Episode 244 - Cicero's OTNOTG 19 - Zeno's Paradoxes - Profundity Or Gaslighting?

Welcome to Episode 244 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 27 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

XXVII. This, I perceive, is what you contend for, that the Gods have a certain figure that has nothing concrete, nothing solid, nothing of express substance, nothing prominent in it; but that it is pure, smooth, and transparent. Let us suppose the same with the Venus of Cos, which is not a body, but the representation of a body; nor is the red, which is drawn there and mixed with the white, real blood, but a certain resemblance of blood; so in Epicurus’s Deity there is no real substance, but the resemblance of substance.

Let me take for granted that which is perfectly unintelligible; then tell me what are the lineaments and figures of these sketched-out Deities. Here you have plenty of arguments by which you would show the Gods to be in human form. The first is, that our minds are so anticipated and prepossessed, that whenever we think of a Deity the human shape occurs to us. The next is, that as the divine nature excels all things, so it ought to be of the most beautiful form, and there is no form more beautiful than the human; and the third is, that reason cannot reside in any other shape.

First, let us consider each argument separately. You seem to me to assume a principle, despotically I may say, that has no manner of probability in it. Who was ever so blind, in contemplating these subjects, as not to see that the Gods were represented in human form, either by the particular advice of wise men, who thought by those means the more easily to turn the minds of the ignorant from a depravity of manners to the worship of the Gods; or through superstition, which was the cause of their believing that when they were paying adoration to these images they were approaching the Gods themselves. These conceits were not a little improved by the poets, painters, and artificers; for it would not have been very easy to represent the Gods planning and executing any work in another form, and perhaps this opinion arose from the idea which mankind have of their own beauty. But do not you, who are so great an adept in physics, see what a soothing flatterer, what a sort of procuress, nature is to herself? Do you think there is any creature on the land or in the sea that is not highly delighted with its own form? If it were not so, why would not a bull become enamored of a mare, or a horse of a cow? Do you believe an eagle, a lion, or a dolphin prefers any shape to its own? If nature, therefore, has instructed us in the same manner, that nothing is more beautiful than man, what wonder is it that we, for that reason, should imagine the Gods are of the human form? Do you suppose if beasts were endowed with reason that every one would not give the prize of beauty to his own species?

I have posted above the text of section 27, which is where we will go next when we resume the text, but I wanted to memorialize too that -- as we discussed on Wednesday night -- there is more to say about the take-home aspects of Zeno's paradoxes, so we will probably start the episode by covering that.

.... Which means we will need to do some more preparation on exactly what those "take-home" points are!

We can probably take this article as key material:

Zeno’s Paradoxes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Zeno’s Paradoxes

First published Tue Apr 30, 2002; substantive revision Wed Mar 6, 2024

Almost everything that we know about Zeno of Elea is to be found in the opening pages of Plato’s Parmenides. There we learn that Zeno was nearly 40 years old when Socrates was a young man, say 20. Since Socrates was born in 469 BC we can estimate a birth date for Zeno around 490 BC. Beyond this, really all we know is that he was close to Parmenides (Plato reports the gossip that they had a sexual relationship when Zeno was young), and that he wrote a book of paradoxes defending Parmenides’ philosophy. Sadly this book has not survived, and what we know of his arguments is second-hand, principally through Aristotle and his commentators (here we draw particularly on Simplicius, who, though writing a thousand years after Zeno, apparently possessed at least some of his book). There were apparently 40 ‘paradoxes of plurality’, attempting to show that ontological pluralism—a belief in the existence of many things rather than only one—leads to absurd conclusions; of these paradoxes only two definitely survive, though a third argument can probably be attributed to Zeno. Aristotle speaks of a further four arguments against motion (and by extension change generally), all of which he gives and attempts to refute. In addition, Aristotle attributes two other paradoxes to Zeno. Sadly again, almost none of these paradoxes are quoted in Zeno’s original words by their various commentators, but in paraphrase.

1.1 Ancient Background

Before we look at the paradoxes themselves it will be useful to sketch some of their historical and logical significance. First, Zeno sought to defend Parmenides by attacking his critics. Parmenides rejected pluralism and the reality of any kind of change: for him all was one indivisible, unchanging reality, and any appearances to the contrary were illusions, to be dispelled by reason and revelation. Not surprisingly, this philosophy found many critics, who ridiculed the suggestion; after all it flies in the face of some of our most basic beliefs about the world. In response to this criticism Zeno did something that may sound obvious, but which had a profound impact on Greek philosophy that is felt to this day: he attempted to show that equal absurdities followed logically from the denial of Parmenides’ views. You think that there are many things? Then you must conclude that everything is both infinitely small and infinitely big! You think that motion is infinitely divisible? Then it follows that nothing moves! (This is what a ‘paradox’ is: a demonstration that a contradiction or absurd consequence follows from apparently reasonable assumptions.)

Although not dealing directly with Zeno, as we discuss this issue we'll want to refer back to this prior thread from Bryan on "The Covered Father":

Post

The Covered Father

(Epicurus - On Nature - Book 28, P.Herc. 1479 (1417), fr. 13, col. 9 sup., David Sedley trans.)

"...these will be confuted, if they are false and whether the cause of their error is irrational or rational, either because (1) some other than theoretical opinion expressed on the basis of them is untrue, or, (2) if they become indirectly linked up with action, wherever they lead to disadvantageous action. If none of these consequences ensues, it will be correct to conclude that opinions are not…

Bryan

March 2, 2024 at 9:43 PM

I went looking for a youtube video that reflected what I think is the proper attitude to take toward Zeno's "paradoxes" (I think the proper attitude is contempt without finding something suitable. However here's one where Meg Ryan illustrates the stupidity of it:

And here is one that, but giving some very good quotes from the people who came up with this, does a good job of setting the table:

Unfortunately, after setting the table by showing the quotes which make clear what kind of nonsense the Eleatics were after, it drops the ball and leaves things hanging.

Here's Joe Rogan giving a look of astonishment at the suggestions. I don't know who he's talking to but I see this as the attitude that anyone of common sense would have toward hearing this kind of thing stated: He says something like "maybe we should stop listening to these people."

After listening to the descriptions of these paradoxes I see these as very close to the ontological arguments for god. "Because in my mind I can imagine a god of infinite power, such a god must exist," IS VERY SIMILAR TO: "Because I can in my mind imagine that there are an infinite number of points between two other points, it must be impossible to count them all or walk across a room." To me this is very similar nonsense. Both should be rejected out of hand and considered nonsense on the ground that the reality perceived through the senses always trumps the allegations of "logic constructed by the mind" when that logic cannot ultimately be traced back to something that can be verified through the senses. Neither the purely mental contention that all-powerful beings exist nor the purely mental contention that all distances can be infinitely divided have any connection to the reality that we perceive through our senses, and both should be rejected as absurd without any more consideration than would be given to the person who asserts that all knowledge is impossible, or who asserts a totally deterministic view of human nature.

That's where Isaac Asimov's criticism of Socrates comes into play as well, and I think it applies to Zeno of Elea as well, of whom I feel also "sick and tired":

Quote from Isaac Asimov "The Relativity of Wrong"

First, let me dispose of Socrates because I am sick and tired of this pretense that knowing you know nothing is a mark of wisdom. No one knows nothing. In a matter of days, babies learn to recognize their mothers. Socrates would agree, of course, and explain that knowledge of trivia is not what he means. He means that in the great abstractions over which human beings debate, one should start without preconceived, unexamined notions, and that he alone knew this. (What an enormously arrogant claim!) In his discussions of such matters as "What is justice?" or "What is virtue?" he took the attitude that he knew nothing and had to be instructed by others. (This is called "Socratic irony," for Socrates knew very well that he knew a great deal more than the poor souls he was picking on.) By pretending ignorance, Socrates lured others into propounding their views on such abstractions. Socrates then, by a series of ignorant-sounding questions, forced the others into such a mélange of self-contradictions that they would finally break down and admit they didn't know what they were talking about. It is the mark of the marvelous toleration of the Athenians that they let this continue for decades and that it wasn't till Socrates turned seventy that they broke down and forced him to drink poison.

But my attitude is best expressed in the quote from Seneca, where I think he's channeling Epicurus rather than his Stoic friends.

Quote from (Seneca’s Letters – Book II Letter XLVIII)

And on this point, my excellent Lucilius, I should like to have those subtle dialecticians of yours advise me how I ought to help a friend, or how a fellowman, rather than tell me in how many ways the word “friend” is used, and how many meanings the word “man” possesses. Lo, Wisdom and Folly are taking opposite sides. Which shall I join? Which party would you have me follow? On that side, “man” is the equivalent of “friend”; on the other side, “friend” is not the equivalent of “man.” The one wants a friend for his own advantage; the other wants to make himself an advantage to his friend. What you have to offer me is nothing but distortion of words and splitting of syllables. It is clear that unless I can devise some very tricky premises and by false deductions tack on to them a fallacy which springs from the truth, I shall not be able to distinguish between what is desirable and what is to be avoided! I am ashamed! Old men as we are, dealing with a problem so serious, we make play of it! ‘Mouse’ is a syllable. Now a mouse eats its cheese; therefore, a syllable eats cheese.”

Suppose now that I cannot solve this problem; see what peril hangs over my head as a result of such ignorance! What a scrape I shall be in! Without doubt I must beware, or some day I shall be catching syllables in a mousetrap, or, if I grow careless, a book may devour my cheese! Unless, perhaps, the following syllogism is shrewder still: “‘Mouse’ is a syllable. Now a syllable does not eat cheese. Therefore a mouse does not eat cheese.” What childish nonsense! Do we knit our brows over this sort of problem? Do we let our beards grow long for this reason? Is this the matter which we teach with sour and pale faces?

Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity? Philosophy offers counsel. Death calls away one man, and poverty chafes another; a third is worried either by his neighbor’s wealth or by his own. So-and-so is afraid of bad luck; another desires to get away from his own good fortune. Some are ill-treated by men, others by the gods. Why, then, do you frame for me such games as these? It is no occasion for jest; you are retained as counsel for unhappy men, sick and the needy, and those whose heads are under the poised axe. Whither are you straying? What are you doing? This friend, in whose company you are jesting, is in fear. Help him, and take the noose from about his neck. Men are stretching out imploring hands to you on all sides; lives ruined and in danger of ruin are begging for some assistance; men’s hopes, men’s resources, depend upon you. They ask that you deliver them from all their restlessness, that you reveal to them, scattered and wandering as they are, the clear light of truth. Tell them what nature has made necessary, and what superfluous; tell them how simple are the laws that she has laid down, how pleasant and unimpeded life is for those who follow these laws, but how bitter and perplexed it is for those who have put their trust in opinion rather than in nature.

One more comment on Zeno for tonight; Most of the youtube videos seem fixated on explaining the math, and "solving the math problem," as if "saving mathematics" is what is important about the exercise.

To me, that totally misses the point. The point is that Zeno was using math to make normal people doubt the validity of their senses, to try to persuade them to think that "everything is one" and that "void cannot exist" and the motion and change are impossible.

These would be very damaging to human happiness if accepted. And even more damaging to happiness is that they persuade people to think that philosophy is impractical and in fact nonsensical. The truth is, as in Seneca's quote, that people do need philosophy, and they need the kind of philosophy that Epicurus was offering, but people who are made jaded and cynical by being told that "Zeno's paradox" is profound philosophy are going to check out before they finish their first philosophy class. And it's my view that people need to realize that that kind of "turn off" reaction is exactly what was expected and hoped for by Zeno (and his variants after him). They want people to give up looking for a true philosophy that they can understand, and default to give THEM the sole claim to philosophy and wisdom and the right to define was is moral what is desirable in life.

That's why it's important to deal with Zeno's paradoxes and to give them the treatment they deserve. It's a shame they don't seem to be listed specifically in the list given by Diogenes Laertius. I wonder if we should not consider the Eleatics to be under the umbrella of the "Logicians" in this passage. "Destroyers" also makes sense to me as a good term - at least as a start! Or maybe they were related more to Antidorus and deserve the title "Maniac." The two adjectives together seem to me most appropriate.

Quote

"Heraclitus he called ‘The Muddler,’ Democritus [he called] Lerocritus (‘judge of nonsense’), Antidorus he called Sannidorus (‘Maniac’), the Cynics [he called] ‘Enemies of Hellas,’ the Logicians [he called] ‘The destroyers,’ and Pyrrho [he called] ‘The uneducated fool.’"

Quote from Bryan

Yes, paradoxes can be intellectually demoralizing—almost a type of brain-clearing trick

I should be clear that for those who like them they are fine. I've been known to like math puzzles myself and I recall when I was very young there was something about "magic squares" (I forget) that I was into doing for a while. But the majority of people aren't into those kind of games, and it's a total turnoff to make them think that they should be, and it seems to me that that's what I've witnessed a lot in philosophy over the years (at least in college) - it seemed to me it was being used as a game for the amusement of insiders to confuse and put off the outsiders, rather than for the help to everyone that it should be.

The UC Davis article is very helpful. We don't need it for this episode, but at some point we will want to clarify what the writer is asserting in the part i underlined below.

Quote

The totality is said to be unlimited. The argument is that a limitation of the totality would require that it have an end-point or extreme. An end-point can exist only as the beginning of something else. But there is nothing other than the totality (as had already been established), so the totality has no extreme and consequently is unlimited. This lack of limitation applies both to bodies and the void. If the void were limited and bodies were unlimited (in number), there would be no place for all the bodies. On the other hand, if the bodies were limited and the void unlimited, there would be so much space available for bodies that they would not meet with one another to form anything stable, but instead move in a scattered fashion throughout the universe. Note that once again, appeal must be made to sense-perception for the datum that that there are stable bodies which are not in motion (a claim that modern science has since overthrown). This view flies against that of Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle. In particular, Aristotle believe that the totality of bodies can be limited by something which is not itself body and which lies outside the cosmos, namely the prime mover (Physics, VIII, 10), which he identified with God (Metaphysics XII, 7).

This also to me appears to be a typo:

Quote

Fate

We are told by Cicero that Epicurus introduced the swerve to solve a problem only directly related to that of the motion of bodies: "the necessity of fate" (On Fate, 22). Lucretius describes the reasoning involved

Presumably that should be INdirectly (?)

And the Pittsburgh site is great -- opens with a full characterization of the absurdity of it all!

It seems to me that a point I would stress is that we are not "saving reality" by finding mathematical solutions to Zeno's paradoxes.

We're "saving mathematics" (or maybe more specifically, a form of propositional logic) by finding answers, but in the end, what we care about is living life happily, not saving mathematics or propositional logic.

People are harmed if they waste their lives in uncertainty and doubt, taken in by argument that motion is impossible and their senses cannot be trusted. Further, the good reputation of philosophy is harmed when people take these arguments seriously without immediately pointing out the ultimate validity of the senses.

The point to be emphasized is the one made by Seneca about mice and cheese and syllables. Word games can be fine if they are played for fun, or for sharpening our skills with words, but word games are not what life is about, and word games are not beneficial when they start interfering with life rather than enhancing it.

Norton says in the article that we can choose to take a "kinder" view of what Parmenides and Zeno were doing, but I see no reason to be so charitable from the information we have to go on. Much more likely is that they were not massively deluded OR in the grip of a mad fantasy, but testing out ways to gaslight people into doubting the validity of their senses, a path many others have followed.

Quote

It is hard to believe that Parmenides and Zeno really believed that motion is impossible. The evidence of our senses is powerful, unrelenting and, I believe, irrefutable. Someone who genuinely believes that all change in illusion would seem to be massively deluded and in the grip of a mad fantasy.

We can cast a kinder light on Parmenides and Zeno's project if we understand them not to be challenging change, but to be challenging the accounts we give of it. Can we really reason reliably about motion using the concepts we have? We think we can. Zeno says otherwise. Look at them more closely and you will find them to be an internal mess.

Lucretius Today Episode 244 is now available: "Zeno's Paradoxes: Profundity Or Gaslighting?" Transcript is available here. As always with these transcripts, remember that this is AI generated and may contain major errors or differences from the recorded version. If you come across something significant we'll appreciate it if you let us know and we will correct it.

Quote from Don

"ἡ διαλεκτική (sc. τέχνη) dialectic, discussion by question and answer, invented by Zeno of Elea"

Thanks Bryan and Don! I'll correct calling Achilles an Athenian next week. So dialectic was invented by the Eleatics!? Very interesting! So I wonder to what extent, if any, are these paradoxes related to dialectic. So the proper characterization of Zeno is despoiler.or some similar synonym....

Chapter 10. EUCLIDES

[106] Euclides was a native of Megara on the Isthmus,¹or according to some of Gela, as Alexander states in his Successions of Philosophers. He applied himself to the writings of Parmenides, and his followers were called Megarians after him, then Eristics, and at a later date Dialecticians, that name having first been given to them by Dionysius of Chalcedon because they put their arguments into the form of question and answer. Hermodorus tells us that, after the death of Socrates, Plato and the rest of the philosophers came to him, being alarmed at the cruelty of the tyrants. He held the supreme good to be really one, though called by many names, sometimes wisdom, sometimes God, and again Mind, and so forth. But all that is contradictory of the good he used to reject, declaring that it had no existence.

[107] When he impugned a demonstration, it was not the premisses but the conclusion that he attacked. He rejected the argument from analogy, declaring that it must be taken either from similars or from dissimilars. If it were drawn from similars, it is with these and not with their analogies that their arguments should deal; if from dissimilars, it is gratuitous to set them side by side. Hence Timon says of him, with a side hit at the other Socratics as well²:

But I care not for these babblers, nor for anyone besides, not for Phaedo whoever he be, nor wrangling Euclides, who inspired the Megarians with a frenzied love of controversy.

The method Diogenes Laertius used to divide the schools has always seemed to be difficult for a lot of people (including me) to follow. It would be good to assemble the reasoning to the extent possible and see what DL himself aligned with what, and what he considered fundamentally different. Clearly dogmatist vs skeptic is one huge division, but is "ethics" vs "dialectic" another, and if so what does that mean?

Quote

But philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, has had a twofold origin; it started with Anaximander on the one hand, with Pythagoras on the other. The former was a pupil of Thales, Pythagoras was taught by Pherecydes. The one school was called Ionian, because Thales, a Milesian and therefore an Ionian, instructed Anaximander; the other school was called Italian from Pythagoras, who worked for the most part in Italy. [14] And the one school, that of Ionia, terminates with Clitomachus and Chrysippus and Theophrastus, that of Italy with Epicurus. The succession passes from Thales through Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, to Socrates, who introduced ethics or moral philosophy; from Socrates to his pupils the Socratics, and especially to Plato, the founder of the Old Academy; from Plato, through Speusippus and Xenocrates, the succession passes to Polemo, Crantor, and Crates, Arcesilaus, founder of the Middle Academy, Lacydes,¹⁰ founder of the New Academy, Carneades, and Clitomachus. This line brings us to Clitomachus.

[15] There is another which ends with Chrysippus, that is to say by passing from Socrates to Antisthenes, then to Diogenes the Cynic, Crates of Thebes, Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus. And yet again another ends with Theophrastus; thus from Plato it passes to Aristotle, and from Aristotle to Theophrastus. In this manner the school of Ionia comes to an end.

In the Italian school the order of succession is as follows: first Pherecydes, next Pythagoras, next his son Telauges, then Xenophanes, Parmenides,¹¹ Zeno of Elea, Leucippus, Democritus, who had many pupils, in particular Nausiphanes [and Naucydes], who were teachers of Epicurus.

[16] Philosophers may be divided into dogmatists and sceptics: all those who make assertions about things assuming that they can be known are dogmatists; while all who suspend their judgement on the ground that things are unknowable are sceptics. Again, some philosophers left writings behind them, while others wrote nothing at all, as was the case according to some authorities with Socrates, Stilpo, Philippus, Menedemus, Pyrrho, Theodorus, Carneades, Bryson; some add Pythagoras and Aristo of Chios, except that they wrote a few letters. Others wrote no more than one treatise each, as Melissus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras. Many works were written by Zeno, more by Xenophanes, more by Democritus, more by Aristotle, more by Epicurus, and still more by Chrysippus.

[17] Some schools took their name from cities, as the Elians and the Megarians, the Eretrians and the Cyrenaics; others from localities, as the Academics and the Stoics; others from incidental circumstances, as the Peripatetics; others again from derisive nicknames, as the Cynics; others from their temperaments, as the Eudaemonists or Happiness School; others from a conceit they entertained, as Truthlovers, Refutationists, and Reasoners from Analogy; others again from their teachers, as Socratics, Epicureans, and the like; some take the name of Physicists from their investigation of nature, others that of Moralists because they discuss morals; while those who are occupied with verbal jugglery are styled Dialecticians.

Quote

18] Philosophy has three parts, physics, ethics, and dialectic or logic. Physics is the part concerned with the universe and all that it contains; ethics that concerned with life and all that has to do with us; while the processes of reasoning employed by both form the province of dialectic. Physics flourished down to the time of Archelaus; ethics, as we have said, started with Socrates; while dialectic goes as far back as Zeno of Elea. In ethics there have been ten schools: the Academic, the Cyrenaic, the Elian, the Megarian, the Cynic, the Eretrian, the Dialectic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean.