Posts by Godfrey

Quote from Camotero

The last line quoted above is a testament to how reason is not to be disregarded, isn't it? Perhaps this is the type of true reason that we won't be able yo get by without?

If this reason isn't logic, or formal logic, could we agree that it could be "critical thinking"?

This seems to be a key distinction! Logic that is used to win arguments may lead to victory but not necessarily truth. Epicurus placed high value on wisdom and/or prudence, which I think can be equated to critical thinking. Reasoning of this sort has the goal of living well, not necessarily winning arguments.

Of course this begs the question: "how do you define prudence or critical thinking?" Film at 11

To expose my ignorance, one question that I have as I begin to work my way through DeLacey: how do "signs" fit into this discussion? It seems that words are signs; what about "first mental images," concepts... what else can be considered a sign? Do the Stoics have a different idea of what constitutes a sign than the Epicureans do? Just defining the language with which to discuss logic and methods of inference is confusing!

I stumbled upon this quote online, though I'm not sure if it's helpful:

Quote

"All instruction is either about things or about signs; but things are learnt by means of signs. I now use the word “thing” in a strict sense, to signify that which is never employed as a sign of anything else: for example, wood, stone, cattle, and other things of that kind. Not, however, the wood which we read Moses cast into the bitter waters to make them sweet, nor the stone which Jacob used as a pillow, nor the ram which Abraham offered up instead of his son; for these, though they are things, are also signs of other things. There are signs of another kind, those which are never employed except as signs: for example, words. No one uses words except as signs of something else; and hence may be understood what I call signs: those things, to wit, which are used to indicate something else. Accordingly, every sign is also a thing; for what is not a thing is nothing at all. Every thing, however, is not also a sign. And so, in regard to this distinction between things and signs, I shall, when I speak of things, speak in such a way that even if some of them may be used as signs also, that will not interfere with the division of the subject according to which I am to discuss things first and signs afterwards. But we must carefully remember that what we have now to consider about things is what they are in themselves, not what other things they are signs of. AUGUSTINE, De Doctrina 1.2." From the Heidlblog

Despite the anachronism it seems that this is what Epicurus was struggling against

Quote from Camotero

But how can logic be verified through the senses, if it is completely a mental thing. Wouldn't it be, logic should be constraint to material issues? Or that if it has to fly a bit into the ether, it should have a grounding back into maerial reality, otherwise it would be plain speculation about things that don't exist?

For me, it seems critical to ground logic in material reality and that's the purpose of the Canon. Think of the common example of "Bob is a man. All men are mortal. Therefore Bob is mortal." At least to my understanding, we need the Canon to provide evidence that Bob is a man and that all men are mortal, or neither of the two statements are verifiable and therefore the conclusion is not verifiable, even if it is "formally" correct. This is why I think it's important that the article linked to above in post #7 describes reasoning in the context of the scientific method.

Thanks for the link Camotero!

What I like about the descriptions in the linked article is that all three types of reasoning are discussed as part of the scientific method and subject to verification. What drives me crazy would appear to be deductive reasoning in which premisses are presented as true without proper examination. A particular conclusion is then accepted as true and used as a premiss for further argument. So as described in the article, proper examination and verification of each statement would lead to correct conclusions.

Quote from Cassius

When I think anticipation I can't help thinking of Carly Simon!

I tend to think of The Rocky Horror Picture Show

The entire operation of a computer is based on 1 and 0, which might be equated to pleasure and pain. Or not.

Methods of Inference sounds valuable and I confess that I haven't spent a lot of time with it.

The issue here, to me, is that I don’t see how higher and lower life forms relate to the idea of isonomia as presented by Cicero. Higher and lower life forms, both known and unknown, I see as intuitively obvious based on the Epicurean viewpoint. But if the only description of isonomia that we have is Cicero's, then I don’t see isonomia as a pertinent concept in EP.

So I think that finding a proper definition of isonomia is necessary if we are to be able to accurately evaluate its place in the philosophy. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think that anyone here is questioning the existence of higher and lower life forms. It's just that Cicero seems to use isonomia to validate the divine, so if we think that isonomia is valid based on an agreed upon definition, then we need to evaluate what is meant by the divine, based on the definition of isonomia. That may lead right back to higher and lower life forms, but with my current understanding I don't see it doing so.

Quote from Cassius

The isonomia view would I think allow for an infinite progression / spectrum of advancement above us.

Quote from Cicero

From this principle it follows that if the whole number of mortals be so many, there must exist no less a number of immortals

First, I think that the Cicero quote is more accurate as to the meaning of isonomia: it sounds to me like it deals with opposites and not a progression or spectrum.

Second, I don't agree with Cicero's conclusion that there must be an infinite number of immortals: this seems like a juxtaposition of a Platonic ideal with a living reality. To me it's no more valid than saying "if the number of mortals be so many, there must exist no less a number of rocks." Ah, logic....

So the problem, I think, is determining what the "exact match and counterpart" of a mortal (a mortal defined as a living human being, subject to dying?) is, and if this would have been a useful idea for Epicurus. Although the idea of a spectrum of beings makes perfect sense to me, I don't understand that as isonomia. But of course I could be confused about that

From Cicero’s statement as well as from Alcmaeon, I don't see isonomy implying a hierarchy of beings. I read it as "equalities of opposites" (mortal/immortal, creation/destruction, good/evil, light/dark...).

This seems valid to a point, but it seems like at some point it could just turn in to sophistry or Platonism where one might name a random thing and then claim that another random thing is it's opposite, leading to endless logical nonsense. Come to think of it, the principle of isonomy requires that since there is an infinite amount of common sense in the universe, there must also be an equally infinite amount of idiocy in the universe

I wonder if this is what led Pyrrho down his path of not knowing?

That's an interesting question. On first pass I would say that it's the feeling of pain, and it's a good illustration of why sometimes we would choose to sacrifice ourselves because the pain of sacrifice would be less than the pain of seeing our child suffer.

On second pass, however, there is sensation and preconception involved, as well as feeling. Feelings don't just arise out of nowhere! So this is a good way to examine what a preconception might be in a particular instance. Would the preconception be a non-conscious expectation of a continuing relationship with the calf/child? I think that this begins to point out the "non conceptual" nature of a "preconception." In modern terms it might be called a non-conscious mental model arising from a non-conscious prediction loop, at least to my meager understanding.

Coincidentally this paper discussing isonomia showed up in my feed. I've only skimmed it as it's pretty academic, but what I gather is that isonomia refers to opposites and the idea that DeWitt is referring to is that in an infinite universe, if something exists, then so must it's opposite.

Apparently this relates to the pre-Socratic writer Alcmaeon's theory of health (ἰσονομία, equilibrium of opposite forces in the body) and disease (μοναρχία, domination of one excessive force).

In the past I've also been interested in the writing of Sarah Williams Goldhagen regarding embodied cognition. But she, as I recall, is a design critic. LFB is a neuroscientist and is more on point.

Here's one thread on her work:

Thread

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett

This book is about the “theory of constructed emotion,” which is based in experiments and research.

My goal in reading the book was to explore whether current neuroscience can add any clarity to the prolepseis, as there is so little remaining text concerning them. What I found is that it actually is relevant to the entire Canon. Though the subject of the book is emotions, it also covers sensations and feelings as well as what I think we can interpret as prolepseis. Note that although the author…

Godfrey

April 15, 2021 at 8:28 PM

They were everywhere and I didn't even know it!

A Google search just informed me that the Cowsills' big hit was Hair. I had no idea... ah, nostalgia!

Joshua I like the compass analogy, but thinking about it further I have some reservations. The compass can show us where north is, but most often our goal isn't actually to travel north. So it's a reference, but pleasure is more properly a direct guide. I think this is one reason why True North has a troublesome Platonic feel.

As for the old man, it's not so much that he's followed the guide, or compass, of pleasure for his whole life. Speaking from my experience it's more a matter of learning from a series of mistakes to pay attention to the guide. Using another compass analogy: just as a compass wavers back and forth before settling on north, a young person is still wavering in search of the target but the old person has finished wavering and settled onto the target.

Off the top of my head, Buddhism is a religion that doesn't worship a god but follows its founder's teachings. So that might apply in some way to this discussion.

Quote from Cassius

Pleasure is where I think the deepest questions arise as to how that faculty came to be - because the others all seem to be channeling data to it, where alone the "stop" and "go" signals arise.

This brings to mind the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett that Don and I have posted about previously. As I recall, she discussed in a podcast (I'm not sure if it's in her book) a million year old primitive life form as being a very early manifestation of the faculty. But she's not looking at the way Epicurus described things: modern neuroscience just seems to have a lot of overlap with his thinking.

In her book she describes "affect": a combination of pleasant/unpleasant and calm/agitation. She discusses the neural networks and systems involved, and the comparison to the Canon (with which she apparently is not familiar) is quite thought provoking.

For a non-Greek allegorical anecdote about the good as a noun:

I recently purchased a small ceramic sculpture. One day as I was observing and thinking about it, it occurred to me that it was precious in a certain way and that it could be instructive to compare it to "the good." How would I respond to it as something "precious?" Observe it, treat it with care, contemplate it, place it somewhere that I can maximize my opportunities to appreciate it.... Considering it precious, should I stress out over damaging or losing it or maximize my pleasure regarding it? I also realized that while it may seem precious to me, to someone else it may seem like junk! (But this realization digresses from my point.)

Well, naturally I arrived at the conclusion that the best thing to do is to maximize the pleasure that I can gain from this object. In this particular case the pleasures are primarily mental: observing the object, thinking about other pieces by the sculptor and the ideas she may be working with, trying to understand how it was constructed, thinking about what it is that I enjoy about it, noticing the various textures, remembering the pleasant circumstances in which I first encountered it, &c.... (I guess if I had a different disposition I may have concluded that it's my virtuous duty to care for it, but that's not where I ended up.)

My point is that it's possibly useful to think of the sculpture as a proxy for "life itself," and to think of my conclusion of the best thing to do as "the goal." Of course one may arrive at their own conclusions....

(For the record, the sculpture isn't all that precious but, personally, I'm enjoying it greatly.)

I hadn't thought of it in this context, but over the years I've derived much pleasure from geometry, trigonometry and basic math. They have been pleasurable in themselves to varying degrees, and also as useful tools to realize the joys of drawings, which often themselves were useful tools in the creation of a variety of objects and spaces.

In dealing with various theories of beauty and proportion, to me beauty and resonance in the resulting products invariably come down to the humanity and the feelings expressed. Without humanity and feelings, any coherent inner logic falls flat.

Furthermore, I can't say that geometry, trig or math ever provided me with any valuable insights; they assisted in refining and communicating other, more interesting and relevant ideas.

Quote from camotero

I like that she's very clear about logic being able to provide "valid" arguments, but not necessarilly "true" arguments, particularly that an argument can be valid but not necessarilly true.

This is what has always struck me about logic (not that I'm close to being an expert!). You can have an internally consistent argument that has no basis in reality, so what's the point?

Thanks for the podcast link, it looks interesting.