Anticipations - Justice & Divine Nature

Quote from EricR

But I see I was making a mistake in being so specific. But I think Don has a good point about them being "always true" in their role as primary ways of knowing.

Respectfully to all concerned let's state all this in a way that is more clear about the "always" and the "absolute" implications. I think the point Epicurus was making is that "YES - "anticipations" as a PRE-conceptual source of raw data are always reported "honestly," but "No! - anticipations are not themselves ethical conceptions / propositions and they are themselves never fully formed conceptions that are absolutely applicable in all circumstances!"

Due to the nature of the universe (no gods, no ideal forms, nothing that is "always the same" except the fundamental elements themselves) there is no way possible that any ethical concept can ever be absolute for all people, all times, all places. That is in my view the clear meaning of the "justice" statements in the last ten PD's, but it's also compelled by the Epicurean physics. That's where DeWitt slipped (in my humble view) in describing anticipations as "ideas." They are used to FORM ideas, just like the data from all three of the canonical legs are used in our minds to form ideas, but they are not ideas themselves.

This is the point that was the fatal flaw in those who adopted a fourth leg of the canon (as cited in Laertius) and it's the flaw committed by Cicero's Torquatus in saying that he was one of those who believed that the proposition that pleasure is desirable should be the subject of essential logical proof.

What we're discussing here is what (in my opinion, I think following DeWitt) blew up the Epicurean movement in the ancient world. They gave in to the Platonists / Stoics and accepted the argument that their philosophy required proof through "logic" - when Epicurus told them that "logic" is not something that is canonical, and that proof comes through the natural faculties (data from all three canonical faculties viewed generally as "sensations") rather than through mental conceptions / logic.

I know pleasure because I can feel it, not because I can define it absolutely accurately in words. The same would go for all the inputs from all the canonical faculties. The data does not come to us in words/concepts, those are just devices that we use to try to describe them, but the words are just devices. The words cannot be mapped one-to-one exactly to the full context of the experience.

I would say Eric just remember that formulation of absolute law in Cicero's Republic, and compare it to PD 30-40.

Epicurus stands for the proposition that there is no absolute justice or absolute ethical standards, other than pleasure and pain as the guide to all choices and avoidances.

That means that all subsidiary parts of the philosophy, including anticipations, point in that same direction.

The follow up point Eric is that YES, it is through the anticipations of the people involved that they will reach their decisions as to what is just and what is unjust and they will work as hard as they can to implement those ideas.

BUT at the same time they must realize that the answer they reach to their questions is determined by a combination of their own circumstances plus the developed dispositions they bring to the table, and that there is no God, or Ten Commandments, or any other "supernatural" or "eternal" or even "Nature's Own Single Answer" justification for their decisions

This is the position Epicurus was fighting AGAINST, and so you can pretty much REVERSE this and see what Epicurus' position would have been in arguing that these things are impossible due to the nature of the universe. That means that these things don't exist anywhere, and we won't find them existing in anticipations either. Anticipations will be something different - a faculty that allows us to see the issues involved in justice, like an eye allows us to see trees. But in processing our conclusions about trees or about justice, all of that process is something the human mind does to the best of its own ability, and people aren't going to reach the same conclusions about justice any more than they are going to use the same words or even use the same language to describe trees:

https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4104&context=ndlr

This continues to be a key passage too. To any question of whether Nature gives us any standard of conduct whatsoever, in the form of "ideas" "concepts" "justice" or whatever - there is only ONE answer: "What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, beside pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance?'" (and of course the answer implanted there is NOTHING)

Quote

Hence Epicurus refuses to admit any necessity for argument or discussion to prove that pleasure is desirable and pain to be avoided. These facts, be thinks, are perceived by the senses, as that fire is hot, snow white, honey sweet, none of which things need be proved by elaborate argument: it is enough merely to draw attention to them. (For there is a difference, he holds, between formal syllogistic proof of a thing and a mere notice or reminder: the former is the method for discovering abstruse and recondite truths, the latter for indicating facts that are obvious and evident.) Strip mankind of sensation, and nothing remains; it follows that Nature herself is the judge of that which is in accordance with or contrary to nature.

What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, beside pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance? Some members of our school however would refine upon this doctrine; these say that it is not enough for the judgment of good and evil to rest with the senses; the facts that pleasure is in and for itself desirable and pain in and for itself to be avoided can also be grasped by the intellect and the reason. Accordingly they declare that the perception that the one is to be sought after and the other avoided is a notion naturally implanted in our minds. Others again, with whom I agree, observing that a great many philosophers do advance a vast array of reasons to prove why pleasure should not be counted as a good nor pain as an evil, consider that we had better not be too confident of our case; in their view it requires elaborate and reasoned argument, and abstruse theoretical discussion of the nature of pleasure and pain.

I have been chomping at the proverbial bit all day to respond to this thread.

It seems to me some things are getting conflated here, specifically Canonics and Ethics.

The Canon consists of three sources:

"In The Canon Epicurus affirms that our (1) sensations and (2) preconceptions and our (3) feelings are the standards of truth" (Diogenes Laertius, X.31)

• Sensations αἴσθησις are the sense-perceptions.
• Preconceptions/Anticipations are the infamous prolepses προλήψεις
• Feelings πάθη are pleasure and pain. That's it, two. "They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined." (DL, X.33)

The Canon is literally the yardstick, standard, ruler. It is the standard against which things - reality? - are measured. I'm interpreting some things posted here to say that everyone has their own standard. No. I can't see how that can be correct. Everyone has their own opinions, beliefs, interpretations, etc., but the Canon provides a standard against which those opinions and beliefs are measured. You can't say a belief or opinion is "empty" κενός if you have nothing against which to measure it. Otherwise, the Canon has no meaning. You can't say the standard is not a standard. That doesn't place a value judgement. It a belief does not START with a canonical sensation, preconception, or feeling, it's not a valid belief. Not all beliefs are equal. How else could you say that a belief that the gods influence my actions is vain/empty/κενός without referring to the yardstick/ruler/Canon?

The Canon provides no ethical or conceptual content. All the canonic faculties (I think that's a good word) function pre-conceptually. "Images" impact the senses. Preconceptions/anticipations are exactly that: they are "before concepts" or "anticipate" concepts. The feelings of pleasure and pain are automatic. We cannot (really) control whether we feel pleasure or pain. We can decide to endure pain as a choice. But we feel pleasure or pain prior to any conceptual understanding of it or "meaning" behind it.

As far as determining whether something is just or not, whether there is justice in a given situation, that is entirely a matter for Ethics and the social contract. The most basic social contract - according to Epicurus - is "to neither harm nor to be harmed." That's not the prolepsis of justice. Granted, I'm still wrestling with what the "Prolepsis of Justice" is, but I'm leaning toward it having to do something with those animal experiments, especially since their working out something preverbally and maybe preconceptually but rather instinctually. The "prolepsis of justice" will not "tell" us whether something is just or not. That's determined by the social contract of a particular time and place.

I'll stop there for now.

These are good points to move the discussion along. Let me comment on them:

Quote from Don

I'm interpreting some things posted here to say that everyone has their own standard. No. I can't see how that can be correct. Everyone has their own opinions, beliefs, interpretations, etc., but the Canon provides a standard against which those opinions and beliefs are measured. You can't say a belief or opinion is "empty" κενός if you have nothing against which to measure it. Otherwise, the Canon has no meaning. You can't say the standard is not a standard. That doesn't place a value judgement. It a belief does not START with a canonical sensation, preconception, or feeling, it's not a valid belief. Not all beliefs are equal. How else could you say that a belief that the gods influence my actions is vain/empty/κενός without referring to the yardstick/ruler/Canon?

Let's start with that one: Yes I do think that everyone has there on sense of pleasure, and I think that is the easiest one to deal with. Some people find pleasure in many different ways -- do we agree on that?

If we do, then that's the first indication that a canonical faculty gives different results for different people.

Don't we also agree that people see colors in different ways (for example some are color-blind) and hear in different ways (some are "tone-deaf")? I think we'll agree there too.

As for anticipations, that's really the question we're discussing, so let's defer whether people have different instances of anticipations, though I will assert eventually that those differ too.

Where I think you are going, though, is that yes I agree that we can "generalize" and find that MOST people's sense of pleasure and pain, and their senses of sight and sound etc, do fall within ranges or bell curves or whatever. I would think that those "ranges" or "statistical probabilities" are what we are all thinking form the basis for our generalizations as to what is desirable and what is not desirable for most human beings.

But the real point there is that these are just generalizations, and they vary (sometimes dramatically) by individual, so while it is correct to say "generally" that most people (or most "Amerians") or most "men," or most of many other types of categories that we could come up with, do perceive things in a general way, that's pretty much the same as any other kind of statistical generalization. While yes that generalization does arise from nature, it's not really the kind of "absolute" standard at all that most people think about.

Now when we are talking about purely "mechanical" observations like length or width or weight or many many other things that can be "measured" yes we can come up with rulers and yardsticks and ways to measure them that are in fact 'objective' in way, but even there it is us (rather than nature) that is selecting an arbitrary standard to compare them against. Our confidence that those measurements always remains the same comes from the fact that we can reliably repeat them over and over and get the same result, not from any reference to an absolute standard "floating in the air"

Quote from Don

The Canon provides no ethical or conceptual content. All the canonic faculties (I think that's a good word) function pre-conceptually. "Images" impact the senses. Preconceptions/anticipations are exactly that: they are "before concepts" or "anticipate" concepts. The feelings of pleasure and pain are automatic. We cannot (really) control whether we feel pleasure or pain. We can decide to endure pain as a choice. But we feel pleasure or pain prior to any conceptual understanding of it or "meaning" behind it.

I think we are completely in agreement here, with the exception that pleasure and pain are the foundation of all ethical choices, and so I doubt that it is really proper to completely sever ethics from the canonical discussion.

Quote from Don

As far as determining whether something is just or not, whether there is justice in a given situation, that is entirely a matter for Ethics and the social contract. The most basic social contract - according to Epicurus - is "to neither harm nor to be harmed." That's not the prolepsis of justice. Granted, I'm still wrestling with what the "Prolepsis of Justice" is, but I'm leaning toward it having to do something with those animal experiments, especially since their working out something preverbally and maybe preconceptually but rather instinctually. The "prolepsis of justice" will not "tell" us whether something is just or not. That's determined by the social contract of a particular time and place.

I am pretty sure here is where we will disagree. First, I don't really think there is a sanction for saying that Epicurus really endorsed a 'social contract' in the first place, other than his observations that when people do agree not to harm each other, we can call that the foundation of any concept of "justice" that may exist. But he is also very clear that circumstances can and do change at a moment's notice, so that agreements which may have been "just" yesterday can become "unjust" today or tomorrow. And I think that just emphasizes the ephemeral nature of justice and that nothing is ever just in and of itself. He's really saying that any relationship that leads to the happiness of the person concerned with it may be considered just, but he's also saying that if we choose not to enter into any such arrangement (or for some reason we're not capable of it) there is no justice involved.

While it's possible to correctly generalize that most people in most situations benefit if they agree with each other, all those caveats to me simply emphasize that there is no such thing as absolute natural justice, social contract or not, so that the entire discussion just becomes another illustration that there is no such thing as absolute virtue (with justice simply being a subset of virtue).

As to this sentence "The "prolepsis of justice" will not "tell" us whether something is just or not. That's determined by the social contract of a particular time and place." I doubt I agree with that. I am thinking that would be better stated as something like "When I was a child I had four friends and the ice cream man gave us four ice cream cones so one of us didn't have one so we shared them equally anyway." I think that child found PLEASURE in seeing herself and all her friends get the same amount of ice cream. She found pleasure in that, however, only because her faculty of anticipations told her to recognize that there was an issue in everyone getting a a similar amount. Some of the other children could also have recognized the issue but thought "I am older so I should get more." And another one could think "I haven't eaten lunch so I should get more." And another one could think "I don't care what she thinks I am stronger and they depend on me so I deserve more." and many other possibilities could occur along the same lines.

In that scenario I would think that is an example that there is no natural sanction for a "social contract" for everyone to agree to divide equally, although that is ONE among several options that they could choose to follow. It was the sense of pleasure that ultimately provided the stop and go signal as each child evaluated (using their anticipations that there was an issue to consider) the situation that they might or might not choose to divide the ice cream equally. And to make Epicurus' point, they could choose to "agree" to divide it equally if they want, and they can call that "justice" if they want and "injustice" if someone breaks the agreement, but that ultimately if someone chooses to exit they agreement because it is no longer in their view mutually beneficial to them, they can simply choose to do so and no "injustice" is then involved. The word "just" becomes from that point of view as maleable as any other virtue - none of which are "absolute."

So ultimately I come down to the canonical faculty of pleasure as ultimately determining the "ethical choice" to be made. But it's also significant to note that no one would have ever even considered "ethics" to be involved at all if they didn't have an "anticipation" that "ethics" was a factor that they needed to consider as to how best to divide the ice cream. They could have, without that anticipattory disposition, just grabbed for all of the ice cream and each one tried to devour it all themselves just like we might say that a "savage" or some other primitive or hungry set of animals might do.

Quote from Cassius

Some people find pleasure in many different ways -- do we agree on that?

We agree but it's irrelevant. The feeling of pleasure is the canonical faculty at work. We feel pleasure, then ask why that was pleasurable. Feeling, then reason. The action or thought or recollection that elicits a pleasurable feeling is then chosen or rejected to be engaged in again or not on the basis of that feeling. The feeling -- to be modern -- is a reflex response to a stimulus. Those endorphins are the same chemical reaction for all humans. We feel the pleasure before any "thinking" about why we felt it. That's why it can be a standard. It's a biological response not predicated on cognitive reasoning.

Quote from Cassius

If we do, then that's the first indication that a canonical faculty gives different results for different people.

It seems to me you're conflating different "results" with different "feelings." There are different results because different people have different reactions to their feeling of pleasure. Pleasure is pleasure. Opinions about pleasure can be different. To use a metaphor: Fire can be used to burn a house down or cook your food. The results are different, but the nature of the fire remains the same regardless of the outcome. Same for pleasure.

This is a more in depth and fascinating discussion than I can handle at 11:30 pm. I promise I'll re-engage tomorrow. For now

I would say yes the faculty of pleasure is always the faculty of pleasure, but different people have different pleasure responses to exactly the same stimulus - and some people will find that exact stimulus painful. This means presumably that while it is fair to say that "pleasure" is the same faculty for all, there is no "objective" sense of pleasure that we can point to as leading to the same pleasure response in all situations, so we must always defer to the people involved and ask them "Do YOU find this pleasurable?"

Quote from Cassius

I would say yes the faculty of pleasure is always the faculty of pleasure, but different people have different pleasure responses to exactly the same stimulus - and some people will find that exact stimulus painful. This means presumably that while it is fair to say that "pleasure" is the same faculty for all, there is no "objective" sense of pleasure that we can point to as leading to the same pleasure response in all situations, so we must always defer to the people involved and ask them "Do YOU find this pleasurable?"

Sure. But the pleasure response itself is the same. I'm not concerned at that initial point what causes it. Some people will be more sensitive than others, sure, more acutely aware of what their body is trying to tell them. Humans can even train themselves to disregard pain, for example. But the pleasure itself is the guide. Epicurus didn't posit different *feelings* - the "feelings" are two: pain and pleasure. Or are you referring to the katastematic and kinetic pleasures? But again that's only a distinction in where the pleasure comes from.

So, yes, the *individual* has to find an act or memory or sight pleasurable themselves and that is the guide to choices and avoidances/rejections for them. But the feeling of pleasure itself is a human/animal/natural reaction all humans/animals experience (unless there's a neurological disorder). That's why Epicurus could hold it up as a standard against which our decisions could be made. Otherwise, the idea of a *canon* is meaningless. The question has to be: Why is pleasure the yardstick by which we should make choices and rejections? Because it is a reliable yardstick by which our body - our nature - is telling us what to pursue and what to flee from.

I think we can agree with all you wrote their yet we seem to be separate on something - and I perceive the issue is still the question of whether pleasure is any any sense "objective" across people(s) or is always a matter of individual perceptions.

Aside: I hope everyone who feels they have anything productive to contribute will weigh in with comments or questions as we proceed be side that could certainly help.

Quote from Don

But the feeling of pleasure itself is a human/animal/natural reaction all humans/animals experience (unless there's a neurological disorder). That's why Epicurus could hold it up as a standard against which our decisions could be made. Otherwise, the idea of a *canon* is meaningless.

Ok I think we disagree there. I would say it is NOT the "everyone experiences it" that makes pleasure the standard but that FOR US these faculties are our only means of perception of reality which makes it the standard. 50 million Frenchmen are often "wrong" and while the experience of others is helpful to check out own predictions, it isn't the validation that comes from others concurring that makes pleasure the standard, but our own ability to verify through repetition that is our ultimate test.

No matter how many times and people I am told that spinach is pleasing, my reality will never agree with that.

I can admit that "spinach seems to be pleasant to most people, so I hear" but that is not and will never be the reality of my own pleasure. So my reality of pleasure disagrees with theirs , but I still assert that "pleasure" is the only standard of choice, because it is the only such faculty that we have.

Oh! I think I see where we're talking past each other now.

I agree someone else's pleasure response is not a valid premise upon which to base MY choices and rejections.

If spinach doesn't give YOU pleasure, your body is telling you to avoid it - for now at least. It might be mental pain (some childhood memory affixed to spinach gives you pain) or biological pain (digestive issues?). You can always try again later *IF* you want to. Maybe you've heard it's healthy and you're willing to experience some pain now for pleasure (more health) later.

BUT *every* human and other animal has the experience of pleasure or pain by their very nature of being alive. You can see paramecia - one celled "animals" - have a rudimentary pain/pleasure attraction/avoidance response to stimuli. It's Ancient! That's why Epicurus uses it as a *standard.* By observation, he's seen animals react to things: they are either attracted to things for pleasure or flee from them if they cause pain. This is a reliable yardstick to listen to to decide your choices.

Quote from Don

I agree someone else's pleasure response is not a valid premise upon which to base MY choices and rejections.

That being said, Epicurus can still say that he doesn't encourage people to choose a "profligate" lifestyle of drinking bouts, etc. because - as a general rule - that leads to pain, sickness, ill health, loss of friends, insecurity, etc. by observation over time of many situations. BUT he's not going to forbid your choice to do that unless you would have tried to do it in the Garden and upset the community of friends within HIS home. He can make a choice that your behavior causes his friends and him harm, and therefore he can kick you out if he wants to until you can behave in a civilized - just - manner.

Yes I think we are pretty close. It is possible to generalize, and generalizations are generally useful.

What I generally am fighting against is what I perceive to be also a "general" point of view of most people we run into in the outside world -- that there is some "objective" measurement to which all people should conform, including their view of whether something is pleasurable or painful.

I see this as another instance where it is necessary to simultaneously affirm two things that people think are in conflict:

(1) generalizations (about the sense of pleasure and many other things) are indeed generally useful as a matter of practice, so long as we acknowledge that they derive from the particular circumstances and people involved.

BUT

(2) Generalizations do not arise from supernatural means, nor is there a Platonic ideal or an Aristotelian "essence" by which anyone can say that there is only one "right" answer to a particular question.

The general tendency of people, due to religion and false philosophy, to embrace "objective" standards for all people at all times and all places is so strong, and so pervasive, and so insidious, that I think it is necessary to constantly "shout" that (like Diogenes of Oinoanda). As I experience life, in almost every conversation with the general world we can be sure that they are thinking that such an objective standard does exist. And they are presuming that we agree with them!

And this goes much further than basic pleasure sensations, but extends (because pleasures and pain are the starting point for all choices) into every ethical question as well.

Quote from Cassius

Likewise I think it is not correct to suggest that we are born with "ideas" of justice such as equality before the law or contracts or cooperation or teamwork. We are born with a faculty of perceiving that something called "justice" is involved in certain situations and arrangements when we perceive those arrangements for the first time. We are not born with an "idea" of a god being omnipotent or omniscient of even self-sufficient. We are born with a faculty of perceiving that there is a spectrum of perfection in living beings, and that as we come into contact with examples of living beings we can recognize that there is a way to rank living beings in terms of how successful they are in living.

I can agree with this. That we are born with something which is, please forgive the redundancy, innate, but not innate ideas. It's an innate "code" perhaps, which is recorded in us genetically, as Chomsky explains about how we as humans have an innate capacity (faculty?) to learn to use language, apparently automatically (when correctly stimulated), in forma that are not explicitly explained to us by anyone. If you've had kids you must remember this, when they surprisingly start talking in complex ways when nobody's taught them this specifically.

One of the reasons we use this pre-conceptions unconsciously must be because it's pleasurable to do so. Perhaps to be still pre-conceptions or anticipations they must remain unconscious? (They are pre-conscious? Anticipated to conscience?) As soon as they become conscious we start trying to define them, or put names to them, when perhaps what would be more pleasurable would be to observe/experience them?

Perhaps they are part of the canon not so much "use them" as faculties, but rather just to be aware that they happen? (As complementary to the senses that we can choose to engage, and pleasure/pain we can use to discern good/bad)

Thanks to everyone for a great thread, it's been very illuminating.

Yes I think "capacity" is another good word. It isn't fully developed at birth but improves with use and experience. And nobody forces us to use it - we can choose to ignore it. And it isn't some sort of infallible guide - we can still make mistakes in using it. All those things apply I think to what we're talking about.

And the reference to pleasure is a part I find fascinating too. Pleasure is where I think the deepest questions arise as to how that faculty came to be - because the others all seem to be channeling data to it, where alone the "stop" and "go" signals arise.

We know that all animate living things have these signals, and by recognizing them as canonical I think that means Epicurus recognized them as things which are inherent in us and simply have to be accepted as our stop and go signal from nature.

But it does strike me as a fascinating issue to consider the nature of pleasure and how it fits in with eternal / infinite universe and whether it therefore qualifies as the kind of "given" that arises just like life itself, etc.

But then overanalyzing it seems to be much of what Epicurus seemed to be warning against. Ultimately - whether we like it or not or analyze it or not - it's "the way things are."

Quote from Cassius

Pleasure is where I think the deepest questions arise as to how that faculty came to be - because the others all seem to be channeling data to it, where alone the "stop" and "go" signals arise.

This brings to mind the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett that Don and I have posted about previously. As I recall, she discussed in a podcast (I'm not sure if it's in her book) a million year old primitive life form as being a very early manifestation of the faculty. But she's not looking at the way Epicurus described things: modern neuroscience just seems to have a lot of overlap with his thinking.

In her book she describes "affect": a combination of pleasant/unpleasant and calm/agitation. She discusses the neural networks and systems involved, and the comparison to the Canon (with which she apparently is not familiar) is quite thought provoking.