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Thanks to Godfrey for this info about the translator of a popular edition of Lucretius:
This showed up in my inbox:
"Poets, Painters, and the Plunder of the Parthenon" with A. E. Stallings | Getty Events
It's a live lecture but is being streamed as well.
I was already a little unsure about posting this.
No - I'm glad you posted. if you were thinking it it's likely others are too, so always feel free to speak up.
This goes along with Dave's question. Aside from those of us who are really into the topic there's always a general level of background discussion among people who are mildly interested, and it's there that the subtle connotations of the words end up being influential.
If people just accepted the superficial labels then no one would take any serious interest in Epicurus because the superficial labels are coded by society to keep people in line and within society's guad rails.
This forum is here for those who take ideas seriously and want to make up their own minds about things.
This is where I was just thinking and citing earlier this week some of the opening words of DeWitt's book - the second sentence of chapter one in fact
At the very outset the reader should be prepared to think of him at one and the same time as the most revered and the most reviled of all founders of thought in the Graeco-Roman world.
There's no middle ground on Epicurus. If you don't reallze that when you read opinions about Epicurus that you're reading opinions about explosive stuff, then either you or the person you're reading doesn't realize what being talked about at all.
I personally think this needs to be hammered home:
To me this conversation is sort of like discussing Epicurus as a "hedonist." Yes I understand that that term has a technical meaning in which pleasure is the key. However in common discussion the term is LOADED with implications, most of which imply that people should choose "pleasures of the moment" over consideration of "all the consequences so as to gain the greatest net pleasure, even if it means temporarily accepting pain." With a proper explanation, the term "hedonism" is fine, but that doesn't cut away the general context that it is loaded with negative vibrations.
So too with "virtue ethics," with "deonotology" (clearly the worst) and also "consequentialism" (which strips away the question of "Which consequences?" which is really the important question).
These terms get used to place people in boxes, and the motivation behind the boxing is rarely just a pure intellectual pursuit of truth. Usually the game has much more malicious purposes - to accept a negative label. So we have to be very very careful in how we play those games. Give the wrong people an inch and they will take a mile, and they will use any admission you make against you as if you are being convicted of murder in court.
(I gather this is pretty much what Eikadistes is saying too.....)
Thanks Don! U512 seems to be the key - with the problem of finding it being that Usener uses "honorable" and "excellence" and "noble." That makes it harder to find when I key on "beautiful," but for purposes of this particular conversation these wordings are even more directly on point.
U512
Aetius, Doxography, XII p. 547A: And in his work On the End-Goal, he says again: “{=U70}” And in other passages, he says “I spit upon the honorable and those who vainly admire it, whenever it produces no pleasure.”
Plutarch, Against Colotes, 30, p. 1124E: … and when men take for sages those who “spit on excellence, unless pleasure attends it.” [c.f. 1124E @ U368]
Plutarch, Is “Live Unknown” a Wise Precept?, 4, p. 1129B: … to live together with Leontium and “spit on noble action,” and place the good in the “flesh” and in “titillations.”
It always irritates me when I can't find a quick reference
I have the "spit upon the beautiful" as Bailey's fragment 79, but I am not quickly finding the Usener number
Further, even if you prefer the "beautiful" wording there (which I don't because of it's very Platonic ring) you can refer back to the adage that Epicurus spits upon the beautiful unless it brings pleasure.
As I understand it the Hicks version is "[135] He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance."
I think you can find quotes such as the Diogenes of Oinonanda statement that talk about the importance of attitude, but why is attitude important? Why is virtue important? Because they bring pleasure, not as goals in themselves. So i'd push back strongly on this direction, and question why someone might think it "feels wrong" to think of him as a consequentialist if not for the psychological pressure of a culture built on virtue ethics.
The conclusion of the philosophy is that the consequence that Nature (not society) calls for is pleasure, not virtue or anything else. Diogenes of Oinoanda himself has one of the most eloquent statements of this in his passage about shouting that a life of happiness is a life of pleasure, and that virtue is but a tool to pleasure, not the other way around.
This topic came up in our Zoom of 5/6/26 - whether the feelings and anticipations should be considered to be "sensations" or is that word only strictly applicable to the "five senses." Another way of asking the same question is to consider how parallel or close to each other the three categories really are. Obviously there are differences between them because they have different names, so they are not exactly the same thing. However it seems that they operate in similar ways, and most of us agree that Epicurus held that all of them operate "without opinion" and are "pre-rational." And perhaps most importantly for the question, at times when Epicurus talks about sensation he seems to be including the input we get from pleasure/pain and from prolepsis/anticipation as of they all fit under the same broad category of "sensation" / aesthesis.
Bryan offered the following citations in subsequent conversation and we can use this thread to discuss the issue further:
As to pleasure and pain being sensations:
(Aëtius, Placita Philosophorum, 4.8.2) "Epicurus says: 'a portion [of the functional component of the soul] is sensation, which is a certain faculty – and [a portion is] awareness, which indeed is an activity.' Therefore, with Epicurus, 'sensation' is said in two ways – while it means the faculty, ‘sensation’ also means the activity."
(PD 24) "If you will absolutely throw out any sensation, and you will not differentiate what is judged among what is still pending versus what is actually present according to sensation, experiences (i.e., pathe = the feelings), and the whole appearance-based attention of mental perception: then you will confuse the remaining sensations with pointless judgment, and thus you will throw out the criteria altogether.
(Lives 10.124c) "Every good and bad is in sensation."
(Plutarch, Against Colotes, 25, 1121A) "[the Epicureans] are shouting and being indignant on behalf of sensation: that they do not say what is external is hot -- but [say] the experience in that [sensation] produced is of that kind [i.e., feeling hot], so then – is not that the same as what is said [by the Cyrenaics] about taste: that it does not say that what is external is sweet ¬ but that some experience (i.e., pathos = a feeling) and movement has been produced for a taste of that kind [i.e., tasting sweet]?"
(Lives, 10.32) "[according to Epicurus] seeing and hearing have been established for us, just like feeling pain... all thoughts have arisen from the sensations."
The more I think about it I can't remember the last time I read a popular article on "What Thus Spake Zarathustra Means To Me." 
Not faulting Nietzsche here - just agreeing with the basic observation that he is always being cited but few have any idea why beyond a couple of basic slogans.
I think a lot of the commercial appeal is 1 "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is a cool name, and (2) there's a market who want to say that they have read the philosopher who said "God is dead."
No doubt the people who are specialists or work hard to understand it eventually figure out what he is saying, but I personally don't know any educated layman who can credibly say that they have read "Thus Spake Zarathustra" and understand what it is about.
There's a coolness factor to things like "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" that's about as far as most people get.
Which is sort if in contrast with Kant whose writing style comes across to most people as not cool but impenetrable.
I think that's a very perceptive comment Btandenoz. I don't think it's the Christian element that is making those selections - more the philosophy establishment - and it seems to me it's generally possible to find Marcus Aurelius and sometimes others on Stoicism.
That's an optimistic take and I like it! Unfortunately the beating and the resulting unintelligent or "checked out" facial expression is why I think others like to use it - because that's what they like to think Epicurean philosophy means.
My blood pressure started rising as soon as I saw that the opening graphic features the smashed-version Epicurus bust (which I detest when people use rather than the many perfectly-good alternate versions that are available). But I won't charge that to the interviewee, and at least at the moment that's not on the cover of his book.
I also see that the book isn't scheduled for release until 2027 if I read correctly. I always feel better if the word pleasure is in the title or subtitle, which it doesn't appear to be, but i do see pleasure mentioned in the description, and i see that it specifically is "not a book about wanting less" so I will remain cautiously optimistic!
As an experiment I decided to ask for a critique of what Joshua and I stated in Episode 332. I don't plan to do this every week but this is such a dense topic, and our need for planning is so much greater, that I thought it would be helpful for Joshua and I to read through this.
To get the most out of reading this, you'll want to listen to the episode, which is only about 35 minutes long. This critique (such as where it criticizes me for not stating the Epicurean position more firmly) will then make a lot more sense:
Analysis: Episode 332
What the Episode Got Right
1. The core Epicurean distinction is stated correctly and emphatically.
The episode's central claim — judgment never happens in the senses; it always happens in the mind — is precisely correct and is the single most important thing to hammer in this section of Academic Questions. Cassius states it cleanly: "No matter how hard you squeeze, no matter how close you get, no matter how good the light is, it's still the mind that makes the judgment and not the senses themselves." This is exactly the formulation the epistemology article supports, grounded in Diogenes Laertius X.31 and Sextus U244.
2. The Epicurus-Democritus distinction is correctly identified.
Cassius correctly notes that Democritus held only atoms and void are real — "everything else is opinion" — while Epicurus affirms truth at both the atomic and phenomenal levels. This is the Sedley anti-reductionism point, and it surfaces organically and correctly here. The reference to David Sedley's article on this is appropriate and should be developed further.
3. The three-way classification is implicitly present.
The episode correctly positions Epicurus as going further than the Stoics in confidence about the senses — not the same position and not the skeptics' position. This maps correctly onto Sextus's three-way classification (Sextus M VII.369): Democritus abolishes all phenomena, Stoics/Peripatetics establish some, Epicurus establishes all.
4. The Lucullus passage is handled well.
Joshua and Cassius correctly identify the tension in Lucullus's phrase "there is the very greatest truth in the senses if they are in sound and healthy order." They notice this formulation is not quite the Epicurean position. That instinct is right. The epistemology article confirms: the Stoics are claiming truth is in the senses under certain conditions, whereas Epicurus holds that truth comes through the senses but is never in them. The distinction is between the senses as a registering mechanism versus the Stoic picture of the senses as an evaluating or grasping mechanism.
What Needs Sharper Statement
1. The "senses are neither right nor wrong" formulation needs one more step.
The episode repeats this formulation many times, which is correct. But the conversation never quite articulates why the senses are neither right nor wrong in the precise Epicurean sense. The epistemology article has the exact language you need:
Sensation does not interpret, select, or rearrange what it receives. It is, in DeWitt's phrase, "irrational" — not in a pejorative sense but in the precise sense that it operates entirely below the level of rational judgment. And precisely because it does not judge, it cannot misjudge.
The word to deploy here is alogon — irrational, non-rational. Sensation is alogon (Diogenes Laertius X.31). This is not a criticism of the senses — it is exactly why the senses are reliable. Calling sensation non-rational is a positive characterization in Epicurean philosophy, not a dismissal. You could deploy this in the next episode when explaining why the Stoic position — which makes sensation a rational state — is the one that actually undermines the senses' reliability.
2. The Stoic position needs a sharper technical statement.
The episode describes the Stoic position as saying that "the senses have a right opinion" or "the senses are telling us right opinion correctly" under certain conditions. That is approximately right but loose. The technically precise Stoic claim is that the impression (phantasia) — not the sense organ itself — has propositional content and can be true or false, and that a special class of impressions (the phantasia kataleptike, the kataleptic impression) carries its own certification of accuracy. The Stoics are not saying the senses are sometimes right and sometimes wrong in the way a measurement instrument is sometimes calibrated correctly. They are saying that the rational soul, upon receiving certain impressions, can grasp (katalepsis) reality directly through those impressions.
This distinction matters for the critique you will be developing. The Academic Skeptics' attack on the Stoics targets the third clause of Zeno's definition: that a kataleptic impression is one that "could not have arisen from a non-existing object." The Academics demonstrated that no impression satisfies this clause because hallucinations, dreams, and deceptions produce impressions qualitatively identical to genuine ones. When you get to Arcesilaus's arguments in Book Two, this is the specific technical point being pressed.
3. The Prolepsis/Anticipation connection was touched but underdeveloped.
Cassius mentions "prolepses" briefly and says it relates to pattern recognition, which is correct as far as it goes. But the second Epicurean criterion — anticipations (prolepseis) — is actually central to the epistemological debate in Book Two and needs clearer framing before you enter it. Anticipations are the generalized concepts formed through repeated sensation: the preconception of "horse" formed by multiple encounters with horses, which then allows you to recognize a new horse immediately. This is important because:
- The Stoics also have "common notions" (koinai ennoiai) and "preconceptions" (prolepseis) in their own epistemology, but they ground some of these in innate rational endowment rather than purely in sensory experience.
- Diogenes Laertius X.33 is explicit that Epicurean prolepseis are formed from repeated sensation — they are empirically grounded all the way down.
- This is one of the key points where Epicurus differs from Plato on a priori knowledge: Plato grounds knowledge in recollection of a pre-birth encounter with the Forms; Epicurus grounds all concepts in sensory experience.
You should clarify this before going deeper into Book Two, because Lucullus's argument in that book will touch on what we can know that doesn't come directly from immediate sensation — and the prolepsis doctrine is Epicurus's answer.
4. The Protagoras comparison needs to be headed off.
At several points the discussion of "all sensations are true" risks being heard as something like Protagoras's "man is the measure of all things" — i.e., that truth is relative to the individual perceiver. Cassius doesn't say this, but the formulation is vulnerable to that misreading. The epistemology article at EpicurusToday.com makes the distinction explicit:
Protagoras established all phenomena by making truth relative to the individual perceiver. Epicurus established all phenomena by making truth absolute and universal: what the senses report is the same truth for everyone, because the senses are mechanical reporters of a real world that is the same for all.
When Lucullus is presenting the Stoic position in Book Two and making arguments against Epicurus, he will exploit the perceived similarity between Epicurus and Protagoras. You need to have the rebuttal ready: Epicurus is not saying that the bent oar is really bent for you. He is saying that the sensation of bentness accurately reports what the light actually did at the interface of air and water. The sensation is universally true — anyone with functioning eyes looking at that oar in that water will get the same sensation — because it reflects the real physics of light refraction. The error that would make it Protagorean would be to add the opinion "therefore the oar is bent," which Epicurus explicitly forbids.
5. DeWitt's tools-vs.-wall analogy is exactly right and should be kept.
Cassius cites "DeWitt's analogy that we should never confuse the tools we use to build the wall with the stones of the wall itself." This is excellent and should be developed. The senses are the tools — the ruler, the plumb line, the level — by which we test all claims about truth. They are not themselves the truth. And crucially, just as a ruler does not need to contain length in itself in order to measure length in other things, the senses do not need to contain truth in themselves in order to be the criterion by which truth is tested. This reframes the Stoic critique: when Lucullus says "there is truth in the senses," he is confusing the measuring instrument with the property being measured. The epistemology article's "photographic reliability" formulation works in the same direction: a photograph does not judge, it registers — and it is because it registers without judgment that it is reliable as evidence.
The Key Issues to Develop in Book Two
Based on what the epistemology article and canonics analysis contain, here are the specific points to be ready for:
1. The indistinguishability argument (Carneades/Arcesilaus)
This is the Academic Skeptics' main weapon. The argument: if you can dream of a beautiful horse and if a hallucinating person sees a horse, their impressions are qualitatively indistinguishable from a waking person's impression of an actual horse. Therefore no impression can satisfy Zeno's third clause. Therefore there is no kataleptic impression. Therefore knowledge is impossible.
The Epicurean response to this argument is not to defend the Stoic kataleptic impression — Epicurus would agree that the Stoics' criterion fails. The Epicurean response is to deny the premise: the Stoics and the Academics are arguing on the assumption that impressions are rational states that can be "true" or "false," and the entire debate is about which impressions are reliably true. Epicurus steps outside this debate by saying that sensation, as such, is neither true nor false — it simply registers. The question of whether you are dreaming or awake is not a question about what the senses report, but a question about what the mind adds by way of opinion to those reports.
2. The Epicurean use of sign-inference (semeia)
The discussion of Book Two will likely get into how the Epicureans extended knowledge beyond the immediately perceivable. Lucullus will probably note that Epicurus made claims about atoms, about the behavior of the gods, about the structure of the universe — none of which can be directly seen. How does Epicurus justify these claims if sensation is the only criterion?
The answer is the Epicurean doctrine of sign-inference (semeia — signs) which will be discussed in Philodemus' On Signs. Epicurus distinguished between:
- Things that can be directly confirmed by the senses (what Philodemus calls "evident signs" — the fire you can see and touch proves fire exists there)
- Things that cannot be directly confirmed but can be inferred from what is sensed (the existence of atoms inferred from the behavior of perceptible matter)
Crucially, sign-inference for Epicurus is always from sensory evidence and is always tested against the possibility of sensory contradiction. You accept the hypothesis that atoms exist not through dialectical argument but because it is consistent with — and never contradicted by — everything the senses report. Sedley's 1992 Elenchos paper makes this precise.
3. The multiple-explanations doctrine
This was touched in earlier episodes but will come up again. For phenomena we cannot directly test (celestial events), Epicurus held that all explanations consistent with the observable facts should be accepted, without insisting on one to the exclusion of others. This is not relativism — it is therapeutic: the anxiety of committing to a single explanation of something you cannot verify is itself a form of the groundless fear that philosophy is designed to remove.
4. The prolepsis of god(s)
One of the most important and often missed aspects of Epicurean epistemology relevant to Book Two is the natural preconception (prolepsis) of the gods as blessed and imperishable beings. Epicurus holds that every human culture forms this preconception naturally — it is universal. But the theological conclusions drawn from it are where error enters: the false opinion added to the prolepsis that such beings would be angry, punitive, or interested in human affairs. The preconception itself is reliable evidence; the opinions added to it are where theology goes wrong. This connects the canonics discussion to the core Epicurean critique of religion that Lucullus will likely touch on.
One Direct Textual Correction
At one point Cassius says: "I don't know that Epicurus would agree with [Lucullus's statement that there is the very greatest truth in the senses if they are sound and healthy]." This hesitation is correct, but the full Epicurean position should be stated more firmly. The issue is not whether sound senses reliably report reality — Epicurus agrees they do. The issue is that Lucullus is saying there is "truth in" the senses, which implies the senses are themselves evaluating, grasping, or certifying reality. Epicurus would say: the senses are perfectly reliable reporters, but truth and falsehood are categories that only apply to judgments, and senses do not judge. So "truth in the senses" is a category error. The senses are the standard by which we test truth, not themselves containers of truth.
The precise Epicurean statement from DL X.31 is the thing to cite: "All sensation is irrational (alogon) and does not admit of memory; for it is not set in motion by itself, nor, when it is set in motion by something else, can it add to it or take from it." That last clause — it cannot add to or take from what it receives — is exactly what distinguishes the Epicurean from the Stoic position, and it is what Lucullus's formulation obscures.
Summary Recommendation for the Next Episode
Before going further into Book Two's detailed arguments, it would be worth spending the first five or ten minutes of the episode clearly drawing the battle map:
- There are three players, not two: the Stoics (some impressions reliably true), the Academic Skeptics (no impressions reliably true), and Epicurus (the senses never right or wrong — judgment is always in the mind, not in the senses themselves).
- The Stoic and the Skeptic are arguing on the same terms — they share the premise that impressions are rational states with truth-values, and disagree only about whether any can be reliably certified. Epicurus refuses those shared terms.
- Epicurus is therefore not a participant in the Stoic-Skeptic debate but a critic of its premise. When Lucullus attacks Epicurus in Book Two, he is doing so from within the terms of that debate — terms Epicurus would reject.
This framing will make the arguments in Book Two much clearer as you encounter them, and it is exactly what the epistemology article and the canonics analysis collectively support.
Episode 332 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "The Stoic Failure To Grasp That Judgment Never Happens In The Senses."
The issues we are discussing here are probably to some extent new to most of our regulars here. To asist in getting us up to speed I have asked for this summary from Claude, giving preference to the usual sources we consult from the Epicurean perspective, such as Sedley:
Notes while editing this episode:
Around the 18:00 Minute mark Joshua repeats the Epicurean position that "Judgment never happens in the senses. Judgment happens in the mind."
This is a position on which I think most all of our regulars here on EpicureanFriends.com have come to agree. The real explanation of "all sensations are true" is that the senses report without opinion of their own, so the senses are NEVER true or false in terms of stating a true or false opinion. All sensations are "true" i n that they are reported 'truly' in the sense of "honestly" reflecting what they receive without bias or prejudice or any opinion of their own whatsoever.
In this and the next several episodes, we are takingup the Stoic approach to knowledge to see how it differs from Epicurus. We'll pay special attention to the issue Joshua raises, because it sounds like the Stoics came to maintain that if you practice long enough and adjust the light and change your perspective and get close enough to something, then the senses are able to deliver to you what counts as graspable truth. We'll want to examine very closely wihether Epicurus would agree with that or not, because I think the quote from Joshua answers the question clearly.
Pursuing this issue will help us understand why the Academic Skeptics were so persuasive and successful in demolishing the Stoic view of knowledge. And this issue will also help us see how the Academic Skeptic argument fails against Epicurus.
This episode will be released later this week. Any of our participants who have spent any time in investigating this in the past are welcome to comment in the thread as we pursue this question.
Happy Birthday to ProfV! Learn more about ProfV and say happy birthday on ProfV's timeline: ProfV
Darn I have not had time to read that article. I just glanced at it and it appears pretty substantive. Maybe needs a thread of its own? If needed I'll separate it out.
Stasi you might want to look at our reading list in the FAQ if you have not done so already. It will be great to have you here. One of my personal favorite articles is the one by Boris Nikolsky, who is Russian, and it would be interesting to hear from a Russian speaker if Nikolsky has written anything else on Epicurus that we don't have access to due to language.
