Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

Link to this comparison view

Both sides previous revision Previous revision
Next revision
Previous revision
lucretius_today_special_series_-_eahp [2022/10/17 12:03] cassiusamicuslucretius_today_special_series_-_eahp [2023/03/21 16:07] (current) cassius
Line 118: Line 118:
       * Epicureans were not limited in any way and free to pursue their own tastes and talents, just as Lucretius pursued poetry, Polyoenus was an expert in geometry, and Asclepiades was an expert physician. Epicurus himself was an expert researcher into natural science.       * Epicureans were not limited in any way and free to pursue their own tastes and talents, just as Lucretius pursued poetry, Polyoenus was an expert in geometry, and Asclepiades was an expert physician. Epicurus himself was an expert researcher into natural science.
   * **The New Order of Nature**   * **The New Order of Nature**
-      * Especially important in the Epicurean canon is that //Reason// is not included as a criterion of truth.+      * Especially important in the Epicurean canon is that //Reason //is not included as a criterion of truth.
       * The Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings are the only direct contact between man and his physical and social environment. Because they are direct contacts, they acquire a priority over reason and elevate Nature over Reason as affording a norm of truth.       * The Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings are the only direct contact between man and his physical and social environment. Because they are direct contacts, they acquire a priority over reason and elevate Nature over Reason as affording a norm of truth.
       * The Platonists followed the “Italian” Greek school model of Arithmetic to Geometry to Astronomy to find an inflexible Celestial order of nature.       * The Platonists followed the “Italian” Greek school model of Arithmetic to Geometry to Astronomy to find an inflexible Celestial order of nature.
Line 124: Line 124:
       * Epicurus followed the Ionian pattern and extended the Aristotelian model, concluding that Nature provides the norm rather than Reason as argued by Plato.       * Epicurus followed the Ionian pattern and extended the Aristotelian model, concluding that Nature provides the norm rather than Reason as argued by Plato.
       * This difference in perspective between the Terrestrial Order and the alleged Celestial Order led to the distinctly different philosophical directions of great importance, for example:       * This difference in perspective between the Terrestrial Order and the alleged Celestial Order led to the distinctly different philosophical directions of great importance, for example:
-        * In the interpretation of "Living according to Nature"//+        * In the interpretation of "Living according to Nature"
         * In the interpretation of “Justice”:         * In the interpretation of “Justice”:
         * Plato was complicating philosophy for the sake of the few who find self-gratification in complexity; Epicurus simplified philosophy for the sake of the many who wished to live by it.         * Plato was complicating philosophy for the sake of the few who find self-gratification in complexity; Epicurus simplified philosophy for the sake of the many who wished to live by it.
Line 139: Line 139:
       * Epicurus encouraged memorization of the fundamental axioms as an aid to applying them properly.       * Epicurus encouraged memorization of the fundamental axioms as an aid to applying them properly.
       * The Epicurean method stresses deductive reasoning from first principles. The Twelve Elementary Principles were stated and demonstrated as theorems, and each theorem became a major premise for the deduction of further theorems, which were then confirmed by the evidence of the Sensations, which operate as a criteria.       * The Epicurean method stresses deductive reasoning from first principles. The Twelve Elementary Principles were stated and demonstrated as theorems, and each theorem became a major premise for the deduction of further theorems, which were then confirmed by the evidence of the Sensations, which operate as a criteria.
-      * Epicurus was not an empiricist: the status of Sensations is that of a witness in court limited to confirming the truth (or falsity) of given proposition.+      * Epicurus was NOT an empiricist: the status of Sensations is that of a witness in court limited to confirming the truth (or falsity) of given proposition.
       * The Epicurean method of teaching is preserved to a significant extent in Philodemus, “On Frankness of Speech” recovered from Herculaneum       * The Epicurean method of teaching is preserved to a significant extent in Philodemus, “On Frankness of Speech” recovered from Herculaneum
   * **The First Missionary Philosophy**   * **The First Missionary Philosophy**
Line 232: Line 232:
 ===== Chapter VIII - Sensations, Anticipations, And Feelings ===== ===== Chapter VIII - Sensations, Anticipations, And Feelings =====
  
 +  * Introduction:
 +      * Podcaster Note: It appears that among the biggest points of this chapter is to show that Epicurus did not assert that we believe only what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Isn't that what is asserted when people think of Epicurus as an Empiricist? One of Dewitt's big points here - and i think he is right? - is that Epicurus taught that you do believe a lot more than what you can simply see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Obvious example is: atoms!.
 +      * Epicurus was not an empiricist, but people claim that he was and so they ignore the other two legs of the canon, pleasure and pain, which are outside the standard definition o "empiricism."
 +      * The three criteria are neither three aspects of a single capacity nor yet three discrete capacities which function separately from one another. They act in together and in sequence.
 +      * Sensation is irrational and merely registers a quality, for example, sweetness. It is the intelligence that says, "This is honey," and it is the Feelings that report, "I like it" or "I don't like it:'
 +      * When once this genetic approach has been recognized it becomes easy to discern that the three criteria correspond to three levels of experience, which may be styled somatic. social. and emotional. {Cassius' comment - It is not clear to me that this "three levels of experience" analysis is especially significant. Does it lead somewhere?)
   * Sensations   * Sensations
 +      * The Sensations in the meaning of the Canon denote the five senses. vision. hearing. smell, taste. and touch. and nothing else.
 +      * They qualify as criteria because they are direct physical contacts between the living being and the external physical reality.
 +      * They also qualify as criteria because they are irrational. are incapable of memory. and pronounce no judgments.
 +      * Sensation is incapable of memory. It can no more recall a given stimulus than a house can recall the impact of a ball thrown against its wall. The sensation merely registers a stimulus, a melody, for example; it is the memory that says, "I have heard this before"; it is the intelligence that says, "Home Sweet Home."
 +      * The confusions are two in number.
 +        * __The first__  is between concepts of "truth" and concepts of "value:' It is quite possible for a sensation to be true reand yet valueless as a criterion. A square tower, for example, appears at a distance to be round; the sensation is true, relative to the distance, but false to the facts.
 +        * __The second__  confusion is between primary and accessory or derivative notions. This is to say that the ideas represented by the Twelve Elementary Principles of Physics are primary while all other ideas are derivative. The former are ennoai, the latter are ep;no;a;.
 +      * The chief ambiguities are also two in number. In the dictum of Epicurus that "all sensations are true" both terms are ambiguous.
 +        * The English word sensation, like the Latin sensus, is employed to render various words and phrases in Greek,
 +        * while the word true, like its Latin and Greek equivalents, may have anyone of three meanings:
 +          * first, absolutely true, as the statement that two and two make four is true, or
 +          * second, relatively true, as the distant view of the tower is true, though false in detail, or
 +          * third, real, in the sense that the sensation corresponds to a real object, such as an ox.
   * Epicurus Not An Empiricist   * Epicurus Not An Empiricist
 +      * Focus on how the deductive nature of much Epicurean reasoning, plus anticipations and feelings is not what is generally included in Empiricism
   * Anticipations   * Anticipations
   * The Account of Laertius   * The Account of Laertius
  • lucretius_today_special_series_-_eahp.1666022612.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2022/10/17 12:03
  • by cassiusamicus