility of any kind of universe at all until there was first a universe of a kind to serve as an example from which they could recognize a pattern.

Further, the principal doctrines make clear that even "justice" is a very fluid concept, and that what appears to be just at one moment can be unjust at the next if circumstances change -- and that includes compacts not to harm or be harmed, which not all are even willing or able to make in the first place. We can recognize that justice as an issue exists, but we don't know what is just or unjust with evaluating in our reasoning minds particular contextual facts.

So the reason prolepsis is not an "objective morality" - I would say - is that prolepsis has no "objective" content (opinion, conclusion) within it. To say that the monkeys have prolepsis of justice does not mean that Nature gives them a correct conclusion as to whether they are getting a fair or just amount of food.

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Quote from Don

I'm going to maintain that effort - expending energy for a given purpose - has pain associated with it.

I think we definitely agree on that, and that's why it is so important to see happiness as a balance in which pleasure predominates over pain, rather than expecting that TOTAL absence of pain is going to be achievable in real life.

I see this as probably one of the most practical and important divisions in the way one will interpret Epicurus.

There is the "extinguish all pain at all cost" crowd, (which I suspect to be largely influenced by Buddhism and similar thought) who talk mostly about "ataraxia," without making much effort to define it, and think that what it means is something like tranquility and living as minimally and detached from the world as possible. This group has as their guiding light as the avoidance of pain - which they often translate into the avoidance of all "effort" of any kind.

And then there is the crowd (where I perceive most all of us to be) which perceives that Epicurus was happy even in the worst pain of kidney disease, just as the wise man can be happy even under torture. The group focuses on eudaimonia / happiness understood to mean the predominance of pleasure over pain, so the guiding light of this group is the intelligent choice or avoidance of pain, so we embrace pain when we expect that pain to produce a net gain in pleasure. We certainly don't go out of our way to look for pain that is unnecessary, but we recognize that "effort" is necessary to achieve the happiness we'd like to achieve in life, so we don't shrink from exerting that effort.

Episode 287 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "The Fear of Pain Is Overrated, But Cicero and Epicurus Disagree As To Why."

Quote from Don

Sure, the motivation for the effort of learning a new skill or achieving a goal one wants is potentially pleasurable, but the effort experienced is painful in the form of repetitive exercises or practice. Frustration sets in that must be overcome. Feelings of inadequacy.

This comes very close, or is at least analogous, to the question of whether all "desire" should be seen to be painful.

My personal view is that not all desire is painful, and neither is all effort. And in the case of either desire or effort, even in those times where the desire or effort is painful, the ultimate question remains whether the resulting total pleasure is worth the total cost in pain.

Quote from Rolf

I suppose in a sense the answer is “as much effort as possible” - what else could be more important?

Bingo Rolf! Exactly what I hoped you were thinking.

Why art thou confused, Sir Rolf ? I would like to think I can predict your concern but I am not sure.

What Don says is true and also a lot turns on what definition you give to "effort." Building a stone wall with an inscription about Epicurus takes a lot of a certain type of effort. So does composing six long books of a poem. So does writing 37 books on Nature and all the rest that Epicurus wrote. So does building a philosophical school that opposes and takes on the majority philosophical and religious orthodoxy.

If effort means intensity of focus and action, then those are examples of people putting tremendous effort into their pursuit of a correct philosophy, on which happiness depends, and I would say you put everything you've got into that effort to find pleasure and be happy.

The pleasures Don lists which can be achieved by "getting out of the way" of them is a valid approach if you are able to maintain those and have confidence in their continuance and your satisfaction with them, but there are also other pleasures that you will never experience if you do not pursue them vigorously. There is no god to tell you whether to pursue them or not, and no "ideal" pattern to follow. You yourself have to decide which to pursue. I would argue that there is no good Epicurean authority for the proposition that everyone should always choose those pleasures which take the least "effort." Epicurus says we will sometime choose pain in order to avoid a worse pain or achieve greater pleasure.

It is also arguable based on the sources that DeWitt cites that even the Epicurean gods have to take action to maintain their own blessedness, and certainly every Epicurean we know anything about went to lots of effort to promote their philosophy. There are no Epicurean examples I know of who were held up by the Epicureans as pursuing happiness through engaging in minimal effort in all aspects of life.

The reference to the gods needing to act to maintain their deathlessness is in Section 13 part 3 of DeWitt's book, including: "If deathlessness were inherent in their nature, they would be in another class by themselves. Since they do belong in the same class as man, it is a logical necessity to think of their incorruptibility as by some means preserved. Since in the cosmos of Epicurus, unlike that of Plato, this incorruptibility lacked a superior being to guarantee its continuance, the sole possibility was that the gods preserved it for themselves by their own vigilance. Thus it must be discerned that just as the happiness of man is self-achieved, so the happiness of the gods is self-preserved. However astonishing this doctrine may seem, it is well authenticated. Plutarch, for example, who, though hostile, wrote with texts of Epicurus before him, has this to say: "Freedom from pain along with incorruptibility should have been inherent in the nature of the blissful being, standing in no need of active concern." This manifestly implies that the Epicurean gods were unable to take their immunity from corruption for granted but must concern themselves for its perpetuation. The incongruity between this selfish concern for their own bodily security and their indifference to the good of mankind was certain to elicit condemnation from believers in divine providence, and this has not escaped record. Thus the Christian Eusebius quotes his Atticus as saying: "According to Epicurus it's good-bye to providence, in spite of the fact that according to him the gods bring to bear all diligent care for the preservation of their own peculiar blessings.")

That is a good idea but I don't think we have addressed that specifically before, at least in those terms, so we probably out to create a separate thread in the ethics forum so we can discuss it before distilling a FAQ answer. Can you do that please? Or point to a thread where we've already discussed this?

We're still in the early editing phase of this week's edition, but I think I will go ahead and post this link to a topic that Joshua introduces fairly early in this episode. Joshua's topic is the story of John Brown, and especially statements made by Henry David Thoreau in reaction which indicate that Thoreau's perspective had parallels with the perspective of Cicero.

Many people here are probably not aware of the story of John Brown, and while Joshua was certainly aware of the story he wasn't aware of this 1940 movie, in which John Brown is portrayed very effectively by the actor Raymond Massey. It's not a deep philosophical movie so don't bother about it if you don't find it to your liking, but the character and story of John Brown do provide an effective dramatization of what's at stake in choosing the source of one's moral decisionmaking.

As always, ifanyone has any issues, comments, or questions about any changes please let us know.

Quote

During the course of the Trojan War, Ares, who had sided with the Trojans, was wounded by the Greek hero Diomedes who drove a spear into his side, sending him flying back to Olympos bellowing in pain. <<More>>

I don't think I was aware that Mars sided with the Trojans. I presume that would be a major point in his favor in the eyes of the Romans (and therefore Lucretius and Memmius).

That web site has a ton of interesting material. I don't get the idea that Mars was viewed as demonic in any way, as Abrahamists might view "Satan." He certainly appears to be as subject to doing weird things as are the other Greek gods, but I also don't get the idea that he was any more "irrational" than they were either.

I think I'm mainly looking at this in perspective of the recent material we've discussed in the podcast as to whether pain is "evil," and/or whether a "god of war" would be viewed as "evil" vs Venus being viewed as "good." I gather from these anecdotes that Venus was far from being Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes herself.

Quote from Don

You can't have Venus without Mars. Old things must be destroyed, must die, for new things to be created. Otherwise, nothing would change; everything would be static.

Yes I am thinking in that direction. The depictions I am seeing in Greek and Roman art show Mars as a warrior but not necessarily an "ogre" or "ugly" or "horrible" as we might do today in portraying some kind of monster. Along the lines of death not being something to fear, then we might also see Mars as what you are saying - a necessary part of nature whose presence we need to understand more subtly, rather than something that is acting "maliciously" toward us.

This whole line of thought is fairly specialized and not of immediate significance to me, but over in the Facebook group a user wrote:

Quote

"But as an Epicurean, I see it plainly: war is the collapse of reason and the triumph of unnecessary desire."

While I would think in many cases that statement is probably true, I am thinking it is probably overbroad, as it would be overbroad (I think) to characterize Mars as a wholly negative figure. To some extent Mars might be analogizable to a "gun" -- something very dangerous and to be handled carefully but sometimes having beneficial uses. No doubt the circumstances are going to override everything else, but in the it is only pain that is in itself always undesirable (even though we sometimes choose it) and a "god of war" might be also in the same category.