Episode 241 - Cicero's OTNOTG 16 - A Common Thread Between The Epicurean View Of "The Gods" and "The Good"

Welcome to Episode 241 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we have a thread to discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

Today we are continuing to review Cicero's "On the Nature of The Gods," which began with the Epicurean spokesman Velleius defending the Epicurean point of view. This week will continue into Section 21 as Cotta, the Academic Skeptic, responds to Velleius, and we - in turn - will respond to Cotta in particular and the Skeptical argument in general.

For the main text we are using primarily the Yonge translation, available here at Archive.org. The text which we include in these posts is available here. We will also refer to the public domain version of the Loeb series, which contains both Latin and English, as translated by H. Rackham.

Additional versions can be found here:

• Frances Brooks 1896 translation at Online Library of Liberty
• Lacus Curtius Edition (Rackham)
• PDF Of Loeb Edition at Archive.org by Rackham
• Gutenberg.org version by CD Yonge 

A list of arguments presented will eventually be put together here.

Today's Text

XXIII. ...

I allow that there are Gods. Instruct me, then, concerning their origin; inform me where they are, what sort of body, what mind, they have, and what is their course of life; for these I am desirous of knowing. You attribute the most absolute power and efficacy to atoms. Out of them you pretend that everything is made. But there are no atoms, for there is nothing without body; every place is occupied by body, therefore there can be no such thing as a vacuum or an atom.

XXIV. I advance these principles of the naturalists without knowing whether they are true or false; yet they are more like truth than those statements of yours; for they are the absurdities in which Democritus, or before him Leucippus, used to indulge, saying that there are certain light corpuscles—some smooth, some rough, some round, some square, some crooked and bent as bows—which by a fortuitous concourse made heaven and earth, without the influence of any natural power. This opinion, C. Velleius, you have brought down to these our times; and you would sooner be deprived of the greatest advantages of life than of that authority; for before you were acquainted with those tenets, you thought that you ought to profess yourself an Epicurean; so that it was necessary that you should either embrace these absurdities or lose the philosophical character which you had taken upon you; and what could bribe you to renounce the Epicurean opinion? Nothing, you say, can prevail on you to forsake the truth and the sure means of a happy life. But is that the truth? for I shall not contest your happy life, which you think the Deity himself does not enjoy unless he languishes in idleness.

But where is truth? Is it in your innumerable worlds, some of which are rising, some falling, at every moment of time? Or is it in your atomical corpuscles, which form such excellent works without the direction of any natural power or reason? But I was forgetting my liberality, which I had promised to exert in your case, and exceeding the bounds which I at first proposed to myself. Granting, then, everything to be made of atoms, what advantage is that to your argument? For we are searching after the nature of the Gods; and allowing them to be made of atoms, they cannot be eternal, because whatever is made of atoms must have had a beginning: if so, there were no Gods till there was this beginning; and if the Gods have had a beginning, they must necessarily have an end, as you have before contended when you were discussing Plato’s world. Where, then, is your beatitude and immortality, in which two words you say that God is expressed, the endeavor to prove which reduces you to the greatest perplexities? For you said that God had no body, but something like body; and no blood, but something like blood.

XXV. It is a frequent practice among you, when you assert anything that has no resemblance to truth, and wish to avoid reprehension, to advance something else which is absolutely and utterly impossible, in order that it may seem to your adversaries better to grant that point which has been a matter of doubt than to keep on pertinaciously contradicting you on every point: like Epicurus, who, when he found that if his atoms were allowed to descend by their own weight, our actions could not be in our own power, because their motions would be certain and necessary, invented an expedient, which escaped Democritus, to avoid necessity. He says that when the atoms descend by their own weight and gravity, they move a little obliquely. Surely, to make such an assertion as this is what one ought more to be ashamed of than the acknowledging ourselves unable to defend the proposition. His practice is the same against the logicians, who say that in all propositions in which yes or no is required, one of them must be true; he was afraid that if this were granted, then, in such a proposition as “Epicurus will be alive or dead to-morrow,” either one or the other must necessarily be admitted; therefore he absolutely denied the necessity of yes or no.

Can anything show stupidity in a greater degree? Zeno, being pressed by Arcesilas, who pronounced all things to be false which are perceived by the senses, said that some things were false, but not all. Epicurus was afraid that if any one thing seen should be false, nothing could be true; and therefore he asserted all the senses to be infallible directors of truth. Nothing can be more rash than this; for by endeavoring to repel a light stroke, he receives a heavy blow. On the subject of the nature of the Gods, he falls into the same errors. While he would avoid the concretion of individual bodies, lest death and dissolution should be the consequence, he denies that the Gods have body, but says they have something like body; and says they have no blood, but something like blood."

Well we made a little more progress in today's episode, rather than spending most of the time on a single sentence, but we did go back over the implications of Joshua's theorizing about the parallels in logical structure between Torquatus' explanation of Epicurus' views on the 'highest good' and Velleius' explanation of Epicurus' views on the nature of a 'god.' I will get this episode edited and up over the next several days as the issue involved goes to the general issue of definitions now being discussed in a parallel thread over the nature of 'desire' and Epicurus' use of words in non-standard ways. We've begun to move forward in the podcast discussion a little past this topic, but next week we'll probably touch on it again as I want to suggest that the same issue Joshua is observing as to "the good" and "gods" probably also applies to "pleasure," in my view. There are more implications of what Joshua is suggesting than we have yet fully discussed.

Anybody who wants to can save this message and with my blessings slap me every time i am participating in a discussion about things in which we firmly believe the existence of, without ever having seen or heard or touched or tasted or smelled them directly, if I fail to make sure that we site ATOMS as a prime example of such a thing! I am afraid I failed to do so at least in at one spot in this episode so I will have to use every method I can to try to do better!

Episode 241 will be posted before the end of today. In the meantime, I want to note a point that Joshua brought up right at the end of the episode, which boils down to the point that:

- taking the position "I don't accept anything without evidence to support it" is a good logical position to take as a general rule to avoid mistakes.

- however relying on that general rule may not be nearly helpful to obtaining confidence and therefore happiness as being able to say "I have looked thoroughly into this subject and based on what I have found I am confident that X is true and Y is not true.

I took the time to post this also in part because Joshua also reminds us at the end of the episode about Epicurus' emphasis on the importance of studying infinity and its implications, and i think those two points go hand in hand as core aspects of the Epicurean approach to the issue of divinity.

Lucretius Today Episode 241 - A Common Thread Between The Epicurean View Of "The Gods" and "The Good" - is now available:

This episode turned out to have a different focus than was expected when I picked a preliminary title referring to atoms, so I've re-titled it to refer to what was actually discussed. This change occurred because the major focus turned out to be a comment Joshua introduced last week about a link between the way Epicurus approaches the subject of both "the gods" and "the good."

I should also note that I added the material which appears from 16:15 to 18:54 was an extension of the previous several minutes of recording that I added after the main recording was completed. Therefore the lack of any comment from Joshua or Kalosyni about that material is attributable mainly to the fact that they didn't hear that when we first recorded. As usual the merit or lack of merit of that section is entirely on me, so don't blame them for failing to correct me if that section is absolutely off base. (If anyone is tempted to go straight to 16:15 to start listening, I would warn that it would be difficult to evaluate that segment without hearing Joshua's discussion relating this back to last week, which starts close to the very beginning of the podcast.)

Very well stated Don!

The only caveat I would have is that when one of us refers to the "idealist" position, the implication is that "the idealist position" means that "gods are a mental construction but they don't really exist."

I think the better view in slightly different words is that what Epicurus is doing is providing a "definition" of a god.

The important problem with what is being referred to as "the idealist view" is that "the idealist view" contains a non sequitur in that it appears to presume that the thing defined does not exist. I would submit that this presumption is false and has no place in describing Epicurus' position, and it is error to refuse to honor the definition that Epicurus is stating. The question of whether beings which fit the definition actually exist is entirely separate.

It is as "the idealist position" is taking the position that "I can define for you what it means to be a Ford Model T, but Ford Model T's do not exist." It does not follow from the definition of a Model T that they do not exist, even though we know separately today that they are very hard to find.

The correct position is "I can define for you what it means to be a Ford Model T, but the question of whether you can find a real Ford Model T is entirely separate, and depends on whether you have access to a car museum."

Or to refer to centaurs, the right formulation would be: "I can define for you what it means to be a centaur, but the question of whether centaurs exist is separate. In the case of centaurs, it is biologically impossible for humans and horses to interbreed, so therefore we are confident that centaurs do exist except in our imagination and artwork."

So I would submit the correct position as to gods is best not described as realist or idealist, but described taking that Epicurus is saying what he means and meaning what he says, which taken all together is something like:

I can define for you what it means to be a god, which is that gods are living beings who are blessed and imperishable. We have formed this opinion as to the proper definition based on our faculty of prolepsis, through which we detect patterns and arrangements within the perceptions that we have received throughout our lives through our five senses, our feelings of pain and pleasure, and our mental reception of images. But our opinion of the definition of a god is not itself a prolepsis, any more than our definition of a god is itself a real god, or our eyes relaying to our minds that it sees the light given off by a candle is itself a real candle.

There are many opinions of the proper definition of a god, and many people who assert the existence of many particular gods. Some people hold the opinion that stars are gods, and that gods take an interest in humanity and that gods choose some people as friends and others as enemies. The question of whether any particular asserted god really exists is not answered by stating a definition of gods in general.

For you to maintain that a particular god exists, you will need to provide more than an opinion without evidence. And I can already tell you as a rule of evidence (and we need rules of evidence such as consistent definitions if we are to communicate clearly) that if the description you are asserting conflicts in any way with our definition, which you will recall is to be (1) living, (2) totally blessed, and (3) incorruptible, then what you are describing is not a god. What you are describing may exist, if you have proof of it, but whatever it may be, it is not a "god." Alexander the Oracle-Monger's fake snake does exist as puppet that can be touched and viewed, but it is certainly not a "god."

Going further, I can also tell you that if what you are describing is (4) in any way impossible under the laws of physics we have previously set forth, then what you are describing not only is (A) not a "god," but (B) does not exist as all, because it is physically impossible. That is how I know that your assertions of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence are false, because they are physically impossible.

I would say we need to add "justice" to the same list of conceptual definitions that contains "the good," "gods," and "pleasure" (and no doubt the list goes on). One version of that list might be something like:

Seems to me we have a similar problem involved in accepting the definitions of "gods" and "pleasure." it is so ingrained in us to accept "gods" as supernatural, and to accept "pleasure" as "limited to sensory stimulation" that we kick back against accepting the obvious meanings. The definitions are simple: "Gods" are simply any being that is totally happy and deathless, and "Pleasure" is any experience in life where pain is not present in that experience. The requirement of life, however, is that we apply these definitions to particular experiences, and that's a constantly moving target of dealing with particulars that don't always exactly fit within our conceptual definitions. But if we didn't have the conceptual definitions we couldn't discuss or think or possibly make any progress toward them.

It sounds like perhaps the issue you just touched on is what is referred to here:

Quote from On Ends Book 1

[31] There are however some of our own school, who want to state these principles with greater refinement, and who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense, but that thought and reasoning also enable us to understand both that pleasure in itself is matter for desire and that pain is in itself matter for aversion. So they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred conception leading us to feel that the one thing is fit for us to seek, the other to reject. Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too confident about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.

Would be good to discuss this and get opinions on this from Joshua and Bryan and anyone else who is interested in contributing so we can compare, as it sounds like it was a controversy among the ancient Epicureans.

This (So they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred conception leading us to feel that the one thing is fit for us to seek, the other to reject) sounds pretty close to something in which "prolepsis" is involved.

At least at this moment I would entertain the notion that "good" and "pleasure" are indeed matters in which prolepsis is involved in forming as a conception. To me "Good" is clearly an opinion or concept that has to be pulled together from relationships/patterns and not just purely abstractly. When "Pleasure" is taken to refer not just to a single experience/feeling, but to the "concept of pleasure" referring to all particular pleasures, I would say the same thing - the opinion as to what "pleasure" means as a concept comes from pulling together relationships/patterns of discrete pleasurable experiences.

Quote from Twentier

I continue to have suspicions about the "Idealist" interpretation:

What good is a god that is just a dream?

This says to me that Twentier has the same observation I do - that when people say "the idealist interpretation" they mean flatly "Epicurean gods do not have a physical reality."

And I don't think the "idealist" interpretation as we are defining it here is persuasive for that reason.

It would be easier to talk about the "Voula Tsouna interpretation" or the "David Sedley Interpretation" and then define what that is, because at least then you could quantify exactly what that means if you tried hard enough. For all I know (and I gather that they do) David Sedley or others have some version of a compatibilist view where gods of a type are both real and serve as important idealist models which are worth talking about because they are models.

Quote from Don

By definition, that means there is no world, no world-system, no ordered part of the universe on which a human-shaped god could reside. By definition, the intermundia/metakosmos has no "world." Are we to imagine them floating around like bubbles?

I understand why you are arriving at that conclusion, but I don't think it's necessarily the only conclusion to draw, given the ambiguity of what a "world" or a "space between worlds" would really mean.