Posts by Joshua

Perhaps it will be helpful to look at examples where his advice is explicitly ignored. There are a number of ways in which our common use of language intentionally relies NOT on the "first mental image", but on some other aspect or quality for aesthetic, poetic, or rhetorical effect. For example;

Synechdoche: a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (such as fifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (such as society for high society), the species for the genus (such as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (such as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (such as boards for stage)

Metonymy: a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated (such as "crown" in "lands belonging to the crown")

Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money)

Epicurus seems to greatly dislike these devices; certainly with regards to Philosophy, and possibly in general. Lucretius, as a masterful poet, is guilty of using all of them! In the very second line of the poem, for example, he refers to the stars or constellations as the "sliding signs of heaven". He's a materialist; he doesn't actually believe that the random clusters of stars are meaningful signs or representations. But the line reads beautifully, and the phrase serves the meter of the poem, so he uses it.

Here's a good example of why this can be a huge problem: in the Gospel of Matthew, 19:24, it is said, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Well, it turns out that Christians have a strong material interest in denying the plain reading of everything Jesus ever said about wealth. This passage is no different; and so they have invented out of wholecloth a theory that the "Eye of the Needle" is a figure of speech for a pedestrian portal or doorway through a wall, adjacent to the main large gate. This usage is completely unattested in classical literature. It might turn out to be correct, but we have absolutely no way of knowing. If Jesus wished to be understood, he might have taken Epicurus' advice!

Another problem relates to how we define words—how we describe language using language. In one amusing story, Diogenes the Cynic elbows his way into the Academy with a plucked chicken under his arm. Aristotle had defined "Man" as a "featherless biped"; Diogenes lifted the chicken, and proclaimed his discovery of Aristotle's Man. As an Epicurean, I think there were two errors on display here; one was to define a word so broadly so as to be meaningless (Aristotle's mistake). The other was to mock the original effort without furnishing a constructive alternative, and to poison the well for everyone with ridicule (Diogenes' mistake).

Cassius, I see we cross-posted. We're clearly going the same direction in connecting the question to Forms. I think Nietzsche is more or less correct, but does that get us anywhere in explaining what Epicurus might have meant by "first images" connected to words?

I continue to struggle in getting a handle on this question!

I read it this way; Nietzsche in this passage is doing good service in repudiation of Plato's Ideal Forms. He concludes that the concept or mental image of a thing is not only NOT a better representation of that thing's being—it is indeed, and must be, a worse one (rendering unequal things equal cannot be a step toward clarity).

To put it another way; Plato thought that language was often faulty because it didn't accord with the Ideal Form, of which the physical object was a crude imitation. Each leaf is a phenomenon of the Form of the leaf.

Epicurus was concerned that we might go wrong with language if the word for a thing, which two people share, does not accord with the mental image of the thing, which must be different for each and formed by experience. Each leaf is a leaf by linguistic convention. Its genuine nature is atoms and void.

To solve Plato's problem, in his view, demands recourse to Logic and Geometry, that we might intimate the nature of the Forms which we cannot 'see' or even well-express.

To solve Epicurus' problem, in my view, we must have recourse to (1.) the senses, (2.) to a critique of the Reason that operates on them, and (3.) to the gentle proddings of corrective dialogue to calibrate the differences that arise over words.

But even as I type all of this the account fails to satisfy me. (And you should take anything I say about Forms with a critical eye; I haven't studied those dialogues since college).

My thoughts on the question are not organized, but allow me to free-associate for a moment;

What, at minimum, a Theory of Language Needs to Explain;

1. It ought to explain why there is language, rather than no language.

2. It ought to take a position on the original incident of language; was the development centralized in place and time, or distributed throughout and across populations?

3. (Related) it ought to take a position on whether the development of language preceded the migrations out of Africa, or followed them, or some combination of these.

4. It ought to predict whether language, if vanished, would arise again under certain conditions, and what those conditions would be.

Two additional questions that should preoccupy the theorist;

5. Why are there vast differences in (apparently) unrelated language families? Why is such a language inflected and this other language isolating? Why does this language have stress accents, this other language have pitch accents, and this third language is tonal?

6. Also, why did Proto-Indo-European reach such a peak of inflected complexity, while the trend for the last few thousand years has been toward more word isolation? (Ie. English is less inflected then Old French, Old French is less inflected than Medieval Latin and Koine Greek, Medieval Latin and Koine Greek are less inflected than classical Latin and classical Greek, classical Latin and classical Greek are less inflected than Sanskrit, which in turn is less inflected than Proto-Indo-European.)

A materialist theory of language

The early Epicureans couldn't have known that all modern humans are descended from stock that lived in East Africa 100,000 years ago, and didn't colonize the rest of the globe until well into the intervening millennia. But here's what they do seem to believe;

1. That the utility of language is self-evident. Making noises is so useful that nearly every animal larger than a worm indulges the practice. Not just mammals and birds, but reptiles, amphibians, and even fish (using swim bladders) make use of pneumatic vocalizations. Insects rely on mechanical friction for the same effect, rubbing legs together or beating wings. Snakes hiss and sometimes rattle.

2. Language was not endowed by god or Prometheus, or invented by Adam or the First Man, but developed organically. It might have happened once and spread, or it might have happened many times.

3. Because it arose naturally, we can expect that such a thing has happened innumerable times on innumerable worlds, and will happen innumerable times again.

That'll have to be enough for now, but I'll revisit this evening!

Thank you. And you strike on the same observation as Stephen Greenblatt, Elayne;

Quote

Some protective measures, such as sprinkling cedar oil on the pages, were discovered to be effective in warding off damage, but it was widely recognized that the best way to preserve books from being eaten into oblivion was simply to use them and, when they finally wore out, to make more copies. The Swerve: "The Teeth of Time"

It is the "unbroken chain" of tradition and study that most reliably saves books.

I recently learned of a remote location in New Mexico called Trementina Base. In that high barren desert east of the Colorado Plateau, the scriptures of L. Ron Hubbard have been for several decades carefully engraved on steel plates and filed away in titanium vaults for preservation, "to create and maintain an archive of Scientology scripture for future generations."

Setting aside for a moment how undeniably cool that is, the story touches on two issues relevant to the school of Epicurus. The first point is a trifle self-congratulatory, but I don't mind stating the case anyway:

It occured to me when I realized that these texts were not really being preserved for future generations in the sense we commonly mean. The National Parks are "preserved for future generations", and this means that anyone is free to use and enjoy them at any time; they're open to the public, not generally on the basis of membership and an aggressively litigated initiation fee.

Exorbitantly expensive secret texts are not new to the world. The Vatican ruthlessly stomped out early efforts to translate the bible into the vulgar tongue of the people. Muslims generally believe even today that the only Quran is the Arabic Quran; "a translation can never be the Quran". Joseph Smith threatened with death anyone who tried to glimpse his mythical gold plates. Abraham, too, had tablets from God until he shattered them.

How different the intellectual life of the Greeks! Books were piled high not in vaults, or in an inner Sanctum, but in the warm light of day. They changed hands in the agora, and circulated through the gymnasia. They were read over meals and debated in the streets.

And how different still the Epicureans, for whom sex or class or condition were no obstacle to the fraternity of the scholars! It is a marvel in the annals of the world.

The second point is one of permanence. Everyone here knows how lucky we are to have even fragments. What are we going to do to ensure that future generations will be able to read them?

In a Buddhist temple in South Korea there are 81,258 wooden blocks from the 13th century painstakingly carved with the entire corpus of Buddhist scripture. When I began to think of myself as a Buddhist this pleased me immensely. Frankly, it still does. Buddhists, like Epicureans, know that all composite things are impermanent. Civilizations rise and fall, temples crumble, and libraries burn. How do we plant a seed that grows through the ages?

Happy twentieth

Joshua

Excellent clarification! I think I now better understand your position.

To put the matter succinctly; not "eudaimonia", or "happiness", or "minimalism", or "freedom from pain", or "letting go", BUT

"Bold-stroke-capital-P-comically-oversized-cartoon-mallet-PLEASURE"

😁

Quote

[...] we need to be very careful in loose use of words that have become associated with anti-Epicurean philosophies [...]

Do I take your meaning, Cassius, to be that Eudaimonia becomes a problem only when removed from the Greek and set into English? I can certainly understand how the following sentences might be construed to have different meanings;

1. Someone who says that the time to love and practice wisdom has not yet come or has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or has passed.

2. Someone who says that the time to love and practice wisdom has not yet come or has passed is like someone who says that the time for Eudaimonia has not yet come or has passed.

In other words, Eudaimonia takes on a separate connotative life and power when the word is carried through untranslated. So that happiness in an English sentence is ok, εὐδαιμονία in a Greek sentence is ok, but Eudamonia in an English sentence only invites trouble.

A question that comes to my mind is this; what if eudaimonia was the word of choice simply because the Greek language didn't offer a better one? I certainly won't be answerable to the accidents of etymology in every word I use.

When my mother says that "blood runs thicker than water", for example, she means that family is of utmost importance. What she likely doesn't know is that this phrase originally meant something quite different; "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". Under this formulation, family relations are actually less important than relations forged by oath, shared faith, or the battlefield. An Arab saying expresses the same concept with slightly different maternal anatomy; "blood is thicker than milk".

Elli will be of better use than me, but I'll attach a dictionary reference with alternative words for happiness.

In the video from the Getty Villa that Cassius posted it was mentioned that a chest of Latin texts was found along with the main Greek library, but that they were too badly damaged to even know what they are. So we probably shouldn't read too much into it.

In my truck, for example, there are 6 or 7 Epicurean texts, my old well-worn copy of Walden, a Latin Dictionary, and a copy of Macbeth that I bought at a used book store in Salt Lake City. I would encourage future papyrologists poking through my stuff not to place too much importance on the Macbeth!

Good grief, this is difficult to watch...

Somehow the idea of workmen burning them in their cookstoves is less ghastly to me than the tortures that were applied methodically by the henchman of the vain and pompous petty-king.

Among the scrolls of (mostly) Philodemus found at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, there is a copy of a play by the (apparently) famous-in-Rome comic playwright Caecilius Statius. I've only just recently discovered that Caecilius was the author of a quote I have always seen attributed to Cicero—for Cicero does quote him directly;

Quote

One plants trees for the benefit of another age.

-Caecilius Statius

I'm struggling to find much in English on this writer. In addition to the above, here are a few quotes attributed to him:

***note; I have not verified these selections***

Quote

Fear created the first gods in the world

Quote

The whole world is a man's birthplace

Quote

Grant us a brief delay; impulse in everything is but a worthless servant.

Quote

Wisdom oft lurks beneath a tattered coat.

I'm wondering whether anybody else has come across him. I know Hiram has delved deeply into Philodemus' scrolls. I'm just wondering if he should be on our radar?

Benjamin Franklin learned to read Italian by "gamifying" his studies with a chess-playing acquaintance. The victor of that day's chess match had the 'right', mutually agreed to, to impose a linguistic task on the vanquished. You might order your opponent, for example, to translate a passage into English, or to memorize a section of Italian grammar. In that way, he writes in his autobiography, "we thus beat one another into the language".

Since I would love to be more disciplined with language study, I would like a local Epicurean group to reinforce classical language studies somehow. Greek and Latin being the obvious choices, although it wouldn't have to end there.

The major business, of course, would be to enjoy in fellowship all of those pleasures that conspire to make a happy life. Shared meals, pleasant walks, the study of local natural sciences, literary discussions, etc.

The dream school would be straight out of Frances Wright; a special 'temple' and garden were there is always something happening, where you can come and go as you please, and where scholars fill the days with their own pursuits while always having time for the broader group project.

And in THAT dream, I don't have a job 😁

Thanks, Cassius.

There was a bill put forward in 2017 in the legislature of my home state of Iowa to put Intelligent Design into the science curriculum. This bill was put forward in the State Capitol building in Des Moines, 35 miles south of Iowa State University where the first computer was invented in 1937.

The bill died mercifully in committee.

(I'm hoping this doesn't strike an overly "political" tone. If it does, Cassius; you know what to do!)

I've been following the Pew survey on religious identification for several years now, and there are several features of interest in the analysis. Here's the new data;

https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-…-at-rapid-pace/

The most salient question that presents itself is this; what's bloody taking so long!? When I was a teenager, and only recently an atheist, Bill Maher made his signature "Mockumentary" Religulous. This film was just the right kind of funny to me, at just the right time in my life. (I bought the DVD, and later bought it again on iTunes.)

In addition to being a reliably rewatchable (if somewhat cheap) piece of mind-candy, Maher's film managed to be instructive. For example, I recall being mortified to discover that out of 30-odd developed nations, only Turkey ranked more pious than the United States. Astonishing! The country that crossed the cold hell of space and set boots on another world was little better in this respect than the corrupt sectarian shadow-puppet of the declined Ottoman Empire.

The intervening decade has brought victories as well as defeats for the religious nones in this country, but at last we seem to be putting space between our secular republic and the burgeoning Islamic Autocracy in Asia Minor; 10 years after Religulous, Turkey spurned the Enlightenment tradition of the West and banned Darwin from all of its textbooks. Americans, thanks in part to the internet and the "New Atheists", seem finally ready to turn a new page. Only 26% are unaffiliated today, but large concentrations of that number are to be found in the younger generations. With any luck, we'll be sidling ever closer to the secular states of Western Europe as the next decades unfold.

This will be the best chance Epicureanism has had in this country since the Enlightenment of the 18th century.

That's EXCELLENT, Elayne! You've handled the subtleties of free verse where I've always struggled.

Quote

Listen and you’ll hear them

unmanned, unarmed, to hell

with fate, to hell with exile

out in the back forty

frying catfish and singing Johnny Cash,

whooping it up and laughing 'til they cry.

Display More

Calls to mind the second ending that Tolkien gave to the tragic story of Beren and Luthien, because he could—and he wanted to.

Quote

Oh yes! For a teenage girl, that was the pinnacle of romance, lol! I grew out of it though 😂

I certainly hope you haven't replaced it with the Agamemnon by Aeschylus

Not sure if this really belongs here or not, but it's one of my favorite Walt Whitman poems;

Quote

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Display More

(It very often comes to mind when I'm in discussion with a young-/flat-earth Christian in the family)

I share your reservations, Elayne. Mostly, in my case, because academia is the favored bogeyman among a large group of people for whom the factual age, shape, and making of the world is "just a theory".

I spent four years in a University (undergoing "indoctrination", I have no doubt ), and knew nearly every one of the professors in my acquaintance to have been intelligent, serious, curious, decent and well-meaning.

That being said, I agree with Cassius on the main point. If we can't make headway among the common man, we will have failed of our purpose.

"Known for telling tall tales"...

Also known for multiple fraud convictions in Ohio and upstate New York 😁.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2003JRASC..97..158Z

There's a good article on 19th century astronomy and the "extra-terrestrial" problem.

And one of my favorite Thoreau quotes is relevant;

Quote

We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions.