Posts by Godfrey

This thread and the Episode 155 thread are getting intertwined! I just posted there before reading the last couple of posts here. Here's the link to that post, so I don't duplicate it:

Post

RE: Episode 155 - "Epicurus And His Philosophy" Part 11 - The Canon, Reason, and Nature 02

From the Hopkins Press article linked in Don 's post above: "In De Anima (Of the Soul) he [Aristotle] argues that, for every sense, there is a sense organ." It would seem that Epicurus was referencing this, and thinking of the brain as a sense organ when he wrote about images, dreams and knowledge of the gods. Centaurs and such were also perceived in this way by images getting jumbled in transit, as it were.

Our conception of the brain is far removed from this idea, and this makes it more…

Godfrey

January 11, 2023 at 1:22 AM

From the Hopkins Press article linked in Don 's post above: "In De Anima (Of the Soul) he [Aristotle] argues that, for every sense, there is a sense organ." It would seem that Epicurus was referencing this, and thinking of the brain as a sense organ when he wrote about images, dreams and knowledge of the gods. Centaurs and such were also perceived in this way by images getting jumbled in transit, as it were.

Our conception of the brain is far removed from this idea, and this makes it more difficult to understand the Canon as Epicurus intended it. Dreams, images and gods do originate from outside input. The difference between Epicurus and us is that we see such things as subconscious mental processes, processing external input from myths, legends and religion, often occurring in infancy and early childhood. Epicurus (to my understanding) describes such things as sensations that the brain experiences directly, with no processing involved.

However there's a further point about which I'm quite unclear. What exactly are epibolai? And what is meant by "grasping" and "focusing the attention"? The latter two, at least, sound to me like mental processes. Then my question is whether or not any Epicureans are including these mental processes in the Canon and why? This may have already been answered and I missed it in my befuddlement: if so, I apologize.

Not sure; I was reacting to the above posts. I'm pretty unclear as to the 4th criterion and the epibolai so I'm just trying to get my footing at this point. Also, as I recall epibolai have something to do with grasping (as in understanding?). Both dreams and intuitive leaps are mechanisms for grasping, to my thinking.

Quote from Todd

Is it a sensation? I think that's the best fit. It is an observation, but it's an observation of internal reality rather than external. That seems acceptable to me - the human mind is part of nature too - but it might seem like a slippery slope. And it is very different from the traditional senses.

I'd vote for this one. In Zen the mind is sometimes referred to as a thought generating organ. With this in mind (pardon the pun), observing one's thoughts might be similar to observing one's breathing. Or observing any other bodily function.

Am I correct in understanding that "intuitive leaps" are being discussed as a part of this 4th leg? These would be the kind of thing that gives you an "aha!" moment in the shower, for example. If so, the dividing line as to whether or not these are a criterion would be whether or not they are conscious of non-conscious.

Dreams are non-conscious constructs from prior input and are considered "true." Aha moments, I think, are also non-conscious constructs from prior input, so would they, too, be true? Is the answer different depending on whether you consider it from the Epicurean theory of atoms or from modern science?

Here are a couple of other papers that have been in my "to read" list for way too long....

EpicurusOnImpressionsOfTheMind_DeWitt_14pp.pdf

EpicurusOnTruthAndFalsehood_Bown_41pp.pdf

This post is just an introductory post for this introductory book. I'm only part way through the book, but there are two topics in particular which look to be fruitful for discussion here.

But first, a quick overview. As the title indicates, this is intended to be an introductory book. In keeping with that, it's a fairly quick read. The Principal Doctrines, the Vatican Sayings, some of Diogenes Laertius, and the three letters are included (these are not new translations, for those interested). The chapters are essays written by members of the Garden of Athens and originally published separately over the last decade or so.

The essays provide an introductory outline of the philosophy, and include a few that focus on the Canon and epistemology (or gnoseology, the term used in the book).

The topics of particular interest here are:

1) The principles of atomic physics. Not 12, not 10, but 18 principles are listed. I didn't notice how this number was derived. Given some of the recent discussion on the forum, however, this might be fuel for a post or two

2) Even more interesting, to me, is the discussion of epistemology. A case is made for the Canon having four parts, not three. Here, we subscribe to the idea of the three part Canon but are aware of the argument for a fourth part; in the book they make the argument for the fourth, which is "the imaginary impositions of the mind." Definitely a topic worth discussing!

There's more, but this is as far as I've read so far. I'll want to go back and review some of the book before I post in detail: consider this a teaser for the book They have some different takes on the philosophy than we do, and understanding their thinking on various issues will, I think, be very useful for us, whether we eventually agree or not.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on the book. It's reasonably priced, and the Kindle version is available for free on Amazon Unlimited. (For the budget conscious: a couple of weeks ago I got a two month AU subscription for 99 cents a month, but I'm not sure if Amazon is still offering that.)

FWIW, I always cringe when pleasures are referred to as useful, harmful and such. This implies a ranking of pleasures, which to my understanding, Epicurus was firmly against. To me, choices and avoidances occur with desires, not pleasures. This is perhaps picking a nit, but it's a nit that can lead to "fancy pleasures" like absence of pain, as well as a misunderstanding of the philosophy.

From a modern perspective:

Drift vs. Swerve | the difference - CompareWords

"Drift" is intriguing... with this caveat:

Quote from Don

PS: Do we know if the clinamen is supposed to be a fast swerving all of a sudden or a drifting off to one side or the other?

Back at you. Happy New Year to all!

Thanks for all your hard work Don . Merry Christmas!

Quote from Todd

Maybe the transition to Latin was where it all started to go wrong.

This would be interesting to pursue, maybe in another thread. I don't have the Greek or Latin chops to pursue it, but if anyone else wants to I'll follow it with interest Meanwhile, this paper that Don linked to sounds fruitful!

Slippery bastard, indeed! In reading through the above download, it seems that at least every other line could be easily refuted (which is similar to the rest of the tiny amount of Plato that I've read). Yet the argument blithely proceeds....

Don there are some examples of "good" in there in case you're interested.

The only thing that might be helpful to change is the very end under The Why: it's also important to clarify this in order to live your best life, and to have ready at hand if you are in a situation where you question your beliefs.

So it would seem that what's important to discuss and work with is pleasure/pain, and not "the good," "a good," or "good." But it's going too far to say that pleasure is not a good or to separate pleasure and good. And there's a context in which it's important to parse good/a good/the good, but that's peripheral to a functional understanding of Epicurean philosophy. Is this the conclusion we're reaching?

Quote from Todd

1) There is no such thing as a good (or a bad) in nature. The concept of a good is a product of human reason. So first we need to define what a good is (or stop talking about them).

2) How would we define a good, using only the tools nature gave us? Pleasure and pain seem like the obvious tools for the job.

I'd like to dig into this, thinking out loud (as it were). If I'm not mistaken, Epicurus defined pleasure as what is conducive to life and pain as what is not conducive to life. Offhand, I don’t recall if this is in his extant writing, or if I got it elsewhere. But this would apply to all life: single cells, plants, animals, babies, adult philosophy enthusiasts, etc. As pointed out in 2), this makes pleasure and pain obvious choices for defining good and bad.

What is conducive to life would be intuited by that life as good, not conducive as bad. I guess this is where the anticipation comes in. So pleasure = good, and pain = bad. Now what produces pleasure is also a good, and what produces pain is also a bad. By this way of thinking, "good" is pleasure and "a good" produces pleasure/good.

Quote from Todd

4) So is pleasure a good? Does it produce pleasure? No, it IS pleasure. Therefore, it is not a good.

So it seems to me that the word "good" has multiple meanings that are so intertwined as to resist this conclusion. It's a little bit like "read" in the phrase "read that book" v the phrase "they read that book." "Read" is both a command and a past tense verb, and also has different pronunciations. How would this apply to good/a good/the good? I'm not enough of a linguist to answer that, so I'll ask the question because I think this needs to be dealt with.

Trying to "improve" one's enemies has a long history and to a degree gets to the heart of what's so destructive about religion (aside from the issues of "faith" and the supernatural). The Crusades and the Inquisition come readily to mind.

For that matter, trying to improve one's friends isn't such a great idea. Try telling a loved one that they need to lose weight!

Quote

Quote

Quote from Godfrey 3. In light of 2, I think that we all agree that pleasure is the positive/attractive part of the faculty of Feelings. As such, a prudent understanding of one's feelings and desires is the core of Epicurean ethics.

Yes, of course.

However, saying things in such a general way that no one could possibly disagree and still call themselves an Epicurean is not interesting to me (possibly a personal failing).

I was mainly trying to clarify a point of agreement with that comment, bc I was losing track of where the discussion was going.

Quote

Quote

Quote from Godfrey 4. Pleasure is good. It's a good. It's The Good. It feels good. It's everything described in the previous 138 posts.

for the clever way of putting that.

But this strikes me as a rather bland, (somewhat) non-controversial flavor of Epicureanism. I would like to be able to make stronger claims, and to do that, you have to be very clear on what words actually mean and how concepts relate. Again, this is possibly a personal failing of mine.

Definitely not a personal failing!

This comment 4 was a tongue-halfway-in-cheek way of saying, in conjunction with 3, that (at least for me) it's more productive to discuss "pleasure" than "good." I don't call this bland or non-controversial; consider

- there is no supernatural

- there is no life after death

- the basis of ethics is pleasure

- Plato and Aristotle were in many ways misguided and misleading

- the starting point of philosophy is the individual, not the polis

These five assertions have made opponents apoplectic for 2300 years! Just the idea that the basis of ethics is pleasure drives people crazy. But I wasn't trying to derail the discussion as much as clarify the parameters. Good discussion!

I'm coming late to this discussion, but....

1. This seems like exactly the type of rabbit hole that Cicero cleverly led to in his discussion of Epicurus.

2. Todd you have mentioned repeatedly that in this thread you are only discussing ethics. I think that that's a mistake, because there's no Epicurean ethics without the physics. To me, separating the two is in this instance an error of dialectics, which can be useful for winning arguments but not terribly useful in gaining a complete understanding of a subject.

3. In light of 2, I think that we all agree that pleasure is the positive/attractive part of the faculty of Feelings. As such, a prudent understanding of one's feelings and desires is the core of Epicurean ethics.

4. Pleasure is good. It's a good. It's The Good. It feels good. It's everything described in the previous 138 posts.

5. From my perspective, there seem to be three things being discussed in this thread: a) parsing the concept "good," b) trying to gain a clear grasp of Epicurean philosophy, and c) coming to a way of presenting the philosophy to others. If I'm correct in this, it might be helpful to put a) into one thread and b) and c) into another thread. Combining them all, at least for me, is creating a lot of confusion. If new terminology is necessary, I think it would best derive from a discussion of the intent of the philosophy, from general to specific. Parsing the meaning of specific ancient words is important, but needs to be done in a very specific context. And, at least for me, the specificity of that context seems uncertain in this thread.