Posts by Don

Quote from Don

The placement of Δώδεκα between the definite article and στοιχειώσεσί leads me to interpret ταῖς Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί as "in The 12 Principles/ Elements."

I just realized that that capital Δ delta wouldn't be in the original manuscripts. They were all "capital" letters in the early scripts. So, those "twelve basics" could simply have been part of another work, say a list of 12 foundational principles within Epicurus's On Nature. Literally, all that scholiast wrote was:

ΤΟ ΔΕ ΧΡΩΜΑ ΠΑΡΑ ΤΗΝ ΘΕΣΙΝ ΤΩΝ ΑΤΟΜΩΝ ΑΛΛΑΤΤΕΣΘΑΙ ΕΝ ΤΑΙΣ ΔΩΔΕΚΑ ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΩΣΕΣΙ ΦΗΣΙ

followed by - and these need not be included within the 12 the way the sentences are written - "Also they are not of every size; no atom has ever been seen by our senses."

ΕΝ in this case with the dative can mean simply "within, among" so if Epicurus is talking about 12 fundamental principles or giving a summary of something that includes 12 items within one of his works, that would still be ΕΝ ΤΑΙΣ ΔΩΔΕΚΑ ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΩΣΕΣΙ "among the 12 fundamentals."

Yeah, I'm not seeing this as "12 volumes" but rather as a summary of something with 12 items. Whether it's physics or sensation or the Canon or something else that needs to mention that color is a product of the arrangement of atoms, there's no way to tell from the context in Diogenes Laertius.

The reference to this mystery list/book/work is only mentioned in a scholia (scribal note added to a manuscript) at Diogenes Laertius 10.44:

He (Epicurus) says below that atoms have no quality at all except shape, size, and weight. But that colour varies with the arrangement of the atoms he states in his "Twelve Rudiments" ; further, that they are not of any and every size ; at any rate no atom has ever been seen by our sense.

So, according to that, the only thing we know for sure that the "Twelve Rudiments" contains is that "1. colour varies with the arrangement of the atoms." I'm not sure of that line that comes after, but, theoretically, the "Twelve rudiments" could include "2. atoms are not of any and every size" and "3. no atom has ever been seen by our sense." But that doesn't mean there's a simple list of 12 things. So, the work could be talking about the senses, not the physics. It seems it could have been translated as "The 12 Basics" or "The 12 Fundamentals."

LSJ:

στοιχεί-ωσις , εως, ἡ,

A. teaching, “ἀρετῆς” Hierocl. in CA11p.445M.; elementary exposition, “τῶν ὅλων δοξῶν” Epicur.Ep.1p.4U.; αἱ δώδεκα ς., a work by Epicurus, Id.Fr.56; ἡ ἠθικὴ ς., work by Eudromus, Stoic.3.268; “ς. καθολικαί” Phld.Rh.1.104 S.; τὰ ἁπλᾶ πρὸς στοιχείωσίν ἐστιν ἐπιτήδεια elementary teaching, Simp. in Cat.13.29.

2. doctrine of the elements, Gal.7.678, 15.175, 19.356.

Also:

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, στοιχεῖον

Quote from Cassius

Diskin Clay has a discussion of these 12 in an article he wrote I believe by the title of something like "The Last Will of Epicurus."

I've looked at that paper (looking at it right now, in fact) and I'm not impressed with Clay's exposition. He writes about 10 stoicheiomata in the letter to Herodotus but there's really 12 (in relation to that title) so he adds two from the Tetrapharmakos. That just seems sloppy.

Eikadistes , I had never seen that but I am definitely intrigued.

So, the form of that is:

ΣTOIXEIΩΣEIΣ ΔΩΔEKA

(or in upper & lower case, for comparison)

Στοιχειώδεις δώδεκα.

I was curious to see how the other sets of books were listed in Diogenes ' Book 10:

Περὶ φύσεως ἑπτὰ καὶ τριάκοντα.

On Nature (in) 37 (books)

Ἐπιστολικὰ περὶ Ἐμπεδοκλέους εἴκοσι καὶ δύο.

Letters concerning Empedocles (in) 22 (books)

Πρὸς τοὺς σοφιστὰς ἐννέα.

Against the Sophists (in) nine (books)

Πρὸς τοὺς ἰατροὺς τρία.

Against the Physicians (in) three (books)

There were others but those only used numerals. But these three here all use the number directly after the title and are translated, with no fanfare, as Title (in) X# (books).

I do notice that the form in Diogenes 10.44 is ταῖς Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί with the number preceding the "elements/principles." However, in looking at them placement of other numbers in relation to the noun they're modifying, some are before, some after. The placement of Δώδεκα between the definite article and στοιχειώσεσί leads me to interpret ταῖς Δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί as "in The 12 Principles/ Elements." I'm not saying I couldn't be persuaded otherwise, but that's my current understanding.

Welcome, Plantpierogi , to our virtual Garden

PS: After reading Cassius 's post below, I'll second his "Glad that you found the lurking helpful, and welcome to the club "

...we say pleasure is the foundation and fulfillment, the beginning and end (ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος) of the blessed life.

~ Epicurus, Letter to Menoikeus

May your old year end and your new one begin with pleasures, both great and small!

Happy New Year!

All very cool! Plus people shouldn't forget your 20er moon phase icons (must say I'm obviously partial to that one )

Quote from Don

But that's a conversation for another thread

Like this one ...

Thread

Do Pigs Value Katastematic Pleasure? ( Summer 2022 K / K Discussion)

Had this been shared before?

https://www.academia.edu/resource/work/47860495

Don

June 29, 2022 at 11:26 PM

Quote from Nikolsky

If Epicurus did not divide pleasures into kinetic and static,

I still think Epicurus (and Metrodorus and Philodemus) did use those categories; however, I think much ado has been made of them by later commentators.

But that's a conversation for another thread

Quote from Don

The sage will found a school, but not in a way that attracts a crowd around themselves or plays to the mob.

I don't know if this is a repeat of info, but I just discovered today that this could be a response (or a jab) at Theophrastus, head of Aristotle's school, who regularly spoke to thousands of pupils:

Quote from Diogenes Laertius 5.2.37

About 2000 pupils used to attend his lectures. In a letter to Phanias the Peripatetic, among other topics, he speaks of a tribunal as follows2: "To get a public or even a select circle such as one desires is not easy. If an author reads his work, he must re-write it. Always to shirk revision and ignore criticism is a course which the present generation of pupils will no longer tolerate." And in this letter he has called some one "pedant."

Reading through the Routledge chapter and it strikes me that when they mention enargeias, this appears to be a related word to the one that Epicurus used to describe our perception of the gods in the letter to Menoikeus:

Gods exist, and the knowledge of them is manifest to the mind's eye (ἐναργὴς enargēs).

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ε , ἐναπο-στέγω , ἐναργ-ής

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ε , ἐναπο-στέγω , ἐνάργ-εια

I haven't had a chance to read the paper/chapter yet (on the to-do list!), but it's one interpretation of the "true" is that sense impressions originate with "real" truly existing objects and so we can rely on our senses that there IS indeed a real, external world that exists independently of us? Were there schools in ancient Greece that taught we couldn't be sure if this?

Literally, blue skying it here.

My take, from an ancient Epicurean perspective, would be that the senses receive the films of the images onto the sense organs as a die casts a piece of metal. The error arises when the mind interprets (almost immediately or simultaneously) the impression made by the die.

Quote from Cassius

Here is DeWitt's article focusing on the subject. I am having trouble getting the Greek word in the summary typed in - if any moderator has the ability to fix that in the description (where I have placed the ________) please do.

File

Norman DeWitt - "Epicurus - All Sensations Are True"

DeWitt's interpretation of the "all sensations are true" controversy.

Cassius

December 29, 2022 at 12:23 PM

Here it is in plain text for you to copy:

αληθής

Also

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἀληθ-ής

All we have from the Letter to the philosophers of Mytilene that Dewitt references in that "satire" section:

Epicurus: Fragments - translation

[ U113 ]

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Philosophers, X.8: Furthermore, Epicurus himself in his letters says of Nausiphanes: "This so maddened him that he abused me and called me a didaskalon." {= "pedagogue," a trite, pedantic teacher} Epicurus used to call Nausiphanes a pleumonon. {= "jellyfish," imputing obtuseness and insensibility}

U114 ]

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, I.3: Epicurus, then, though he had been one of this man’s disciples, did his best to deny the fact in order that he might be thought to be a self-taught and original philosopher, and tried hard to blot out the reputation of Nausiphanes, and became a violent opponent of the Arts and Sciences wherein Nausiphanes prided himself. Thus, in his Letter to the Philosophers of Mytilene, Epicurus says, "I quite suppose that ‘the bellowers’ will fancy that I am even a disciple of ‘the jellyfish’ having sat under him in the company of some crapulous striplings;" whereby he calls Nausiphanes a "jellyfish" as being without sense. And again, after proceeding further and abusing the man at length, he hints at his proficiency in Arts and Sciences when he says – "In fact he was a sorry fellow and exercised himself on matters which cannot possibly lead to wisdom," alluding thereby to Arts and Sciences.

My question with DeWitt is: Where is he getting this? How can he make those broad statements when we don't even have the texts?

DeWitt did a lot of "historical fiction" writing on the flimsiest (or non-existent!) of evidence... In my opinion.

About halfway through and had a thought about being open to other ideas, etc. At least the Epicureans didn't walk themselves off from other philosophers' ideas. The number of books they wrote against other schools show that they definitely engaged with other ideas. To counter them and argue against them, of course; but they were engaged in the marketplace of ideas.

Quote from Cassius

so hard to know what to say.

Philosophers Rorschach Test

I was completely unaware of this mosaic. Thanks, Joshua , for posting it.

That guy in the gold-colored cloak and a "crown?" on the left is quite striking. Are there any philosophers that fit that kind of description?

That guy seated on the left reminds me of Metrodorus from Autun.