Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from Don

He's the one who decided to use the same word to describe both the structure of the universe (atoms and *void*) and a category of desires. Just saying.

I strongly agree that Epicurus' employment of an inflection of the ancient Greek word for "spatial void" to signify "groundless desire" is significant. I see this stylistic device, among few others, as an unmistakable, poetic signature of a unique mind who re-appropriated tired, traditional connotations for the sake of providing fresh observations.

While he re-defines "pleasure", it was not such a drastic leap for the Hellenistic mind to make (unlike, herein, I argue, is the case with "kenos" / "kenon" / "kenen") because "hedone" still referred to "pleasure", just a more stable, fulfilling type of "pleasure" than they may have been used to supposing. Herein, Epicurus is completely re-defining the idea of a "destructive desire". It's not just [1] a "distraction", "addiction", "obsession", "self-destructive pursuit", or "wasted energy", rather, it is [2] "void", "space", "NULL", "literally, within the category of those things which do not exist". The former meaning [1] connects the notion of a "destructive desire", inherently, with desire, itself; with "pleasure". Desire, necessarily, was seen as being a destructive thing. Thus, from an Epicurean vantage point, the word one [2] should describe a destructive desire differently than the pleasure that entices desire, itself, and, rather, needs to be re-defined within a larger context. The destructiveness of desire has nothing to do with the feeling of desire, but rather, with the intellectual vacuity to which by which it may be motivated. If a desire has no natural meaning, no healthy purpose, then it cannot be connected with the natural canon, with raw sensation, honest feeling, and natural anticipations. It must be connected with some kind of fallacious "Logic" that have been mistaken for those original apprehensions impressed upon the mind.

Quote from Don

So, the common thread of κενός is void, empty, not able to be filled.

I found it to be clever that Epicurus links the idea of conceptual meaninglessness, vanity, superficiality, bankruptcy, uselessness, brokenness, and worthlessness with the physical void, emptiness, space. Thus, he reinforces the idea that those ideas which are not in accordance with the canon are much like space: literally non-existent.

"Don't post anything you wouldn't want to see on the front of a newspaper."

Phenomenal, Don! Thank you for sharing your work. This is an incredible tool.

He makes a number of interesting assertions. On pages 71-72, he writes:

Quote

Our character, which incorporates the state of our mood, is a synthesis of our nature and nurture; it is biologically expressed through the neurons and synapses of our brain. In the Epicurean terminology it is known as "anticipations" or "prolepses," reflecting the view that our character anticipates, to a great extent, our future experiences.

Quote from Cassius

Nate what do you interpret that to mean? I have a lot of respect for Haris, and don't think he gets the credit he probably deserves for his books.

I just think his assertion lends weight to the proposition that ΠAΣAΝ ΦAΝTAΣTΙΚΗΝ EΠΙΒΟΛΗΝ TΗΣ ΔΙAΝΟΙAΣ (from KD24) is synonymous with the word ΠPOΛEΠΣIΣ.

I'm just reading his book, and Haris Dimitriadis seems to make the same observation when he writes that "Thoughts, musings, and plans are not true, if they are not based on direct, real and obvious evidence, such as those that carry our physical characteristics, namely the senses, emotions, and anticipations. This clearly describes a Principal Doctrine '... and such evidence must come from the five senses, the feelings of pain and joy, and the impressions of the mind that arise from anticipation...' (Epicurus and the Pleasant Life: A Philosophy of Nature, 35)

Quote from camotero

As a god, right?

Definitely!

Quote from camotero

Does someone care to elaborate on what Epicurus could've meant here?

Totally! (Sorry I'm late to the conversation).

The English translations of the second paragraph of the Epistle to Menoikeus disappoint me, and I came up with a paraphrazation (not a translation, but a re-wording) that I think better contextualizes his nuances:

".... What I have to share with you should be seriously considered if you want to live well. First, having acknowledged that ‘a god’ is properly defined as ‘a ceaselessly satisfied being’, do not contradict this acknowledgment by proposing that something other than only ‘a ceaselessly satisfied being’ could qualify as ‘a god’, for the natural anticipation of ‘a perfect existence’ is relatable and therefore implicitly accessible to all living beings; But herein, note that this acknowledgment is seen as being controversial to the masses who employ myth to obscure the contradiction: that a being worthy of reverence could became embarrassingly impassioned by the activities of one specific species of primate on Earth. These are true perverters of our natural religious sympathies—despite their popular appeal to the general public—for their propositions are ultimately at odds with the reality of their own lived experiences as animals; So, as far as this material theology goes, tragedy strikes those beholden to superstition, and fortune favors the students of nature, because ‘a being who lives a perfectly pleasant life’ knows that ‘a perfect existence’ means studying nature to develop ways to preserve their pleasure, such as cultivating friendships with other ‘ceaselessly satisfied beings’ who also guard against the misery that results from any disruptions to the continuation of their ‘divine existences’ ...."

"God" (or "the gods", "deity", "divinity") is a pre-conceptual category, like "Justice". Whether or not we have any individual examples of "gods" is irrelevant: we know "the Perfect Existence" when we see it. We know Justice when we see it, even though "Justice", itself, refers to a condition or state, rather than an object or item. A mutual agreement is an example of the concept of Justice, though, it will end, and newer circumstances may no longer be evident of Justice. However, for that time, the mutual agreement had all of the marks of a "just" agreement.

Likewise, Epicurus posits that we implicitly recognize "the Perfect Existence" because, like Justice, the expectation of Living Your Best Life comes from Nature, and that's what "God" is: Nature giving you direct knowledge through pleasure and pain as to what Living Your Best Life looks like.

Many beings in an infinite universe fit that definition. If we were to gain knowledge of an extraterrestrial entity who enjoys a life of ceaseless satisfaction, and therein neither causes drama nor suffers anyone else's drama, we'll all recognize that as "God". Furthermore, this pre-conceptual impression also informs us as to what is not "God", for example: a being that adopts homo sapiens as surrogates and declares our primate species to be "its children".

Epicurus was neither saying (so to speak), "Displace reasonable judgment and practice blind faith in the Divine Entity That Guides You (because its Favor is real)", nor was he saying "We all dream about Space Zeus (et. al.), and having raw unconditional belief in the physical existence of those Space Olympians is a reliable way to live."

He was saying "If you think 'god' is anything but 'an animal living a perfectly-pleasureful life', then you're going to get confused and easily manipulated by supernatural religion, and you'll suffer."

Stevie Wonder really said it better than I just did:

"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way."

So this is sort of Epicurus' way of naturalizing the phenomena of human belief in the supernatural.

It's the natural impulse to know and pursue living your best life ("the perfect existence", "the gods", "God"). When we look to the perfect existence as something other than (1) really [physically] existing [being a real goal you can actually achieve in your natural lifespan], and (2) constantly being "perfect" [in other words, "full of uninterruptible pleasure"], then we are turning away from the reliable preconception of the perfect existence, and, instead, adopting some mythic narrative that was invented in accordance to the misunderstandings of the authors who peddled it.

Intuitively, I entertain the idea that Preconception fits into the moment when you realize "I've been lying to myself this whole time", or "I think some part of me always knew." I recognize this feeling as being equivalent to dreams that compel me to ask "I wonder what that meant?", regardless of any developed perspective I have regarding my intellectual judgment of the activity. It's also the part of me that drops LSD, eats mushrooms, or takes Nitrous (I recently had a vasectomy and had way too much nitrous which lead to a fascinating experience) and experiences an un-intellectually-filtered world without the context of having access to the parts of my brain that formulate analytical thought, construct sentences, recognizes relations, and links words. However, I remember that in that state, I feel overwhelmed with a sense of meaning; I'm just cut off from the easy ability to express that meaning with any sort of symbolic knowledge, such as spoken or written language, or even sign language. I've done it enough to learn to recognize non-linguistic impressions that do not dematerialize once the link between the language centers of the brain get "disconnected" from the processing of sensory experience, so, when I "come out of it", I tend to bring some kind of meaning with me, but it's also after interpretation, and never before. Like waking up from a dream. You are only mechanically capable of remembering the parts of the dream that you were able to link with a symbolic, conscious words, concepts, or thoughts at the very final moments of the dream, just prior to waking up (I've been keeping a dream journal for 12 years and have a wealth of evidence to support the regularity of the experience I'm describing).

All in all, I feel like dreams and psychedelic experiences give me a direct link to interface with Preconception prior to having those intuitive impressions dissected by the intellect like a medical student performing an autopsy. At most, in that medical metaphor, you can only learn about inanimate organs, without seeing how they work together. Likewise, there's a danger in language to mistake "the map for the territory" and getting lost in the "map" without actual going on a journey. The Preconception would never make the mistake of mis-recognizing the map. In fact, I don't think Preconception is aware that some other part of the Intellect is a map-maker that is trying to write an encyclopedia for later reference. The human brain (as I continue to speculate) shifted to a "map-making-centric" intellectual schema somewhere between 10,000-50,000 years ago versus the previous mental schema, which was able to pursue pleasure, learn about nature, and predict natural patterns without the benefit of complex, recursive language.

I think language is the thing that disrupts the clarity of Preconception. Or, at least, I propose that.

There seems to be particular importance in my mind on the "pro-" part of "prolepsis". The particular prefix that is added to the root word indicates a temporal relation, in this case, "before". This third criterion of knowledge (whatever it is) is occurring "before" something else, indicating that Epicurus was critically evaluating the thing that comes "later" in relation to the more reliable thing "before". In this case, it seems to be some form of mental activity.

The typical kinds of mental activity we observe and to which we can readily relate are things like "thinking", "imagining", "reflecting", "contemplating", calculating", "reasoning", "rationalizing", "problem solving", all of which take time.

He's talking about something that happens incredibly fast (or has already happened as far as we're concerned).

So, as far as this article goes, I think it is giving a good, mechanical description of some of those intellectual activities that happen so fast, they not only precede, but they help shape later activities like "conceptualizing".

I'm not sure. The minute activity of the soul is a complicated mess.

"During the 100ms, the human brain pieces together information from memories, past personal experiences, and intrinsic values to generate calculated judgements. [...] The researchers also found that the first impressions were heavily influenced by the evaluation of how much value the fictional person presented would add to the test subject’s life.This again presents first impressions as a way to befriend solely for personal gain, but also aligns with theories of evolution that state that humans developed first impressions to avoid interactions with dangerous organisms." (https://frontiersmag.wustl.edu/2018/12/21/neu…st-impressions/)

I propose that ΦAΝTAΣTΙΚΗΝ EΠΙΒΟΛΗΝ TΗΣ ΔΙAΝΟΙAΣ is used as a placeholder in PD24 for ΠPOΛEΠΣIΣ.

While continuing to expand my glossary, I came across an interesting phrase that has lead me down a rabbit hole, from which I am still attempting to emerge. Join me, and note that the following phrase is taken from the middle of the somewhat-lengthy KD24:

ΠAΣAΝ ΦAΝTAΣTΙΚΗΝ EΠΙΒΟΛΗΝ TΗΣ ΔΙAΝΟΙAΣ

As I understand it, Epicurus is employing the rhetorical device of repetition. In this case, the sentence separates three ideas by the conjuction “and”, indicating that the same value is being placed on each of the three ideas — they are equivalent. Given that the first two ideas are “Sensations “and “Feelings”, the structure of the sentence would indicate that the third idea should hold the same value, or would be placed in the same conceptual category as “Sensation” and “Feeling”. It is irregular to suppose that the "phantastikai epibolai tês dianoias" would be anything but “preconceptions”.

Let’s turn to the translators, themselves. Our 13-or-so English translators since 1850 have rendered the following:

Of the 1st Criterion:

- “Sensation”, “the Senses”, “Sense-Perception”

Of the 2nd Criterion:

- “Affectations”, “Feeling(s)”, “Passions”.

Of the 3rd Criterion:

- “conceptions of the mind which arise from the observable representation”,

- “mental apprehension”,

- “mental examinations of confirmed conceptions”,

- “focusing of thought into an impression”,”

- “intuitive faculty of the mind”,

- “application of the intellect to presentations”

- “mental examinations of confirmed concepts”,

- “imaginary twist of mind”,

- “layers of imagination involved in your thoughts”,

- “some percept of the mind itself”,

- “perception”,

- “presentational application of thought.

While further researching the issue, I came across the following observation, provided by the Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicurean Philosophy: “Preconceptions are direct apprehensions, true beliefs, concepts, and universal thoughts that are formed fromt he outside by the repeated impressions of simulacra emitted by objects, which ultimately are stored in our memory through an act of focalization of the mind [EΠΙΒΟΛΗΝ TΗΣ ΔΙAΝΟΙAΣ]” (310). The author explicitly describes prolepsis according to KD24.

As I understand, this definition of prolepsis seems to drastically expand the number of concepts that qualify as “true preconceptions”.

However, an older group of Epicureans present a different interpretation:

“According to Diogenes Laertius (10.31-2 = LS 17A), Epicurus recognizes three criteria of truth […] his followers added ‘impression-applications of the intellect’ (phantastikai epibolai tês dianoias). […] As for the ‘impression-applications of the intellect’, these were coubtless introduced to cater for cases like those of the gods, apprehended by images directly affecting the mind rather than through senses.” (Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics: An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy, 19).

So, the “Epicurean Sophists”, as Diogenes documents, seem to indicate that a 4th Criterion (Impression-Applications of the Intellect) is needed to elaborate on the 3rd Criterion (Preconceptions), since the 3rd Criterion (Preconception) required those “anticipations” to have been “impressed” by the 1st Criterion (Sensation), whereas concepts that are not directly, physically sensible except through the theatre of the mind (like “the Gods”), cannot be justified by prolepsis, and requires a separate kriterion to add to the other three.

I note that the word kriterion is ONLY used once in the Kuriai, and happens to be found in KD24, which, as far as I can tell, is also the ONLY doxa to list the criteria of Sensation and Feeling, indicating that Preconceptions would also be there.

Thus, the “Epicurean Sophists” (as ancient Athenian traditionalists argued), have misinterpreted the phrase EΠΙΒΟΛΗΝ TΗΣ ΔΙAΝΟΙAΣ to express “concepts (like ‘gods’ and ‘justice’) formed from other, foundational concepts, or even dreams” (4th Criterion), versus the correct understanding which is that EΠΙΒΟΛΗΝ TΗΣ ΔΙAΝΟΙAΣ includes BOTH “preconcepts (like ‘dog’ versus ‘cat’)" as well as "concepts (like "gods" and "justice").

I propose that ΦAΝTAΣTΙΚΗΝ EΠΙΒΟΛΗΝ TΗΣ ΔΙAΝΟΙAΣ is used as a placeholder in KD24 for ΠPOΛEΠΣIΣ.

Quote from Cassius

I would never have thought it, but in trying it I am actually now preferring the "Radiant transparent" theme, which has the top of a mountain as a background image. I'm not sure that a mountain is the best image - might hint of Stoics climbing their mountain of virtue - but the blue sky works well to set off the page on desktop and mobile. This might actually be the most advanced-looking theme of them all. Dark, but not too dark.

Epicurus uses this word AKRON - AKPON - ἄκρον - /'aːkron/ - an infection of ἄκρος (ákros) meaning “highest”, “end”, “extremity”, referring to the ends of the magnitude of pleasure (KD4), that carries the connotation of a "peak" or “mountain top”. While the "mountain top" stirs images of bitter cold, thin air, and bracing wind, there is a semantic connection between Epicureanism and a symbolic mountain in the Doxai. (This theme also happens to be my favorite, though, it is a little chilly!)

One point of interest I've observed while documenting translations is the semantic treatment of pain. Epicurus uses either algoun or lypoumen (or inflections thereof) when referring to pain. Algoun seems to describe all forms of pain, both physical and psychological. Lypoumen, on the other hand, is almost exclusively used to describe mental anguish. Several times, Epicurus has to preface the word algoun with sarks, meaning "flesh" or "body" to distinguish the physical nature of algoun because there is no word for "just physical pain". Algoun, by itself, is not enough to indicate the quality of the pain. Overwhelmingly, Epicurus uses the word algoun, by itself, without distinguishing whether the Pain is mental or physical.

Based on the words he chooses to use in the Doxai, the concept of bodily discomfort and mental anguish are both subsumed under the larger category of Pain. Epicurus identifies the goal of life as relieving pain (all pain), not just mental anguish. Prioritizing mental tranquility without addressing physical circumstances is the beginning of delusion.

Even when dying of kidney stones, aponia is still relevant: adjust your position to ease the tension in your joints, consider the consequences of adopting a better posture, regulate fluid intake to manage the discomfort, find your "goldilocks" zone so you feel cool and at ease, keep a towel or cloth around to absorb perspiration, ask to be surrounded by friends and smiling faces rather than a cold, lonely hospital bed. To deny any of these comforts is to neglect the needs of the body and dull the very sensory mechanisms that allowed us to understand dis-ease in the first place.

I challenge anyone with a viscous hangover to stand in front of a class and convince a room full of students that mental tranquility, by itself, is enough to allow them to overcome their vicious hangover. Not gonna happen.

Sorry about that, guys! I accidentally deleted the primary file during updating.

I am particularly interested in any connections you might find between words like heykhias (KD14) which later developed (and/or were appropriated) into Christian lore (see: Hesychasm). I have attempted to translate most of the stand-alone nouns, adjectives, and adverbs from ancient Greek (leaving the articles and prepositions to fend for themselves), so I welcome any elaboration anyone can share when it comes to accessible cultural links to these ideas.

Such was the basis for some of the speculation I included in italics on words like kharisi in my search for links (this, as was demonstrated through Hesiod, turns out to have been a false lead on my part.

A tribe after Karl Popper's own heart! I remember reading about the Pirahã when I was investigating the etymology of the neologism "ignosticism" coined by the late Rabbi Sherwin Wine of a branch of Humanistic Judaism (it implies that the subject questions the value or relevance of non-falsifiable ideas like "omniscience" and "omnipotence")

The structural parameters of their language, as I recall, means a mythic culture without abstract nouns: "immaterial" propositions like "a Creator" cannot even be conceptualized. I think we would call this theological non-cognitivism. Mathematics only exists with reference to immediate, countable items, so there are only words for "one", "a couple", and "many". Integers do not exist. There is no perfect geometry, so why bother speaking or thinking about it? There are only real-world objects which can be referred to by indicative pronouns like "that" and "this", so there don't need to be abstract nouns implying the existence of universal forms – conceptually, this shows how they do not see objects as individual examples of a universal archetype, but, simply, individuals. Likewise, "Death" does not exist, since a non-present person cannot be described: they cannot be the agents of action, so they cannot be the subjects of present-tense verbs in sentences, thus, there is nothing to communicate nor share as being real.

I often think that Plato, specifically, and the people whom he inspired were obsessed to the point of developing behavioral neuroses with a religious veneration of the phenomenon of "language". I think a tremendous part of our current intellectual culture is absorbed with this same, mistaken conceptualization of linguistic objects as real entities. I also think that Epicurus completely bypasses this trap door of language to which other intellectuals fall prey by grounding his ethics and epistemology in a justifiable physics. He would have a lot to talk about with the Pirahã!

As I continue to update it, I've placed each Doctrine in the Table of Contents as a hyperlink and each page has another hyperlink that redirects you back to the Table of Contents.

The addition we see in the Germans' form of Idealism is their response as faithful Christians to the undeniable success of Empiricism during the Enlightenment period. German Idealism provided modern Christians with a narrative to protect their faith while also accepting the observations that came from a camp of thinkers who were deeply skeptical of religious narratives. It allowed Idealists to interface with the observations of science while simultaneously marginalizing those findings as mere "phenomena" which cannot speak to the "true nature" of reality. Platonism didn't provide them with the defenses they needed to reject materialism since science by the 18th-century had advanced significantly, so they had to adapt new ways of explaining how Jesus the Christ could still exist in a world of machines.

As philosophical questions about the "Mind" were enthusiastically answered by materialists who grounded the unique, subjective experiences of life into universal, biological processes, Transcendental Idealists subsumed both "Mind" and "Matter" beneath the single banner of "Spirit". By the late 18th-century, Idealism was no longer adequate to explain the difference between air and oxygen, to explain how lightning was a discharge of electricity, to explain the similarities between fossils in the ground and living creatures: only chemistry, physics, and biology were robust enough for that. Kant (among others) saw the need to justify how God can still operate in a world of physical interactions. Like Gassendi with Epicurus, Kant stitched one philosophical world together with another, but, in this case, backwards.

If we turn out attention from Europe to America, we observe a similar trend in Ralph Waldo Emerson, who eventually rejected the orthodox philosophy of Harvard's school of divinity and incorporated Vedantic philosophy to help explain his position: both the mind, full of religious sympathies, and matter, which constitutes the beautiful, beneficent world of nature, are facilitated by the Spirit. This can also explain why ancient Hindu philosophy was so well received by Emerson, Schopenhauer, and others: the primary focus of ancient Indian philosophers was to reconcile Dualism and Monism. They provided extensive arguments to explain how they interface with each other, and this is exactly the sort of philosophy needed during the modern debate between Descartes' Dualism and the Monism of both Idealists and Materialists.