Posts by Bryan

What is highlighted above is correct, but, although I knew it was not giving a BC date, I did think the section highlighted below was giving an Attic date in combination with the eponymos Archon year, but it was stichometry. Thanks Don!

Thank you. Yes, that gets us much closer!

So the Attic numeric system used for the number of lines (where Δ=10, H=100, Γ=500, X=1000) is different from "Greek" system used for the book numbers (where Γ=3, Δ=4, H=8, X=600), presumably because the number of lines was a much larger number. But the system used for the book numbers could accommodate the high line numbers as well. It seems a bit odd to use two systems right next to each other.

Quote from Don

3,800 Stiques***

^{Ἐπικούρου Περὶ Φύσεως ΙΔ, Χ̣ΧΧ̣ΓΗΗΗΗ ἐ̣πὶ Κλ̣[εάρ]χ̣ο.}

I do not understand how ΧXXΓΗΗΗΗ is 3,800.

I know in some systems, X = 600, so does XXX = 1800?

^{Ἐ̣[π]ικούρου Περὶ Φύσεως ΙΕ ΧΧΧΗΗ ἐ̣π̣ὶ [Ἡ]γ̣εμάχου}
While, for book 15, we have: ΧΧΧΗΗ, which is apparently 3,200 lines?

How would we get evidence how many were printed and who funded the printing? It is just odd so many are still around!

To the extent that Epíkouros' Book Fourteen On Nature is not a direct refutation of sections of Plato's Timaeus, it certainly presupposes familiarity with the material. Before we go through this in the upcoming Wednesday meetings, ideally, we should develop the same common ground.

There are several good audiobook versions on YouTube. Please find your favorite reader and listen to it at 0.80 speed until you become as infuriated with Plato's math-magic as Epíkouros is in Book Fourteen.

"This is also desirable: that one who is entirely afflicted by such over-questionings has a kind of remedy – through which it is possible that a simple condition [of life, focused] in the observation of nature will set free their innate trouble."

--Epíkouros, Peri Phýseōs, Book 14, P.Herc. 1148 col. 24

Quote from Charles

...it also had Cardinal de Polignac, who frequented more out of taste for the disciples of Epicurus , than for the doctrine of their master...

I know almost nothing about Polignac's Anti-Lucretius, but it must have been very widely published in its day—because copies of it from the 1700s are cheap (sometimes as low as €20), particularly compared to copies of Lucretius from the same period.

I will throw this in:

"For the one who is accomplished, this is the most important thing produced by total accuracy: to be able to quickly use one's attention with each thing referenced by simple component principles and statements"
-- Epikouros D.L. 10.36b

The "the one who is accomplished," that is, a student who has gone through all the material is a fun word: ὁ τετελεσιουργημένος,"te-te-le-si-our-gē-me-nos" (or tetelesiourgēmenē for a woman).

Book 25 also has "κατα̣κ[οσ]μ̣ουμέ̣νη̣ς" (P.Herc. 1191 fr. 123)

Light pushes and light has weight. Light has mass.

We can make innumerable mathematical models that work for (1) light having mass, (2) light not having mass, or even (3) light not existing at all. The idea that light is massless will be thrown away eventually along with the rest of Einstein's magic tricks.

Quote from Eikadistes

The residency laws of Athens were written to prevent the very thing Epikouros forced, which was ensuring that the estate was managed by a citizen of Mytilene (Hermarkhos)

Great Point!!

I know Míthrēs was the minister of Lysimachos, and that Epikouros helped Míthrēs with a letter campaign of sorts regarding Metrodorus assisting him to get out of prison. Do we know more?

If Míthrēs was imprisoned in the Peiraeus it was probably under the orders of the Antigonid regime. It seems probable Míthrēs was just a messenger in-between the disagreement between Demetrios in Athens and Lysimachos in the east.

There is a bit of circumstantial evidence that Epikouros was favorable to the Antigonid regime, to the extent possible. We know, at least, that Epikouros stayed in the east when Cassander and Ptolemy controlled Athens, but moved there within a year of the Antigonids taking control.

Quote from Cassius

This topic came up Wednesday night when we were discussing that there doesn't seem to be a lot of detailed information on our usual core pages about the political situation in Athens during the specific years that Epicurus was alive.

I do want to recommend Plutarch's Life of Demetrius Poliorcetes (link), which does recount many of the top news stories from 305 to 283 BC, which was during Epikouros' prime. (link for Loeb).

Staggeringly wealthy celebrity women...

Worship of a living man as a god in Athens...

"Soapgate," i.e., Leadership of Athens spending millions of dollars of tax payer money (Silver value: ~$5.7 million. Labor value: ~$300 million) on imported toiletries for a group elite prostitutes...

Skyscraper war-machines on wheels (10 stories high)...

etc. and those are just the early years!

Quote from Don

It was less wrong than the alternative theory of rays from us interacting with the external works and reporting back to us.

Including this quote here, where we have [1] eyes made for a specific purpose (as opposed to mutating and finding a use) and [2] eyes generating light rays (as opposed to simply receiving external information).

Plato, Timaeus ^[45B-C] "The first of the organs fabricated were light-bearing eyes which they fixed in place for the following reason: they contrived to create a body from fire which does not burn but provides a gentle light kindred to the light of each day. So they caused the pure fire within us which is brother of this light of day, to flow through the eyes, and they compressed the whole eye, but especially the centre, to be smooth and dense, so as to retain all the coarser fire, and filter through only this kind of pure fire by itself. Then if ever there is daylight surrounding this stream of vision, like meets with like, joins together and establishes a single kindred body along a straight line from the eyes to wherever the stream from within is obstructed by the outside objects on which it impinges."

Quote from Cassius

with a belief in an elusive incorporeal power pervades the body in order to emphasize asceticism, honesty, and moral training

In Catholic/Christian thinking, "honesty" is something that a person should extend to everyone else. It seems this idea (that an "honest" person is honest to everyone), mostly survives as an expectation for the general modern individual.

Of course, other groups (with a social strategy) see honesty as something that should be extended only within their group -- and they see extending honesty beyond their group as foolish and harmful.

As Epicureans, we each organize our life to spend most of our time among our in-group -- and an Epicurean has very high incentives to be honest with a friend in all cases. Still, I cannot see why an Epicurean would be honest in all cases with someone who is not a friend (particularly if being honest may cause consequence, or if being dishonest may cause benefit).

Although not Epicurus, clearly it is a long-standing error.

Hello @Eikadistes! Thank you, please feel free to use any part of my work in any way. For raw text, I just mine the p.herc section of the Digital Corpus of Literary Papyri. I'm sure you have been there, but that is my primary source.

Quote from Cassius

The mind is a real thing, but it is nothing above and beyond the atoms that constitute it.

I agree the O'Keefe model is not good. The "Sedley / anti-reductionist" argument also strikes me as the natural interpretation. We can create our own mental movement.

Many things are "greater than the sum of their parts" and have emergent qualities that absolutely exist, even if those qualities do not exist in-and-of-themselves. Although I was wondering if O'Keefe is technically correct that this viewpoint is not really "anti-reductionist."

Epikouros is a reductionist in the sense that he reduces everything to the atoms and void, but he is not a reductionist in the sense that he does accept the real existence of everything that we see and feel. Would it be more accurate and expedient to say he is a reductionist and not an elimitivist?

Quote from Cassius

Sedley seems clearly right in his broad strokes that excessive reductionism is akin to excessive skepticism and excessive determinism

I agree. Epikouros makes good use of reductionism, skepticism and determinism -- but he does so with nuance -- and he does reject the version of each that "goes all the way."

This was the angle of my interest, which we have discussed before: to what extent is it beneficial for us to employ a term for the "excessive" version of each? (as "Pyrrhonism" stands for excessive skepticism.)

I have been in the habit of saying that Epikouros is not a "full" reductionist, or not a "capital R" reductionist. The idea is good, but it may be more precise to say that Epikouros is a reductionist (he explains the operation and the existence of everything we sense by appealing to the most basic components), but he is not an eliminativist (he does not deny the reality of sensed experience or emergent properties).

Tim O'Keefe, in his article "The Reductionist and Compatibilist Argument of Epicurus' On Nature, Book 25," argues that Epikouros' explanation of autonomous mental activity in Book 25 is not antagonistic to full reductionism. From my perspective, O'Keefe's argument is based mostly in differentiating reductionism from eliminativism. I used to think he was splitting hairs, but it may be a helpful point when we read about the relationship between the movement of atoms and one's control over mental movements.

O'Keefe makes it simple when he says: "To explain something is not necessarily to explain it away."

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4182694?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents

On the topic of memorization (ἡ ἀπομνημόνευσις, apomnemόneusis), I wanted to share these bits side-by-side:

"...at some point, he was memorizing – or he was retaining an experience analogous to memorization – and he was occupying himself with [it], for which reason he was silent..."

"...Memory, or the experience analogous to memory..."

"...this memory of it or a movement analogous to memory..."

--Epíkouros, Peri Phýseōs, Book 25, P.Herc. 1056 fr. 4.4 & col. 15

Here is the topic summarized in Aetius 1.21,22:

21. On Time

Pythagoras says that time is the sphere of that which encompasses. 

Plato says that time is a moving image of eternity, or the dimension of the motion of the cosmos.

Aristotle maintained that time is the number of the motion of the (celestial) sphere.

Eratosthenes says that time is the course of the sun.

22. On The Substance of Time

Plato says that the substance of time is the motion of the heaven.

The Stoics say that it is motion itself. 

Xenocrates says it is a measure of what is generated, and also everlasting motion.

Hestiaeus of Perinthus, the natural philosopher, says it is the motion of the heavenly bodies in relation to each other.

Strato says it is the quantitative in motion and rest.

Epicurus says it is a concomitant, that is an accompaniment of motions [or changes].

Also, breaking a word down into its morphemes goes far to establishing a general expectation of the word's meaning. For example, today I was looking at the not very common word "Epeisodos," where we get "Episode." But you can see the meaning is along the lines of "upon course into" and in context "penetration" is precisely the idea -- as Epikouros is talking about the penetration of particles into the mind.

Epíkouros, Peri Phýseōs, Book 25, P.Herc. 1056 col. 12 (fr. B 34)