Category Archives: Epistemology

Happy Twentieth! On Philosophy as an Antidote to Disinformation

Happy Twentieth! We see the harms of willful ignorance everywhere these days. It’s easier for some philosophically-lazy souls to make truth a filthy thing than to embrace candor. Truths are seen as inconvenient, and honesty is not their main virtue. Truth requires a bit of discipline. Standards must be set, faculties must be used. To believe that our will is more mighty than nature is the thinking of sorcerers and wizards. This is an ancient problem. It’s not new. Against this backdrop, Epicurus taught that we should navigate these waters with the help of the canon of nature: an empirical, pragmatic standard of truth.

The problem of willful ignorance is exacerbated by the opportunism of those who stand to benefit from it. The events in Russia continue to shed light on the societal problems created by propaganda and misinformation. We have seen how public health has been greatly affected by misinformation in recent years. During the pandemic, we naturally wanted to educate people (particularly those we care about) in the hopes of maximizing their survival chances. The medicine for what I will call post-truth syndrome lies in the healing words of philosophy. The ancient Epicurean Guides wrote this into their social contract:

If you fight against all your sensations, you will have no standard to which to refer, and thus no means of judging even those judgments which you pronounce false. – Principal Doctrine 23

The video Aleksandr Dugin: ‘We have our special Russian truth’ caught my attention as I was educating myself about Russian propaganda, and trying to figure out the reasons why Russia continues to fall into extreme levels of authoritarianism. Putin’s Russia today is not too different from the Tsar’s regime from over 100 years ago, which inspired the most notorious revolution of the 20th Century. Yet today, Russia has little to show for all the sacrifices of its previous revolutions. I believe this has to do with the population’s propensity to fall for propaganda, and with the lack of free speech and the lack of a variety of narratives.

Dugin is one of Putin’s “philosophers”, a post-modern post-truth charlatan, and a great case study for identifying pseudo-philosophers. For the purposes of educating ourselves as Epicureans, Dugin is useful for understanding the importance of the canon–the Epicurean name for the pragmatic, empirical standard of truth which helps us to separate that which is clear and evident from that which is not, as instructed in Principal Doctrine 24. To us, this standard includes the faculties of pleasure-aversion, and the five senses.

Dugin is a post-modern extremist who argues that all “truths” are relative, and therefore the lies of Russian propaganda are dignified as “special Russian truths”. If this was a legitimate philosophical claim, it would be the case that water is NOT in fact made up of oxygen and hydrogen molecules (at least not in Russia, because they have “special” truths there). If all relative truths deserved the label “truth”, this would imply that there are no falsehoods, or that there is no possibility of falsehood and error, which is obviously a mistaken conclusion.

Those making this declaration that all truths are relative and, therefore, valid (even if mutually contradictory), have given up on any kind of standard of truth, and so have no filter by which to discern truth from untruth, and no way to protect themselves from error. We are not the first Epicureans to note the problems that come with the systemic denial of truth, when it presents itself as true philosophy. Diogenes of Oenoanda, in the 2nd Century CE, wrote this on his Wall Inscription:

Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. 

We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing is at no time apprehensible by sense-perception. And indeed, in no way would the upholders of the view under discussion have been able to say and this is just what they do maintain that at one time this is white and this black, while at another time neither this is white nor that black, if they had not had previous knowledge of the nature of both white and black.

Again, elsewhere in his Wall Inscription, Diogenes of Oenoanda says:

The Socratics say that pursuing natural science and busying oneself with investigation of celestial phenomena is superfluous and unprofitable, and they do not even deign to concern themselves with such matters. Others do not explicitly stigmatise natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge this, but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?

Out method of multiple explanations does allow for a variety of interpretations of the evidence of nature, but it does not allow for infinite varieties of “truth”. To dignify all claims as “truths” (even if relative ones) and to engage in this extremist (ideologically-inspired, propaganda-inspired) form of relativism–with no anchor whatsoever in the study of nature–is no different from saying that there are no truths. The word truth has lost all value and utility. “Truths” in this scheme are, in actuality, the opposite of truth claims. It’s a cynical and radically-skeptical outlook in life. It’s also impractical, except for the power-hungry.

What does this do to science, which is predicated on building knowledge on top of previously established and clear knowledge? If there are no empirical or pragmatic standards to call something a “truth”, can anything at all be established scientifically, as a working theory with concrete pragmatic repercussions? Dugin’s cynicism, if sincere, is impractical. If insincere (which is the most likely case, in my opinion), then it’s cynical and nihilistic at its core, in addition to impractical.

Modern attempts to (sincerely or not) uphold this post-modern epistemology in the service of authoritarian ideology result, as we see, in the idiotic and fanatical defense of propaganda, and we are seeing how profoundly dangerous this is to democracy and to the rule of law. It also empowers evil and corrupt leaders (like Putin) in their inability to discern the limits of nature and other important Truths, so that their megalomania and their harmful demagoguery is never checked.

In contrast, Epicurus wants us to awaken our faculties. When we learn to use the canonical faculties that nature bestowed us with, we become emancipated from the need for propaganda, for priests, for demagogues, for logicians, for peddlers of false truths and pseudo-philosophies, and we learn to reason for ourselves, using our eyes, our ears, our touch, our pleasure faculty, and always diligently inferring about the non-evident based on that which is evident in order to avoid error.

If you’d like to learn more about the Epicurean canon, I would recommend you read the middle portion of Liber Qvartvs (the Fourth Book) of Lucretius’ De rerum natura.

Further Reading:
The Epicurean Canon in La Mettrie

Victor Frankl and the Search for Meaning

False Dichotomies

We recently read the essay There Are Two Kinds of Happy People, which compares Stoic and Epicurean philosophies. The essay makes some good points (we can borrow from each other yet remain grounded in our own traditions), but essays like this create false dichotomies: you almost never hear people saying “Buddhists meditate and Christians pray, and maybe they should try each other’s techniques“. In reality, Buddhists also pray and Christians sometimes also meditate. The essay assumes that Epicureans do not seek meaning, or create meaning, and it perhaps even assumes that meaning and pleasure are mutually contradictory, but there is no reason whatsoever to think this is the case.

I want to resist the tendency to antagonize Stoics because that produces a situation where it seems like Epicureanism frustrates the search for meaning or the ability for resilience, and that is not at all true. Epicurean philosophy provides various different pathways to meaning and resilience.

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. – Nietzsche

I finally recently finished reading Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, which is highly recommended among proponents of philosophy as therapy for the soul. It argues that human beings require meaning in their lives, and that the best way to deal with boredom, existential ennui, depression, or suffering, is to make it meaningful. He particularly favors three ways of doing this: through work (doing something significant), through loving someone, or through courage during difficulties.

As a psychoanalyst, Frankl proposes “logotherapy” (a therapy of meaning). Our Friend Nathan says:

It’s a powerful story of someone who survives grotesque circumstances. His themes seem to me to be within the existentialist genre, primarily, defining value and meaning in a violent and unforgiving world. He largely demonstrates how having an appropriate mental disposition can help people manage seemingly-hopeless circumstances.

Meaning-making is contrasted with nihilism and a depressing sense of defeat in life. This is from page 72

Regarding our “provisional existence” as unreal was in itself an important factor in causing the prisoners to lose their hold on life: everything in a way became pointless. Some people forgot that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself. Instead of taking the camp’s difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless.

This other quote, from the following page (73), reminds us of our past meleta concerning Epimetheus (who only looks to the past) and his brother Prometheus (who looks to the future). To Frankl, redemption is found in the Promethean approach.

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.

… which remind me of Epicurean Saying 48:

While you are on the road, try to make the later part better than the earlier part; and be equally happy when you reach the end.

Frankl mentions laughter as a technique, and as a sign that one is healed. In Tending the Epicurean Garden, I mentioned that the Epicureans follow the lineage of the laughing philosophers, and that laughter helps us to feel superior to the thing we are laughing at / about. Frankl says this differently: being able to laugh at yourself and your situation is a sign that you have already begun to overcome.

At one point in page 130, Frankl seems to accuse materialist reductionism of producing nihilism. In Epicurean philosophy we see that that is not necessarily the case. Other materialists may be nihilists, but in our tradition we have methods of drawing values and meaning from the study of nature. Here, he attacks:

the danger inherent in the teaching that man is nothing but the result of the biological, psychological, and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment … This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies that man is free.

I applaud that Frankl is drawing a connection between nihilism and materialism, as this is one of the main knots by which people who are suffering entangle themselves into harmful patterns of powerless thinking. To me, this accentuates the need for rejecting scientism (=the “excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques“), and for studying philosophy as a separate and equally important field of knowledge alongside science.

“Embracing the Exile”: a Case Study

In my college years when I confided in a University social worker and mentor (whom I greatly respected and loved) concerning my struggles to reconcile my Christian upbringing with my gay sexuality, he kindly lent me the book Embracing the Exile – Healing Journeys of Gay Christians. Back then, this book had a great impact on me, since the religious and psychological abuse of homophobia were strongly imprinted in my mind and affected me in very real ways.

Embracing the Exile is my most familiar case study for logotherapy. It argued that as Christians, gay people should embrace their exile, and carry their particular cross, with acceptance. It also taught that we should love our enemies anyway, regardless of what they do to us or say about us, and it even treats Queer identities as a form of “chosenness” where we are left to make sense of our way of being different. The book meant to soften the passions of a bruised soul, and it succeeded, but in the end, Christianity was definitely not for me. Many LGBT Christians feel that they are able to lovingly engage in LGBT activism, and at the same time confront other Christians with the evil that is done in the name of their religion from inside their churches. I’m torn between my solidarity and support for the struggle of LGBT people who choose to remain Christian, and the need to address the profound epistemological errors (and cruelties) of Christianity.

Embracing the Exile might be particularly helpful for people who might be struggling with suicide ideation, or who have recently come out and who come from a Christian background and are still attached to it, or for LGBT people who wish to return to Christianity. It provides a few “technologies of the soul” for that specific population.

But the book is not without its potential dangers, even if it came from a place of love and sincerity. Church leaders are experts at softening the blows of their emotional and psychological acts of aggression and dressing things that are deeply worthy of objection in the disguise of innocence and sanctity. Furthermore, if we decide that our policy towards our abusers is to “love them anyway”, does this not risk neglecting the possibility of moral development for our abusers? It can be a difficult balance to maintain, particularly when those who are most likely to harm LGBT youth in a church are also the same people who find themselves most entangled in their ideological errors and are least likely to think they might be wrong. The idea of gays embracing Christianity reminds me of a commentary about the colorful cow in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra that I came across recently:

In the town called the Pied Cow, the people are extremely content. They exemplify the concept of decadence. As Nietzsche says in Thus Spake Zarathustra to a citizen of the town of Pied Cow: “thy cow, affliction, milkedst thou—now drinketh thou the sweet milk of her udder.” His language shows that the cow’s milk is pleasurable and sweet, but it is an affliction that causes us to forget our real purpose. It is analogous to soma in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, an orgasmically pleasurable drug that causes the citizens of a fascist regime to forget their suffering and keep working.

One of the main dangers of the logotherapy approach is that, by choosing a false refuge or a false sense of meaning, we may end up harming ourselves and wasting opportunities for moral reform, freedom, creativity, and true happiness. Meaning must therefore be secondary to our impulse towards truth and towards the sober pleasure that Epicurus mentions in his Epistle to Menoeceus.

Some Epicurean Ideas

Life is not obligated to make sense to us. We are the ones who seek to make sense of it willfully, using our creativity and resources, our art of living (techne biou), and with the help of the study of nature. In this, Lucretius, Epicurus, and others are role models to us.

We are able to create meaning through the process of hedonic calculus: by choosing and rejecting in a manner consistent with our values, our pains or sufferings are redeemed and made valuable by the greater pleasures that they gain.

When I recently shared 3 Brain Systems That Control Your Behavior: Reptilian, Limbic, Neo Cortex, by Robert Sapolsky, our Friend Nathan commented that these three parts of the brain reminded him of “sensations, feelings, and preconceptions”–the three sets of faculties that exist within the Epicurean canon, which are our connection with nature.

The video makes the argument that the most primitive part of the brain (the reptilian part) involves the most basic instincts. This includes the senses, but also the sense of time, the circadian rhythm–a set of faculties that require that animals attune themselves to the day and night cycles, and require cold-blooded animals to regulate their body temperature by various means. Then, our ancestors evolved the mammalian brain, which involved complex fight-or-flight mechanisms, panic instincts, and other powers that Nathan associates with the canonical faculties involved in feelings. The final evolutionary stage is where animals evolved the cortex of the brain that facilitates complex thinking and language. Of all the highest animals (mostly the primates), the humans are the ones who have evolved the most complex “prolepsis” cortex. The parallels noted between the canonical faculties and the layers of brain cortex are interesting, and it had never occurred to me to think of it this way.

I am particularly interested in this third set of faculties in our discussion of meaning because the prolepsis faculty facilitates language, and it seems to me that our discussion of meaning is a discussion of language, and that the creation of meaning is therefore mainly a function of the prolepsis faculty. We are perhaps translating our experiences into something that our rational brains may apprehend, and doing so helps us to process our ideas and emotions.

Seen this way, the thirst for meaning becomes an impulse toward naming our own narratives, our lives, our selves, our relations, our life cycles, the projects that “give” our lives “meaning”, our technologies of the soul, etc. How else do we create meaning? Nietzsche suggested (and I agree) that we may do this through art, poetry, dance, ritual. The technique of relabeling (as we’ve discussed before) is another method for this.

In the search for meaning, it often seems like self-expression has been frustrated and seeks an outlet. The prolepsis of self-expression (Self-Ex-Pression) reminds me of a process of pressing-out parts of the self into some external form. The faculty of prolepsis allows us to clearly conceive an idea, which is necessary in the first place if we are to “press it out” of our psyche. Prolepsis helps us to conceive, which reminds us of seeds, of germination. Conceiving an idea carries creative potential.

Conclusion

Some people say Frankl’s Man’s Search of Meaning is a Stoic book, but it’s more nuanced than that. Yes, Man’s Search for Meaning has a strong Stoic influence. It teaches that the “only” thing that others can’t take away is how we respond to a situation, and focuses on the realm of possible therapies available to someone who is powerless to change their fate. But it also elsewhere criticizes key aspects of Stoicism. In page 56, we find:

The camp inmate was frightened of making decisions and of taking any sort of initiative whatsoever. This was the result of a strong feeling that fate was one’s master, and that one must not try to influence it in any way, but instead let it take its own course. In addition, there was a great apathy, which contributed in no small part to the feelings of the prisoner.

The book is a bit depressing, but this is not necessarily a bad thing, as suffering does have the power to make us better people. My recent anecdote on this has to do with a particular co-worker who for many months did not greet me, or smile at me, or acknowledge me at all at work. Some people (particularly people who have money or power) can afford to be quite stand-offish; others are simply introverted by nature. This co-worker was a cancer survivor and, upon getting a second diagnosis of cancer, he changed. Perhaps he realized that life is short and shifted his conception of the things that matter. He began to greet me with a smile. He became more personal. I think his suffering as a result of his health, and his sense of vulnerability, is what made him a better, gentler, more caring person.

This anecdote confirms, to me, the power of suffering to purify our character–even if we rebel against the idealization and sacralizing of suffering that we see, for instance, in Catholicism.

Frakl says “man is ultimately self determining”, meaning that we are subjects, not objects or machines. One of the main virtues of this book is that Frankl humanizes his patients. He at all times refuses to diminish or humiliate or mistreat his patients. His years of suffering during World War II make Frankl a wounded healer: he had been through hell, and could now help others in a similar situation. For this reason, many people who are experiencing great suffering and who are truly powerless in their situation would benefit from critically engaging the insights of this book.

Further Reading:

Man’s Search for Meaning

 

Happy Eikas: the Method of Multiple Explanations

Happy Twentieth to all! This month, news came out that a skeleton recovered at Herculaneum “reveals secrets of ancient Roman town obliterated by volcanic eruption“. This month, I also found the video 4 Ways To Practice Epicureanism.

The Cārvaka Darshana is a discussion by the Charvaka YouTube channel. The host identifies as Neo-Charvaka and claims that this lineage is as legitimately a part of Hinduism as any other philosophical school, and that if they go to the Indian government with the desire to get organized as a philosophical School, the state should acknowledge their existence as a sect. The Charvakas are a somewhat parallel tradition to Epicureanism which evolved in the context of India. Only fragments of their ancient scriptures survive, and only thanks to the reports of their enemies. Modern Charvaka discourse is greatly influenced by the new atheism, but distinct from it, as it is not an activist philosophy, but rather one of pleasure (kama).

The SNS essay On Immersive Storytelling contributes to the push to decouple myths, art, and ceremony from superstitious trappings and to channel them into ethically useful purposes. It cites Eikas, and also Lucretian passages as examples of how this can be done. Curiously, it seems like our second Scholarch Hermarchus may have initiated the tradition of telling the story of Epicurus as if it was a “legend”:

Epicurus’ life when compared to other men’s in respect of gentleness and self-sufficiency might be thought a mere legend. – Vatican Saying 36, attributed to Hermarchus

That storytelling was part of the education that took place in the Garden is demonstrated by the many anecdotes that Philodemus of Gadara told 200 years later about the lives of the founders. He must have spend many hours listening to these stories.

Multiple Explanations and Hedonic Calculus

For a number of things, it’s not enough to state one cause, but many, of which one would be true. – Lucretius, De rervm natvra, Liber Sextvs, 703-4

Our last Eikas zoom was facilitated by Alan and was titled “On the method of multiple explanations” (an ancestor to modern multi-valued logic). This method was used by Epicurus in his Epistle to Pythocles, where he explained astronomical phenomena.

The idea here is that, in a universe complex enough to have infinite particles and infinite space, it is possible that there are multiple explanations to phenomena and that, so long as these explanations do not contradict each other or the evidence of nature, they can all be true. For instance, weather systems are caused by pressure patterns in the atmosphere, but they’re also part of annual seasonal cycles, and are affected by patterns of rain condensation and by global temperatures. All these things are true and observable simultaneously. Here is how Diogenes of Oenoanda explains the method of multiple explanations in his Epicurean Wall Inscription:

Let us now discuss risings and settings and related matters after making this preliminary point: if one is investigating things that are not directly perceptible, and if one sees that several explanations are possible, it is reckless to make a dogmatic pronouncement concerning any single one; such a procedure is characteristic of a seer rather than a wise man. It is correct, however, to say that, while all explanations are possible, this one is more plausible (πιθανώτερον) than that. – Diogenes’ Wall

During our discussion of the method of multiple explanations, we agreed that this method was mainly a way of gathering and considering plausible hypotheses, without necessarily settling on only one of them as the only explanation. It would be interesting to consider the intersection between the preoccupations that led to the development of the method of multiple explanations and the post-modern rejection of any one single meta-narrative as inherently authoritarian.

One additional note on the method of multiple explanations: it allows for the existence of many fields of knowledge, each with their own rules, methods, interpretations, and ways of understanding nature.

I consider myself privileged in having wise Epicurean friends who contribute to help me gain depth in Epicurus’ teachings. One of those friends is Jason, who during our second dialogue on the Epicurean gods said this:

The Epicurean method of multiple explanations lands squarely on pleasure as the end and aim. It pleases me more to think that humanity is not alone in the universe. It pleases me more to say that the supernaturalists are hurting themselves in their confusion and the only creature worthy of adoration is that which is actually possible, material beings who have shucked off their vices and live like sages. A race of people whose choices and avoidances have led them to perpetual bliss.

This is because Pleasure is the Guide of Life in all our choices and avoidances, including our choice of what to do, what to say, and even what to think. Jason’s reading of the method of multiple explanations as requiring our choice, for which we must use the faculty of pleasure (and dwell on the most pleasant views), aligns with what we’ve discussed before in our meleta on PD 28 and has great potential benefits in the context of a belief system that is advantageous for our happiness. For me, Jason’s words also constituted the very definition of what Zen Buddhists call “satori”: instant enlightenment concerning a key philosophical concept. This is one of the great benefits of practicing “meleta with others of like mind” with our friends for a long time.

Basically, Jason was saying that if many explanations are equally plausible according to our method and based on how far empirical data can take us, then we must be content to make a choice concerning what theory is most plausible to us, which of the theories pleases us the most and adds the most to the removal of our fears and other hindrances to happiness, and this choice of a hypothesis is not without a component of FEELING. If there are several “worlds” we can imagine ourselves living in that are equally plausible, then let us choose the most pleasant one. Let us unhypocritically make the choice to assent to the truths that add the most to our happiness.

This, of course, does not mean that we suspend the importance of empirically based reasoning, as per our canon. Our views must also be based on the study of nature. But we have a limited time and attention span, and not all knowledge adds the same value to us, so we must choose. In a private message, I later told Jason what this brought up for me:

Our choice to follow scientific truth / study of nature, and our choice to follow pleasure, are not mutually contradictory … they’re mutually inclusive in true philosophy according to our Scholarchs. So your way of thinking about multiple plausible explanations, and our eventual choice of the most pleasant, deserves a deeper look.

They say ignorance is bliss. We disagree.

So the key take-away here is that there is blissful knowledge, or at least knowledge that is both correct and worth-choosing, and that the method of multiple explanations can be an efficient means to greater pleasure.

To say that multiple explanations for a phenomenon are all plausible, is perhaps also to say that, within the range of what is naturally possible, some explanations produce greater pleasure than others, or are more important for our happiness than others. So then, pleasure being the Guide of Life, we tend to take refuge in the most pleasant of the plausible explanations as a matter of choice. This is because the goal of our choices and rejections is the pleasures.

If we diverge from either pleasure or scientific truth, we are not practicing what our Scholarchs considered true philosophy. In this way, philosophy to us can be both true and advantageous for our happiness. The point at which the choices of truth and pleasure converge is where we must sculpt our hedonic regimen, our lifestyle, and our beliefs.

The Epicurean Canon in La Mettrie

The following is part of a book review of Histoire Naturelle de l’Ame by Julien Offray de La Mettrie.

In his Letter to Herodotus, Epicurus establishes the criteria of truth. This criteria are the faculties that nature gave us as a contact with reality: the anticipations (which form as we encounter and memorize sense objects), the five senses, and the pleasure-pain faculty.

It is essential that the first mental image associated with each word should be regarded, and that there should be no need of explanation, if we are really to have a standard to which to refer a problem of investigation or reflection or a mental inference. And besides we must keep all our investigations in accord with our sensations, and in particular with the immediate apprehensions whether of the mind or of any one of the instruments of judgment, and likewise in accord with the feelings existing in us, in order that we may have indications whereby we may judge both the problem of sense perception and the unseen. – Epicurus, in his Epistle to Herodotus

In this essay I will evaluate passages from Natural History of the Soul that discuss how the canon is to be used. We will once again see that his system and method are essentially Epicurean.

But, first of all, why is this subject important? In the first pages of the book, La Mettrie explains that not knowing the nature of the soul makes us submit to ignorance and faith, and that one can’t conceive the soul as abstraction, separate from the body. Body and soul were made at once together; to know the properties of the soul one must research those of the body, of which the soul is the animating principle. Since all properties that we observe suppose a subject they’re based on, idealists posit the soul exists by itself without the body, that it is unnatural or immaterial. In setting up a doctrine of unity of body and soul, La Mettrie answers to the idealists:

Yes, BUT why do you want me to imagine this subject to be of a nature absolutely distinct from the body?

The key premise of Natural History of the Soul is that the soul is physical, part of the body, and that it’s born with and dies with the body. Like Epicurus explains in his Epistle to Herodotus, the body is the passive component and the soul is the active component of the self; and furthermore, he says that there are no surer guides than the senses in our inquiry into the nature of the soul.

Reason: a Mechanism that Can Go Wrong

La Mettrie is, among other things, a defender of pleasure and highly skeptical of the value of reason. He also argues that happiness is not found in thoughts or in reason, but is born of the body.

Happiness depends on bodily causes, such as certain dispositions of the body, natural or acquired–that is, procured by the action of foreigner bodies over ours. – La Mettrie, in Histoire naturelle de l’ame, page 135-136

He argues that some people are by birth happier than others. He also argues that proud reason is a mechanism which can go wrong, and in paragraph 79 of his Système d’Epicure he speaks of how cold reason “disconcerts, freezes the imagination and makes pleasures flee“.

The Senses

It’s difficult to know to what extent La Mettrie based his Natural History of the Soul on Lucretius.

To speak the truth, the senses never fail us, except when we judge their reports with too much precipitation, for otherwise they are loyal ministers. The soul may surely count on being averted by them of pitfalls thrown its way. The senses are ever alert, and are always ready to correct each other’s errors. –  Histoire Naturelle de l’Ame, p. 69

Elsewhere he seems to concede that the senses aren’t fully reliable because perceptions can change. Sweet fruit becomes sour, even colors change with lighting. To all this, Epicurus would answer that even if we concede that the senses can err (and they do), still they are our best and only criteria that connect us with reality.

Towards the end of the book, we are raptured into a fascinating world of real-life Tarzans from European history when the author shares several stories that confirm that all ideas come from the senses. He narrates one story about a deaf man from Chartres who, upon hearing bells, started recovering his hearing. When he later started talking and was questioned by theologians, he didn’t understand the meaning of the concept of god or ideas related to the afterlife, etc. Another story had to do with a blind man who had to use touch to get an idea of things. Finally, he narrates the story of Amman, who taught the deaf to speak with touch and sight. He would have them touch their throat to feel the vibration of sound there, and read lips and use mirrors to practice using sight. (Interestingly, the It’s Okay to be Smart YouTube channel has a video on how blind people see with sound) At the closing of the book, the author says:

From all that has been said up to the present, it is easy to conclude with evidence that we don’t have a single innate idea, and that they’re all the products of the senses

He goes on to offer the formula:

No education, no ideas.
No senses, no ideas.
Less senses, less ideas.

Anticipations: a Constant Law

While La Mettrie doesn’t directly mention anticipations (the third canonic faculty), he does describe this faculty when he discusses speech and memory. I will make an attempt to offer a clear translation from the French, which is made difficult by the fact that the author uses long sentences.

The cause of memory is, in fact, mechanic–as memory itself is. It seems to depend on that which is nearby the bodily impressions of the brain, which trace ideas that follow it. The soul can not discover a trace, or an idea, without reminding the others which customarily went together. – La Mettrie, speaking of the “bodily impressions of the brain in p. 88-89 of “Natural history of the soul”

Since in order for a new movement (for instance, the beginning of a verse or a sound that hits the ears) to communicate on the field its impression to the part of the brain that is analogous to where one finds the first vestige of what one searches (that is, this other part of the brain (see note) where memory hides, or the trace of the following verses, and represents to the soul the follow-up to the first idea, or to the first words, it is necessary that new ideas be carried by a CONSTANT LAW to the same place to where the other ideas of the same nature as these were carried. – La Mettrie, speaking of the “constant law” by which memory functions in p. 89-90 of “Natural history of the soul”

(note: he uses the word moelle, which translates as “bone morrow”, but he must be referring to brian tissue or brain lobe of some sort)

Now, we know that much of La Mettrie’s writing was inspired on or based on Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, and this passage in particular is related to the passage where Lucretius mentions neural pathways in the brain. Notice that La Mettrie also refers to ideas tracing a path inside the brain.

Notice also that this is remarkably scientific, considering when it was written. To La Mettrie, ideas are “bodily impressions” in the brain. Ideas are material: they are physical and are lodged in (or happen to) the brain. Today we know that ideas are, concretely, electric signals shared by neurons according to established connections in the nodes between them, which are formed as a result of habitual and instinctive behavior by the animal.

Furthermore–and this is another feature of the canon as it is understood by most modern Epicureans: in p. 93 La Mettrie argues that the fact that we remember or recognize ideas with or without the consent of the will is seen as proof that they are pre-rational. The anticipations are sub-conscious, and obey what La Mettrie calls an “internal cause”.

Some Conclusions

The author seems intimately familiar with many details of the Epicurean canon. It seems that much of what he wrote were commentaries on Lucretian ideas, and that he was unfamiliar with Epicurus as a direct source. His familiarity was with Lucretius, which was a popular document in the intellectual life of anti-religious intellectuals of his day.

He does not use the same words as Lucretius (or Epicurus) used. He is employing clear speech in his native language to name things that we know as anticipations, canon, dogmatism, etc. He used “système” for dogmatic systems of philosophy, and referred to anticipations functionally as they related to memory and speech.

La Mettrie regards reason and the canonic faculties similarly to how the orthodox Epicurean does. He says of reason that it’s a “mechanism which often fails”. He frequently uses the term “internal causes” here (as opposed to “external”), perhaps admitting some acknowledgement of the existence of the unconscious or subconscious mind. That he goes to such lengths to argue that these faculties are pre-rational is very interesting.​​

Next, we will be focusing on controversies against the creationists and theologians.

Further Reading:

A Concrete Self

La Mettrie: an Epicurean System

The following essay (first in a series) is a review of Système d’Épicure (published in 1750), subtitled Philosophical reflections on the origins of animals, by French materialist philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie. The book is unfortunately not available (as far as I know) in English.

Other blogs: The Canon in LM, Against Creationism, and Anti-Seneca.

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751) was a physician who treated venereal dis-eases. He seems to have seen himself as a philosophical functionary of Venus, perhaps (metaphorically) a priest or healer. We have to imagine that La Mettrie had to discuss with his patients very intimate details of their sexual lives and tendencies with frankness, and in a spirit of trust, and that this job would have required of him a willingness to not judge or shame his patients. From all this, and also from his body of literature, we may deduce his progressive sexual and social values–particularly progressive for his time.

In the essay A happiness fit for organic bodies: La Mettrie’s medical Epicureanism, Charles T. Wolfe reports that La Mettrie himself (in an anonymous work) referred to his philosophy as an Epicuro-Cartesian System, although in some of his writings he was critical of Descartes. His intellectual legacy involved the re-joining of the soul and the body by describing the soul as material and as part of the body, in this way materializing Cartesianism and healing the Platonic split between body and soul. Wolfe also claims that La Mettrie is an Epicuro-Spinozan, and says that he created a

new and perhaps unique form of Epicureanism in and for the Enlightenment: neither a mere hedonism nor a strict materialist speculation on the nature of living bodies, but a ‘medical Epicureanism’.

Wolfe also cites La Mettrie as saying “The physician is the only philosopher worthy of his country“, and explains that what he means is that the physician defines truth according to matter and nature, rather than as defined by religion or convention. La Mettrie also said: “The best philosophy is that of the physicians“.

La Mettrie, the physician, sees the body as a machine–a machine that produces pleasure (and pain). He firmly roots the search for happiness in the body and in matter. In Man, a Machine, he says: “Nature created us all to be happy“.

An Epicurean System

The Système consists on numbered paragraphs with philosophical contemplations on nature, and appears to have been written as a prose commentary on some of the ideas expressed by Lucretius in De Rerum Natura. La Mettrie seemed unfamiliar with Epicurus as a primary, direct source, but he knew of Lucretius and cited him often, as noted by André Comte-Sponville in the essay La Mettrie et le «Système d’Épicure».

In paragraph 49, he labels the latter part of the book “a project for life and death worthy of crowning an Epicurean system“. Considering that the author is elsewhere critical of philosophers who create systems, we have to evaluate this. Epicureanism is a coherent dogmatic philosophy whose ideas are all inter-connected, and here La Mettrie knows and begrudgingly acknowledges that he has birthed a system, and even confers a crown upon it. I say he did so bregudgingly, because he recognized that all these ideas flowed from his first principles, and were connected to each other in such a way, that it was impossible to deny that they made up a philosophical system, and one nearly identical to Epicurus’ own, so that he labeled it “an Epicurean system“.

In The Natural History of the Soul (review upcoming), La Mettrie severely criticizes the “systematizers” of philosophy, but in this book, we see him choosing the words “AN Epicurean system”–which implies that there are OTHER Epicurean systems, and many ways of being Epicurean–, and here we do not see his anti-système rhetoric.

So what does this critique of the systematizers consist of?

A Mass of Prejudices

He says the systematizers are full of bias and prejudice, which impedes the development of true wisdom because they have made up their mind prior to addressing the questions. In paragraph 64 of his Système, La Mettrie says his own “mass of prejudices” of education “disappeared early on in the divine brilliance of philosophy“–which further indicates that he observed how these prejudices were acquired through his society’s education system. We will revisit this when we discuss Anti-Seneca.

Elsewhere in his Natural History of the Soul, he makes frequent appeals to reason without bias or prejudice, saying that pre-judging is not the same as true wisdom. In our present book, he further links true judgement with seeing the relation between two or more ideas with an unbiased mind.

Systems and Presumption

So many philosophers have supported the opinion of Epicurus, that I dared to mix my voice with theirs; Like they did, what I am creating is nothing more than a system; Which shows us what an abyss we are immersed in when, wanting to break through the mists of time, we want to take presumptuous glances at what offers us no grip: because–admit creation (by God) or reject it–it is everywhere the same mystery, everywhere the same incomprehensibility. How did this Earth I live in form? … This is what the greatest geniuses will never do; they will battle in the philosophical field, as I have; they will sound the alarm to devotees, and will not teach us anything. – La Mettrie, Paragraph 41 of Système d’Epicure

We will address creationism at a later point. This is just one of several instances where the author connects systematization with the arrogance and presumption of philosophers. Later, in paragraph 44, he says:

It seems pleasant for (the philosopher) to live, pleasant to be the toy of himself, to play such a funny role, and to believe himself an important character.

This is, on its face, a legitimate critique of the philosopher. Perhaps we are the center of our own worlds in our own lives and experiences, but no individual or species is at the center of THE universe.

But this critique does deserve at least one reply: I disagree that the philosophers “will not teach us anything“. I mean, as opposed to whom? Do the theologians teach us SOMETHING? Aren’t theologians even more presumptuous when–unlike us materialists–we know that their hypotheses are not based on the study of nature?

Castles in the Air

In his Natural History of the Soul (and you will see that counter-references from his other works will often be useful when studying La Mettrie), in the instances where he is most critical of the systematizing philosophers, we see that he specifically is addressing the idealists–mentioning Malebranche, Leibniz and Descartes by name. He says these idealists built “castles in the air” (châteaux dans l’air). He elsewhere says that these “ambitious metaphysicians” have a “presumptuous imagination“.

Therefore, his critique against systems is specifically a critique of idealists, some of whom he mentions by name, and his accusation of building castles in the air relates to the problem of idealism and lack of empirical, material base in these systems. His reference to having created something “WORTHY OF crowning an Epicurean system” is therefore understood as following on this critique. He is saying that anything worthy of being called a system must first abandon idealism in favor of materialism.

And so, his anti-système rhetoric is a critique of the idealists in particular. When we discuss his argument that we get all our ideas from the senses at the end of this book, this critique will come into relief and focus, but for now it should be noted that the novel A Few Days in Athens–which was also produced by intellectuals from the Enlightenment generation–has parallel sayings where the author charges that the “pedantry of Aristotle” makes people confuse “prejudice for wisdom“. Both the accusation of presumption and the bias argument are made against the other philosophers.

An Epicurean Sceptic?

“The primary springs of all bodies, as well as of our own, are hidden from us and will probably always be.”

It is clear that La Mettrie follows the Epicurean tradition of philosophy, and even at times falls in the lineage of the laughing philosophers (if we consider his “advise to an old lady” who has lost her youth and sexual attraction). Towards the end of his Système, he says:

“… these “projects for life and death”: a voluptuous Epicurean in the course of life until my last breath, and a steady Stoic at the approach of death” … have left in my soul a feeling of voluptuousness which does not prevent me from laughing at the first.”

He is referring to all the paragraphs from the first part of the Système prior to the 49th, which is where he announces his Epicurean “system”. However, he claims, even insists that he is a sceptic and only begrudgingly admits that he is a dogmatist (a “systematizer”, to use his own term). In his Natural History of the Soul, he says “the true philosophy” doesn’t exist.

This raises questions concerning the extent to which it’s prudent to accept truths for which we have no evidence based on analogy with the available evidence, before we must adopt the label “sceptic” about this or that type of truth. To what extent are we being truly humble, and not imprudent or lacking in ability to infer truths, when we admit we do now know something that is considered a dark, unclear mystery? As the Epistle to Herodotus puts it:

We must by all means stick to our sensations, that is, simply to the present impressions whether of the mind or of any criterion whatever, and similarly to our actual feelings, in order that we may have the means of determining that which needs confirmation and that which is obscure.

One final note concerning how, in my view, La Mettrie’s epistemological approach is essentially Epicurean despite his hesitation to call himself a dogmatist: to him, knowledge that does not bring pleasure is rejected–and it is rejected BECAUSE it does not bring pleasure! In paragraph 26 he contrasts the pleasure of being in nature with trying to understand everything rationally, which is more an act of power over nature rather than blissful immersion in it:

Let us take things for what they seem to be. Let us look all around us: this circumspection is not devoid of pleasure and the sight is enchanting. Let us watch it admiringly, but without that useless itch to understand everything and without being tortured by curiosity, which is always superfluous when our senses do not share it with our minds.

On Religion and Politics

While others have related the Epicurean advise to remain apolitical and irreligious to the distinction between imagined community and natural communities, La Mettrie gives us this curious insight in paragraph 76:

Religion is only necessary for those who are incapable of feeling humanity. It is certain that it is useless to the intercourse of honest people. But only superior souls can feel this great truth. For whom then is the wonderful construction of politics made? For minds who would perhaps have found other checks insufficient, a species which unfortunately constitutes the greatest number.

In the next entry, we will see how La Mettrie treats the subject of the Epicurean canon.

Further Reading:

 Système d’Épicure (French Edition)

On “-Isms” and Pleasure Wisdom

On “-Isms” and Pleasure Wisdom

Epicureanismvs.Epicurean Philosophy

The Society of Friends of Epicurus has dedicated extensive dialogue to the suffix “ism” regarding its relevance to the Epicurean tradition. In the Epicurean spirit of  παρρησíα  (or “parrhēsíā) meaning frank speech” or “speaking candidly”, the ancient Greek language did NOT employ the “ism” when referring to the tradition of Epicurus (nor, for that matter, of any other ancient Greek philosophy). Thus, while the word can be employed for practical purposes, Epicureanism” does NOT quite compliment the nuance of “Epicurean Philosophy.

ISMs

The English suffix, “-ism” — according to BOTH common and academic usages — is employed to designate a distinctive “doctrine“, “theory“, “attitude“, “belief“, “practice“, “process“, “state“, “condition“, “religion“, “system“, or “philosophy“. According to this definition, it is NOT incorrect to add a simple “ism” at the end of the philosophy of Epicurus“; it should, appropriately and accurately, render the word “Epicureanism” (or even “Epicurism).

In more succinct terms, we can visualize “Epicureanismsimply as “Epicurean-philosophy“.

While this works for practical purposes, it may lead to several misconceptions:

  1. Bracketing the suffix “-ism” to a name often indicates devotional worship of an individual (consider the differences between the old, misleading usage of “Mohammedanism” versus the preferred, contemporary usage of “Islam). Epicureans do NOTworship Epicurus as a supernatural prophet, NOR as a manifestation of a transcendental ideal.
  2. Bracketing the suffix “-ism” can ALSO indicate contempt for an individual or system. Consider, for example, when “Marxism”, “Leninism”, “Stalinism”, and “Maoism” are used by critics and detractors of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and many others. Thus, the word “Epicureanism” can be employed by critics and detractors of Epicurean philosophy as an indictment of Epicurus.
  3. In the modern era, “-ism” is frequently used to identify political typologies. Terms like “Monarchism”, “Liberalism”, “Conservatism”, “Communism”and “Fascism” express ideological systems that — contrary to Epicurean philosophy — presuppose the existence of an ideal state or utopia, organized according to the dimensions of a perfect, timeless principle.
  4. The suffix “-ισμός” (or “-ismós“) was rarely employed in ancient Greek; few examples of “-ism” (or “-ismós“) exist prior to New Latin, and the linguistic conventions of the modern era. In giving preference to the term “Epicurean philosophy”, we acknowledge the importance of privileging ancient Greek historical sources to the reliance upon Latin translations.

ISMVS

Our tradition of adding “-ism” to the end of words — in which we recognize distinctive “ideologies” — begins in the post-Classical period, corresponding to the Renaissance. Coming from the Latin “re-” (meaning “again”) and “nasci” (meaning “to be born”), this “Rebirth” resurrected the innovations and observations of Antiquity. The revival allowed scholars to adapt translations through the Latin language, using the Romanalphabet, sheathing many ancient Greek observations. Scholars began to liberally apply the suffix –ISMVS during this period of New Latin.

(I’m going to call the tradition — in which modern English-speakers partake — the “Ismism“, or, in other words, “the systemic practice of adding ‘-ism‘ to idea-expressing words”, sometimes as a celebration, sometimes as a derogation, sometimes as a religion, and sometimes as a political system. Due to the profound influence of Latin, and the linguistic conventions of the modern era, we ALL — in one way or another — have become dedicated Ismists.)

From the perspective of the contemporary world, the suffix –ISMVS (or “-ismus“) was first borrowed from the Old Latin language of the Romans, and later appropriated by post-Classical peoples as New Latin and Contemporary Latin. We find an abundance of “-ism” and “-ismus” in both Romance and Germanic language families. As with the Latin ISMVS, our contemporary suffix “-ism” is used to indicate distinctive “doctrines“, “theories”, “attitudes”, “beliefs”, “practices“, “processes“, “states“, “conditions“, “religions“, “systems“, and “philosophies“.

Here, however, is where we note a difference that our Mediterranean friends have often recognized: while the Greek language — like (for example) Celtic and Indic languages — has evolved from a common Indo-European root, it did NOT adopt Latin conventions the same way that Romance and Germanic languages have. Ancient Greek philosophers — perhaps, especially Epicurus — would NOT have thought of a “philosophy” as an “-ism”.

ize | ίζω | ízō |

We receive the Latin –ISMVS or “-ismus” from the ancient Greek “-ισμός” (“-ismós“), which, itself, is a bracketing of two other ancient Greek words, those words being “-ίζω” (“ízō“) and “μός” (“mós“). We’ll start with the former word. The suffix “-ίζω” (“-ízō“) was added to nouns to form new verbs. Let’s look at (x3) examples:

  1. canonize | κανονίζω | kanonízō
    κανών or “kann literally referred to a “reed”, and carried the connotation of a “measuring rod” or “standard”.
    + “-ίζω (“-ízō or “-ize“) rendered “κανονίζω“, “kanonízō” or “canonize” meaning “to make standard“.
  2. Hellenize | ἑλληνίζω | Hellēnízō
    ἑλλην or llēn literally referred to that which is “Greek”.
    + “-ίζω (“-ízō or “-ize“) rendered “ἑλληνίζω“, “Hellēnízō“, or “Hellenize” meaning “to make Greek“.
  3. synchronize | συγχρονίζω | súnkhronosízō
    σύγχρονος
    or “súnkhronos literally referred to “synchronous
    + “-ίζω (“-ízō or “-ize“) rendered “συγχρονίζω“, “súnkhronosízō“, or “synchronize” meaning “to sync“.

The key point with “-ίζω” (“-ízō“) — and our Modern English suffix “-ize” — is that we can turn any concept into a verb, or, in more philosophically interesting terms, we can ACTIVATE it.

μός | mós

The second suffix from which the ancient Greek “-ισμός” (“-ismós“) was bracketed is “μός” (“mós“). Contrary to the convention of ACTIVATING a word that represents a concept, adding “μός” (“mós“) ABSTRACTS an action. We can demonstrate this convention through (x3) other examples that translate well into Modern English:

  1. cataclysm |κατακλυσμός | kataklusmós
    κατακλύζω (kataklúzō) – literally meant “to wash away”.
    + “μός” (“mós“) rendered “κατακλυσμός“, “kataklusmós” or “cataclysm“, meaning a “great flood“.
  2. sarcasm | σαρκασμός | sarkasmós
    σαρκάζω” or “sarkázō literally, and figuratively meant “tearing apart” or “to tear off the flesh”.
    + “μός” (“mós“) rendered “σαρκασμός“, “sarkasmós” or “sarcasm“, meaning “(figuratively) tearing apart“.
  3. syllogism | συλλογισμός | sullogismós
    συλλογίζομαι (sullogízomai) literally meant “to compute” or “to infer”.
    + “μός” (“mós“) rendered “συλλογισμός“, “sarkasmós”, or “syllogism“, meaning an “inference“.

The key point with “μός” (“mós“) is that the ancient Greeks could turn any verb into a word that expressed an abstract concept, or, in more philosophically interesting terms, it could systematize activity into an idea.

ism | ισμός | ismós

The re-bracketing of the suffix “μός” (“mós“) appended with “-ίζω” (“ízō“) presents us with “-ισμός” (or “-ismós“) or the suffix “-ism“, a convention which systematizes a verb that has been activated from a noun. Very few examples exist in ancient Greek. A suitable example for English mono-linguists can be demonstrated in the word “Sabbath”:

  1. σάββατον | sábbaton literally means “the Sabbath” (borrowed from the Hebrew שבת or “shabát”)
    + “ίζω” (“-ízō or “ize“) σαββατίζω | sabbatízō means “to make, observe, or keep the Sabbath
    + “ισμός” (“ismós“) σαββατισμός | sabbatismós means “the state of keeping the Sabbath

UNLIKE the ubiquitous –ISMVS of Latin, and the overused “-ism” of Modern English, the ancient Greekισμός (or “ismós“) is almost NEVERused. The ancient Greeks did NOT shared our zeal for Ismism. When faced with the need to express a NEW word with FRESH meaning, the ancient Greeks built words from either [1] the names of people and objects they directly knew or observed, and [2] active forces they felt or experienced, but NOT as [3] abstract systems.

So, why NOT “Epicureanism“?

The philosophy of Epicurus recognizes that we EXPERIENCE NATURE DIRECTLY and NOT indirectly as an abstract system. Epicurean philosophy and the instruments with which humanity can make informed and ethical decisions — the sensation of an atomic reality, theanticipation of natural patterns, and the feelings of pleasure and pain — neither depend upon allegiance to a single leader, nor initiation into a secret society, nor longing for a golden age.

Christ’s resurrection would NOT be known without the Gospels.
Muhammad’s revelations would NOT be known without the Qur’an.

Even without the historical personage of Epicurus, human beings would still have sensed an atomic reality, anticipated the patterns of nature, and felt pleasure and pain, still have made mutual agreements, and still have formed friendships.

Without Jesus of Nazareth, Christians would NOT know to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
Without Muhammad, Muslims would NOT know to perform Salah to Mecca five times a day.

NATURE, itself, is so much LARGER, more important, and more fundamental than any one personage or tradition. Even without Epicurean Philosophy, humans would still have developed scientific intellects to their own advantage.

Epicureanism” (or, also, “Epicurism) carries a connotation – albeit very slightly – that the philosophy of Epicurus is just another doctrinal institution that advertises immaterial truths from an untouchable dimension. It is not quite as authentic to recognize serious seekers of pleasure as “Epicureanists” who follow “Epicureanism” as opposed to “Epicureans” who study “Epicurean philosophy“. Our endeavor rests within our own bodies; NATURE, itself, is the greatest teacher.

All that being said …

for practical purposes, there most isn’t anything inherently incorrect about preferring the term “Epicureanism; the “-isminnocuously identifies a “philosophy“. In Modern English, this does correctly indicate the philosophy of Epicurus, apart from any oath to a mythic person or principle.

Nonetheless, the employment of “Epicurean philosophy” over “Epicureanism” serves to keep our anticipations FRESH, to indicate to others that our interactions are bigger than disembodied souls paddling ideas back and forth in a court of Mind. It acts as a reminder that the path to wisdom is NOT a map that has been given to us from an Eternal Place of Perfection, but that we each carry a well-calibrated compass within ourselves to know the world and guide us to happiness.

DON’T call [my belief system] an –ism!

While the preference toward the phrase “Epicurean philosophy” may better reflect its ancient Greek origin, it should NOT indicate that the suffix “-ism” should be reserved as a derogation for non-Epicurean ideas, nor exclusively employed as a polemic toward Idealism. Even Epicurean philosophy, itself, incorporates the “-isms” of atomism, hedonism, naturalism, and materialism; these are most certain NOT idealistic.

Even ancient Greek opponents to Epicurean philosophy did NOT employ the “-ism”. Members of Plato’s Academy were “Academics”; members of Aristotle’s Lyceum with “Peripatetics”; members of Zeno’s Stoa were “Stoics”. It was only later that scholars began to employ the terms “Platonism”, “Aristotelianism”, and “Stoicism”.

Furthermore, this same acknowledgment applies to religious traditions:

The earliest rendering of the religion we refer to as “Judaism” was  יהדות  or “Yahadút”, from the Hebrew word  יהודי  (or Yhudá”) meaning “the Jewish people” and the suffix  ־ות  (or “-ót) meaning “the tradition of”. The ismed word that we employ — Judaism — is found in Maccabees 2 in the Koine Greek language by Hellenistic Jews, written around 124 BCE (over a thousand years after the foundation of Hebrew monotheism), rendered as  ιουδαϊσμός  (or “Ioudaismós”).

The word “Zoroastrianism” is first attested from 1854 as an anglicization of the ancient Greek Ζωροάστρης (meaning Zōroástrēs” or “Zoroaster”) borrowed from the Avestan word     or “Zarathustra”. Ancient Iranians referred to their religion as   orMazdayasna” translating to “worship of Mazda” (also romanized as “Mazdaism”). The wor   orMazda” both identifies the name of the Iranian Creator deity, and also, translates to “wisdom”.

The isming of the religion of post-Classical Arabs has been noted for its inadequacy, and identified in the contemporary era as being largely offensive to the Islamic populations. Until the 20th century, the monotheistic religion of  ٱلْإِسْلَام‎  (or al-Islām”) was identified by Europeans as “Mohammedanism” (or “Muhammadanism), inappropriately implying that the prophet Muhammad was divine himself, in the same way that Christians think of Jesus of Nazareth as divine.

People from the Punjab region of India refer to their religious tradition as  ਸਿੱਖੀ  (or Sikhī) anglicized to the English-speaking world as “Sikhism”. The word comes from the Sanskrit root  शिक्षा  or “śikṣā” meaning “to learn” or “to study”. (This recognition of the religious practitioner as a “student” is also found in the “Confucian tradition).

The same is true of “Hinduism”, an anglicization of the Sanskrit  सनातन धर्म  or “Sanātana Dharma” meaning “Eternal Order“. In fact, the word “Hinduitself was used by non-Indians to refer to people living around the Indus river. Ancient Indo-Iranian populations would have referred to themselves as आर्य or “Arya” (from which we get the term “Aryan“).

Jainism” is first attested from 1858 as an anglicization of the Sanskrit adjectiveजैन Jaina” which comes from the Sanskrit name for the 6thcentury BCE tradition  जिन  (or “Jina”). The word “Jina” is related to the verb  जि  meaning “to conquer”, coming from  जय  (or jaya”) meaning “victory”. The word “Jain” indicates a spiritualconqueror”.

Our rendering of “Buddhism” is an anglicization of the original Pali बुद्ध धम्म  (or “Buddha Dhamma“) meaning approximatelyThe Awakened One’s Eternal Law. The first recorded use of “Buddhism was in 1801, after Europeans romanized the spelling of Indic vocabulary.

There is NO direct Chinese equivalent to the word “Confucianism” since it has never been organized as a formal institution. The word was coined in 1836 by Sir Francis Davis, a British sinologist, and second Governor of Hong Kong who reduced the vast collection of ancient Chinese practices into a title named after the philosopher Kǒng Fūzǐ ( or “Master Kong”). While no single Chinese word or logogram represents the collection of beliefs and practices that developed from the teachings of Master Kong (anglicized as “Confucius”), the word  儒  (or “”) roughly translates as a “Man receiving instruction from Heaven” (also, a “scholar”), and is used to describe a student of Master Kong’s body of works.

The Taoists of ancient China identified the universal principle as or “Dào”, meaning “road”, “path” or “Way”. In China, the religious tradition is written 道教 or “Dàojiào” pronounced /’daʊ.ʨaʊ/ (or, for English mono-linguists, roughly transliterated asdow-chyow”). It was anglicized asTaoism” in 1838.

Shintoism”— the anglicized name for the native religion of Japanprovides an interesting example of an ismized tradition. The word “Shinto” is of Chinese origin, constructed from the Kanji logograms for the words  神 Shén”, (meaning “God”) and    Dào” (meaning “Way”) rendering  神道  or “Shéndào. However, Shinto populations do not employ this phrase as often as they do the Japanese  かむながらのみち  or “kan’nagara no michi”, (written in the Hirgana writing system) loosely translated as way of the divine transmitted from time immemorial”. Consequently, the word “Shintoism is the anglicization of two syllables from Japanese Kanji, inherited from ancient China’s Hanji logograms.

Christianity has been the dominant tradition of the post-Classical, and modern worlds; thus, it has avoided being reductively ismed (since the people who accused false traditions of being mere isms tended to be Christian, themselves). The word “Christianism” is occasionally used to express contempt for Christian fundamentalism (much like “Islamism” is used to indicate contempt for Islamic fundamentalism.)

Even early Christians did NOT refer to their tradition using the same vocabulary as do modern Christians. Like Taoists, they used the metaphor of της οδου (or “tês hodoû”) meaning “The Way“. A non-Christian, community in Antioch first coined the term  Χριστιανός  (or christianós“) to described the followers of The Way. Within 70 years, the early Church Father Ignatius of Antioch employed the term of  Χριστιανισμός  (or “Christianismós“) to refer to the Christianity.

Pleasure Wisdom

Regardless of a preference to “
Epicurean philosophy” versus “Epicureanism”, the insight of Epicurus’ philosophy demystifies nature and deflates the superstition of common religion. Epicurus anticipated the sciences of particle physics, optics, meteorology, neurology, and psychiatry. His logic was NOT one of theoretical axioms, but of a demonstrable hedonic calculus. Epicurus knew Virtue as a guide post to happiness, but NOT as happiness, itself.

Here, you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure.

Cheers, friends!

Further Reading:
Hiram’s “On Ismshttp://societyofepicurus.com/on-isms/

 

Works Cited

Barnhart, Robert K., ed., Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, H.W. Wilson Co., 1988.

Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden, Netherlands, Brill, 2010.

Buck, Carl Darling, A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages, University of Chicago, 1949, reprinted 1988.

de Vaan, Michiel, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, vol. 7, of Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series, Alexander Lubotsky ed., Leiden: Brill, 2008.

Fowler, H.W., A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Oxford University Press, 1926.

Grose, Francis, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, London, 1785; 2nd ed., London, 1788; 3rd ed., London, 1796; expanded by others as Lexicon Balatronicum. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence, London, 1811.

Hall, J.R. Clark, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, 1894, reprint with supplement by Herbert D. Meritt, University of Toronto Press, 1984.

Johnson, Samuel, A Dictionary of the English Language, London, 1755.

Klein, Dr. Ernest, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., 1971.

Lewis, Charlton T., and Short, Charles, A New Latin Dictionary, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1891.

Liberman, Anatoly, Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology, University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott, eds., Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford University Press, 1883.

McSparran, Frances, chief editor, The Middle English Compendium, University of Michigan, 2006.

Room, Adrian, Place Names of the World, 2nd ed., McFarland & Co., 2006.

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Clarendon Press, 1989.

Watkins, Calvert, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000.

Weekley, Ernest, An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, John Murray, 1921; reprint 1967, Dover Publications.

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Book Review: Ontology and Ethics of Motion

Intro: On the Subject of Definitions

Ontology of Motion vs. Epistle to Herodotus

The Tao of Lucretius

Gravity Versus Freedom

On Relativity

Lucretius’ Venus

On Motion

Dialogues on Matter in Motion – Introduction

Dialogues on Matter in Motion – Part II

 

The Problem of Ataraxia in Nail

An Anarcho-Socialist Lucretius?

Epicurean Environmentalism

Conclusion: Ethics of Motion

Reasonings About Epicurus’ On Nature (Book 18): Against the Use of Empty Words

The video Epicurus: Against the Use of Empty Words is inspired in this writing.

One must rely on sharpness of perception to separate the notions of nature from those that are designed with difficulty or obscurity … Pay full attention to the power of the empirical reasoning. – Epicurus, On Nature, Book 18

The above mentioned volume was originally the 18th section of a series of talks given to an audience by Epicurus himself and was written between 296/295 Before Common Era.

The book invites us to call everything by its name based on empirical evidence whenever possible and to avoid empty words. Another founder of this tradition, Polyaenus, devoted a treaty to Definitions. The idea is that every word that is used must have a clear correspondence in nature, in reality, as is evident to our faculties.

The result of this doctrine is that the first Epicureans often changed the names of things with empirical justification, so that the words were in line with the things signified and with their own descriptions. The notion of the inconceivable is derived from this process because in order to refer to something, we must first clearly conceive it. In the treaty, the distinction is also discussed between the knowable and the unknowable (i.e., what can and can not be known through the senses and faculties).

The practice of clearly establishing the definitions before starting a debate or philosophical speech also originates from this concept.

Epicurean Terms

Following this line of thinking, a number of terms are introduced and used in the treaty. Today, we often like to refer to terms in modern languages so that the meaning is clear.

The word epíbole, which can translate as focusing, means the concentration of sight or hearing on the observed object. It is listening, not just hearing. It is observing, not just seeing. Epíbole involves an impression (Greek phantasia), which is received from the perceived object.

Other terms used in the treaty are: conceptual knowledge, attestations or testimony, similarity (for when we reason about the non-evident, we must always refer to it by analogy with the evident and what has already been conceived and perceived), and conceptual process (by which an opinion concerning a being or imperceivable phenomenon undergoes the conceivability test).

How to Reason about Actions and Theories

As we can see, all these terms attach importance to evidence and things perceived. This is consistent with an atomistic, materialistic and realistic philosophy. But what methods are used to reason about actions and theories?

Epicurus says that we think empirically concerning the actions based on the results observed from any course of action.

Concerning theories that do not seem to have empirical basis, they can be destroyed if they are false (whether rational or not), either if some other theoretical view based on it is false, or if when we establish a link with the action, this proves to be disadvantageous. If any of these things happen, it will be easy to conclude that theoretical arguments are false.

The Veiled Father

Epicurus uses an example from the philosophers of other schools who like to carry out verbal juggling. To make a long story short, when asked whether it is possible to know and not know something at the same time, a man is presented with his father wearing a veil. This supposedly proves that it is possible to know and to not know the same thing (because the man knows his father, but does not recognize him when veiled).

Epicureans, and men in general in ancient Greece, were often confronted by the rhetors and the philosophers of logic who liked to play with words. Epicurus makes use of this example to show that one can not conclude a universal (in this case, that it is possible to know and to not know something at the same time) based on a particular example. To reach a satisfactory conclusion to a universal proposition, its truth must be 1. based on empirical grounds and 2. translated into practical behavior by the person who admits it.

Epicurus not only forces us to consider the evidence provided, but establishes a relationship between practice and theory, which should both be aligned.

Why We Must Call Out Empty Words 

In a recent Spanish-language debateI had with a Christian, he made frequent reference to an arbitrary ideal: objective morality.

Many Christians use this supposed argument to justify the need for God (which is distinct from proving his existence), and even Sam Harris, in his book The Moral Landscape, goes running after this specter invented by Platonized theologians to confuse people.

The idea is that there is “objective good and evil” (again, Platonic concepts whose definition is not at all clear as it would be observable in nature) and that in order for these to exist, there must be a God. That is the entire argument. Here are some of my answers to this fallacy:

It’s problematic when you speak of “good and evil” as Platonic concepts without contextualizing them. That means nothing at all. It can mean anything. For a Muslim, submission is good … and so is beating his wife, per the Qur’an 4:34. To a Westerner, both are hateful concepts. It could make sense to speak of “good and evil” in a particular non-platonic, non-conceptual way, but these goods and evils still should be described in detail. When we study nature what we do see is pleasure and aversion: a baby is born, and without being corrupted by culture, instinctively seeks pleasure and tries to avoid pain. These are real experiences for living entities. Why then not speak of pleasures and pains, so that we clearly know what is meant when we speak of “morality” without juggling of words and without arbitrary authoritarianism?

… Because a supernatural moral theory does not include everyone and therefore can not be useful. People who do not believe in the particular religious beliefs of others will not be able to agree on anything. An objective morality can only be scientific, or based on the observation of nature.

… you never explained where you got this arbitrary criterion of “objective morality” and then you said that it comes not from religion but from God … you never confronted the Bible verses that show God as a grotesque monster and the dehumanizing and harmful effects that these defenses of religious morality have today. Taking again the example of Exodus 32:27-29, Moses has 3,000 people killed because GOD DIRECTLY supposedly commanded him, and then he praises the Levites for killing their siblings and neighbors for merely not sharing their beliefs. 3,000 people died that day, as under Osama Bin Laden on 9/11. If Moses were alive today, he would be considered a terrorist and would have to appear before an international tribunal for crimes against humanity. How do you defend this “objective morality” that you say comes “from God”?

These discussions were accompanied by several other examples of atrocities committed in the name of religion. The debater never confronted the grotesque verses in the Bible, and we never even took the time to look at examples of the long bloody history of theistic religions like Islam and Christianity.

Nowhere in our observations of nature, no-thing gives indication that there is an “objective morality”: it is only hedonism, the pleasure and aversion faculties, that appears to be the closest thing to morality in nature (the debater admitted this) and appear to be essential components of what we could call our moral compass, and are observable and real in nature, direct perceptions of experience or, to use one of the neologisms we mentioned above: they are attestations.

Notice how theologians and their spokesmen use arbitrary terms (such as “objective morality”), never bother to define them, much less clearly and in terms observable in nature, and they run with these concepts and build castles in the air, and when one comes to realize one is being carried away by their arguments, entire audiences have been abducted into a fantasy world, or a paradise with 72 virgins, or some other religious or non-religious fantasy entirely divorced from reality, from matter, from the world.

So this is not how we should philosophize. Let’s put our feet on the ground and use the Canon. Inventing words that mean nothing to talk about things that are not observable in nature, dear friends, is called quackery, and Epicureans will always be repudiated for refusing to call it by another name.

The above reasonings are based on the French translation of Book 18, On Nature in Les Epicuriens [Bibliotheque de la Pleiade] (French Edition) .


Video:
Epicurus: Against the Use of Empty Words