Eikas cheers to all our readers! We recently shared This is why emotions are important, a video from the YouTube channel Freedom in Thought which makes the point that without emotion, it becomes difficult or impossible to carry out choices.
We also shared the American Psychological Association’s article The science of friendship. I have been a big fan of the Naked and Afraid shows for many years: a reality show where they abandon a naked man and woman to the elements for 21 days. Later seasons had 40-day and 60-day challenges with large groups of survivalists. These larger challenges sometimes have reminded me of Lord of the Flies—with cliques forming and abusing marginal individuals. This year in the most recent installment, titled Last One Standing, Jeff (a Mormon and libertarian who adheres to Ayn Randian belief in selfishness) hoarded all the tools and weapons early in the season. This, and his reputation from previous seasons, earned him the distrust and ill-will of all other participants. Other members, on the other hand, derived a great morale boost from the fact that they were able to trust each other enough to cooperate during the challenge. I have only seen two episodes, but they have been eloquent arguments about the importance of being friendly, even in (or especially during) a survival situation.
How to Stop Being a Slave to the Opinions of Other People is a video by Academy of Ideas that cites a quote from Epicurus, and strongly resonates with Kyria Doxa 14.
One must laugh and seek wisdom and tend to one’s home life and use one’s other goods, and always recount the pronouncements of true philosophy. – Vatican Saying 41
In the past, I have discussed VS 41’s instructions regarding phonás aphientas (“scattered voices”). The word phonás shares semantic roots with telephone, microphone, etc., and implies out-loud utterances, while aphientas has to do with sending or emitting something all around oneself (like we do when we plant seeds, or when we disseminate a teaching), so that the phrase implies out-loud utterances dispersed in all directions. Hermarchus (or perhaps another Kathegemone or Guide) says in VS 41 that we must do this with the teachings of correct philosophy (orthés philosophias).
Phonás aphientas instructs us that this philosophy must be oral, spoken out loud, that it must find verbal expression in practice.
In the past, I’ve discussed the role of words of philosophy being uttered out loud as a practice of chanting or repetition that is native to the Epicurean gardens, and I’ve also discussed the role this practice might have in passive recruitment (a perspective influenced by the book The Sculpted Word).
Now, I’d like to take a look at phonás aphientas as a didactic method, and also to consider the ways in which it makes sense in light of studies on language and how it changes the brain–since Epicurus, in his sermon on moral development, argued that moral development is a physical process of steering our neural pathways and shaping our brains through habituation and memorization, and new data shows that language has the power to do this.
In his scroll On Music, Philodemus of Gadara mentions that music only heals the soul if it contains the words of true philosophy, which indicates a logocentric theory of therapy where words are used as philosophical treatments. Phonás aphientas must therefore be considered as a potential method of treatment, and of character development.
Neuroplasticity and Language
The ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury. – Oxford Dictionary definition of neuroplasticity
In Epicurus’ scroll against the use of empty words, we see that the founders were involved in a process of language reform for the sake of clarity. We tend to think of language as identity rather than habituation, but languages are changing with every generation. There is no essential or unchanging, idealist core of any language that remains the same forever. The founders of Epicurean philosophy positively saw themselves as stewards of their native language and they considered it part of their role to steer their language in the direction of being better suited to express the nature of things clearly. I would argue that Lucretius, when he coined words and worked for years in editing De rerum natura, did the same with his own native language.
The study titled Native language differences in the structural connectome of the human brain demonstrates that there is evidence that one’s language changes one’s brain, and that different languages make use of different parts of the brain.
The structural language network is modulated by the specific procesing requirements of one’s native language.
This not only confirms Epicurus’ assertions in “On moral development” (that one is able to change the physical structure of one’s brain), but potentially adds our choice of words, and language use in general, as a layer of our practice, since it raises the possibility that language reform could be a tool for reforming the psyche, or for cultivating undeveloped potentials of our souls. Modern linguists have a name for this way of thinking about language. The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis,
also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis, refers to the proposal that the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality.
These studies add flesh to some of the earliest Epicurean theories on language evolution. Based on these studies, we can confidently infer that language evolution reshaped the early human brain, and that modern languages are still reshaping and steering our brains. Once humans experienced the first stage of language evolution (the natural stage) and entered the second stage (the collective utility, cultural, or artifice stage) (see my introductory essay on this), then a feedback loop began which reshaped the brains of humans in every generation. Individuals of each generation that learned the earliest forms of language, reshaped their brains by the use of their particular language, and in turn influenced the language itself and developed it, adding computing and expressive power to the language for the benefit of future speakers. Once this process got started in our species, it never stopped, and its advantages are clear, based on the universality and diversity of language use among us.
Scattered Words as Self-Cultivation
Let us relate these insights back to our meleta on phonás aphientas. The process of scattering out-loud the utterances of true philosophy most likely has great didactic utility as a method of learning: when we are studying some aspect of philosophy, the process of rephrasing, paraphrasing, and voicing out loud, helps us to cognitively assimilate what we are learning. This may work better for some people than for others, but in general it’s an intuitive way to learn.
If language use reshapes our brain, and if Metrodorus and the other Kathegemones were advancing language reform for the sake of clarity–to the point that Diskin Clay makes that argument that the Epicureans had their own lingo in his essay Paradosis and Survival: three chapters in the history of Epicurean philosophy–then the ever-refining and ever-perfecting process of language evolution can also be a process of ever-refining and ever-cultivating our souls, and our ability to think and communicate clearly. Clear thinking and clear speech are important Epicurean values in the canon (Kyriai Doxai 22-25), in Epicurus’ Against the use of empty words, and in Philodemus’ Rhetorica.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that the Kathegemones’ language reform project goes hand in hand with ethical reform as a physical process and program of helping us to train and reshape our brains to think more clearly and efficiently, and to enjoy pleasures, with the help of words and ways of communicating. This makes me consider the ways in which we casually communicate everyday: most of us likely coach ourselves in both healthy and unhealthy ways when we speak.
Language and the Social Contract
One final word on the social contract, as it relates to language: I am increasingly convinced that all social contract requires, and is built upon, a particular agreed-upon language, or agreed-upon means of clear communication. The more case studies we consider of social contract–whether as business transaction, or as constitution, laws, or rules, or as monetary currency, or as communal projects and organizations–, the more we see that individuals cannot come to an agreement with other individuals without first being able to successfully and clearly communicate the terms of said agreement.
In this sense, there is no real community without some level of clear communication, since communication always pragmatically precedes efficient or functional community, and it’s difficult to conceive of well-functioning natural human community without it.
Contracts therefore “live inside” our language of everyday use. If agreements, and the social contract, are written into our language, then this is an additional incentive to actively steer the development of our communities’ means of communication for the sake of clarity, conciseness, and to better express our other values through our language.
This is part of why definitions must precede all investigations (as we see at the opening of Epicurus’ Epistle to Herodotus), and why communities of philosophers–together with artists, inventors, and other cultural creatives–are among those who are in charge of steering the third stage of language evolution according to Epicurus. Purposeful participation in social contracts is a necessary part of the practice of Kyriai Doxai, and–as we have seen in our years of studying together in English–our most advantageous agreements with others require us to sometimes critically evaluate and re-negotiate the background premises, assumptions, biases, and other baggage carried by our communities’ agreed-upon language(s). Since Epicurus expects his disciples to function within social contracts, he therefore must educate them and equip them with methods of clear communication to help them participate efficiently in these social contracts.
As a side note, the word chosen by Epicurus in Kyriai Doxai to refer to the social contract is symphonia (sym = with, phonia=utterances), which literally translates as “voices in unison”, “uttering together”.
Conclusion
Phonás aphientas (developing a habit of clearly articulating out loud the plain words of true philosophy) makes sense within the context of the Epicurean project of ethical development, as an expression of our identity and of belonging to our particular social contracts and communities, and as a method of learning.
Further Reading:
