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Posts by Cassius

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  • Default Theme Update - June 8, 2024

    • Cassius
    • June 11, 2024 at 2:48 PM

    Thanks guys - that may mean there is a permission problem we need to investigate

  • Episode 227 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 02 - Velleius Begins His Attack On Traditional Views Of The Gods

    • Cassius
    • June 11, 2024 at 10:01 AM
    Quote from Don

    Plato, Philebus, section 39b

    Socrates: When a man receives from sight or some other sense (αἰσθήσεως) the opinions (δοξαζόμενα doxazomena) and utterances of the moment and afterwards beholds in his own mind the images of those opinions and utterances.

    As another physics experiment to complement Don's, and one which the ancients I gather would have been familiar, I'd consider another possible analogy.

    It seems Epicurus and Democritus thought that non-visible images could be received by natural mechanical means over a distance. Of course they didn't have tuned radios, but they did presumably observe how their musical instruments worked, such as tuning forks:

    (There are lots of questionable videos about ancient science on youtube but I'll not link to those here.)

    It seems we ultimately need to take a position on whether the "canonical" status of prolepsis tells us that something is "true or real" in terms of fully-formed correct opinions, or simply "true or real" in the sense of honestly reported to us by the faculty of perception.

    By analogy the tuning fork isn't conveying any opinions, it's just "mechanically", due to its makeup, resonating in response to a particular frequency of vibration emanating from somewhere else. That might constitute a "true and real" perception received at a distance through non-visible means, and one that doesn't require bringing in supernaturalism as the explanation. In their discussions such as the one Don cited about how the mind retains images received through experience,it's possible that when they seem to be taliking about a faculty of prolepsis as being "etched" in the mind at birth then maybe thinking about tuning forks could provide at least a partial analogy.

  • Novem's Outline of Epicurean Philosophy

    • Cassius
    • June 11, 2024 at 7:56 AM

    Very thorough - thank you!

  • Default Theme Update - June 8, 2024

    • Cassius
    • June 11, 2024 at 7:55 AM

    Sounds like that theme may be on a second page of a list (perhaps due to a screen size difference) or we need to change the permissions to make it more widely available. We'll figure that out and report back. Is anyone else able to see Kalosyni's style by using the "Change Style" button at the bottom of a page? I see it, but that might be due to a privilege setting.

  • Episode 227 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 02 - Velleius Begins His Attack On Traditional Views Of The Gods

    • Cassius
    • June 10, 2024 at 11:01 PM
    Quote from Don

    I've entertained on this forum that the prolepsis of the gods is our innate faculty to feel awe.

    Do you see "awe" as a sort of appreciation of a relationship that makes it fit as a prolepsis, or does it fit as a prolepsis for some other reason?

    I ask that in context of trying to identify what characteristics divinity and justice might have in common with awe that could explain why divinity and justice are the primary examples of where Epicurus thought prolepsis was involved.

    Is there anything else to suggest beyond building materials to identify what type of building materials? If eyes are processing light and ears are processing sound, what are prolepses processing? Do you see "relationship" useful as a term to describe at least in part what prolepses are perceiving?

    If what we are talking about is some aspect of concept formation, what else comes before fully-formed concepts that might partially justify the term PRE-conceptions?

    There would seem to be something involved in selecting similarities between particulars before some subset of particulars are then by judgment assembled into fully-formed concepts. I think we are all mostly agreeing that only then at the duly formed stage do we then evaluate something as in some way either right or wrong.

  • Episode 227 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 02 - Velleius Begins His Attack On Traditional Views Of The Gods

    • Cassius
    • June 10, 2024 at 9:29 PM
    Quote from Little Rocker

    It seems to me like the prolepsis for the gods in Letter to Menoeceus 123-4 is that 1) they exist and that 2) they are 'blessed and indestructible,' which offers at least some kind of skeletal conceptual structure.

    My best thought at the moment is that the prolepsis "faculty" (and I think that's the major point, it's got to be a faculty like seeing through the eyes) has to be keep separate and apart from ideas, just like we keep the eyes and ears separate and apart from ideas. Otherwise it won't report "honestly," and won't have that canonical status, because it will be reaching its own conclusions.

    So "the gods are blessed and imperishable" seems to me to necessarily be a a conclusion of the mind, which rules it out from being considered a prolepsis itself. But it's a conclusion which would not exist but for faculty of being able to recognize the relationships involved in being blessed vs not blessed, or deathless vs not deathless.

    And I would also think that the prolepsis faculty does not function independently of the mind any more than the eyes function independently of the mind. If we take the position that we aren't born with these ideas about gods, then the mind has available to it not only the relationship organizing function, but also the past experiences of the five senses and the feelings of pleasure and pain on what we observe here on earth. And I would include there the issues of isonomia and deductions that life exists throughout the universe and that the universe is boundless and eternal. All of those would have to be brought together in the mind to conclude that divinity means total blessedness and deathlessness, and again the point may be that we would *not* bring all those things together for consideration at all if not for prolepsis disposing us to evaluate the possibilities.

    So I'd see the two fundamentals of deathlessness and blessedness as hard to rank as "anticipations" in themselves. It seems to me they fit better from Epicurus' perspective as "correct conclusions," which are based on and consistent with all the data from all three of the canonical faculties. In contrast, the ideas that gods are arbitrary and capricious are false conclusions, contrary to our experiences, even though the people who reach that conclusion are also basing their opinions on the same canonical faculties. If that's the case then the prolepsis aspect would be a necessary part of the starting point for analysis, but not the end point of the conclusion that "gods are blessed and imperishable."

    No doubt this is a very speculative subject for us to discuss, but maybe in conclusion I'd say that the main point I can't get past in fitting everything together is that if the prolepsis is indeed part of the canon, which it appears to be, then it *cannot* have any "fully-formed-idea" content to it. If it did, it wouldn't be parallel to the five senses and the feelings of pleasure and pain, both of which exist at birth and are in full operation at birth before we open our eyes and see our first sight or hear our first sound.

  • Episode 227 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 02 - Velleius Begins His Attack On Traditional Views Of The Gods

    • Cassius
    • June 9, 2024 at 10:58 PM
    Quote from Little Rocker

    So the chief option would be that it's part of our biological nature/cognitive architecture to categorize the world in a particular way or arrive at a particular conclusion in light of experience. We would be pre-disposed to eventually conclude, 'there must be gods,' or 'justice must be about entering agreements to avoid harm.'

    Since Bryan quoted that I would suggest some possible tweaking, along the lines of:

    So the chief option would be that it's part of our biological nature/cognitive architecture to categorize the world in a particular way, and thereby we are disposed to form conclusions about those categories in the light of experience. We would be pre-disposed more to something like sensing that, 'the subject of the best form of existence is important enough to us to become alert to under a particular name such as 'divinity,'" or 'the subject of our relationships with others is important enough to become alert to under a particular name such as "justice."

    That sounds more to me like a "faculty" (which is what i gather "prolepsis" or "anticipations" must be, in order to be one of the three legs of the canon as a means of perception. Given its equivalence to the five senses or the feelings of pain and pleasure, we have to accept the workings of prolepsis as part of our makeup, and constructed "honestly" like pleasure and pain and the five senses, which do not inject their own opinions. The workings of the prolepsis faculty would then become "perceptions" combined in our minds with all other perceptions of the other faculties, and there processed to eventually form ideas.

    So specific conclusions such as "there must be gods" or "it is good to enter into agreements with my particular neighbors to avoid harm" would to me be outside of the prolepsis process. Those would be "conclusions" that are part of the functioning of the mind, which turns all the inputs into ideas. So if we keep the focus on the view that it's in the mind that errors can happen, then we recognize the possibility of error in subjects where prolepsis is involved. We can make the mistake of concluding that "the gods must be supernatural," or "as Hatfield I should treat all my neighbors the same, even if they are McCoys and are dying to kill me," because even though those involve divinity and justice, prolepsis doesn't deliver to us "conclusions" or "ideas" but just the disposition to recognize the issues and process them in the mind -- where right or wrong conclusions get made.

    Under this perspective it would be wrong to ever consider "a prolepsis" to be an idea or a conclusion of any kind. That's where i think we implement Epicurus' observation that the opinions of the hoi polloi about the gods are not true, and are indeed false, even though they are about a subject in which prolepsis is involved. The prolepsis would dispose us to evaluate the subject and consider it important, but the prolepsis would not provide the correct conclusion -- conclusions occur only in the mind.

    The input provided by the faculty of prolepis would never be any more right or wrong than the input from your eye or your ear is right or wrong - it is what it is, and has to be taken as canonical, but it's not an idea or a conclusion. it's the tool we use to make contact with reality and then from that form ideas and conclusions in our mind. But the distinction between the two is sharp, and it's the same distinction I think Jackson Barwis makes so well in pointing out the flaw in Locke's empiricism.

    "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."

    In analogy to eyes enabling us to see light and ears enabling us to hear sound, I would paraphrase Barwis and see prolepsis as the human faculty that "makes us sensible to [divinity and justice] and enables us to understand their nature -- without which we would neither be sensible to or have the capacity to form any understanding about them.

    And this is the point in the argument of analogizing prolepsis to a "sense" where I quote Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787:

    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. .....

  • New "Site Map" Page

    • Cassius
    • June 9, 2024 at 9:41 PM

    In hopes of easing confusion caused by major "theme" revisions and swapping menus around so no one can find anything anymore, we've added a significant new page that needs a thread of its own to announce.

    We now have a SITE MAP  page which sets out to list every major page on the site in a single place where they can (hopefully) be found when all other navigation tools fail.

    If you see a significant feature of page that's not included in this list, please let us know and we'll add it. I'd like to maintain this page over time as a "master list" of all events and activities here, so if you see something is missing let us know and we'll add it in.

    This page will henceforth be accessible as the second item under the "Home" drop-down menu, and we'll probably link it other places as well.

    Site Map - Epicureanfriends.com
    www.epicureanfriends.com
  • Default Theme Update - June 8, 2024

    • Cassius
    • June 9, 2024 at 8:56 PM

    Don't worry - we are working on new options! ;)

  • Episode 227 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 02 - Velleius Begins His Attack On Traditional Views Of The Gods

    • Cassius
    • June 9, 2024 at 7:31 PM

    For anyone who checks out my Jackson Barwis link I urge them to read up to the point in Dialogue One where he writes these two paragraphs, which I find not only persuasive but poetic:

    Quote from Jackson Barwis - Dialog On Innate Principles

    "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."

  • Episode 227 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 02 - Velleius Begins His Attack On Traditional Views Of The Gods

    • Cassius
    • June 9, 2024 at 7:13 PM

    Great topic to pursue. I will write more later but in my mind I think inmate " ideas" is a total nonstarter, and Dewitt was being sloppy when he used that reference.

    My preferred explanation of what is innate is more on the order of pleasure and pain, extended to the innate ability to recognize relationships that then as we examine them are formed into ideas.

    The best and even poetic presentation of such a position I have found is in the section from the work that Jackson Barwis wrote in the late 1700s against John Locke - the first of his "Dialogues on Innate Principles" found here: https://jacksonbarwis.com. (Specifically starting here: https://jacksonbarwis.com/DOIP-One/ )

    In that work Barwis argues strongly against innate "ideas" but says that innate "principles" - such as feeling pleasure at the recognition of acts of benevolence - is a very different thing.

    If I were forced to take a position on the direction Epicurus would likely have gone, that would be it.

  • Welcome Remus!

    • Cassius
    • June 9, 2024 at 4:39 PM

    Thanks for introducing yourself Remus! Looking forward to hearing more from you!

  • Welcome Remus!

    • Cassius
    • June 9, 2024 at 3:45 PM

    Welcome Remus (who I am betting due to name and icon is not a bot! ;) )

    Please check out our Getting Started page, but in the meantime there is one last step to complete your registration:

    All new registrants must post a response to this message here in this welcome thread (we do this in order to minimize spam registrations).

    You must post your response within 72 hours, or your account will be subject to deletion.

    Please say "Hello" by introducing yourself, tell us what prompted your interest in Epicureanism and which particular aspects of Epicureanism most interest you, and/or post a question.

    This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.

    Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

    All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

    One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.

    In that regard we have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

    "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

    The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

    "On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

    "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

    The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

    Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

    Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

    The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

    A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

    Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

    Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

    "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

    It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.

    And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

    (If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

    Welcome to the forum!

    4258-pasted-from-clipboard-png

    4257-pasted-from-clipboard-png


  • Default Theme Update - June 8, 2024

    • Cassius
    • June 9, 2024 at 8:07 AM

    Thanks Martin, I bet I know a setting for that. How wide a screen do you use? Super wide?

  • Default Theme Update - June 8, 2024

    • Cassius
    • June 8, 2024 at 8:16 PM

    This weekend (June 8th) we are updating the default theme that new users will see when they visit the site. If you are a regular participant with an account, you should not notice this unless you log out. However theme changes have a way of creeping into unexpected places, and we have also made some menu changes and updates to the Home page at the same time.

    The new theme is a "light" style and goes by the name of "Inspire Blue" if you check out the Styles by clicking on the "Change Style" link at the bottom of each page of the forum. "Inspire" comes in several color varieties (red, green, purple, etc), and you might want to check them out because as you know we all like variety!

    The theme has a somewhat different design that you may find a pleasing update to the original, so if you've been using the existing "Woltlab Default" style, you might want to check out the new "Inspire Blue" default selection.

    Feel free to let us know if you find any of the updates cause you any problems.

  • Articles By Participants At EpicureanFriends.com

    • Cassius
    • June 8, 2024 at 4:04 PM

    The current listing is here:

    Articles - Epicureanfriends.com
    www.epicureanfriends.com
  • New "Getting Started" Page

    • Cassius
    • June 8, 2024 at 2:35 PM

    Godfrey -- due to the differences in themes, it's not clear to me what exactly you are looking at in the page that you praise as being a good example. Could you attach a screenclip to show us what you are looking at?

  • Episode 232 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 07 - Velleius Attacks The Platonist And Aristotelian Views Of Gods

    • Cassius
    • June 8, 2024 at 12:43 PM

    We did not get very far in the text last week, but in this episode we'll turn to what Velleius has to say about Democritus and then about the Academy and the Peripatetics before getting to the Stoics:

    • Those who say that gods are not everlasting destroy the true concept of divinity.
      1. What shall I say of Democritus, who classes our images of objects, and their orbs, in the number of the Gods; as he does that principle through which those images appear and have their influence? He deifies likewise our knowledge and understanding. Is he not involved in a very great error? And because nothing continues always in the same state, he denies that anything is everlasting, does he not thereby entirely destroy the Deity, and make it impossible to form any opinion of him?
    • Those who attribute sense to formlessness are also wrong.
      1. Diogenes of Apollonia looks upon the air to be a Deity. But what sense can the air have? or what divine form can be attributed to it?
    • The Academy, including Plato and Xenophon and Antisthenes held ideas of the gods that were inconsistent and unintelligible.
      1. It would be tedious to show the uncertainty of Plato’s opinion; for, in his Timæus, he denies the propriety of asserting that there is one great father or creator of the world; and, in his book of Laws, he thinks we ought not to make too strict an inquiry into the nature of the Deity. And as for his statement when he asserts that God is a being without any body—what the Greeks call ἀσώματος—it is certainly quite unintelligible how that theory can possibly be true; for such a God must then necessarily be destitute of sense, prudence, and pleasure; all which things are comprehended in our notion of the Gods. He likewise asserts in his Timæus, and in his Laws, that the world, the heavens, the stars, the mind, and those Gods which are delivered down to us from our ancestors, constitute the Deity. These opinions, taken separately, are apparently false; and, together, are directly inconsistent with each other.
      2. Xenophon has committed almost the same mistakes, but in fewer words. In those sayings which he has related of Socrates, he introduces him disputing the lawfulness of inquiring into the form of the Deity, and makes him assert the sun and the mind to be Deities: he represents him likewise as affirming the being of one God only, and at another time of many; which are errors of almost the same kind which I before took notice of in Plato.
      3. [XIII] Antisthenes, in his book called the Natural Philosopher, says that there are many national and one natural Deity; but by this saying he destroys the power and nature of the Gods. Speusippus is not much less in the wrong; who, following his uncle Plato, says that a certain incorporeal power governs everything; by which he endeavors to root out of our minds the knowledge of the Gods.
      4. From the same school of Plato, Heraclides of Pontus stuffed his books with puerile tales. Sometimes he thinks the world a Deity, at other times the mind. He attributes divinity likewise to the wandering stars. He deprives the Deity of sense, and makes his form mutable; and, in the same book again, he makes earth and heaven Deities.
    • Aristotle and the Peripatetics, like Plato, were self-contradictory, and wrong in holding that a god has no body.
      1. Aristotle, in his third book of Philosophy, confounds many things together, as the rest have done; but he does not differ from his master Plato. At one time he attributes all divinity to the mind, at another he asserts that the world is God. Soon afterward he makes some other essence 222preside over the world, and gives it those faculties by which, with certain revolutions, he may govern and preserve the motion of it. Then he asserts the heat of the firmament to be God; not perceiving the firmament to be part of the world, which in another place he had described as God. How can that divine sense of the firmament be preserved in so rapid a motion? And where do the multitude of Gods dwell, if heaven itself is a Deity? But when this philosopher says that God is without a body, he makes him an irrational and insensible being. Besides, how can the world move itself, if it wants a body? Or how, if it is in perpetual self-motion, can it be easy and happy?
      2. Xenocrates, his fellow-pupil, does not appear much wiser on this head, for in his books concerning the nature of the Gods no divine form is described; but he says the number of them is eight. Five are moving planets;85 the sixth is contained in all the fixed stars; which, dispersed, are so many several members, but, considered together, are one single Deity; the seventh is the sun; and the eighth the moon. But in what sense they can possibly be happy is not easy to be understood.
      3. The unsteadiness of Theophrastus is equally intolerable. At one time he attributes a divine prerogative to the mind; at another, to the firmament; at another, to the stars and celestial constellations. Nor is his disciple Strato, who is called the naturalist, any more worthy to be regarded; for he thinks that the divine power is diffused through nature, which is the cause of birth, increase, and diminution, but that it has no sense nor form.
    • The Stoics were wrong in holding that “the law of nature” is a divinity, and they are otherwise wrong in thinking that the sky is a god, or that rationality is a god, and in defending the ancient myths as allegories, and in holding that the form of a god is inconceivable, and other ways too.
      1. [XIV] Zeno (to come to your sect, Balbus) thinks the law of nature to be the divinity, and that it has the power to force us to what is right, and to restrain us from what is wrong. How this law can be an animated being I cannot conceive; but that God is so we would certainly maintain. The same person says, in another place, that the sky is God; but can we possibly conceive that God is a being insensible, deaf to our prayers, our wishes, and our vows, and wholly unconnected with us?
      2. In other books he thinks there is a certain rational essence pervading all nature, indued with divine efficacy. He attributes the same power to the stars, to the years, to the months, and to the seasons.
      3. In his interpretation of Hesiod’s Theogony, he entirely destroys the established notions of the Gods; for he excludes Jupiter, Juno, and Vesta, and those esteemed divine, from the number of them; but his doctrine is that these are names which by some kind of allusion are given to mute and inanimate beings.
      4. The sentiments of his disciple Aristo are not less erroneous. He thought it impossible to conceive the form of the Deity, and asserts that the Gods are destitute of sense; and he is entirely dubious whether the Deity is an animated being or not.
      5. Cleanthes, who next comes under my notice, a disciple of Zeno at the same time with Aristo, in one place says that the world is God; in another, he attributes divinity to the mind and spirit of universal nature; then he asserts that the most remote, the highest, the all-surrounding, the all-enclosing and embracing heat, which is called the sky, is most certainly the Deity. In the books he wrote against pleasure, in which he seems to be raving, he imagines the Gods to have a certain form and shape; then he ascribes all divinity to the stars; and, lastly, he thinks nothing more divine than reason. So that this God, whom we know mentally and in the speculations of our minds, from which traces we receive our impression, has at last actually no visible form at all.
      6. [XV] Persæus, another disciple of Zeno, says that they who have made discoveries advantageous to the life of man should be esteemed as Gods; and the very things, he says, which are healthful and beneficial have derived their names from those of the Gods; so that he thinks it not sufficient to call them the discoveries of Gods, but he urges that they themselves should be deemed divine. What can be more absurd than to ascribe divine honors to sordid and deformed things; or to place among the Gods men who are dead and mixed with the dust, to whose memory all the respect that could be paid would be but mourning for their loss?
      7. Chrysippus, who is looked upon as the most subtle interpreter of the dreams of the Stoics, has mustered up a numerous band of unknown Gods; and so unknown that we are not able to form any idea about them, though our mind seems capable of framing any image to itself in its thoughts. For he says that the divine power is placed in reason, and in the spirit and mind of universal nature; that the world, with a universal effusion of its spirit, is God; that the superior part of that spirit, which is the mind and reason, is the great principle of nature, containing and preserving the chain of all things; that the divinity is the power of fate, and the necessity of future events. He deifies fire also, and what I before called the ethereal spirit, and those elements which naturally proceed from it—water, earth, and air. He attributes divinity to the sun, moon, stars, and universal space, the grand container of all things, and to those men likewise who have obtained immortality. He maintains the sky to be what men call Jupiter; the air, which pervades the sea, to be Neptune; and the earth, Ceres. In like manner he goes through the names of the other Deities. He says that Jupiter is that immutable and eternal law which guides and directs us in our manners; and this he calls fatal necessity, the everlasting verity of future events. But none of these are of such a nature as to seem to carry any indication of divine virtue in them. These are the doctrines contained in his first book of the Nature of the Gods. In the second, he endeavors to accommodate the fables of Orpheus, Musæus, Hesiod, and Homer to what he has advanced in the first, in order that the most ancient poets, who never dreamed of these things, may seem to have been Stoics. Diogenes the Babylonian was a follower of the doctrine of Chrysippus; and in that book which he wrote, entitled “A Treatise concerning Minerva,” he separates the account of Jupiter’s bringing-forth, and the birth of that virgin, from the fabulous, and reduces it to a natural construction.
  • Episode 232 - Cicero's OTNOTG - 07 - Velleius Attacks The Platonist And Aristotelian Views Of Gods

    • Cassius
    • June 8, 2024 at 12:40 PM

    Welcome to Episode 232 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.

    For our new listeners, let me remind you of several ground rules for both our podcast and our forum.

    First: Our aim is to bring you an accurate presentation of classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it.

    Second: We won't be talking about modern political issues in this podcast. How you apply Epicurus in your own life is of course entirely up to you. We call this approach "Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean." Epicurean philosophy is a philosophy of its own, it's not the same as Stoicism, Humanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Atheism, Libertarianism or Marxism - it is unique and must be understood on its own, not in terms of any conventional modern morality.

    Third: One of the most important things to keep in mind is that the Epicureans often used words very differently than we do today. To the Epicureans, Gods were not omnipotent or omniscient, so Epicurean references to "Gods" do not mean at all the same thing as in major religions today. In the Epicurean theory of knowledge, all sensations are true, but that does not mean all opinions are true, but that the raw data reported by the senses is reported without the injection of opinion, as the opinion-making process takes place in the mind, where it is subject to mistakes, rather than in the senses. In Epicurean ethics, "Pleasure" refers not ONLY to sensory stimulation, but also to every experience of life which is not felt to be painful. The classical texts show that Epicurus was not focused on luxury, like some people say, but neither did he teach minimalism, as other people say. Epicurus taught that all experiences of life fall under one of two feelings - pleasure and pain - and those feelings -- and not gods, idealism, or virtue - are the guides that Nature gave us by which to live. More than anything else, Epicurus taught that the universe is not supernatural in any way, and that means there's no life after death, and any happiness we'll ever have comes in THIS life, which is why it is so important not to waste time in confusion.

    Today we are continuing to review the Epicurean sections of Cicero's "On the Nature of The Gods," as presented by the Epicurean spokesman Velleius, beginning at the end of Section 10.

    For the main text we are using primarily the Yonge translation, available here. The text which we include in these posts is the Yonge version, the full version of which is here at Epicureanfriends. We will also refer to the public domain version of the Loeb series, which contains both Latin and English, as translated by H. Rackham.

    Additional versions can be found here:

    • Frances Brooks 1896 translation at Online Library of Liberty
    • Lacus Curtius Edition (Rackham)
    • PDF Of Loeb Edition at Archive.org by Rackham
    • Gutenberg.org version by CD Yonge 

    A list of arguments presented will be maintained here.

    Today's Text

    XII.

    ...

    What shall I say of Democritus, who classes our images of objects, and their orbs, in the number of the Gods; as he does that principle through which those images appear and have their influence? He deifies likewise our knowledge and understanding. Is he not involved in a very great error? And because nothing continues always in the same state, he denies that anything is everlasting, does he not thereby entirely destroy the Deity, and make it impossible to form any opinion of him?

    Diogenes of Apollonia looks upon the air to be a Deity. But what sense can the air have? or what divine form can be attributed to it?

    It would be tedious to show the uncertainty of Plato’s opinion; for, in his Timæus, he denies the propriety of asserting that there is one great father or creator of the world; and, in his book of Laws, he thinks we ought not to make too strict an inquiry into the nature of the Deity. And as for his statement when he asserts that God is a being without any body—what the Greeks call ἀσώματος—it is certainly quite unintelligible how that theory can possibly be true; for such a God must then necessarily be destitute of sense, prudence, and pleasure; all which things are comprehended in our notion of the Gods. He likewise asserts in his Timæus, and in his Laws, that the world, the heavens, the stars, the mind, and those Gods which are delivered down to us from our ancestors, constitute the Deity. These opinions, taken separately, are apparently false; and, together, are directly inconsistent with each other.

    Xenophon has committed almost the same mistakes, but in fewer words. In those sayings which he has related of Socrates, he introduces him disputing the lawfulness of inquiring into the form of the Deity, and makes him assert the sun and the mind to be Deities: he represents him likewise as affirming the being of one God only, and at another time of many; which are errors of almost the same kind which I before took notice of in Plato.

    XIII. Antisthenes, in his book called the Natural Philosopher, says that there are many national and one natural Deity; but by this saying he destroys the power and nature of the Gods. Speusippus is not much less in the wrong; who, following his uncle Plato, says that a certain incorporeal power governs everything; by which he endeavors to root out of our minds the knowledge of the Gods.

    Aristotle, in his third book of Philosophy, confounds many things together, as the rest have done; but he does not differ from his master Plato. At one time he attributes all divinity to the mind, at another he asserts that the world is God. Soon afterward he makes some other essence preside over the world, and gives it those faculties by which, with certain revolutions, he may govern and preserve the motion of it. Then he asserts the heat of the firmament to be God; not perceiving the firmament to be part of the world, which in another place he had described as God. How can that divine sense of the firmament be preserved in so rapid a motion? And where do the multitude of Gods dwell, if heaven itself is a Deity? But when this philosopher says that God is without a body, he makes him an irrational and insensible being. Besides, how can the world move itself, if it wants a body? Or how, if it is in perpetual self-motion, can it be easy and happy?

    Xenocrates, his fellow-pupil, does not appear much wiser on this head, for in his books concerning the nature of the Gods no divine form is described; but he says the number of them is eight. Five are moving planets; the sixth is contained in all the fixed stars; which, dispersed, are so many several members, but, considered together, are one single Deity; the seventh is the sun; and the eighth the moon. But in what sense they can possibly be happy is not easy to be understood.

    From the same school of Plato, Heraclides of Pontus stuffed his books with puerile tales. Sometimes he thinks the world a Deity, at other times the mind. He attributes divinity likewise to the wandering stars. He deprives the Deity of sense, and makes his form mutable; and, in the same book again, he makes earth and heaven Deities.

    The unsteadiness of Theophrastus is equally intolerable. At one time he attributes a divine prerogative to the mind; at another, to the firmament; at another, to the stars and celestial constellations.

    Nor is his disciple Strato, who is called the naturalist, any more worthy to be regarded; for he thinks that the divine power is diffused through nature, which is the cause of birth, increase, and diminution, but that it has no sense nor form.


  • Epicurus, Marcion the Heretic, and Tertullian

    • Cassius
    • June 8, 2024 at 9:44 AM

    Thanks for the lengthy post ScottW. I too find all that very interesting. Marcion is a fascinating figure.

    Reading these references I am irritated at how these guys seem to think that " the gods have no interest in US (humans) " is the same as "the gods have no interest in anything" - i.e. they are totally listless and dull.

    I have no interest in the ants crawling underneath my house (unless they are termites) or - better example - the microbes in the dust - but that does not mean I am totally inactive.

    It's self-centered in the extreme to presume that Epicurus thought that just because the gods have no interest in humans they would have no interest in anything at all.

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