Posts by Cassius

Bryan has graciously allow us to post here his Interlinear Translation version of Lucretius. We will keep this post updated with the latest version.

Bryan Harris Book One - DE RERUM NATURA 1.pdf

In today's Sunday zoom we spent virtually the entire session addressing the question of how to separate sensations from prolepsis from concepts. I am posting this in the podcast thread because it relates directly to what we are currently discussing in Cicero's "Academic Questions." I am taggin the main participants in today's zoom: Martin, Raphael Raul  Patrikios  Bryan . Of course anyone else is welcome to respond too.

In this podcast episode Joshua and I struggled with this following paragraph (among others). It is critical to understand that this is Lucullus speaking from a Stoic perspective, so the following is not the Epicurean view, but similar issues are being addressed so we need to compare the terminology especially where underlined:

Quote

But such as those things are which we say are perceived by the senses, such also are those things which are said to be perceived, not by the senses themselves, but by the senses after a fashion; as these things — that is white, this is sweet, that is tuneful, this is fragrant, that is rough. We have these ideas already comprehended by the mind, not by the senses. Again, this is a house, that is a dog. Then the rest of the series follows, connecting the more important links; such as these, which embrace, as it were, the full comprehension of things; — If he is a man, he is a mortal animal partaking of reason: — from which class of arguments the notions of things are impressed upon us, without which nothing can be understood, nor inquired into, nor discussed. But if those notions were false, (for you seemed to me to translate ἔννοιαι notions,) if, I say, they were false, or impressed, or perceptions of such a kind as not to be able to be distinguished from false ones; then I should like to know how we were to use them? and how we were to see what was consistent with each thing and what was inconsistent with it?

It can become very difficult to speak precisely about these things, but here in this paragraph we seem to have (if Yonge translates correctly) every one of these underlined references being referred to as, or close to, "notions."

We need to be clear from an Epicurean perspective the extent to which Epicurus would agree or disagree with this paragraph.

To make the distinction sharper, we can ask the question: Of the underlined illustrations, which if any, are in Epicurean terms:

1) sensations
2) prolepsis / anticipations / preconcepts
3) "notions"
4) concepts

Which of the underlined illustrations fit in one or some or all of these categatories?

Quote from Don

(PS. I realize Homer isn't a philosopher, but this seemed appropriate in light of the direction of this thread)

Yes that's an important distinction.

just a brief comment on where we are going on the podcast at the moment:

1 - We're going through Academic Questions to help us get a general grounding on the issues of knowledge and skepticism as they were understood at the time that Epicurean philosophy was flourishing in the ancient world.

2 - When we finish what we decide to do with Academic Questions (we don't have the time to go through every word of it), we are going to be in a position to tackle - and we will tackle - what's left of Philodemus' "On Signs" / "On Methods of Inference"

3 - And in case it's not clear where all this leads:

As best I can tell, those who claim to be modern Stoics have pretty much abandoned any interest in the true Stoic theory of knowledge. I am sure that there are many reasons for that, but I strongly suspect that one of the primary reasons is that modern Stoics in general run from the truth that Stoicism is essentially a theistic philosophy that makes no sense outside a supernatural-based intelligent design view of the universe.

We - at least the EpicureanFriends forum in general - are not going to take that position of neglect and supression in regard to Epicurus. The main hurdle we have is not that Epicureanism starts with a false view of the universe, or that we suspect the truth of the radical skepticism that overtook the Academics and other ancient philosophers. Our hurdle today is that for generations everyone has chosen to focus exclusively on tranquility and other issues which can be reconciled with the dominant Judeo-Christianity and Humanist mix that passes for moral consensus. As a result, most of us have very little understanding of the fundamentals what Epicurus was actually teaching - even in ethics. In canonics, most of us have only a tenuous idea - at best - of what the "prolepsis" discussion is all about.

By the time we finish with "On Signs" we should have a very clear understanding of the general direction of the Epicurean theory of knowledge. At that point I expect that most of us will then be in a position to confidently assert the Epicurean view of knowledge as one of the foundational aspects of Epicurean philosophy that it certainly is. And the rest won't have any reason for confusion about what it is they are actually rejecting.

To close with a good word for those who are "actual" Stoics - even today -- At least they aren't radical Skeptics!

Welcome Buck. I bet others will have good commentary on printed versions. If you mean actual paper copies there is the "Hedonicon" issued by our friend Eikadistes in recent years, or the collections such as the Epicurus Reader. At this point I mainly rely myself on the PDFs of the public domain versions by Bailey and Rackham or the like, or in the case of Lucretius the Martin Ferguson Smith edition by Hacket Publishing.

Any particular printed work or collection in your mind?

Buck23 tells us:

Hello Cassius!

I live in the US, and have been an on-and-off listener of "The Lucretius Today" podcast for a while.That said, I'm a beginner on the journey to get to know Epicurus and his philosophy. But, so far, I find much resonance with the way I live and would like to live. I'm especially grateful for the commentary found in the podcast and the Epicureanfriends.com website regarding relevant definitions of terms, as well as context. Also, the side by side translations provided on the website is an amazing resource! (But, I'm also curious about what printed version may be the best for a beginner. Didn't find that yet on the website yet -- and I'd be grateful to hear your own recommendation(s)!)

I also have had a lifelong love and admiration of Ancient Greek culture -- primarily focusing on Greek Myths and the extant tragedies. (Though I'm a bit rusty on the latter!). Career-wise, I'm winding down more than 45 years of IT -- most recently in Computer Administration and Development, and a focus on Data Integrity.

Last -- thanks so much for sharing your time and knowledge in so accessible a way! I look forward to diving deeper and deeper!

All the best,

Welcome Buck23

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We have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

Welcome to the forum!

Here's something that just occurred to me. I may be forgetting obvious examples so that's why I am posting - to see if there are counterexamples:

When I think about writers in the ancient world, I see non-Epicureans - Seneca is maybe the best example, as well as potentially Marcus Aurelius and certain Christian church fathers - regularly citing aspects of Epicurus approvingly and working to enlist Epicurus to support their own ideas.

In contrast, among the authentic Epicurean advocates of the ancient world, I can think of very few - and at the moment no - examples of the Epicureans approvingly citing their own philosophical opponents. Now perhaps in physics citations to Democritus could be argued as a counter-example, but even there the Epicureans appear to have been very clear that Democritus was praiseworthy to a limited extent on his atomism, but not worthy of citation or emulation on much else. And I don't recall the Epicureans citing Socrates or Plato in an approving way. It would be more logical to look for approving citations to Aristotle, but even those seem to be few if any in the works that survive.

To the extent this observation holds up I would say there is probably more too this than just accident, and it's something to consider learning from. In the modern world, we have the Stoics regularly working to enlist Epicurus in support of their ideas of detachment and ascetic / minimalist living. Even worse, we have people who categorize their writing as Epicurean but who arguably spend as much or more time citing and promoting arguments from other intellectual traditions that are at root hostile to Epicurus.

I do think the ancient texts clearly show that the Epicureans regularly cited arguments from other schools to oppose them. But I don't see much to support the view that the Epicurean leaders thought it to be a good idea to "name-drop" opposing philosophers in support of their own Epicurean arguments, especially in ethics.

In fact I know that as Joshua has pointed out many times in the podcast, it was specifically a point of contention between Torquatus and Cicero that the Stoics and Platonists seemed to love nothing more than citing the words and deeds of "great men of the past" to establish their ethical preferences.

So while the opponents of Epicurus - both in the past and today - seemingly love to enlist Epicurean arguments in support of their own ethical views, is it accurate to observe that the authentic Epicureans seem to have thought that citing opponents, especially in ethics, was not generally a good idea?

Last week we incorporated material from Wikipedia and Diogenes Laertius on the Stoics.

This week we will likely jump off from this short section of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on "Ancient Greek Skepticism", as this is largely what we are about to hear from Cicero when Lucullus finishes speaking:

ii. Attack on the Stoics

In general, the Stoics were the ideal target for the skeptics; for, their confidence in the areas of metaphysics, ethics and epistemology was supported by an elaborate and sophisticated set of arguments. And, the stronger the justification of some theory, the more impressive is its skeptical refutation. They were also an attractive target due to their prominence in the Hellenistic world. Arcesilaus especially targeted the founder of Stoicism, Zeno, for refutation. Zeno confidently claimed not only that knowledge is possible but that he had a correct account of what knowledge is, and he was willing to teach this to others. The foundation of this account is the notion of katalêpsis: a mental grasping of a sense impression that guarantees the truth of what is grasped. If one assents to the proposition associated with a kataleptic impression, i.e. if one experiences katalepsis, then the associated proposition cannot fail to be true. The Stoic sage, as the perfection and fulfillment of human nature, is the one who assents only to kataleptic impressions and thus is infallible.

Arcesilaus argued against the possibility of there being any sense-impressions which we could not be mistaken about. In doing so, he paved the way for future Academic attacks on Stoicism. To summarize the attack: for any sense-impression S, received by some observer A, of some existing object O, and which is a precise representation of O, we can imagine circumstances in which there is another sense-impression S’, which comes either (i) from something other than O, or (ii) from something non-existent, and which is such that S’ is indistinguishable from S to A. The first possibility (i) is illustrated by cases of indistinguishable twins, eggs, statues or imprints in wax made by the same ring (Lucullus 84-87). The second possibility (ii) is illustrated by the illusions of dreams and madness (Lucullus 88-91). On the strength of these examples, Arcesilaus apparently concluded that we may, in principle, be deceived about any sense-impression, and consequently that the Stoic account of empirical knowledge fails. For the Stoics were thorough-going empiricists and believed that sense-impressions lie at the foundation of all of our knowledge. So if we could not be certain of ever having grasped any sense-impression, then we cannot be certain of any of the more complex impressions of the world, including what strikes us as valuable. Thus, along with the failure to establish the possibility of katalepsis goes the failure to establish the possibility of Stoic wisdom (see Hankinson [1995], Annas [1990] and Frede [1983/1987] for detailed discussions of this epistemological debate).

Welcome to Episode 335 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 discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue in Book Two, where we will finish up Section 7 and take up Section 8

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here:

• Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Transcript of this episode - not perfectly edited - but usable:

Episode 334 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Further Epicurean Analysis Of The Problems With Stoic Kataleptic Impressions."

No culping necessary - we just want to be clear to prevent lurkers from getting the wrong impression!

Yes i agree with Don excellent and thorough point wbernys!

The only initial comment i had was on this:

Quote from wbernys

One of the controversial points is about Epicurus saying paternal love is not "natural" but is chosen because of a hope to be taken care of when we're older. But more importantly i imagine Epicurus would point to hopes of seeing delightful sights of seeing children prospering, and being around for you in your old age, i imagine friendship runs on the same line. But it is still based in hopes of bodily goods, of hopes for future pleasures.

This may not apply exactly, but It's my undertanding that Epicurus was criticized by Stoics and maybe others on the grounds that he did not say that such thinks as paternal or brotherly or familial love were were "natural" in the sense of being part of a "divine" or "ideal" order. In this context the term "natural" is kind of broad and might not clearly make the central point. Epicurus says that "nature" DOES lead us in those directions, but through trial and error and seeing that the result brings the greatest pleasure, not because these things are "written into our nature" by gods of idealism.

In the overall context of your post that's a small point but I've seen this criticism of Epicurus stated a few times (can't remember where though!). I think we have a ready answer to those criticisms, and therefore we can always disagree that they are accurate by explaining the distinction between what Epicurus thinks is truly natural (in a totally non-supernatural nature) and what the Stoics/Platonists are asserting is natural (in their divinely ordered nature)

Quote from Don

I also didn't get the sense that he "devalues" the Menoeceus, but rather sees the two texts as doing two different things.

I know that's the word Todd used but I agree with your direction Don, and am reading Todd that way too, that he doesn't really mean "devalue" except in relative terms. Where the letter to Menoeceus speaks precisely I would accept it as authoritative over even Torquatus or Velleius no matter how detailed those others are. The problem is as you say that Menoeceus was written more broadly under circumstances where the recipient could be expected to fill in the details for himself, and we tend to jimp to conclusions from our own context rather than from the context that Menoeceus would have himself.

These comments have been very helpful and i am going to rework the article further in a "why does binary analysis of body/space and pleasure/pain really matter" direction.

Thanks again Todd and others for all comments!

Quote from Todd

Being "without pain" (completely, entirely) is the maximum limit of pleasure. It is not a state that the average person frequently, or maybe ever, enjoys. I think it is a mistake to use this or similar expressions casually for a general audience unless the meaning is very clear.

I agree and think you are exactly right. This is a huge point and requires that we emphasize it. I don't think that Epicurus would used wording that implied this possibility if he were not writing (to Menoeceus) to someone he expected to know better than make this mistake.

As to Torquatus, I would not put it beyond Cicero as a lawyer to put these words in Torquatus' mouth exactly for the purpose of creating this confusion. DeWitt pretty much says exactly that with his comment that Cicero could not have misrepresented Epicurus so effectively had he not understood Epicurus so well.

Now 2000 years later we are having to live with the hand we are dealt. The potential confusion that Cicero exploited has become the actual orthodoxy in the mind of most everyone who thinks they understand Epicurus.

I doubt there is any way to address the problem rather than head-on. Pick up where Cicero amplified the distortion through selective wording, then point out that Menoeceus would have known better than to fall for it, because he knew the teachings as a whole. Then go back straight into the physics and to the Platonic anti-pleasure no-limit argument to explain where the binary argument comes from in the first place.

And I think also this leads us straight back into the knowledge issues being discussed in Academic Questions. This problem of confusing abstractions is why Epicurus was insisting on always checking everything by the sensations, anticipations, and feelings, and never falling into absolute abstractions that don't reflect the actual situation at a particular time and place.

Also Todd I agree with your comments on the graphic and will use this one going forward

This is parallel to the same problem in discussing discrete experiences. Saying that you are experiencing "pleasure" tells you absolutely nothing about what you are doing other than that you find it agreeable. Epicurus certainly understood that. Real people experience real experiences of innumerable kinds and they "feel" it to be agreeable - none of us are really interested in pursuing "pleasure" except in the abstract view of the term. The abstract view is critically important for communicating to others and understanding ourselves, but from the very first time we ever say that the goal is "pleasure" it needs to be understood that that statement is an abstraction, and what we really mean is that we pursuing any of a numberless set of activities that may have nothing whatsoever in common with each other beyond that we find them agreeable.

We have to be able to separate the idea of "pleasure as an abstraction of tje goal" and "pleasure as a particular experience/feeling" and be able to flip effortlessly between the two contexts without confusing ourselves or others.

I also think in relating the issue of discrete sensations of pleasure to the issue of "pleasure in total" we will need to take note of something specific: I don't think that Cicero would leave himself open to the charge that he was intentionally misrepresenting epicurus by having Torquatus say something that Epicurus did not believe, I DO think Cicero intentionally would not provide the whole explanation. The prime example I would point to on that is near the end of the Torquatus exchange in on Ends Book two, where Cicero says that Epicurus held that the host pouring wine was in the same state of pleasure as the guest drinking wine. As I understand the text, part of the hypothetical is that neither of them are in any state of pain. However they clearly are engaged in very different activities.

If Cicero had allowed Torquatus to explain this he would likely have given us exactly the explanation we are looking for - how two people experiencing no pain are nevertheless experiencing very different type of pleasure.

But rather than allowing Torquatus to explain, Cicero has Torquatus cut off the conversation at this critical point to accuse Cicero of quibbling.

I think this points to the direction we are going - that OBVIOUSLY Epicurus understood that being without pain is not a specific type of pleasure. Instead, for a description of what a particular person is experiencing, you have to look to the actual activities of the actual person at that particular time and place . Saying he is "without pain" says NOTHING about the particular pleasures in that person's mix of experiences except that he is at the "limit" and can experience only variations in pleasure. He can experience new types of pleasure to change his mix, but he cannot experience a higher "quantity" of pleasure. Of course identifying the limit is highly important in responding to Plato and Seneca, but most normal people are expecting a discussion of a particular experience of a particular pleasure, and when they see this instead they are left confused. That confusion has to be dealt with.

I will likely include this in a future revision but it is exchanges like this which tie discussion of discrete pleasures immediately to discussion of the limit of pleasure that i think make it unavoidable that they be discussed together.