Posts by Bryan

In a part of his work On Poetry, Philodemus spends 170 columns (around 18,000 words) rebutting the theories of Heracleodorus. There is also little doubt that Lucretius would have been aware of Heracleodorus' arguments. Reading through Janko's summary of Heracleodorus' ideas shows that there was a lot to object to:

(i) Genre, and the diction and content peculiar to genre, do not matter for poetic excellence; for the pleasure of poetry comes from composition rather than from language or content, which are shared with others. In fact, mimes like Sophron's are said to be poems; since even good prose-writers, like Demosthenes, Xenophon, and Herodotus, are actually poets, metre is irrelevant.

(ii) The contents of poetry, even including raw materials as ugly as fish, chamber-pots, or garlic, are irrelevant to composition, as is seen in passages from Archilochus, Sophocles, and Euripides. This is because content is irrelevant without good composition, and becomes beautiful from the particularity of the elaboration; good content need not entail good composition, as witness Chaeremon. So long as content is well composed, it may be shared or invented, or even false or unrecognizable, as Euripides shows. Artistry can redeem incomprehensible content. Poetry, like metalwork, needs artistry; composition, not raw material, is its particularity.

(iii) Obscurity can be good if the composition is good, as witness the minor tragedian (Anti)philus as compared with Hipponax and Empedocles, who also wrote tragedies. Homer entices us with his unclear proems, and poetic words are enthralling even if they are obscure, as many examples in Homer and Alcaeus prove. It is sound, not content or diction, that benefits verses. Different craftsmen, like ring-engravers and writers, use different materials, but all aim at achieving excellence in representation by means of their different media.

(iv) Excellence lies not in the composition but in the euphony that supervenes upon it, as is proved by rearrangements of the words in verses from poets such as Homer. Such metatheses prove that diction, word-choice, or content do not create beauty. Since sound, not content like plot or character, determines which verses are superior, as witness Choerilus and Anaximenes when compared with Homer, word-choice or content is not the cause of sound. Even prose-writers aim not at truth, but at pleasure, and poets must please the many by applying vivid new words to difficult contents; such words shine brightest when they first appear, like purple garments. The imitation of content must contribute to euphony via majestic and opulent diction, even if the poet utters total absurdities; but the choice of Homeric words does not by itself create the musical sonority that Heraclides desiderated.

(v) Plot depends on the poet's excellence, as we can see from Homer and Archilochus; bad poets often attempt fine plots, but fail to construct them well. Character too depends on the poet's excellence, which enables him to depict men, women, slaves, and animals without becoming comic or iambic. Not content, but excellence in composition, is the particularity of poetry; pleasing composition of diction that vividly, suggestively, clearly, and concisely expresses the underlying meaning is excellence, provided that it maintains poetic style and is suited to the genres, as poets do not prefer clarity to the tragic manner. Critics wrongly claim that the particularity lies in composition that conveys clever, beneficial, or exceptional content, or in character, but character does not determine excellence; composition is its sole cause. Excellence depends not on content, diction, or accidence, but on composition as necessitated by the sounds; when vividness creates excellence, it relies on sound. Critics wrongly claim that verse depends on its material and its writer, his diction and his thought.

(vi) The representation of intelligible content is related to genre, as witness epic style, which contains all the genres. However, genre is irrelevant to excellence, whether we compare Homer to Archilochus, Euripides, or anyone else; rather, it is excellence that creates style, if not also genre.

Heracleodorus (1st century BCE) - Wikipedia

Quote from Titus

speculative transformative sect of Epicureanism—one that opens gates to the heavens and allows eidola to persist and manifest in a metaphysical realm

This is quite close to Platonism, where your spirit gets to go live in the star god made for you (so long as you understand your geometry):

"[Plato, Timaeus, 41d fin.] And when He had compounded the whole He divided it into souls equal in number to the stars, and each several soul He assigned to one star, [41e] and setting them each as it were in a chariot He showed them the nature of the Universe, and declared unto them the laws of destiny,—namely, how that the first birth should be one and the same ordained for all, in order that none might be slighted by Him; and how it was needful that they, when sown each into his own proper organ of time, should grow into the most god-fearing of living creatures."

"[42b fin.] And if they shall master these they will live justly, but if they are mastered, unjustly. And he that has lived his appointed time well shall return again to his abode in his native star, and shall gain a life that is blessed and congenial but whoso has failed therein shall be changed into woman's nature at the second birth; and if, in that shape, he still refraineth not from wickedness [42c] he shall be changed every time, according to the nature of his wickedness, into some bestial form..."

To step away from Plato, and into Epíkouros' physics: the eidola do persist over time, and can certainly persist and manifest beyond our lifetime. Nevertheless, we do not experience what our eidola "experience" [i.e., how they are impacted], nor can our eidola (or anything else) manifest in a "metaphysical realm."

Thanks for sharing!

This is excellent—very calm, cool, and clear.

I agree! The basic idea that 'there are other options!' is a great entry point for general audiences—and you provided a brilliant explanation of the active/static pleasure issue. Thanks!

Plato takes 120 of the 30-60-90 triangles to form the icosahedron (twenty of these groupings of six):

"[55b] And the third solid is composed of twice sixty of the elemental triangles conjoined, and of twelve solid angles, each contained by five plane equilateral triangles, and it has, by its production, twenty equilateral triangular bases."

Plato takes four of these groupings of six to form the tetrahedron:

"And when four equilateral triangles are combined so that three plane angles [55a] meet in a point, they form one solid angle, which comes next in order to the most obtuse of the plane angles. And when four such angles are produced, the first solid figure is constructed, which divides the whole of the circumscribed sphere into equal and similar parts."

I think that part of Plato's argument is that the simplest possible plane is a triangle: therefore, this shape is properly considered the most basic building block for extending into three-dimensional space. Before we go 3D, Plato starts with a 30-60-90 triangle and -- from six of those -- and builds an equilateral triangle.

[54d] "In the next place we have to explain the form in which each Kind has come to exist and the numbers from which it is compounded. First will come that form which is primary and has the smallest components, and the element thereof is that triangle which has its hypotenuse twice as long as its lesser side. And when a pair of such triangles are joined along the line of the hypotenuse, and this is done thrice, by drawing the hypotenuses [54e] and the short sides together as to a center, there is produced from those triangles, six in number, one equilateral triangle."

It seems the tradition of keeping dodecahedrons for intellectual stimulation rather than practical use continued on, as seen in this antique "zodiac paperweight."

Quote from Don

"Pleasure is the reason I do everything."

Yes, I fully agree. Our pleasure should be our continuous guide. We have pleasure, but we need to act in a way that ensures we continue to have it.

I think of pleasure as something like a compass. The boat is afloat, and it is a pleasure to be sailing: but we are always traveling through the seas of time, and we must steer in a coherent direction—or else risk sailing into storms or crashing against reefs.

Many people have goals beyond their own pleasure — some give too much of themselves, others take too much for themselves, while almost all seek unnecessary change of some sort — and this leads them into many unpleasant and unnecessary circumstances!

Cicero was certainly correct that the Timaeus is obscure—and I agree that the reader of Plato develops a sympathy for this obscurity, as Plato does seem to sincerely wish to be as clear as possible. In fact, the Timaeus is really the same geometric explanation repeated three different times, gradually introducing the complexity.

This sort of 'clarity through repetition' or 'clarity through saying your point in different ways' seems to be something that Epíkouros also employs in On Nature.

Quote from Cassius

In this case I don't gather that its reconstructed, but rather intended to set off certain sections of text as being referenced rather than being the words of Diogenes himself, but I'm just not sure.

That is correct, this is a well preserved section. There are a few letters missing here and there, but what is in quotes is present in the ancient Greek.

Quote from Cassius

I gather you have to get to the combinations stage before you can properly start talking about accidents/events/qualities that are perceptible to us

Yes, I think the biggest challenge is the different terms we have in English. For the qualities you are referring to, Lucretius calls "events" and Epíkouros calls "symptoms."

In terms of whole natures: For the atoms, the only necessary qualities are shape, three-dimensionality, and weight. For the void, its only quality is to never be able to be subjected to any influence in any way.

All other qualities are emergent and the contingency or necessity of the qualities is from the perspective of the compounds that exhibit them.

When the distinction between atoms and compounds is not significant, I wanted to highlight that Epíkouros uses the term "What is corporeal (τό Σωματικὸν)" for both together:

"...as both what is corporeal and the void exist..."

(Epíkouros, Peri Phýseōs, Book 28, P.Herc. 1479 fr. 1 col. 1)

Quote from Cassius

Peace signified harmonious relations with neighbors while Safety meant the security of the man as a citizen

Throwing this in to show that "Peace" was also used in the context of macropolitics, in the same sense we use it: "war vs. peace."

"…For in [law courts], as the saying goes, they risk their neck whenever they serve as assemblymen, and whenever they judge cases, they pay attention to what's being said because they fear their oath -- but in the assemblies and displays of the sophists, they do not care at all, either about an oath (because they have not sworn to judge correctly) nor about whether what's being said is beneficial to the city or not (because the speech is not about war and peace [Εἰρήνη], about which we must sometimes vote, or if it does happen to be about war and peace [Εἰρήνη] or some other thing that they deliberate in their assemblies, the speech at that moment is not about anything pressing at all)."

(Philódēmos, On Rhetoric Book 3, P.Herc. 1506, col. 50, line 33 – col. 51, line 21)

Yes, thank you Cassius. Referring to William DeWitt Hyde as DeWitt is far too confusing. I've corrected my post.

I wanted to include this striking quote from William DeWitt Hyde (From Epicurus To Christ, pgs. 22-24):

"Perhaps we are inclined to look down on Epicurus's ideal as a low one. Well, if it is a low ideal, it is all the more disgraceful to fall below it. And of us do fall below it every day of our tense and restless lives. Let us test ourselves by this ideal, and answer honestly the questions it puts to us.

How many of us are slaving all day and late into the night to add artificial superfluities to the simple necessities? How many of us know how to stop working when it begins to encroach upon our health; and to cut off anxiety and worry altogether? How many of us measure the amount and intensity of our toil by our physical strength; doing what we can do healthfully, cheerfully, joyously, and leaving the rest undone, instead of straining up to the highest notch of nervous tension during early manhood and womanhood, only to break down when the life forces begin to turn against us?

Every man in any position of responsibility and influence has opportunity to do the work of twenty men. How many of us in such circumstances choose the one thing we can do best, and leave the other nineteen for other people to do, or else to remain undone?

How many of us have ever seriously stopped to think where the limit of healthful effort and endurance lies, unless insomnia or dyspepsia or nervous prostration have laid their heavy hands upon us and compelled us to pause? Every breakdown from avoidable causes, every stroke of work we do after the border-land of exhaustion and nervous strain is crossed, is a crime against the teaching of Epicurus."

Quote from kochiekoch

If you can tap into the power of the heavens

Yes, I want to rescind my dismissiveness. If these were any other shape, it would be very tempting to think they just had a practical use. But given that the dodecahedron was an important part of the key to transcending metempsychosis, and as such was almost an object of worship in the early Academy (as Kochiekoch said), it does indeed suggest these objects were not for (some unknown) practical use.

The fact that there were also icosahedral versions seems to solidify the Platonic connection.

Quote from Charles

The 1712 edition of Creech, published by Jacob Tonson

The next year, Jacob Tonson and John Watts published another version with engravings by Guernier, but this time by with the text edited by Michael Maittaire (French classicist) and funded by Richard Mead (doctor to the crown and patron of the classics).

I recently got a 1713 edition of this for only £40. The text is Latin-only, but does contain one page of English, which is more-or-less an Enlightenment era copywrite.

ANNE R. = Anne Regina = Queen Anne

I agree, Eikadistes. I feel as though the circumstantial evidence we have is sufficient to accept the theory.

In general outline, it seems Plato, as he aged, became less skeptical and more Pythagorean. The old academy would have been the most influenced by Pythagoreanism. Of course, later on, the more skeptical new academy more closely aligned with skepticism seen in Plato's earlier and public works.

The old academy is the least known, least public, and the most "mystic." This Pythagorean-influenced Platonism would have been the version of Platonism that Epikouros was arguing against.

Quote from Cassius

One of his key criticisms was directed at the Pythagorean doctrine of the immortality and transmigration of the soul.

Epikouros was undeterred by the Pythagorian threat that, if he built his science upon sensation, his spirit would be metempsychotized into a bird.

"And the tribe of birds are derived by transformation, growing feathers in place of hair, from men who are harmless but light-minded—men, too, who, being students of the worlds above, suppose in their simplicity that the most solid proofs about such matters are obtained by the sense of sight." [Timaeus, 91d fin.]

The SFOTSE and leaping pig hats are great!

I may be pushing it, but are full-brim hat types a possibility?