Mako's Epicurean Outline

Mako that is an OUTSTANDING first draft. on the issue of the absence of pain, did you get a chance to read theNikolsky article yet? Every time I read It I realize that I picked up its argument and just say it in a different way. Also, I realize that I have internalized some material from Gosling & Taylor too. Now THAT is a book that is not so easy to find, and better access to it would help a lot. Although I say it this way all the time, I am not sure that this phrase is really all that helpful "The highest state of pleasure" --- I think that implies (to me, when I say it) that there is some single type of pleasure which is mysterious and needs to be found. I think rather the truth is exactly as stated in PD3 - the LIMIT OF QUANTITY OF PLEASURE..... meaning that the pleasure contained in the vessel can be an mixture of any type just so long as the vessel is full and pain has been crowded out.


Which is not to say that that is easy or even possible to do (effort from breathing?) but that seems to be the way the goal is defined. Nikolsky describes this response to the Academics in a somewhat different way than I do, but I think the result is the same. And the bottom line is that we have a philsophically defensible position in which we rely on nature for our goal and have no need to resort to gods or to false standards for something higher.

A lot of what we are doing here is trying to break free of the Stoic/Academic framework of false goals, and we have to rethink even the terminology to make sure we are not boxed in.

As you say it takes time to put these things together and time to analyze them, and over time you and I and others can come back here and comment on new things that jump out at us.

Nothing else really jumps out at me but I have a comment on this - this too is true "Justice is a contract not to cause pain to one another." I've been in some private conversations lately about how controversial this is - the implication being that "injustice" is nothing but breach of an express or implied agreement. There are plenty of things that are horrible in the world that we can and should want to take action to attack and to change, but unless there was a prior agreement between the parties which was breached, no matter how horrible we consider the problem, it's not a problem of "justice/injustice." It's a problem of "I personally find that intolerable and I am not going to put up with it, and I don't need a god or a false standard of virtue or "justice in the air" to tell me it's ok before i do it!"

There are indeed scary aspects of it and I agree that it is not a subject to bring up lightly - which is why we speak of it infrequently on facebook. And yet it is a good example of Epicurus carrying through the "atomistic universe" premise to its ultimate conclusions, and as we face death and other sobering aspects of reality, it's something else that has to be faced in its proper time. But certainly as not one of the first steps, and certainly not with strangers.

on this:

Quote

2.2 Reasoning should be in line with the ultimate goal of life, and should use the senses and observations as its criteria for determining what is painful and pleasurable, and therefore what is true.

I think you should later take time, when you have time, to study the Canon. This sounds like you confuse what is pleasant with what is true. Or that you think because something "feels good" it must be true, which might be misinterpreted as religious wishful thinking, or misappropriated by wishful thinking.

What our tradition teaches is that pleasure and aversion are true experiences, but they are true in a way which is different from how the things reported by our five senses are true. Within the canon, each set of faculties has its own jurisdiction over one function. Only EYES can see, only EARS can hear, and only PLEASURE-AVERSION can report what is pleasant or not. So each has jurisdiction over one aspect of reality.

Therefore that something is "true" does not follow from something being pleasurable. It is true if ANY of the faculties report it, with pleasure and aversion being only one of the legs of the canon.

You may find more on this in the second half of this dialogue:

http://societyofepicurus.com/dialogue-on-the-social-contract/

Good point I did not pick up the first time. The first part of the sentence I think is good, but the word "true" doesn't fit, as you say. More applicable instead of "true" would be "what is to be pursued and avoided."

Quote from Mako

The gods are immortal beings that are imperceptible to us. (**)

(**) My confusion shows here. Epicurus denied the existence of a God, but I thought I recall him also saying they exist, but are not as man believes them to be. They immortal and happy, the model that we seek to follow by living a pleasurable life. Was Epicurus using the word "God" to demonstrate this, but not actually claiming there were heavenly figures above us?

I don't recall Epicurean sources saying that the gods are imperceptible, as this would make the entire system fall: our philosophy is based on the study of nature, ergo SOME form of perception must be possible.

There are three interpretation of the gods.

The realist interpretation of the gods says their bodies are atomic and they are real animals living in intermundia. It seems like the "anticipations" are supposed to be the way we perceive them (with the mind) according to the realist view, but I personally reject this: anticipations only happen AFTER you have perceived something once, and then the imprint becomes familiar. Others may say via dreams we may receive particles from the gods, sort of the same way that neutrinos and other galactic particles travel through our bodies daily without our knowing. Others may argue that the gods are not directly perceived, but are inferred from the doctrine of innumerable worlds, which posits that life exists throughout the universe and there's no reason to think we are the apex of life forms; so gods are those animals that are vastly superior to us in the ecology of the universe.

The idealist interpretation says they are cultural and mental constructs meant for contemplation, but not physically real. The atheistic interpretation is that this is an obsolete teaching and that religious pleasure may be natural, but it's unnecessary.

All options are explored here: http://societyofepicurus.com/for-there-are-gods/

The goal of religious piety is to experience "pure, unalloyed pleasure", as per Philodemus' scroll "On Piety", a commentary on which can be found on the SoFE webpage. So that is the key point to take away: if you're going to engage in religious practices, make sure to study that in order to protect your experience and maximize the benefit.

The third interpretation (which I and Ilkka endorse most vocally) is explained here: https://theautarkist.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/the…epicurean-gods/

Another good catch Hiram. Dewitt explains the evidence of the gods through images and/or anticipations in his chapter on party. Also the argument from isonomia etc which I prefer is in that same chapter and in "on the nature of the gods"

I hope you or someone else who better understands isonomia would write a clear essay explaining it. It never made sense to me, and in fact I think in our last conversation on the subject we proved it was an incorrect theory. Maybe you can publish, comment on, or edit that dialogue, if you can find it? I am not able or willing to defend isonomia without understanding what I'm talking about.

"and in fact I think in our last conversation on the subject we proved it was an incorrect theory." < I will have to look back and see what you're referring to there, as I don't recall agreeing that it is an incorrect theory at all. To the extent that it means "equitable distribution" or "distribution along a spectrum from highest to lowest" I am perfectly fine with it and think that it makes perfect sense.

A concise essay on isonomia would really help. I think the question was whether this "law" really followed as an inference from the infinity of the universe.

Here is the best and really only information I have, which is from DeWitt. I've never seen anything else on the topic:

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DeWitt on Isonomy

DeWitt on Isonomy, one of the Epicurean arguments for divinity

Cassius

January 22, 2018 at 1:51 PM

I just read it again. There is a lot of speculation in there. I see DeWitt thinks "equitable apportionment" is the better phrase, and that he is talking about forces that prevail on a universal level rather than on a local level. There's just not a lot to work with here.

This is the paragraph from Cicero as translated by Yonge:

“Surely the mighty power of the Infinite Being is most worthy our great and earnest contemplation; the Nature of which we must necessarily understand to be such that everything in it is made to correspond completely to some other answering part. This is called by Epicurus ισονμία (isonomia); that is to say, an equal distribution or even disposition of things. From hence he draws this inference, that, as there is such a vast multitude of mortals, there cannot be a less number of immortals. Further, if those which perish are innumerable, those which are preserved ought also to be countless.”

http://www.newepicurean.com/epicureandocs/velleius/

DeWitt's discussion of this part seems very interesting to me: "Further, if those which perish are innumerable, those which are preserved ought also to be countless.” It's not exactly the same point, but I gather what DeWitt is also observing is that while individual local bodies which comes together always end up destroyed / disassociating in the end, that is not true from the perspective of the universe as a whole, at which level the entirety is never destroyed / disassociated. Thus the forces of creation/sustenance prevail over the forces of destruction in the end. It's hard to know if this was what Epicurus was talking about, much less whether the idea would seem valid if we had a full discussion of it. But there clearly are several very subtle arguments going on here. All this does indeed in my mind spin around with the issues of eternity and infinity which Epicurus stressed we need to study in great detail. We've only scratched the surface of all this.

Yes Mako we need to drop back to the issue of "what is truth" and what Epicurus had to say about that, and the implications of the physics. I am not able to answer that fully now or ever, but here are some initial comments:

What is "truth"? Many people seem to think that there is an "objective" truth from which we can conclude that everyone at all places and all times will reach the same conclusion. And in fact Epicurus tells us to have confidence in many conclusions, such as that the universe is infinite and eternal, that nothing exists except matter and void, etc. And he also says that unless we can be confident of things immediately in front of us, we can have no confidence in things that are hidden.

But from that we have to think about the meaning of "truth" and what that means between different people at different times and different places, because there is no central god or central observation point from which we can stand and say "THAT is the truth of ice cream, or cats, or whatever.....

Mako, Polystratus in "Irrational Contempt" made the case that your pleasure or aversion to other things is REAL, it's a real experience. He compared it to a magnet and how it attracts metal, but not other stones; or how some herbs serve as medicines when one is sick but not when one is whole.

So there are primary and SECONDARY (or relational) properties of bodies according to Epicurus' letter to Herodotus, and Polystratus placed issues related to pleasure and aversion in the second category. Which means that there are different ways in which things can be true or real.

Yes the issue I think does go more to the matter of what is "real" rather than what is "true." The senses are our key to determining what is "real," but if the "true" is defined to mean "absolutely true at all places and all times" then nothing ever gets us to that point because that is an impossible standard.

Mako there is an article by Alexander Brown entitled "Epicurus on Truth and Falsehood" which I can upload here (or you can get on JSTOR) if you like. It focuses on the details of some commentary by Sextus Empiricus which bears on "truth." But I'm not really sure that I recommend that to you, however, as it might be more technical logic and hair-splitting than you are interested in reading. After glancing back at it I had a hard time finding a passage that jumped out at me as being a clear statement on the issue we're talking about.

I checked Dewitt and he has chapters on the Canon of Truth, and its relationship with Reason, which you probably ought to read first if you have not already. To me the best overview of the system before digging into particular details is always DeWitt.

But let us know how deeply you want to dig into that part because you may not find that necessary. I think the basics are the epistemology parts of the PD's (Bailey version):

1. We must consider both the real purpose and all the evidence of direct perception, to which we always refer the conclusions of opinion; otherwise, all will be full of doubt and confusion.
2. If you fight against all sensations, you will have no standard by which to judge even those of them which you say are false.
3. If you reject any single sensation and fail to distinguish between the conclusion of opinion as to the appearance awaiting confirmation and that which is actually given by the sensation or feeling, or each intuitive apprehension of the mind, you will confound all other sensations as well with the same groundless opinion, so that you will reject every standard of judgment. And if among the mental images created by your opinion you affirm both that which awaits confirmation and that which does not, you will not escape error, since you will have preserved the whole cause of doubt in every judgment between what is right and what is wrong.
4. If on each occasion, instead of referring your actions to the end of nature, you turn to some other nearer standard when you are making a choice or an avoidance, your actions will not be consistent with your principles.

Plus a pretty direct expansion of the basic physics: If the universe is matter and void, and infinite in extent and universal in time, then there is no "absolute" point of perspective from which someone can say that anything is "absolutely true." And there are no "ideal forms" against which to compare for absolute truth, and no supernatural "god" to ask either. There are only particular perceptions of particular things at particular times, generalized into summary opinions / concepts, and the "test of truth" is whether our opinions / concepts correspond faithfully to the thing we are observing at the time, as measured by the information we get from our five senses, feelings, and anticipations. And it's also important to remember that the senses / feelings / anticipations are our test for what is "real" to us at any time, regardless of whether we move to another level of generalization by calling them "true."

After thinking about this and glancing back at the Brown article, I think what I would recommend as much as anything else if you are interested in reading on this beyond DeWitt is the Appendix by Phillip De Lacey to his translation of Philodemus' "On Methods of Inference." The surviving part of the work by Philodemus is very interesting, but I would say start with the appendix on page 120. DeLacey gives a really interesting review of the development of Epicurean logic and how it relates to what came before in Greek thought. It has been a while since I read this but I remember that when I did, I thought it was excellent, especially in helping distinguish Epicurus from Plato and Aristotle.

I think we got started on this because Hiram pointed out that you probably meant "real" when you wrote "true," and that might be good enough for now. But the issue of reason and logic in the canon is pretty closely related to the same topic, and if I recall correctly the De Lacey article is a really good place to start reading if you want more.