Posts by Joshua

Very well said, Julia! I agree with everything you wrote.

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What are those good things? Sensual pleasures, no doubt; for you know no delight of the mind but what arises from the body, and returns to it.

We should spend some more time on this from last week. Cicero loves to exploit Epicurus' position on the physicality of the soul in such a way as to muddle the distinction between mental and bodily pleasure.

Yes, Epicurus held that the soul is made of matter. Yes, the soul is rooted in the body and cannot survive without it. But to imply, therefore, that the distinction between mind and body is without meaning is to commit a serious injustice to the ancient Epicureans; mental pleasures and pains are quite different to bodily pleasures and pains, and Cicero is helping no one when he ignores those differences--unless it be that Cicero helps himself, and others who think like him, to view Epicurus as something less than human.

Thank you all!

He wasn't a barrel of laughs, was he!

Thank you both, and Happy Birthday to you as well Kalosyni!

Sure!

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NOW we are getting into prolepsis. The number has changed from singular to plural, and Epicurus is making a claim that according to his philosophy can only be supported by one or more of the legs of the canon; either we know that the gods exist because of sensation, or because of feeling, or because of prolepsis, or by some combination of the three.

I find that I have to add something to this, because the principle of isonomia is not canonic, but is apparently used to justify asserting knowledge of the existence of a being. My ongoing problem with isonomia is that it seems to veer in the direction of the Ontological argument.

Also of note is the passage from Cicero wherein he suggests that an Epicurean would deny the existence of the sea if he had never seen it with his own eyes. On this point I would echo Christopher Hitchens; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There's nothing extraordinary about water in quantity, so the existence of the sea can be provisionally accepted pending confirmation. The existence of ghosts would be extraordinary, and so merits skepticism.

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Wouldn't appeal to some common prolepsis (on the question of gods’ existence) be subject to the ad populum fallacy?

I have a pet theory that I think solves most of the problems in the following paragraphs from the letter to Menoikeus:

First of all believe that god is a being immortal and blessed, even as the common idea of a god is engraved on men’s minds, and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness: but believe about him everything that can uphold his blessedness and immortality.

• This passage is merely definitional, not proleptic; the clue for me is that this is the only place in the text where Epicurus refers to "God" in the singular.
  • Consider also what Epicurus wrote in the letter to Herodotus;

    • First of all, Herodotus, we must grasp the ideas attached to words, in order that we may be able to refer to them and so to judge the inferences of opinion or problems of investigation or reflection, so that we may not either leave everything uncertain and go on explaining to infinity or use words devoid of meaning.

      [38] For this purpose it is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded, and that there should be no need of explanation, if we are really to have a standard to which to refer a problem of investigation or reflection or a mental inference.

      • In this case, Epicurus is using the popular understanding of the word 'god'; the gods are blessed and immortal.

For gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision.

• NOW we are getting into prolepsis. The number has changed from singular to plural, and Epicurus is making a claim that according to his philosophy can only be supported by one or more of the legs of the canon; either we know that the gods exist because of sensation, or because of feeling, or because of prolepsis, or by some combination of the three.

But they are not such as the many believe them to be: for indeed they do not consistently represent them as they believe them to be.

• In this sentence, Epicurus is building on the previous passages.
  • 1) A god is such and such by definition. 2) We know the gods exist because of Prolepsis. 3) However, the hoi polloi imagine gods that are inconsistent even with their own ideas of the gods. Their mistaken view is not proleptic or otherwise canonic.

And the impious man is not he who popularly denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many.

• [continuing from above] 4) And, further, their mistaken view might actually be considered impious.

For the statements of the many about the gods are not conceptions derived from sensation, but false suppositions, according to which the greatest misfortunes befall the wicked and the greatest blessings (the good) by the gift of the gods.

• [continuing from above] 5) The errors of that mistaken view are formed in judgment, not in the Prolepsis.

In summary, the following claim is derived from any given individual's prolepsis:

• The gods exist.

And the following claims do not derive from any canonic faculty:

• The gods are blessed and incorruptible (mere definition)
• The hoi polloi hold wrong views concerning the gods (wrong view contradicts mere definition)
• It is impious to hold wrong views concerning the gods (noncanonical ethical judgment)

Edit; I should add that I still consider myself to have a poor understanding of prolepsis as a canonic faculty, so caveat emptor with regards to everything I wrote here!

I'm still playing around with adobe illustrator. This link is the download for the vector drawing of a landscape I'm going to try to animate. Below is a .png of the same landscape. The vector drawing can be zoomed without distortion!

The automoderator kicked in and suspended this thread, but I went ahead and approved it. Abuse of power!

I was curious about how difficult it would be to get into basic animation in Adobe After Effects, and here is the very meagre fruit of my labor. I began by creating a vector drawing of a piglet in Adobe Illustrator, with every body part of the pig designed on a different layer, and then I imported that file into Adobe After Effects. This image is of the skeletal structure of the piglet made using the Duik plugin for Adobe AE, with the idea being that if you attach the right body parts to the right skeletal structure, you can animate the movement of the character.

This second image is of the complete skeletal rigging and adjustments made to the positioning of the legs. I can already see that my design has problems that severely limit the usable range of motion, because if I move a leg too much then parts which shouldn't show start bulging out of the body.

This is probably as far as I'll take this since I don't want to start over from scratch, but it gives some idea of what can be done with the wide world of software available to us.

This image really starts to show the outline deforming, as well as the unnaturalness of the movement.

I'm using the level 3 forum because this isn't really related to Epicureanism, but as Cassius always says it's good to try and keep abreast of these tools.

I found this video very interesting, because it gives some insight in to the inner lives of those living in the Bay of Naples in the waning months of 79 AD.

We didn't make it that far in our discussion today, but that will be the next part of the text starting with this;

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for you asserted likewise that the form of the Deity is perceptible by the mind, but not by sense; that it is neither solid, nor invariable in number; that it is to be discerned by similitude and transition, and that a constant supply of images is perpetually flowing on from innumerable atoms, on which our minds are intent; so that we from that conclude that divine nature to be happy and everlasting.

Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve; Giordano Bruno, The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast

The third post from this thread contains the full passage.

Velleius on the labors of the gods

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Your sect, Balbus, frequently ask us how the Gods live, and how they pass their time? Their life is the most happy, and the most abounding with all kinds of blessings, which can be conceived. They do nothing. They are embarrassed with no business; nor do they perform any work. They rejoice in the possession of their own wisdom and virtue. They are satisfied that they shall ever enjoy the fulness of eternal pleasures.

§ 1.52 Such a Deity may properly be called happy; but yours is a most laborious God. For let us suppose the world a Deity — what can be a more uneasy state than, without the least cessation, to be whirled about the axle-tree of heaven with a surprising celerity? But nothing can be happy that is not at ease. Or let us suppose a Deity residing in the world, who directs and governs it, who preserves the courses of the stars, the changes of the seasons, and the vicissitudes and orders of things, surveying the earth and the sea, and accommodating them to the advantage and necessities of man. Truly this Deity is embarrassed with a very troublesome and laborious office. We make a happy life to consist in a tranquillity of mind, a perfect freedom from care, and an exemption from all employment. The philosopher from whom we received all our knowledge has taught us that the world was made by nature; that there was no occasion for a workhouse to frame it in; and that, though you deny the possibility of such a work without divine skill, it is so easy to her, that she has made, does make, and will make innumerable worlds. Here

Ennius, Iphigenia; and Lucretius' response

Quote from Ennius

He who does not know how to use leisure
has more of work than when there is work in work.
For to whom a task has been set, he does the work,
desires it, and delights his own mind and intellect:
in leisure, a mind does not know what it wants.
The same is true (of us); we are neither at home nor in the battlefield;
we go here and there, and wherever there is a movement, we are there too.
The mind wanders unsure, except in that life is lived.

Wikipedia

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Quote from Lucretius

If men, in that same way as on the mind
They feel the load that wearies with its weight,
Could also know the causes whence it comes,
And why so great the heap of ill on heart,
O not in this sort would they live their life,
As now so much we see them, knowing not
What 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever
A change of place, as if to drop the burden.
The man who sickens of his home goes out,
Forth from his splendid halls, and straight- returns,
Feeling i'faith no better off abroad.
He races, driving his Gallic ponies along,
Down to his villa, madly,- as in haste
To hurry help to a house afire.- At once
He yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold,
Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks
Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about
And makes for town again. In such a way
Each human flees himself- a self in sooth,
As happens, he by no means can escape;
And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes,
Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail.
Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then,
Leaving all else, he'd study to divine
The nature of things, since here is in debate
Eternal time and not the single hour,
Mortal's estate in whatsoever remains
After great death.

Persius Digital Library

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Lucretius on Empedocles; "A great man, greatly fallen"

Quote from Lucretius, Book I

As first Empedocles of Acragas,
Whom that three-cornered isle of all the lands
Bore on her coasts, around which flows and flows
In mighty bend and bay the Ionic seas,
Splashing the brine from off their gray-green waves.
Here, billowing onward through the narrow straits,
Swift ocean cuts her boundaries from the shores
Of the Italic mainland. Here the waste
Charybdis; and here Aetna rumbles threats
To gather anew such furies of its flames
As with its force anew to vomit fires,
Belched from its throat, and skyward bear anew
Its lightnings' flash. And though for much she seem
The mighty and the wondrous isle to men,
Most rich in all good things, and fortified
With generous strength of heroes, she hath ne'er
Possessed within her aught of more renown,
Nor aught more holy, wonderful, and dear
Than this true man. Nay, ever so far and pure
The lofty music of his breast divine
Lifts up its voice and tells of glories found,
That scarce he seems of human stock create.
Yet he and those forementioned (known to be
So far beneath him, less than he in all),
Though, as discoverers of much goodly truth,
They gave, as 'twere from out of the heart's own shrine,
Responses holier and soundlier based
Than ever the Pythia pronounced for men
From out the triped and the Delphian laurel,
Have still in matter of first-elements
Made ruin of themselves, and, great men, great
Indeed and heavy there for them the fall:
First, because, banishing the void from things,
They yet assign them motion, and allow
Things soft and loosely textured to exist,
As air, dew, fire, earth, animals, and grains,
Without admixture of void amid their frame.
Next, because, thinking there can be no end
In cutting bodies down to less and less
Nor pause established to their breaking up,
They hold there is no minimum in things;
Albeit we see the boundary point of aught
Is that which to our senses seems its least,
Whereby thou mayst conjecture, that, because
The things thou canst not mark have boundary points,
They surely have their minimums. Then, too,
Since these philosophers ascribe to things
Soft primal germs, which we behold to be
Of birth and body mortal, thus, throughout,
The sum of things must be returned to naught,
And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew-
Thou seest how far each doctrine stands from truth.
And, next, these bodies are among themselves
In many ways poisons and foes to each,
Wherefore their congress will destroy them quite
Or drive asunder as we see in storms
Rains, winds, and lightnings all asunder fly.

Persius Digital Library

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David Sedley, Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom

Amazon

An excerpt of the first ten pages from chapter one is available in PDF form from Cambridge University Press; link to PDF.

Norman Wentworth DeWitt, Epicurus and His Philosophy

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At the outset it must be observed and kept diligently in mind that nowhere in his extant writings does Epicurus call the gods immortal. This might be thought an accident of the tradition were it not for the
fact that other considerations rule out this possibility. If Lucretius does call them immortal repeatedly, this may be set down as an indication that he never really mastered the Epicurean lore of the gods and did not live to make an intensive study of it in preparation for writing about it.

The reasoning behind this doctrine of incorruptibility is readily discerned. From the doctrine that nothing exists except atoms and void it follows that the bodies of the gods must be corporeal. Gods are zoa, "animate beings." They are thus units in the ascending order of Nature, as is man. Being in this order and corporeal, they cannot be deathless. If deathlessness were inherent in their nature, they would be in another class by themselves. Since they do belong in the same class as man, it is a logical necessity to think of their incorruptibility as by some means preserved. Since in the cosmos of Epicurus, unlike that of Plato, this incorruptibility lacked a superior being to guarantee its
continuance, the sole possibility was that the gods preserved it for themselves by their own vigilance. Thus it must be discerned that just as the happiness of man is self-achieved, so the happiness of the gods is self-preserved.

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With tagathon literally being a contraction of the definite article (the) with agathon (good), to deinon simply can't be contracted since there are two vowels together: to deinon.

Do you mean aren't two vowels here, Don? I don't know the rules in Greek. Latin often uses verbal elision when two vowels adjoin; genus omne animantum from Lucretius, for instance. Spoken as omnanimantum.

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The Egyptians (so much ridiculed) held no beasts to be sacred, except on account of some advantage which they had received from them. The ibis, a very large bird, with strong legs and a horny long beak, destroys a great number of serpents. These birds keep Egypt from pestilential diseases by killing and devouring the flying serpents brought from the deserts of Lybia by the south-west wind, which prevents the mischief that may attend their biting while alive, or any infection when dead.

Cotta's description of the folkloric Wadjet, or flying desert serpent, comes from the Histories of Herodotus, where in Book II around section 75 the historian writes:

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75. There is a region moreover in Arabia, situated nearly over against the city of Buto, to which place I came to inquire about the winged serpents: and when I came thither I saw bones of serpents and spines in quantity so great that it is impossible to make report of the number, and there were heaps of spines, some heaps large and others less large and others smaller still than these, and these heaps were many in number. This region in which the spines are scattered upon the ground is of the nature of an entrance from a narrow mountain pass to a great plain, which plain adjoins the plain of Egypt; and the story goes that at the beginning of spring winged serpents from Arabia fly towards Egypt, and the birds called ibises meet them at the entrance to this country and do not suffer the serpents to go by but kill them. On account of this deed it is (say the Arabians) that the ibis has come to be greatly honoured by the Egyptians, and the Egyptians also agree that it is for this reason that they honour these birds.

76. The outward form of the ibis is this:—it is a deep black all over, and has legs like those of a crane and a very curved beak, and in size it is about equal to a rail: this is the appearance of the black kind which fight with the serpents, but of those which most crowd round men's feet (for there are two several kinds of ibises) the head is bare and also the whole of the throat, and it is white in feathering except the head and neck and the extremities of the wings and the rump (in all these parts of which I have spoken it is a deep black), while in legs and in the form of the head it resembles the other. As for the serpent its form is like that of the watersnake; and it has wings not feathered but most nearly resembling the wings of the bat. Let so much suffice as has been said now concerning sacred animals.

This site has a good write-up on the problem.

Well said!

There is an interesting remark by Stephen Greenblatt in The Swerve about libraries in antiquity, but I haven't been able to track down a source for the claim.

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At the games in the Colosseum one day, the historian Tacitus had a conversation on literature with a perfect stranger who turned out to have read his works. Culture was no longer located in close-knit circles of friends and acquaintances; Tacitus was encountering his "public" in the form of someone who had bought his book at a stall in the Forum or read it in a library.

In any case, This article (PDF) gives an interesting look into how these texts might have been distributed in antiquity. Just in case Don needs a cheering-up!

I should correct myself around the 8:20 mark. Correlation is not causation!

Interior of the Natural History Museum in London.

This is in reference to a conversation with Cassius about the Richard Dawkins interview in the movie linked to above.

There may still be a photograph of me next to that statue of Darwin, but if so I can give no account of what has become of it.