Episode 329 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Cracks In The Academy On Ideal Forms and Virtue Lead To The Emergence of Aristotle, The Stoics,And Epicurus"
I have prepared a short commentary on each of the Principal Doctrines and Vatican Sayings with special attention given to common misconceptions about each one.
The home of the basic list will be here while it is going through early phases of composition and revision:
Obviously not everyone is going to agree with every word, but I think a relatively short document such as this will be useful to new readers. We can as we always do hash out precise details in separate forum threads, and general comments and suggestions in this thread are welcomed.
I don't know that we know much more about the story of Epicurus questioning his teachers, but if anyone has an anecdote from Usener it's probably Bryan
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Thanks for your initial message and your question.
Could you also tell us a little something about your background in study of Epicurus?
Morgan writes us:
Hello, I'm delighted to become a new member, and as far as I can see, I should respond to my welcome message, and whilst I'm pretty sure this may not be the way to do so, I can't identify a 'reply' button, so forgive the rough and ready attempt to do so.
All advice welcome. Meanwhile, I have a burning question...
My understanding is that Epicurus as a young boy was precocious to the point of questioning an early teacher to explain Hesiod's conception of chaos. I would love to flesh out the description given in De Witt...albeit apocryphal!
with many thanks,
While Epicurus may have begun his schooling under his father's in- struction, there is evidence that he was placed in charge of another teacher before he was of an age for the higher branches. The following anecdote has been preserved for us by Sextus Empiricus: "For while still quite a young lad he demanded to know of his teacher, who was dictating to him the line 'Verily first of all chaos was created,'24 out of what chaos was created if it really was first created." When the teacher with some irritation denied that it was any of his business to teach such things but rather of the men called philosophers, "Then," said Epicurus, "to the philosophers I must hie if they alone really know the truth about realities." 25
The interest of the story is threefold: it exhibits Epicurus in the process of receiving the orthodox schooling in Greek poetry. If at the time mentioned he was learning his Hesiod, it is certain he had already acquired a due familiarity with Homer. It will be shown later that
An extract from the chapter, SAMOS AND ATHENS, in De Witt's Epicurus and his Philosophy
"The third item of interest attaches to the mention of chaos. In Democritean physics there was no place for chaos. According to this system, the world had always been a cosmos, because the atoms and void were believed to exist from everlasting unto everlasting. Only in creational systems was there need for an initial state of chaos. Thus the question naturally arises, Was Epicurus already at the time of the incident reading Democritus? An affirmative answer is not absurd. By a scholar named Ariston, whose reputation is good, it was recorded in a Life of Epicurus that he began to study philosophy at the age of twelve.27 He was un- doubtedly precocious; this is the point that Ariston was making and he adds "that he headed his own school at thirty-two," which contrasted with forty for Plato and thirty-ninefor Aristotle when he began to teach in Mytilene. If to the above item be added a second to the effect that
Epicurus, "chancing upon the books of Democritus, took eagerly to philosophy," It becomes quite probable that he already knew some- thing of Democritus when he cornered his teacher on the topic of chaos."
Welcome Morgan
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All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from most other philosophies, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit of truth and happy living through pleasure as explained in the principles of Epicurean philosophy.
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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!
This episode is turning out to be a little shorter than usual, and kind of transitional, as we discuss the divergence of Aristotle from the Academy and begin to touch on the emergence of Stoicism. This is complicated stuff and we can only touch the surface in a broad way. As we proceed toward the end of Book One of Academic Questions over the next several weeks, I think out target should be to not try to do too much more than get a general feel for the major points of divergence between the schools. Even that is going to be quite a hurdle.
To assist myself as we go forward I asked Claude to produce for us a table of the major epistemological issues dividing the schools based primarily on the work of Long and Sedley in their "Hellenestic Philosophers." I think this is going to be of help to me and anyone who would like to refer to it can do so here:
Is modern physics an extension of Epicurean physics and follows from it ?
I would not say that, and I feel certain Martin would not say so either.
Epicurus is targeting his claim of their being an ultimate limit to divisibility to the opposite argument made by prior philosophers - that there is no conceivable limit to divisiblity.
That's somethat that is not resolvable technically, with at least one reason being as observed by Lucretius/Epicurus that the instruments of precision are always going to be themselves composed of something that by nature those instruments cannot measure.
This is very theoretical area and I am not able to talk about it articulately, but there are as i understand it many articles out there on the intersection of philosophy and science that do.
What I think I am confident of, and what Epicurus was confident of, is that we will never know everything we would like to know. There will for all foreseeable future likely be new discoveries and new levels of detail. At the very least the discoveries will extend outward into unlimited space.
We know already that we will never visit every location in the universe nor travel in time as far back or forward as we would like to do. No human being ever has, not is there any reason to think that one could. Therefore we are not going to ever be able to argue that something has been "proven" to a standard of having examined every corner and every time in the universe.
An impossible standard like that makes no sense for humans to pursue, but yet we have to make decisions on how to spend the short lives that we have, so we have to make decisions on what levels of proof are "good enough" and possible.
Therefore Epicurus suggests a method of deciding what is true and false based on information that IS available to us through the senses, processed rationally by the mind. The ultimate stress of "trusting the senses" I think means exactly that: As humans there is no reason to think we will ever have information beyond that which is confirmed by the senses (and by the instruments which extend our senses) so we have to get comfortable going with what our senses consistently establish to be our reality.
Epicurean physics is more realistic and closer to modern physics ( no intentional, governing Logos ). Exciting discussion.
So I think that's the ultimate point. All evidence points to nature working on its own without an external supernatural force behind it. That's the ultimate conclusion of Epicurean physics based on rational processing of the senses. I too see that as consistent with modern physics, but technicians, even though they select standards of certainty they think are practically useful, generally make no claims to address the ultimate correctness of when evidence is sufficient.
We don't get far into this issue of "kalapsis" in this episode, but it came up in our background discussions and it's going to come up further in coming weeks. For that reason I have set up the following thread, and anyone who has time to help us move toward a layman's way of explaining the distinction betwen the Stoic and Epicurean approaches on "comprehension" will be appreciated. We're definitely going to need to have something of a working command over this before moving past Cicero's "Academic Questions" and proceeding to Philodemus' "On Signs."
in coming weeks on the podcast we are going to be making a decision how much further to go into Cicero's "Academic Questions" and when to turn our attention to Philodemus' "On Signs."
A key aspect of when we will be ready to do that will involve our decision as to how much effort to put into Cicero's explanation of Stoicism, especially of their theory of knowledge involving "katalepsis." This is the theory which is famously explained by analogy this way: (from wikipedia quoting from "Academic Questions.")
Cicero relates that Zeno would illustrate katalepsis as follows:
He would display his hand in front of one with the fingers stretched out and say "A visual appearance is like this"; next he closed his fingers a little and said, "An act of assent is like this"; then he pressed his fingers closely together and made a fist, and said that that was comprehension (and from this illustration he gave to that process the actual name of katalepsis, which it had not had before); but then he used to apply his left hand to his right fist and squeeze it tightly and forcibly, and then say that such was knowledge, which was within the power of nobody save the wise man.[3]
My purpose in starting this thread is that in deciding how much of Cicero's explanation to read before we go to Philodemus, I think we need our own "working ability to explain" what the Stoics were really after. Of course their view of the universe is ultimately one of intelligent design, and they place huge reliance on "logic," so I think we can expect that katalepsis is going to be profoundly influenced by those viewpoints.
This is apparently in large or wholly contrast to Epicurus' view of the role of "prolepsis" in canonics, all of which is entirely natural and ultimately tests for truth against the sensations, anticipations and feelings.
We're not going to be able or want to become experts on every detail of this topic, but we need a working knowledge adequate to use analogies and give examples of the differences in approach.
In this post I'm not going to post any additional AI summary or links to other pages, but in this thread both of those are probalby going to be useful. I'd just like to restate the goal that sort of like with Torquatus' use of Chrysippus' hand analogy in "On Ends," we need to be able to give a coherent explanation of what this "kataleptic grasp" is supposed to represent.
Efforts to help get us there are welcome!
-----
Edit: there are many questions here, but before i close the post I note the final clause that this katalepsis is within the power of no one except the wise man. That in itself probably has huge implications, over and above what this imagery regarding the hands is supposed to mean.
Thanks Patrikios. It's always tricky to try to fit the "logic" arguments with the latest "science."
Going back to Sedley's Article "The Inferential Basis of Epicurean Ethics," I think there's a relationship here between Epicurus' decision to divide the entire physical universe between "matter" and "void," and the entire "feeling" universe between pleasure and pain.
Certainly there are many types of atoms and bodies, and many types of pleasures and pain. And Nature doesn't have an intelligent design which inscribes a book with those labels and blesses this decision to divide between matter or void and pleasure or pain. There's some kind of "proleptic" decisionmaking that tells us to do that rather than to try to categories - say - matter into five types and void into five types, and pleasures into five types and pains into five types.
It seems to me that this is the question of "universals" -- what is the justification for your categorization decision?
I'm gathering that Epicurus is resting his justification on the senses while also recognizing that he is reasoning. Like Jefferson says, the senses ultimately give us bodies moving through space. That's two things, and while it's important that ultimately the bodies be composed of indivisible atoms, it's really at the sense level that we divide things into to.
And on the feeling level it makes sense in the end to say that there's "desirable and undesirable" (pleasure and pain).
All of this revolves around the issue of whether this world of the sense is the real world, or whether there's a hidden "true world" set of forces or beings or forms behind it and directing it. Epicurus is showing that it is possible to construct a system that is totally consistent with our senses and feelings, but which operates without divine or other hidden forces directing it.
So from that perspective, I would expect that when Epicurus divided the universe between matter and void, the last thing that he would have accepted would be that there is some "third force" that sets everything in motion and keeps it moving.
So I am saying all that to agree with where I think you are going, which is that motion (or the capacity for motion) is something that is inherent in the nature of matter, and that all you need for motion is atoms (more than one) and space. I don't think Epicurus would have accepted conceptually that it is possible for there to be any force which ultimately does not derive/arise/emerge from one of the two categories - bodies and space.
And this is where I think there's a lot more discussion to be had of what "emergence" entails. If everything in the universe is composed of "atoms" and void, then *everything,* including motion/gravity/whatever, arises from the interaction of those two categories, with no other category possible or conceivable. if something "exists," it arises / emerges from "matter" and "void."
Sure it's possible to divide things into five or fifty categories of bodies or of feelings. But what Epicurus is working for, and what we need, is a manageable system of thought through which we can understand our place in the universe and from there how best to live. That's what analysis based on "atoms and void" and "pleasure and pain" gives us.
There's a second podcast which i haven't been able to listen to yet, but for which there is a full transcript here.
Couple of highlights:
The Failure of Epicureanism as a System of Belief
In the preface of Gateway to the Epicureans, Spencer Clavin asserts:
“Epicureanism has proven a total failure... the idea that Epicurus had that once we cleared away the religious horizon, we would all be free to live these contented, placid lives, I think that has been just totally refuted.”
[31:02]
Clavin critiques the inadequacy of Epicurean atomism in explaining the complexities of modern physics and the ethical shortcomings in addressing contemporary existential crises. He contends that the simplistic materialism of Epicurus fails to satisfy the human quest for meaning, contributing to widespread despair and societal issues like declining birth rates.
The Importance of Studying Epicurean Letters Today
Addressing the perceived obsolescence of Epicureanism, Spencer Clavin advocates for the continued relevance of Epicurus's letters:
“...unless you understand that you are swimming in water, you actually can't decide whether to get onto land.”
[34:03]
Clavin argues that studying Epicureanism provides critical self-awareness of the prevailing materialistic worldview, enabling individuals to evaluate and possibly transcend its limitations. By understanding Epicurean foundations, one can better navigate and critique the philosophical underpinnings of modern society.
it's episode 356 listenable directly at the link below.
Good comments Steve and wbernys. As for Steve I hope you are that the claimed resurgence in Catholicism or old-line religion is overblown . I wonder if our much younger members here see any of this and whether they have any comment on whether they think the claimed renewed interest in Catholicism is overblown. Eikadistes ? Charles ? Any others I am forgetting who are younger, please let us know what you are seeing "out there" in your local situations. I have some minimal anecdotal contact with acquaintances that causes me some concern but it's really not much. I see it more on social media.
I have another article in the works more on religion in general , but I decided that since the Pope has been more in the news lately I might single out Catholicism first.
As for the article in general it applies equally to the "to young af heart" 
This thread is for discussion of the blog article below:
Does this apply to widowers, too?
According to "our friend" Paul it likely applies to everyone!
I am warned that everyone will not get or appreciate the humor of my comment and it may take more effort to understand the play on words - but like on "Galaxy Quest" -
"Never Give Up! Never Surrender!"
Martin - Is this saying that a single atom in an infinite void would not move, but require the presence of at least one other atom for there to be attraction capable of resulting in movement?
If so that might reconcile how gravity results in motion but that nothing is required (no third category) other than matter and space.
Reviews like this are why i don't bother reading anything critical of Epicurus anymore,
In case Wbernys' reference to "reviews like this" is not clear, it's a reference to the "Antigone" article by Spencer Klavan linked in my previous post.
Very good analysis Wbernys - and in this context I don't see any issues with that youtube link, which is just a short dramatization of how people oversimplify or caricature ideas they don't like.
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