Episode 239: The Dishonesty Of Academic Skepticism vs Epicurean Commitment To Truth¶
Transcript of Episode 239. Note: The following transcription was prepared with speech to text software, and has been only lightly edited for accuracy. This file has been prepared primarily as an aid in searching for material in the audio episode. This transcript likely contains errors, and should not be relied on for anything other than searching for discussions relevant to particular topics. Please consult the original audio episode for accurate information. If you come across egregious errors in the transcript below, please let us know in the Epicureanfriends.com forum.!
Cassius: Welcome to episode 239 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote On the Nature of Things, the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week, we walk you through the Epicurean texts and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we have a thread to discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
Today, we are continuing in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods, and we are in section 21. Velleius has now completed his presentation of the Epicurean view, and Cotta, the Academic Skeptic, is going to give his response. Now, as usual with Cicero, there's a transition during which Cotta is going to talk about what a wonderful person Velleius is and how he's not attacking Velleius's character directly.
But just like we found in book two of On Ends, the criticism of the Epicurean position is going to give us a lot of additional information that we can both learn from in terms of how a non-Epicurean understood the Epicureans in 50 BC, and also gives us an opportunity to respond as well. The issues that are going to be discussed are the continuing things that we deal with even today, and we always will deal with in terms of knowledge and what is possible to be confident of, and general philosophical questions. So this should continue to be a very interesting section.
Starting with section 21, here is Yong's translation:
Cotta, with his usual courtesy, then began, "Velleius," said he, "were it not for something which you have advanced, I should have remained silent. For I have often observed, as I did just now upon hearing you, that I cannot so easily conceive why a proposition is true as why it is false. Should you ask me what I take the nature of the gods to be, I should perhaps make no answer. But if you should ask whether I think it to be of the nature which you have described, I should answer that I was as far as possible from agreeing with you._
However, before I enter on the subject of your discourse and what you have advanced on it, I will give you my opinion of yourself. Your intimate friend Lucius Crassus has often been heard by me to say that you were beyond all question, superior to all our learned Romans, and that few Epicureans in Greece were to be compared to you. But as I knew what a wonderful esteem he had for you, I imagined that might make him more lavish in commendation of you. Now, however, though I do not choose to praise anyone when present, yet I must confess that I think you have delivered your thoughts clearly on an obscure and very intricate subject. That you're not only copious in your sentiments, but more elegant in your language than your sect generally are._
When I was at Athens, I went often to hear Zeno by the advice of Philo, who used to call him the chief of the Epicureans, partly, probably, in order to judge more easily how completely those principles could be refuted after I had heard them stated by the most learned of the Epicureans. And indeed, he did not speak in any ordinary manner, but like you, with clearness, gravity, and elegance. Yet what frequently gave me great uneasiness when I heard him, as it did while I attended to you, was to see so excellent a genius falling into such frivolous excuse, my freedom not to say foolish doctrines._
However, I shall not at present offer anything better. For, as I said before, we can in most subjects, especially in physics, sooner discover what is not true than what is."_
Okay, so this is the first section, and again, the most important aspect about where we're going to be going from here is that Cotta is what's called an Academic Skeptic. As he states several times, he's not going to tell you anything positive himself, because he's committed to saying that there are things that may be more probable than others. But you can never say that anything is true, because we just don't know, and it's not possible to know.
He tells Velleius that it's much easier for me to criticize you than to give you any positive information myself. In fact, if I wasn't so happy to criticize you, I wouldn't say anything at all, because I'm not going to even try to tell you what I think really is the true nature of the gods.
As we begin the discussion today, this is skepticism. This is the negative approach to knowledge in which you don't assert anything is true yourself, but you're happy to tear down what other people are suggesting to be true. This is a significant issue for us to consider not only in this argument, but also in the way we approach things today. Is knowledge possible? Can you live your life not taking the position that some things are true and some things are false and everything is only probable? That's the position that Cotta comes from, and that's how we will see him criticize the Epicurean position.
Joshua: In dealing with this issue of skepticism, Cassius, I think the first thing we need to do is to look at a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams, dated 15 August 1820. In it, Thomas Jefferson lays out the foundation of his metaphysics when he says:
Let me turn to your puzzling letter of May 12 on matter, spirit, motion, etc. Its crowd of skepticisms kept me from sleep. I read it and laid it down, read it and laid it down again and again. And to give rest to my mind, I was obliged to recur ultimately to my habitual anodyne. I feel, therefore I exist. I feel bodies which are not myself. There are other existences then I call them matter. I feel them changing place. This gives me motion. Where there is an absence of matter, I call it void or nothing or immaterial space. On the basis of sensation of matter and motion, we may erect the fabric of all the certainties we can have or need.
Then, skipping to a paragraph at the end of the letter, Jefferson says:
Rejecting all organs of information, therefore but my senses. I rid myself of the purinisms with which an indulgence in speculations, hyperphysical and antiphysical, so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind. A single sense may indeed be sometimes deceived, but rarely and never all of our senses, together with their faculty of reasoning, they evidence realities, and there are enough of these for all the purposes of life without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence. I am sure that I really know many, many things, and none more surely than that I love you with all my heart and pray for the continuance of your life until you shall be tired of it yourself.
In this letter, Jefferson gives us two indications of what he's encountering here. In a letter that was written by John Adams, he describes a crowd of skepticisms. And then, at the end of this letter, he says he rids himself, Jefferson rids himself of the purinisms with which an indulgence in speculations, hyperphysical and antiphysical, so uselessly occupy and disquiet his mind.
The problem with skepticism that we're going to encounter in this text, I think, is twofold. One of the reasons that it's a problem is because it's just kind of irritating when you come up against this brick wall that is Cotta, who doesn't want to stake out a claim. He does not want to lay out what his thoughts are. He doesn't want to occupy any particular ground and say, "This is what I think it is." Instead, he wants to be sort of everywhere at once, refuting and destabilizing and undermining the claims that everyone else is making without making any claims of his own.
The other problem with skepticism, and this is a problem particularly for Epicurus, is that when you suspend knowledge on the most important matters, what you're essentially doing by suspending knowledge is also suspending your own peace and your own happiness. If you say, for example, "I don't know whether the gods not only exist, but also interfere in this world and whether they're going to punish me both in this life and in the next," if you just throw your hands up and say, "I don't know, could be true, maybe could not be true." The problem for Epicurus is you've left the door open there to a kind of profound anxiety that threatens your very being.
This makes it difficult and perhaps impossible to really be at peace and to really be happy and to really live a life that is full and rich with pleasure. Knowledge is a stepping stone on the path to the telos, which is pleasure. And so if we said, as the skeptics and puranists say, that nothing is really knowable, what we're saying is that happiness is really impossible. For Epicurus, there's no worse sentence in the English language, in any language, than to say that happiness is impossible.
Cassius: Yeah, Joshua, let me pick up on one of the words you used earlier. It's irritating to see arguments like this advanced. You know, Cotta has led off his discussion by talking about what a wonderful, eloquent, nice person Velleius is. He's just praising him to the skies because you're more intelligent than any of our Roman philosophers, and you're not only smarter, but you're speaking more suavely, more articulately, and more persuasively than many of these other guys can do.
Well, we're going to get to some of the hypocrisy that's involved in that because, of course, Cotta is essentially a priest of the doctrine of the Romans. He's out there regularly presenting X, Y, and Z as true. Velleius is taking the same position with Cotta that he honestly believes that there's only certain things that you can know about the gods for sure. The rest of it you cannot.
But Cotta is entirely two-faced here. He's a priest of the Roman religion, and he's out there telling the public one thing, while he's telling Velleius he actually thinks something different, which is a major warning flag for someone's trustworthiness and honesty and clarity when they're just being so frank that they have a different truth depending on who they're talking to at a particular moment.
But beyond the hypocrisy that's involved in it, it's irritating because there's this lack of practicality going on. This is the criticism that Lucretius advances in several different ways. At the very same time that Cotta is alleging that what you, Velleius, are saying is nonsense, Cotta is describing Velleius's position as nonsense without stating his own standard for how he considers it to be nonsense or obscuring that standard and not being clear about it. He's perfectly willing to criticize and say that what you're suggesting, Velleius, is wrong. But how can you really have a position that something is wrong unless you have a position that something else is right?
And yet Cotta is not willing to state what he thinks is right about these issues that we're discussing. Lucretius states the position this way in Book Four, around line 469, he says:
Again, if anyone thinks that nothing is known, he knows not whether that can be known either. Since he admits that he knows nothing against him, then I will refrain from joining issue who plants himself with his head in the place of his feet.
And then Lucretius goes on to point out the discrepancy by saying:
Were I to grant that he knows this, that he knows that nothing is known, I would ask him this one question. Since he's never before seen truth in anything, how does he know what knowing and not knowing is?
If you're saying that you've never seen any truth yourself, how can you say for sure that something is false? There's this internal, inherent discrepancy and self-contradictoriness in the skeptical position that is not even honest because you cannot advance that something particular is wrong unless you're sure that you know yourself what is true.
We talked recently about the multiple explanation aspect of epicurean philosophy. When he says in relationship to the stars that the stars are distant, you don't have as much information about them, and so therefore you cannot take the same position of certainty about what's going on with the stars as you can about things that are going on here around, that we have the opportunity to examine closely and live with on a day-to-day basis about things that are local. You can and must. You have to, in order to live, take strong positions about whether certain things are true and certain things are false. About things that are distant and not directly affecting you from moment to moment, you can afford to take a position of multiple explanations and say that, well, you have to admit there's a number of things that could be true. You don't know which one of those things is true, but the evidence supports equally a number of different possibilities.
And when the evidence supports equally a number of different possibilities, you say simply, these are possibilities. You don't know which among them are true, and you accept them all as being possible. You are concerned about the truth. You would like to know the truth. You will pursue the truth to the extent that you can find it. But the wise man is going to realize that there are certain things when you have limited information that you don't know the truth about, and you're going to have to take an open mind about some things being true and some things being false. But even when you have limited information, you try as clearly as possible to delineate those things that are true from those things that you know to be false.
Skepticism takes a different approach and says that we just cannot know anything to be true. We just have to be content with probabilities. But they don't honestly state their own positions. They are ruthlessly negative in demolishing positions that somebody else gives without stating what is true from their perspective. That is a problem that, in regard to the stars, is not of day-to-day significance unless you think that the stars are supernatural and are going to control your life. That's why you have to take a position yes or no on whether the stars are supernatural gods or not.
And many of these questions that we'll be talking about through here have that aspect to them that it's not good enough, as you were saying, Joshua, to say it's probable that I'm not going to burn in hell for an eternity. It's not good enough to say that it's probable that a god is not directing the world around me and telling me what to do and other people what to do. It's not good enough to say probable or possible. If you're going to live happily, if you're going to realize that your life is short, you've only got one opportunity to spend it. You're going to spend it the best way you can. You're not going to entertain possibilities that would destroy your ability to live a happy life.
For that body exists, is declared by the feeling which all share alike. And unless faith and feeling be firmly grounded at once and prevail, there will be nothing to which we can make appeal about things that are hidden so as to prove anything by the reasoning of the mind.
And we see that in Lucretius, we see it in Diogenes of Oinoanda, we see it in Epicurus himself. This essential position that those things that are important to you and are going to be affecting your life on a day-to-day basis, you need to have a confident position about them. And it's not good enough to just say, that's possible, that's possible. That's possible when you have to live your life making decisions about them. As Lucretius says in Book Four, you've got to avoid walking over the edges of canyons. You have to avoid walking in the middle of the street when there's some cart or animal or bus coming down the street. You have to trust your senses and make decisions just to stay alive. And while some things you certainly have to make estimates of, and some things you have to judge by what is probable and what is not probable, there are other things that you have to take a position on.
While we're talking about this issue of probability and how the academic skeptics are approaching things, I don't think it's a fair criticism of Epicurus to say that he's not concerned about knowing the truth of things. He certainly wants to know the truth wherever he can find it. He just recognizes that there are certain aspects of life where you do have to accept multiple possibilities. I don't think, however, that we can read into Epicurus that he doesn't accept that some things are more probable than others. Just because Epicurus disagrees with the academic skeptics that everything is only a matter of probabilities, Epicurus is not so blind as to not know that you make many choices in life based on estimations of things that have happened in various ways in the past. You've observed certain things go with others, but not always. And you're constantly needing to evaluate probabilities and make decisions based on what is most probable.
So the point is, Epicurus doesn't reject reasoning by probability when probability is the only thing that you've got. He rejects alleging that everything is only a matter of probability. And he rejects organizing your life on issues that you just abstain from taking a strong position on. There's little more important in organizing your life to live happily than the idea of setting living happily as your goal. You're not going to reach a goal unless you define the goal and actually seek to achieve it. In the question of setting a goal for your life, the possibility that living happily is the right thing for you to do is not the right way to approach the question. You bring all of your intelligence, all of your evidence, all of your observations to bear on this question, and then you make your decisions based on the best reasoning and the best analysis that you can possibly apply.
Joshua:
Epicurus, in the letter to Menoeceus, says that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, and others through our own agency. While the issue of chance, necessity, and agency doesn't seem to be directly linked to this issue of skepticism versus dogmatism, it's clear just from reading this that Epicurus knows he hasn't got it all figured out. He knows that there are things he doesn't know, and there are things that he will never know.
What he doesn't say, and what people like Cotta and Pyrrho will say, is that everything is unknowable to any degree of certainty. Cotta might say that it's probable that a thing is one way or another, but he's not going to say it is that way rather than another. He won't go that far. Epicurus, on many matters, is more than prepared to go that far. However, he also knows that there are matters, whether they be too far removed from our senses, like the celestial bodies, where certain knowledge of them becomes difficult to acquire.
His knowledge in that case is that they have to follow the same fundamental rules of physics that things on Earth follow. But beyond that, it's not necessarily possible to know most of what's going on with them for someone standing on Earth. It's disputed whether the Greeks had lenses in this period, possibly with no lenses to focus on these objects in space. In other words, the ground that he stands on, which is his physics, is firm and knowable. However, once you get further and further away, around the edges, there's uncertainty.
Uncertainty is fine; we're never going to get away from uncertainty. But to say, as Cotta and the skeptics say, that everything is uncertain is just about the worst possible foundation for philosophy that you could come up with. I point to that letter by Thomas Jefferson that I quoted earlier as being a good way to see right through this problem. If you're Cotta, are you even prepared to say with certainty that you exist? As Thomas Jefferson says, "I feel, therefore I exist," echoing Descartes, who said, cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I exist"). Is any skeptic going to go as far as these two in even asserting their own existence?
This, to me, is one of the deep and challenging problems with Pyrrhonism and with skepticism more generally.
Cassius:
What is probability in the first place? Does probability mean that you're 98% sure of something? Does it mean that you're 51% sure of something? Does it mean that you're 50.001% sure of something? What's magic about probability in terms of majority versus minority? Is there some divine sanction if the scale is slightly tilted in one particular direction? Who says the scale knows what the right answer is?
There's a rabbit hole that you never emerge from when you go down this path of questioning everything and saying that there is nothing by which to come up for error and make decisions based on it. Again, referring to the discussion that we had this past week on the forum, there is a tendency, I think, on some skeptics' part to project their own dispositions onto Epicurus. In that this multiple explanation model that Epicurus advances in regard to the stars—not in regard to things around us uniformly, but certainly in regard to the stars—they project that as an indication that he does not care about the truth, that he is happy to accept multiple explanations and try, la la, walk on down the road, have no concern about evaluating whether any of those explanations are more likely than another, or really being sure what the truth actually is.
I think that's a projection that has nothing to do with what Epicurus is really doing in that process. If you really, honestly don't have the ability to choose among a set of answers, all of which are consistent with the evidence, and none of which are contradicted by the evidence, if you really seriously cannot choose between them, then how in the world would you choose between them? Unless you're just being totally arbitrary and capricious, you're not showing a disregard or desire to learn the truth. You're pursuing the truth as aggressively as you can by recognizing the truth that each of these options is equally supportable under the evidence.
Anyone interested in pursuing this further? There were two articles mentioned on our forum this past week. One by a professor in Texas, another by a professor in Tennessee. The Tennessee professor, I thought, did a wonderful job of describing what Epicurus's multiple explanations approach allows you to do without falling into this idea that he's not concerned about the truth. There are many interesting aspects of this that we'll continue to hit as we go forward. Epicurean philosophy is very strong throughout, all the way through into the latest writing of Epicurean philosophers that we know of. The wall of Diogenes of Oinoanda, who said:
"Now, Aristotle, and those who hold the same peripatetic views as Aristotle, say, nothing is scientifically knowable because they 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 what they do say, that at one time this is white and this is black, while at another time this is neither white nor black, if they had not had previous knowledge of the nature of both white and black."
So, in other words, the constant thrust here is that these people who say that nothing can be known are actually talking to us. They're using words and concepts that they expect us to understand. The self-contradiction is inherent in their position because they expect us to understand certain things to be true, at the very same time that they're alleging that nothing is true.
Why don't we go forward and we'll see some of the practical effects of this? In section 22, Yang translates this way:
"If you should ask me what God is or what his character and nature are, I should follow the example of Simonides, who, when Hiero the tyrant proposed the same question to him, desired a day to consider it. When he required his answer the next day, Simonides begged two days more. And as he kept constantly desiring double the number which he had required before, instead of giving his answer, Hiero, with surprise, asked him his meaning in doing so, 'Because,' said he, 'the longer I meditate on it, the more obscure it appears to me.'"
Simonides, who was not only a delightful poet but reputed a wise and learned man in other branches of knowledge, found, I suppose, so many acute and refined arguments occurring to him that he was doubtful about which was the truest and therefore despaired of discovering any truth. But does your Epicurus—for I would rather contend with him than with you—say anything that is worthy of the name of philosophy or even of common sense?
Here's the part where Cotta brings out his own hypocrisy in the question concerning the nature of the gods. His first inquiry is whether there are gods or not. It would be dangerous, I believe, to take the negative side before a public audience. But it is very safe in a discourse of this kind and in this company. This is Cotta speaking:
"I, who am a priest, and who think that religions and ceremonies ought sacredly to be maintained, am certainly desirous to have the existence of the gods, which is the principal point in debate, not only fixed in opinion but proved to a demonstration. For many notions flow into and disturb the mind, which sometimes seem to convince us that there are none. But see how candidly I will behave to you, as I shall not touch upon these tenets you hold in common with other philosophers. Consequently, I shall not dispute the existence of the gods, for that doctrine is agreeable to almost all men, and to myself in particular. But I am still at liberty to find fault with the reasons you give for it, which I think are very insufficient."
Okay, so here's the point. This is Cotta who says, "I am a priest, and I think religions and ceremonies ought sacredly to be maintained." Well, that does not appear to be his honest impression of the nature of the gods because, as a priest in his ceremonies, he is making representations that apparently he does not himself believe to be true, which is, at the very least, not an accusation that is valid against Velleius.
Joshua:
In Section 22, Cotta starts with a story about the philosopher Simonides, who worked for the tyrant Hiero. The question presented to Simonides was, "What is God? What is his character and nature?" Simonides, as you read, Cassius, keeps expanding the time horizon on when he's going to have an answer because the more he thinks about it, the more arguments relating to this occur to his mind, and he becomes doubtful about which argument was the truest. Cotta follows up this story, which he ends with the words, "Simonides, therefore, despaired of discovering any truth." He follows up this story by asking whether Epicurus, compared with Simonides, had ever said anything that was worthy of the name of philosophy or whether Epicurus had ever said anything which was worthy of the name of common sense.
Cotta is staking out a very aggressive position here for a guy who only wants to talk about probabilities. There's a passage in the letter of Lucian of Samosata to his friend Celsus regarding the false prophet, Alexander of Abinotecus. Lucian says this:
"At this point, my dear Celsus, we may, if we will be candid, make some allowance for these Paflagonians and Pontics. The poor, uneducated fatheads, in the words of the prophet himself, might well be taken in when they handled the serpent, a privilege conceded to all who choose and saw in that dim light its head with the mouth that opened and shut. It was an occasion for a Democritus, nay, for an Epicurus or a Metrodorus, perhaps a man whose intelligence was steeled against such assaults by skepticism and insight, one who, if he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been perfectly certain that though this escaped him, the whole thing was a lie and an impossibility."
I cite this passage, Cassius, in response to Cotta's question about whether Epicurus had ever said anything that was befitting a philosopher or a person with common sense. Lucian is saying here that it is only really Epicurus's approach that allows someone to see through this ruse. If you want someone who's going to see through this fraud, the three guys you want in your corner are Democritus of Abdera, Epicurus of Samos, and Metrodorus, his best friend.
The way this works is Epicurus, as we've been saying this whole episode, is not claiming to know everything. Lucian admits that right here:
"A man whose intelligence was steeled against such assaults by skepticism and insight, one who, if he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been perfectly certain that though this escaped him, the whole thing was a lie and an impossibility."
This, to me, is the difference between Epicurus and his approach, and Cotta, Cicero, and others like them and their approach. Epicurus uses incidental skepticism—I might call it skepticism on one or more singular questions. He uses that kind of skepticism in order to probe and prod, and the whole project of probing and prodding in this way is to arrive at a position of certainty.
That's what Lucian is describing here. By approaching the problem of this fraudulent fake, papier-mâché snake that Alexander the oracle monger has made for himself in order to appear as a prophet sent by the gods, what we need is someone who's going to walk in there, someone worthy of the name of a philosopher, someone with common sense. We need someone to walk in there and say, "I don't know exactly what is going on here. I'll need to examine this problem a little bit more. But it's clear to me that something is going on here. It's clear to me that the claim that this man is making, this false prophet, is a lie. Somewhere hidden in here is the truth. I haven't quite found the truth yet, but I'm confident that it will be possible to do that. When I submit what I'm seeing to examination, it will be possible to arrive at certainty of the truth."
Skepticism, in this case, is a tool that gets you where you're going. And really, when I say skepticism, I'm talking lowercase 's' skepticism, as opposed to capital 'S' Skepticism of Cicero and Pyrrho and others like them. Another word for that is Pyrrhonism, which is maybe a preferable word for that reason.
To answer Cotta's question directly: Yes, Epicurus said many things that were befitting a philosopher, and even many more things than that that were befitting a person with common sense.
Cassius:
Yeah, Joshua, I really want to endorse what you've been discussing about skepticism. There's capital 'S' Skepticism, which is a puristic viewpoint committed to the idea that truth is not findable. Then there is the common-sense way that we use the word skepticism, meaning that you're questioning—like the bumper sticker that used to be famous: "Question authority." That's the kind of skepticism we're talking about. When somebody argues something to you without evidence and just asks you to accept it based on intimidation, that demands skepticism.
I've sometimes heard people say that there is nothing so worthy of disbelief as those things that you are forced to believe by law or peer pressure. The truth generally does not need to be enforced by law or force. The truth is generally clear enough for people to see, observe, and accept. When you add this type of intimidation on top of it, that is a major red flag indicating that even deeper skepticism than normal is necessary.
We've been focusing so far mostly on the skeptic part of Cotta being an academic skeptic. But going hand in hand with the skeptic part is the academic part, and we shouldn't forget that Plato and the Academy are so much associated with the analogy of the cave and these noble lies that are told to keep the people in line. That's what I think we're seeing Cotta talking about here: the members of the Platonic school are willing to warp what they say to achieve their outcomes, regardless of whether it is true or not. That has to be kept in mind as we listen to these arguments as well.
We know from the founder of the school that keeping the people in line was so important to him that it really formed the basis of his attack on the senses. You're not going to be able to keep people in line unless you can convince them that they don't have the ability to determine the truth on their own. That's the direction they're going in. Call it Platonism, call it skepticism—the result is the same. The Epicureans understood this and fought back against it.
I've got another quote. Fragment Five says this:
"Others do not explicitly stigmatize natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge this, but they 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?"
Now, that last sentence—I've seen people debate it because I've seen people say, well, people choose to seek what they can never find all the time. But the point of this academic skeptic argument is that if you once convince people that they cannot find the truth on their own, then that will go a long way toward demoralizing them into stopping even the effort to find the truth. They will just begin to take your word for whatever it is you wish to present.
That's what Diogenes of Oinoander is saying. When people assert that things are unknowable, what else are they saying other than that there is no need for us to pursue knowledge? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?
Epicurus is committed not just to finding happiness. That is the conclusion that he reaches after going through the process of his philosophy. But he is committed, as he was at the age of twelve in looking into chaos, to finding the truth. He is convinced that he can find the truth on those things that matter to him. On those things that do not matter to him in his life, on those things that don't have an impact on him, he is happy to accept possibilities and then get back to the job of living happily, which is the number one thing he's supposed to be doing. He's not going to pursue knowledge about things that are not relevant to him just for the sake of pursuing knowledge.
That's where people get off into the criticism of Epicurus—that he's not concerned about science, he's not concerned about the arts, he's not concerned about X, Y, and Z. Well, he is concerned about the truth, and he's concluded that a complete knowledge of X, Y, and Z is not relevant to his life. He's therefore not going to waste his time that he could spend better occupied on things that are important to his life.
That distinction, I don't think it's possible to overemphasize as we listen to Cotta's criticism of Epicurus. We're not listening to some honest person who is willing to honestly go out and say what he really thinks and then act on it. We're listening to a person who does not honestly believe what he says when he leads the religious ceremonies, yet he's willing to represent to other people that they should believe what he does not believe himself.
That's why I personally think it's so important to hit this issue hard—that Epicurus is not willing to accept any answer just so he can live happily. He wants to live happily because he's been convinced of the truth of the conclusion that living happily is what nature gave him life to do.
So it's not Epicurus who should be condemned for not wanting to know the accurate answer to every question. It's the skeptics and the academics who are willing to lie to you about those things that are important to them.
The best proof of the sincerity of Epicurus, and that he was in fact concerned primarily about truth and not just concerned about his own personal desire to pursue pleasure, is that I cannot conceive that the Epicurean school would have been as successful as it was in the ancient world and taken so seriously, had the people who knew Epicurus, had the people who knew the Epicurean teachers, and had access to the Epicurean writings not themselves been convinced that Epicurus was truly committed to finding and promoting the truth.
That's the intensity of expression that comes through in Lucretius's poem. It comes through in Diogenes of Oinoander's inscription. It comes through in the writings of Epicurus himself. Yes, he wants to be happy. Yes, he values pleasure. Yes, he values even humor. But in the end, he is convinced that his position is not only beneficial to men, but also it is correct. It is, in fact, the way things are, based on nature.
Joshua:
In the universe you've been describing today, Cassius, there is some inherent dishonesty in Cotta and his view of things. On the one hand, he has this public face as a priest of the Roman state religion, the pantheon, and so forth. On the other hand, in private, he's prepared to say that we can have no certain knowledge of the existence of the gods in the first place.
It seems, Cassius, that one of our themes today is dishonesty, and I do want to press that a little bit further. Cicero, in Book Two of On Ends, is engaging in an argument with Torquatus the Epicurean, much in the same way that Cotta is engaging in an argument with Velleius the Epicurean on the nature of the gods. Cicero, in Book Two of On Ends, says:
"What, pray, are we to think of the situation if you, Torquatus, bearing the name you do, and gifted and distinguished as you are, dare not profess before a public audience the real object of all your actions, aims, and endeavors, what it is, in short, that you consider the greatest good in life, in return for what? Payment or consideration? When not long hence, you have attained to public office and come forward to address a meeting, for you will have to announce the rules that you propose to observe in administering justice. And very likely also, if you think good, you will follow the time-honored custom of making some reference to your ancestors and to yourself. For what consideration then would you consent to declare that you intend in office to guide your conduct solely by pleasure, and that pleasure has been your aim in every action of your life?"
And then Cicero says this:
"Make the same profession, Torquatus, in a law court, or if you were afraid of the public there, say it in the Senate. You will never do it. Why? If not because such language is disgraceful, then what a compliment to Triarius and myself to use it in our presence."
What Cicero is saying there is that Epicureanism, when stated honestly and clearly, is too shameful and too disgraceful to admit in public, even for a figure of Torquatus' standing in Roman politics.
The irony of this is that Cicero, now in this other book On the Nature of the Gods, has his spokesman Cotta, who is a priest of the Roman state religion, and is not willing to say publicly what he really thinks privately, which is that all of what we think is knowledge is tentative and uncertain. He can't even say for sure, as a priest of the Roman state religion, whether God exists. So I think there's an interesting comparison to be made there.
There's another passage in DeWitt's book where he mentions how easy it is for someone like Demosthenes, this great statesman of the city-state of Athens, to stand in front of the people and say that "We did all of the sacrifices and they were propitious for you. We have cleaned and repaired the temple, and all of that's looking good for you as well. So we've done everything we were supposed to do as your leaders, and now the gods favor you, and everything is looking good."
To which point was, this isn't difficult to say. There's nothing hard about saying to people exactly what they want to hear. The challenge is saying something that is true, but also saying something that is true and that people don't want to hear. I quoted earlier from Lucian of Samosata and his letter against Alexander, the oracle monger. That whole letter, written by this figure who associates himself with Epicureanism, is exactly that kind of letter. He's saying things that are true and that threaten someone in a position of power.
So the charge that we would make against Cotta, Cassius, is basically the same charge that Cicero leveled against Torquatus in On Ends, which is that the things you're saying to me now, Cotta, you wouldn't say these things in the Senate, in the court of law, or in your temple where you serve as a priest.
Cassius:
Yes, that would be the charge. Associated with that charge is not only the issue of being dishonest with the people but also the reason behind this dishonesty. Velleius has just been giving his own explanation for the reason we believe that gods exist. In that sense, he's reinforcing a proper religion, and he has provided his reasons for believing that the gods are blessed and imperishable. He's praising and eloquently elevating the nature of the gods, which should be entirely acceptable to Cotta.
However, what Velleius is not doing is allowing Cotta to invoke the gods as justification for his rule over the people. He doesn't let Cotta use the gods as a threat to people with divine wrath if they don't comply with his wishes or as a promise of rewards if they do. There's the old Latin phrase, cui bono? — for whose good are things being advocated? It’s worth noting that the heart of Cotta's criticisms of Velleius's position does not concern the existence or the blessedness of the gods. Instead, it pertains to the usefulness of the gods to Cotta and religion as a tool to intimidate and control others.
Cotta is not merely being hypocritical and dishonest for its own sake. He's not pursuing a skeptical argument solely due to a commitment to skepticism. It makes no sense to be committed to the idea that you should never be firm or committed to anything. There’s a reason behind the motivations of Plato, the academics, and the skeptics. While it might be, in certain instances, a desire for nihilism or self-destruction for those enamored with destroying themselves, in most cases, you should look beyond the surface to the motivations. You’ll find that the priestly class is most motivated to be dishonest about something that, if the truth were known, would destroy their occupation, power, and influence over others.
Cotta can be gentlemanly in praising Velleius's ability to articulate his position in a suave way, but behind this facade of friendliness, there's an understanding that if Epicurean philosophy were understood by more people, those who understand it would drop away from the influence and control of religious authorities.
Okay, so at this point, let's bring the discussion to a close. We'll come back next week at Section 23 and delve into some of Cotta's more specific objections to Epicurus. Joshua, do you have any closing thoughts as we wrap up today?
Joshua:
Yeah, Cassius, in light of what you were saying a moment ago about some people, particularly those in power, using religion as a tool to control people, it brings to mind that famous quote from Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He says, "The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally useful."
I want to end this episode by contrasting two Roman poets and their views on this subject to show a way forward. First, let's take Juvenal. In his 10th satire, written in probably the second century AD, he writes:
"You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body. Ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death and deems length of days the least of nature's gifts, that can endure any kind of toil, that knows neither wrath nor desire, and thinks the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus. What I commend to you, you can give to yourself. For assuredly the only road to a life of peace is virtue."
Juvenal's 10th satire strikes a balance between Epicureanism and Stoicism, though it leans more toward Stoicism, particularly at the end. He suggests that the only road to a life of peace is virtue and begins with a prayer for a healthy mind in a healthy body.
Horace, who is often challenging to pin down philosophically, gives us the famous quote, "As for me, when you want to laugh, you will find me fat and sleek, a hog out of Epicurus's herd." In the 18th epistle of Horace from his first book of epistles, he provides an idea of what an Epicurean might say in response to Juvenal:
"In the midst of everything you will read, and you will ask your teachers by what system you may pass your life gently. Ask whether desire that always needs more should trouble and disturb you, whether fear and hope for things that are not advantageous, whether philosophy or nature will give you virtue, what will lessen anxiety, what will make you a friend to yourself, what will bring you simple tranquility, whether it is public honors, or the pleasure of profits, or the secret way and the path of a hidden life from others.
As for me, when I am refreshed by the cold stream of Digentia, which Mandela drinks, a village furrowed with cold, what do you think is my opinion, my friend? What do you believe is my prayer? Let me keep what I have now, or even less, so that I can live out the rest of my life. If the gods wish me to live longer for myself, let me have a good supply of books and a year's supply of food, and may I not float, hanging on the hopes of an uncertain hour."
While Horace offers a bit of a prayer there, he continues:
"It is enough to ask Jupiter for what he gives and takes away. He may grant me life. He may grant me wealth. I myself will provide a mind free from anxiety."
Horace emphasizes that with philosophy, one does not need to supplicate the gods for personal help because one is capable of helping oneself. This contrast between the 18th epistle of Horace and the 10th satire of Juvenal highlights the Epicurean view that a wise person does not need or want anything from the gods. The gods exist as models of the blessed and most pleasurable life, but an Epicurean does not need them for anything, unlike figures such as Cotta, Cicero, and others like them.
This distinction relates back to the issue of control. Epicurus's relationship with the gods differs from that of other thinkers because he doesn't want or need anything from them. He doesn't need them to justify power because he doesn't seek power. He doesn't need them to provide wealth because he does not particularly want wealth. The thing he desires, he knows he can secure for himself.
That was fairly long-winded for a final comment.
Cassius:
But very well stated. I think that what you said is a very good place to end the episode today. We've spent a lot of time talking about the Academy, skepticism in general, and so forth. But all of these issues are very practical, and Epicurus is concerned about the truth so he can apply it in practical day-to-day life.
Epicurus was committed to the truth because the truth is practical. There's no discrepancy or tension between the pursuit of truth and the pursuit of a happy life. Epicurus was committed to the idea that the best way to pursue a happy life is to pursue the truth. They reinforce each other in ways that the academic skeptics are never going to admit.
We'll come back next week and further explore the academic skeptic argument in section 23. Thanks for your time this week. Please be sure to drop by the forum and let us know if you have any questions or comments about this or any of our other episodes or discussions about Epicurus.
We'll see you next week. Till then, bye.