Posts by Joshua

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To me, what really distinguishes DeWitt from other commentators is that he seems to have devoted almost his entire professional writing career to the study and exposition of Epicurean philosophy exclusively.

It's beside your main point, but what I'm finding in my research is that his academic interest in Epicureanism may stem from later in his career than I realized. There is, first, his dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago; a study of the erotic in "The Dido Episode in the Aeneid of Virgil", 1907. He surveys the literature of Greece and Rome in laying the groundwork for his thesis, but one figure is curiously absent: Lucretius.

Excluding the above, his next six publications (1912-1924) are all on Virgil. Then an article on litigation and Cicero, followed by two history textbooks (1927 and 1934) for the curriculum in Canada.

After these, a course correction; at the age of 59, in an essay entitled "Parresiastic Poems of Horace" (1935), he writes on παρρησία (parrhesia, frankness of speech) as an unique virtue of Epicureanism. After this, essays on Epicurean Gratitude and Epicurean Kinetics ('37 and '41). Then a detour with his son through a cooperative translation of Demosthenes (1949), and right back to Epicureanism.

In 1954, Epicurus and his Philosophy and St. Paul and Epicurus are both published; it seems likely enough to me that he spent more than five years on these two texts, and may have worked on them while coordinating the translation of Demosthenes with his son.

One last thing at the very end of his life--an essay on daily life in Rome called "Vesta Unveiled", as part of a collection of essays published in honor of Berthold Ullman, a Classicist who earned his Ph.D at Chicago a year after DeWitt.

So most of the last twenty years of his life were devoted to the study of Epicureanism, most of his early career to Virgil.

Introduction

I have had some success in tracing the early life of prof. Norman Wentworth Dewitt, born September 18, 1876 in the small hamlet of Tweedside, Ontario, on the Niagara Peninsula. An early ancestor was Nicholas de Witt, born 1594 in East Frisia. Nicholas was a Doctor, and in that capacity is alleged to have accompanied Henry Hudson in his exploration of the Hudson River as Ship's Doctor on the Half-Moon.

Nicholas de Witt had a son Tjerck Claeszen de Witt, who emigrated without his father to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, on Manhattan, in what is now New York. There he died in 1700. I am on the point of confirming that his descendants were Loyalists during the American Revolution, and during or after the War they removed themselves to Upper Canada (so named because it lies around the upper reaches of the Saint Lawrence River which empties out of Lake Ontario and runs northeast to the sea).

According to the magisterial genealogy compiled by Vona Smith, née DeWitt, called Tierck Clafsen DeWitt and Descendants of His Son Luycas DeWitt, published 2004, Norman DeWitt's father Hiram was born into the 11th generation of that line in 1830 at Saltfleet, a Township in Hamilton, Ontario.

Hiram DeWitt, his father John, and his brothers John Jr. and Joseph owned contiguous or at least approximate farms in the area of Tweedside, as shown on this undated Township and Concession Map:

https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/countyatlas/Images/Maps/TownshipMaps/wen-m-saltfleet.jpg

Tweedside appears in the southeast corner, and Hiram's farm--Norman DeWitt's boyhood home--was two blocks west of the Post Office and a block and a half west of the Methodist church, both of which fronted on Mud Street.

The Methodist Church in Tweedside was a simple red brick affair, first built in 1874 two years before Norman DeWitt was born, and then rebuilt in 1897. This rebuilt church was still standing in the first decade of the 21st century. I have a here a recommendation from 2002 either to lease the church, to renovate it, or to demolish the dilapidated structure. In any case the church was demolished, though I cannot determine precisely when this happened; the cemetery is still in use.

Today only the foundation remains;

Our young scholar will, no doubt, have scaled those steps in his youth.

The land all around is farm country, and nothing else of old Tweedside remains. 4 miles (6km) to the north was the line of the Great Western Railway bisecting the coastal town of Winona along the south shore of Lake Ontario. The journey from Tweedside to Winona would require crossing the Niagara Escarpment, a massive geological landform running in a great arc from New York state to Wisconsin. The road shown on the Saltfleet township map above contains two switchbacks.

40 miles (~60 km) to the east on the Great Western lay Niagara Falls, and the border crossing to the United States by way of the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge--"the first working suspension railway bridge in history". This bridge was, to the credit of John Augustus Roebling, an incredible achievement.

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American engineers regard the Suspension Bridge as a major achievement of efficiency. In a fledgling country where resources—material and financial—were limited, they had to make do with whatever was available. This goal was espoused by the American Society of Civil Engineers, which opined, "That is the best engineering, not which makes the most splendid, or even the most perfect work, but that which makes a work that answers the purpose well, at the least cost." Roebling had built a bridge that rivaled grander bridges of leading European nations at a much lower cost.

An advertisement for the bridge and the falls, dating to 1876, the year DeWitt was born. It's difficult to imagine now looking at a satellite view of Tweedside 40 miles west, but this was an energetic and industrious age for the two countries. Going west from the small town of Winona, the Great Western Railway followed the lake to the port city of Hamilton and the main railyard. From Hamilton, the line forked--west, deeper into the country before crossing the border again at Detroit--or northeast, and on to the great city of Toronto.

Of Norman DeWitt's early education I can give no account. His mother Margaret emigrated from Ireland and was orphaned at the age of 5. She was raised in the family of Tweedsider Thomas MulHolland, and was married to Hiram DeWitt in 1868. However it happened, it strikes me as likely that in the autumn of 1894, at the age of 17, Norman Wentworth Dewitt and his luggage must have boarded a passenger steam train on the Great Western Railway, bound for Victoria College at the University of Toronto.

More to come!

In light of this recent thread I have decided to give another listen to this episode, and am slowly developing a better understanding of what is going on with the word 'cognition'. Dr. Glidden expressly contrasts the cognitive with the physiological. In humans it's difficult to demarcate these two faculties, in part because they are very intertwined.

But taking a lower order of life like the spider plant on my balcony, I can make several observations. Does it experience sensation? I suspect so. My balcony faces northeast, and that is the direction sunlight comes from. Not direct sunlight--my spider plant will never "see" the sun where it sits, but enough filters through by reflection and refraction for the plant to make do.

And here's the thing; when the spider plant sends forth a new shoot, it tends invariable toward the light. In a phenomenon called Heliotropism, some plants will actually track the sun from east to west throughout the day. No brain, no thought or cognition, no language--and yet the plant senses light and heat and responds to stimuli with primitive cellular motor function. The process, from beginning to end, is physiological.

What about prolepsis? In the well-known and charismatic Venus Fly-Trap, it is an electrical impulse passed from the trigger hairs on each of the lobes that 'tells' the midrib of the plant to close the trap. The process again is physiological and noncognitive. Too physiological? Maybe. It could be argued that a merely physical process, like gently tapping the keys on a piano, is too noncognitive to really count as pattern recognition. After all, that last word is "re-cognition".

But if you look at plants on the cellular level, what you will observe is the faculty of these cells to recognize patterns associated with perceived threats and dangers--a faculty that allows the cells to respond to the threat and mitigate the damage.

The threat in this case is microbes, and it is an immune response that the pattern recognition triggers. To quote Wikipedia;

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Pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) play a crucial role in the proper function of the innate immune system. PRRs are germline-encoded host sensors, which detect molecules typical for the pathogens. They are proteins expressed, mainly, by cells of the innate immune system, such as dendritic cells, macrophages, monocytes, neutrophils and epithelial cells, to identify two classes of molecules: pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), which are associated with microbial pathogens, and damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), which are associated with components of host's cells that are released during cell damage or death.

If a molecule with the pattern of a threat bumbs up against a PRR, the host organism's cells will initiate the immune response. But here's the thing; just as it's possible to mimic the pattern of a fly by triggering the hairs of a venus fly-trap, it would be possible for a molecule to trip a PRR by having the pattern of a microbe without actually being one.

Do we consider this a primitive form of prolepsis? Let's review the components:

• Initial sensory contact. Like a human seeing a curvy stick on the forest floor, a venus fly-trap or Pattern Recognition Receptor in the cell registers a sensory impulse.
• The sensory impulse is "identified" (in purely physiological terms) as matching a "known" pattern--like a key sliding into a lock. The stick sends an impulse to our brain, and some twitching neuron somewhere fires--SNAKE!
• The organism responds both to the stimulus and to the pattern recognition. This part is essential--a fructose molecule could bump against a PRR all day long, providing the sensory impulse, but not register as a known pattern. It alone would not trigger the organism's response. The pattern recognition is essential. We jump back from the stick, only to discover cognitively that it's just a stick after all.

I think I would call this a kind of prolepsis.

One further consideration. Does prolepsis lie? Can it be wrong? It depends on what we mean by 'wrong'. I might define prolepsis--sensation->pattern->response--as an "anticipation made noncognitively in advance of more complete information". It's certainly true that the stimulus whose pattern we recognize will very often turn out to be caused by something else. A stick, not a snake. A feather, not a fly. A fructose molecule, not a dangerous microbe.

But was the pattern recognition ITSELF a lie? I think not. A curvy stick does have the same pattern as a snake to the sense of vision. My opinion is that prolepsis is true to the cause because the cause IS the pattern. The stick-ness or snake-ness of the stick or snake is something we grasp cognitively and express and understand using language. But the pattern is the pattern--evaluating whether it's been rightly identified in the light of future evidence or further knowledge is quite beside the point. That process is cognitive--this process is physiological.

So that's where I find myself right now.

Also, we have a few articles by prof. David Glidden as to the relationship between Epicurean canonics or epistemology and cognitive science. We also interviewed Dr. Glidden on the podcast, that episode is Here.

Edit; I apologize, HsiehKW, I see you already linked to one of Dr. Glidden's articles!

I don't have any familiarity with this, perhaps we should make a table for the four 'e's so we have a better sense of what we're looking at. I'll read up more on the subject. At a glance I think I agree with the embodied part, if I understand it rightly. I haven't looked at the other three yet. Happy twentieth!

Are children born in a state of original honesty?

We didn't cover this very deeply, but there are excellent reasons for thinking that it's true. Everyone has experienced those moments when children say things that adults have been educated or conditioned or cultured into believing are tactless, rude, or unmentionable.

"Kids say the darnedest things" is a common phrase in America, but the question seldom asked is "why?"

Kids are honest, I think, because they have not yet been convinced of the perceived (and sometimes appropriate) need to lie.

Anyway, here is a study into the perception of judges to ascertain their views on the reliability of eye witnesses.

Judges Think Children More Honest But Less Reliable Than Adults, Says Queen's Study

Judges perceive child witnesses as being more honest than adults when testifying in court, but recognize that children's limited memory and communication…

www.sciencedaily.com

The conclusion: "Judges Think Children More Honest But Less Reliable Than Adults".

Yes, it definitely dovetails with what DeWitt says about the Summum Bonum as it relates to pleasure and life. For clarity's sake it makes sense to say that pleasure is the highest good, but pleasure is inseparable from life both superficially (in the 'duh' sense) and at a very deep level.

I almost quibbled with the sentence "There is no Truth", except that by capitalizing the word the author makes a very important and, as I think, philosophically sound point; that capital-T "Truth" does not exist in the abstract apart from fact, physical nature, human understanding, etc.

I wouldn't dispense with the list altogether, it's too historically ingrained. But a prose version in parallel is definitely worthwhile.

I'd actually be curious to know what a trained classicist with no knowledge of the text would do with it if you handed them a lump of Greek capital letters with no numbering or paragraphs. But of course the first thing they would likely do is consult earlier scholarship.

Very interesting, thank you Eric!

You can look at the dates for that festival on the calendar at;

Calendar – Hellenion

It will occur in August on our calendar.

This Attic month (Hekatombaion) also includes the annual festival of the Panathenaea, which Don mentioned in his Video on the location of the Garden outside the walls of ancient Athens.

This being the third year of the Olympiad, the Pythian games would have commenced with the first full moon of the New Year, which will be August 1st. However, since the calendar is lunisolar, and the moon cycle changes relative to the solstice, there is some debate as to whether they would push it back another moon to wait out the harvest. Wikipedia says the games would occur in late August, which would coincide with the second full moon this year. Difficult to say--the Athenians would add an extra month every so often to bring the months back in line with the seasons.

There's an old rumor, by the way, that some of the Russian athletes were two weeks late to the 1908 Olympics because they were still using the Julian calendar and most of Europe was using the modern Gregorian calendar.

Both calendars are named after the potentates who instituted them, but of course it was the astronomers of each age who actually designed them--the Gregorian calendar by 16th century Italian astronomer and philosopher named Luigi Lilio, and the Julian calendar by the scholars at the Library and Museum of Alexandria.

That is one of the many things I learned spending too much time playing video games!

Horace, on his father;

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If my character is flawed by a few minor faults, but is otherwise decent and moral, if you can point out only a few scattered blemishes on an otherwise immaculate surface, if no one can accuse me of greed, or of prurience, or of profligacy, if I live a virtuous life, free of defilement (pardon, for a moment, my self-praise), and if I am to my friends a good friend, my father deserves all the credit... As it is now, he deserves from me unstinting gratitude and praise. I could never be ashamed of such a father, nor do I feel any need, as many people do, to apologize for being a freedman's son. Satires 1.6.65–92

Joshua started a new event:

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Happy Athenian New Year!

Happy New Year! This is the first full day of the third year of the 700th Olympiad.

Wed, Jul 19th 2023

Joshua

July 16, 2023 at 7:35 PM

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Happy New Year! This is the first full day of the third year of the 700th Olympiad.

Joshua started a new event:

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The Sliver of the New Moon at Nightfall

The Attic New Year of the third year of the 700th Olympiad will commence with the sighting of the first sliver of the New Moon.

Tue, Jul 18th 2023, 8:00 am – 8:00 pm

Joshua

July 16, 2023 at 7:32 PM

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The Attic New Year of the third year of the 700th Olympiad will commence with the sighting of the first sliver of the New Moon.

Joshua started a new event:

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The First New Moon After the Summer Solstice

The modern attempt at reconstructing one of the ancient Attic Calendars has the New Year beginning with the month of Hekatombaion, and "with the first sighting of the new moon after the summer solstice. Ideally, the solstice would occur toward the end of Skirophorion, the final month of the year." That New Moon will occur on July 17th this year. The year has its start when the first sliver of the New Moon becomes visible.

The Calendar at Hellenion.org has the 1st of Hekatombaion taking place on…

Mon, Jul 17th 2023

Joshua

July 16, 2023 at 7:29 PM

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The modern attempt at reconstructing one of the ancient Attic Calendars has the New Year beginning with the month of Hekatombaion, and "with the first sighting of the new moon after the summer solstice. Ideally, the solstice would occur toward the end of Skirophorion, the final month of the year." That New Moon will occur on July 17th this year. The year has its start when the first sliver of the New Moon becomes visible.

The Calendar at Hellenion.org has the 1st of Hekatombaion taking place on Wednesday the 19th, though Tuesday the 18th after nightfall will mark the change. This coming year will be the 3rd year of the 700th Olympiad.

VS62 also relates to the issue of honesty and frankness of speech, and when it is best to hold back; "If the anger of parents against their children is justified, it is quite pointless for the children to resist it and to fail to ask forgiveness. If the anger is not justified but is unreasonable, it is folly for an irrational child to appeal to someone deaf to appeals and not to try to turn it aside in other directions by a display of good will."

Show Notes:

Footnote 22, and why it's easy to relate good news. Dewitt cites Exordium by the Athenian statesman Demosthenes:

Demosthenes, Exordia, exordium 54

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It is just and right and important, men of Athens, that we too should exercise care, as you are accustomed, that our relations with the gods shall be piously maintained. Therefore our commission has been duly discharged for you, for we have sacrificed to Zeus the Saviour and to Athena and to Victory, and these sacrifices have been auspicious and salutary for you. We have also sacrificed to Persuasion and to the Mother of the Gods and to Apollo, and here also we had favorable omens. And the sacrifices made to the other gods portended for you security and stability and prosperity and safety. Do you, therefore, accept the blessings which the gods bestow.

The Grey-Rock method; when honesty is not the best policy

When Dealing With a Narcissist, the “Gray Rock” Approach Might Help

Acting dull and uninteresting can undermine a narcissist’s attempts to control.

www.psychologytoday.com

Lucy Hutchinson on why she translated Lucretius, in her letter to the Earl of Anglesey

Full text | Lucy Hutchinson's letter to Lord Anglesey (1675)

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So I beseech your Lordship to reward my obedience, by indulging me the further honor to preserve, wherever your Lordship shall dispose this booke, this record with it, that I abhorre all the Atheismes and impieties in it, and translated it only out of youthfull curiositie, to understand things I heard so much discourse of at second hand, but without the least inclination to propagate any of the wicked pernitious doctrines in it.

On Shooting the Messenger;

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 An early literary citing of "killing the messenger" is in Plutarch's 'Lives': "The first messenger that gave notice of [the Roman general] Lucullus' coming was so far from pleasing [the Armenian king] Tigranes that he had his head cut off for his pains; and no man dared to bring further information. Without any intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him".