Posts by Joshua

Ha! Funny story about that word; when J. R. R. Tolkien was giving names to the towns in the Shire, he wanted to call a small hamlet 'Michel Delving', 'little digging'. He later learned that the word Michel (or Old English Micel) actually meant great and not little, so he made Michel Delving (Great Digging) the largest town in the Shire, and the seat of the hobbits' government, such as it was. Michel passed into modern English as mickle, which is how it came to be used by William Shakespeare.

If a philologist is getting these words mixed up, you know you've found your way to an odd part of the dictionary.

Is the desire to live virtuously--and I take that to mean, to live morally--necessary? It is not necessary for the continuance of life, but it might be necessary for happiness; is that the meaning of PD05?

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PD05. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.

Set that to one side. What about the other part; is it natural? If it's necessary, it must be natural. If it's unnecessary, it could be natural. I suppose that it is quite natural, even if I'm not sure whether it's necessary.

Then, is the desire to be perfectly virtuous necessary? Let's test that theory;

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PD30. Those natural desires which entail no pain when not gratified, though their objects are vehemently pursued, are also due to illusory opinion; and when they are not got rid of, it is not because of their own nature, but because of the person's illusory opinion.

If one fails in their desire to live with perfect virtue, does their failure entail pain? Disappointment, perhaps, but surely not pain. So it is unnecessary; it might be natural, but it is certainly unnecessary.

My personal opinion; the desire for the perfection of virtue is both unnatural and unnecessary. It is in the same class as the desires for power, fame, luxurious riches, and eternal life. These desires are empty; we pursue them in the false belief that they will provide a position of security in which to enjoy pleasure, but they not only fail in providing this security, they actively thwart our attempt to obtain it.

Don't worry, I'm just chained to my lounge chair reading Cicero at the rate of one sentence per week!

Edit to add;

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Some say that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. I find that an awkward principle because, in my view, allowing good men to do nothing is the purpose of civilization.

-David Mitchell, Unruly; A History of England's Kings and Queens

Lucretius, Book III

“Why is your distress so great, you mortal,
that you indulge in sorrowful laments
to such excess? Why do you moan and weep
at death? For if the life you had before,
which is now over, was pleasing to you,
and all its good things have not leaked away, 1300
as if stored in containers full of holes,
and disappeared without delighting you,
why do you not take your leave like a guest
well satisfied with life, you foolish man,
and with your mind at ease accept a rest
which will not be disturbed? But if all things
which you enjoyed have been frittered away [940]
and come to nothing and life offends you,
why seek to add on more which, once again,
may all be squandered foolishly and leave 1310
without providing pleasure? Instead of that,
why do you not end your life and troubles?
For if I can discover or invent
nothing more to please you, then everything
always is the same. And if your body
is not yet shrivelled up with years, your limbs
not yet worn out and torpid, still all things
will stay the same, even if you keep going
and outlast all living races, or even more,
if you should never die.”

DL: Injuries are done by men either through hate or through envy or through contempt, all of which the wise man overcomes by reasoning.

VS16: No one when he sees evil deliberately chooses it, but is enticed by it as being good in comparison with a greater evil and so pursues it.

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DL: Sexual intercourse, they say, has never done a man good, and he is lucky if it has not harmed him.

Epicurus, On the Telos: I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.

(edit; this quote from DL also appears in Vatican Saying 51 as part of a longer text)

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DL: He will be careful of his reputation in so far as to prevent himself from being despised.

VS29: To speak frankly as I study nature I would prefer to speak in oracles that which is of advantage to all men even though it be understood by none, rather than to conform to popular opinion and thus gain the constant praise that comes from the many.

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I don't mean to suggest that any of these should be taken as conclusive either way, but it is clear to me that Diogenes Laertius' summarizing merits a skeptical reading. Add to that the wide divergence among translators on very basic questions (will the wise man marry, or won't he?) and the picture grows rather muddled. I should be extremely hesitant to hang any given claim solely off what is written there. Usener in his Epicurea went even further than this in calling Laertius a 'complete ass'. Which is a touch uncharitable to my taste, but there you have it.

Charles Darwin’s complete library has been reassembled for the first time | CNN

amp.cnn.com

Since Darwin's recompiled Library is in the news,it's a good time to reconsider the question.

Let me quote first from prof. Ian Johnston's lecture on Lucretius;

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The poem’s influence, according to Stuart Gillespie and Donald Mackenzie, can be linked to a range of twentieth-century poets and philosophers. So pervasive is its presence in the intellectual climate that for one critic at least (Stuart Gillespie) Charles Darwin’s claim that he had not read Lucretius is rather like Milton’s claiming that he had not read Genesis.

I believe he is referencing the Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, and as Stuart Gillespie's quote makes clear, whether Darwin even read the early atomists is far from certain. The catalogue of his reconstructed library contains over seven thousand titles, and only six of these titles relate to materialism. Lucretius' poem is absent, but one of the texts (in good DeWittean style) is an address contrasting the systems of Epicureanism and Christianity;

Thompson, Joseph Parrish. 1875. "Lucretius or Paul: materialism and theism tested by the nature and needs of man" . Berlin: A. Asher and Co.

Since this address was published 16 years after The Origin of Species, it cannot be construed to establish even an interest in Epicureanism on Darwin's part; it's possibly he picked this volume up just to see what all of the chatter was about after he had been more or less accused of plagiarism.

And as I've said before, if Epicurus was right about nature, if the universe was, in fact, a well ordered cosmos, if the laws governing both mundane and celestial mechanics were predictable in their operations, then there is no obstacle for a Darwin to rediscover what a Greek thinker or Roman poet had already learned.

Well you have certainly educated me!

I forgot to mention that Emily Austin's Living for Pleasure was published by OUP within the last year or so. Dr. Austin sets a different tone than Sedley's more academic offering, and she has been very kind to us here!

David Sedley's Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom uses the eponymous Roman poet's work, largely intact, to reconstruct the lost writings of Epicurus (most importantly for Lucretius, Epicurus' thirty seven scrolls On Nature). But that's Cambridge University Press.

I believe there was discussion of epibolai in one of the Glidden papers, but I'm at work right now so cannot easily check.

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It is interesting that this is out of Brigham Young University and most of the good recent translations of Philodemus have been from the Society of Biblical Literature.

Hmm. I wonder if the link is papyrology; the scholars working on the Dead Sea Scrolls and those working on Herculaneum and other fragmentary texts sharing tools, technology, and insights.

The citations from the letters of Cicero to Cassius Longinus were very appropriate to this discussion, so thank you Cassius !

I should note that my identification of Jesus could be Mary, but she is usually portrayed in blue clothes and while she is often depicted in adoration of the Host, she is seldom seen presenting it.

Why does Achilles look like a woman, you ask? Achilles is usually portrayed as an Ephebos, an adolescent youth. In one famous episode he actually disguised himself as a maiden.

But bear in mind that all of this is just guesswork on my part.

I notice that most of the figures in the painting are looking to this seated figure. How we should identify him is an interesting question. Matthew 10:10 reads; Don't take a traveling bag for the road, or an extra shirt, sandals, or a walking stick, for the worker is worthy of his food. This may explain the bag and staff; an encumbrance tying the poor soul to this world? Alternatively, the cloak, staff and purse are the symbols of the philosopher, as on the Boscoreale cup. Originally these were associated with Cynicism, but the meaning expanded to include philosophers generally.

At any rate, the man is surrounded by other figures vying for his attention; Nike the goddess of Victory stands on a globe, offering him the world. Hermes is at his right ear, the god of commerce and trade, offering him security in wealth. Aphrodite is to his left (portrayed here with her girdle), offering pleasure; she gestures towards the bedroom and the richly furnished table. The child Eros is on hand as well, and offers Love.

In the center of the painting stands Jesus Christ, with Chalice and Host. To his right is Hercules, to his left is Achilles. Labor and Duty, perhaps? At the focal point in heaven is the Hebrew name of God, YHWH.

The left of the painting is obscure to me.

I think he misses the subtleties of Epicurus' language:

From the letter to Pythocles; "The size of the sun is to us what it appears to be, and in reality it is either greater or less or the same size."

"Death is nothing to us; for what has disintegrated is without perception, and what is without perception is nothing to us."

It is not principally a question of harm, but of experience. And just like with the size of the sun, a different perspective yields a different perception. The death of a child is a horror to his mother, because the mother still exists as a subject whose experience is modified by predicates. The child? No subject; therefore no predicate.

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So, within that context, while I (personally) identify significantly more with Lucretius' anti-religious attitude, I think that Epicurus' personal expression of pious devotion might have been (in general) closer to the Roman idea of "religio".

I credit the book Long Live Latin for helping me to understand this, and I think it's worth considering; Lucretius had a separate word which he used in Book 5 for his understanding of pious devotion. The Latin word is pietas, which he contrasts with religio. Around line 1200 (Bailey translation);

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Nor is it piety at all to be seen often with veiled head turning towards a stone, and to draw near to every altar, no, nor to lie prostrate on the ground with outstretched palms before the shrines of the gods, nor to sprinkle the altars with the streaming blood of beasts, nor to link vow to vow, but rather to be able to contemplate all things with a mind at rest.

I'll quote my own words from an old thread;

"Pietas, then, is not a synonym of religio but its true opposite. Religio is a kind of madness born of superstition; it is attended by fear, traffics in well-worn lies, and delights in obscurantism and servility. Pietas is the spirit of understanding born of inquiry; it brings peace, "reveals darkly hidden things", and delights in clarity and the health of the unburdened soul."

My building has a problem with porch pirates, which is the only reason I haven't gotten your book yet, but I'll find a way to get it soon! Several neighbors have doorbell cameras now so I hope the problem will resolve itself.

Einstein on mathematics:

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One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of all other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts. In spite of this, the investigator in another department of science would not need to envy the mathematician if the laws of mathematics referred to objects of our mere imagination, and not to objects of reality. For it cannot occasion surprise that different persons should arrive at the same logical conclusions when they have already agreed upon the fundamental laws (axioms), as well as the methods by which other laws are to be deduced therefrom. But there is another reason for the high repute of mathematics, in that it is mathematics which affords the exact sciences a certain measure of security, to which without mathematics they could not attain.

At this point an enigma presents itself which in all ages has agitated inquiring minds. How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things?

In my opinion the answer to this question is, briefly, this:—As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

This entails, among other things, dismissing a lot of what Plato thought was true about mathematics. If Euclid and others like him can derive from the basic axioms of geometry a profound understanding of its higher operations, can the philosopher working by analogy use pure reason to escape the cave of sensory illusion by taking hold of absolute truth? Just as all of math is innately embedded in its axioms, is all knowledge innate and all 'learning' merely rediscovery of what we knew before our souls were imprisoned in our sluggish flesh?

Epicurus is often criticized for his aversion to math. But his real distaste was for the kind of philosophy that used faulty assumptions about math and reason to arrive at conclusions that were divorced from reality.

Episode 61 of the Lucretius Today podcast (well before my time) gives another view onto this aspect of the philosophy.

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When we get to this kind of language, it should be put down, not by some philosopher, but by the censor, for its fault is not a matter of language only but of morality as well.

-Marcus Tullius Cicero

This censor approves! I, the pencil, was silver when I came from the fire, but in your hands I have become golden likewise.

I do find the staying power of this usage to be remarkable. The Scottish adventurer Cunninghame Graham wrote this in a book on his travels;

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Almost all Europeans in Morocco must of necessity be merchants, if not they must be consuls, for there is hardly any other industry open to them to choose. The [christian] missionaries bought and sold nothing, they were not consuls; still they ate and drank, lived in good houses, and though not rich yet passed their lives in what the Jews called luxury. So they [the Jews] agreed to call them followers of Epicurus, for, as they said, "this Epicurus was a devil who did naught but eat and drink." The nickname stuck, and changed into Bikouros by the Moors, who thought it was a title of respect, became the name throughout Morocco for a missionary. One asks as naturally for the house of Epicurus on coming to a town as one asks for the "Checquers" or the "Bells" in rural England. Are you "Bikouros"? says a Moor, and thinks he does you honour by the inquiry; but the recipients of the name are fit to burst when they reflect on their laborious days spent in the surgery, their sowing seed upon the marble quarries of the people's hearts, and that the Jews in their malignity should charge upon them by this cursed name, that they live in Morocco to escape hard work, and pass their time in eating and In in quaffing healths a thousand fathoms deep.

Which is how Bikouros came to be mentioned as a very minor character in one of Frank Herbert's Dune novels.