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https://people.bu.edu/wwildman…_rdg07_physics_entire.htm I just came across this mention of Aristotle's ideas on time in Physics 4:10-14 and thought I saw some parallels with Epicurus and Lucretius. Or, if not parallels, Aristotle providing a jumping off point for an Epicurean rebuttal. For example, Epicurus in the Herodotus: (Quote) Both Epicurus and Aristotle talk about time in relation to motion. Do I remember that Lucretius discussed time somewhere? Anyway, food for thought.

(Quote) This line caught me by surprise! Is Epicurus endorsing the idea of "neutral states" in addition to pleasure and pain?! As always, back to the books! The phrase here is: ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ τοῖς πάθεσι καὶ ταῖς ἀπαθείαις. So πάθεσι (pathesi) and ἀπαθείαις (apatheiais). We're all familiar with the pathē, they are two: pleasure and pain. But what about the second word? https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/…9.04.0057:entry=a)pa/qeia My initial take is that he's using it as the opposite of pathē, but I'm…

Would that we had Book 10 of On Nature! It obviously was a long treatment on the study of time, and the fragments are tantalizing. For example: https://papyri.info/dclp/59744…me+asc,item+asc&p=19&t=23 Col.2 ... given that, far from even being able to conceive that time could never exist, one sees quite the contrary immediately that it necessarily conceives time as something [like this]... (4 (37-13)... going into..., we distinguish the short time and the long time [by reasoning] which is not dif…

So: ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ τοῖς πάθεσι καὶ ταῖς ἀπαθείαις,... "And likewise (applied) to both the πάθεσι and to the ἀπαθείαις" but note the dative plural definite articles so it seems he's talking about those which... or the (plural things) to which the duration of time is applied in common speech using "the usual expressions." τοῖς πάθεσι is the neuter dative plural of πάθος "that which happens" (ie, how we experience things) ταῖς ἀπαθείαις is the feminine dative plural of ἀπάθεια "no feeling" ἀπάθεια …

Yonge: It is, in fact, evident, that we speak of time as composed of days and nights, and parts of days and nights; passiveness and impassibility, movement and repose, are equally comprised in time. That's not very helpful

The 1691/92 Greek/Latin edition translated that phrase as: Similiter et perturbationinus ac tranquillitatibus,... https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/…04.0059:entry=perturbatio https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/….0059:entry=tranquillitas So, maybe the import for Epicurus is to hammer home the dichotomy, not of pleasure/pain vs some neutral state (which would be opposed to his philosophy) but rather the active emotions vs tranquility? Which is echoed in the next couplet with motion and states?

(Quote from Cassius) Oh, I see no reason to think Epicurus is primarily talking about the motion of the atoms. He's talking about "the usual expressions" everyone uses about time. Right before the words in question, he's talking about night and day and their parts. I think he's talking about things on the macro level and not the micro level of atoms. For ease of access, I'm going to copy that section about time from the Herodotus here again: (Quote from Epicurus from his letter to Herodotus) Now…

Note: Joshua's Lucretius excerpt echoes 3 above: Lucretius: We must concede that no one has a sense of time in and of itself, apart from things in motion or at rest. Epicurus: καὶ κινήσεσι καὶ στάσεσιν "both things in motion and those at rest"

That's a good find! (Quote from Nate) I thought time was one of the things specifically excluded from having a prolepsis. [DL 10.72] "There is another thing which we must consider carefully. We must not investigate time as we do the other accidents which we investigate in a subject, namely, by referring them to the preconceptions (προλήψεις) envisaged in our minds The way Epicurus describes it sounds like we bypass any "preconception": "we must take into account the plain fact itself... linking …

Following up on Nate 's find in On Piety, here's the commentary that goes along with that: (Quote) We've been looking at the letter to Herodotus and Joshua is the one who noted the Lucretius quote cited there. I haven't put my finger on the Sextus citation yet.

Got it:

I get the sense that time in Epicurus's system is a "quality of a quality," not a thing unto itself.

I think void is a thing, or at least the absence of a thing. It is the "thing" through which atoms move. I don't see equating time with void. If anything, time is a descriptor of a descriptor. It is a way of talking about the duration of a quality, a quality of a quality.

(Quote from Cassius) I know it sounds weird, but it's just an old definition of accident: "Any property, fact, or relation that is the result of chance or is nonessential or nonsubstantive." (Quote from Cassius) I can't get behind that. Bodies have qualities. They can be defined by their qualities. Their qualities can be qualified by other qualities, like time. But bodies are not qualities. For example: An apple is a body. A quality of the apple is its being red. Red does not exist apart from re…