Episode 246: Examining Epicurean Evidence-Based Reasoning

Transcript of Episode 246. 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!

Welcome to Episode 246 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 Epicurean texts and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to your life today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in studying Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we have a discussion thread for this and each of our podcast episodes.

We are continuing our series on Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods. Specifically, we will be discussing section 31 from Book 1 today, as we continue with the same theme in which Cicero's character, Cotta, attacks the Epicurean method of reasoning about the gods. Cotta suggests that the Epicureans' reasoning makes no sense, and he implies that the Epicureans should be laughing at each other because it's all so ridiculous. He delves into speculations about what language the gods speak, what kind of bodies they have, and even what kind of blood they possess. His argument is that because we cannot prove these things with specificity, none of the conclusions the Epicureans draw about the gods should be taken seriously.

Cotta presumes that after we destroy the Epicurean projections about the nature of the gods, we can start over from scratch, without any evidence, and begin supporting the positions of Plato and others. These positions were closely related to the Roman religious beliefs of the time, beliefs of which Cotta himself, as a priest, was a proponent. This is despite his personal philosophical stance of skepticism, in which nothing is taken to be known with certainty.

At the end of the material we quoted last week, Cotta cited what is essentially Principal Doctrine 1: the statement that "a being which is happy and immortal is not burdened with any labor and does not impose any on anyone else." From that point, Cotta continues his criticism of Epicurus's position. In section 31, he says:

In his statement of the sentence, some think that [Epicurus] avoided speaking clearly on purpose, though it was manifestly without design. But they judge ill of a man who had not the least art. It is uncertain whether he means that there is any being happy and immortal, or that if there is any being happy, he must likewise be immortal. They do not consider that he speaks here indeed ambiguously, but in many other places, both he and Metrodorus explain themselves as clearly as you have done.

Cotta then continues:

Epicurus believes there are gods, nor have I ever seen anyone who was more exceedingly afraid of what he declared ought to be no objects of fear, namely death and the gods, with the apprehensions of which the common rank of people are very little affected. But he says that the minds of all mortals are terrified by them. Many thousands of men commit robberies in the face of death, and others rifle all the temples they can get into. Such as these, no doubt, must be greatly terrified—some by the fears of death and others by the fear of the gods.

I think it's important to point out that Cotta is likely being sarcastic here. He is essentially complaining that Epicurus exaggerates the fear of death and the gods and the role these fears play in his philosophy. Cotta implies that common people are not as affected by these fears as Epicurus suggests. He says, "many thousands of men commit robberies in the face of death, and others rifle the temples," indicating that these people clearly are not terrified of death or the gods. If they truly were, they would not be engaging in such activities.

Joshua, do you agree that Cotta is being sarcastic in his critique of Epicurus?

Joshua: Yes, it's very clear that Cotta is being sarcastic. In Cicero's On Ends, we see a similar counterargument, where Cicero claims that some people are so shameless in these matters that they would even eat off the sacrificial plates offered to the gods. Horace also has an ode or satire that says something like: "Do you think virtue is only words and a forest only firewood? Then your main goal in life is to earn money," insinuating that some people would cut down a sacred grove to get the wood from the trees. I think Cotta is clearly stating that not only are there some people who have no fear of the gods or death, but there are many who are unaffected by such concerns.

Cassius: It's interesting how we still see echoes of these arguments today when people criticize Epicurean philosophy. Some say, "Good grief, Epicurus thinks that everyone is terrified at every moment, constantly fleeing from the threats of gods and death." They argue that his philosophy doesn't make sense because people aren't actually as terrified of gods or death as Epicurus makes them out to be. He ends up making fear of death the centerpiece of his philosophy—the main motivation for all people doing all things—when really, that’s not how the world works.

Kalosyni: As I listen to what you just said, Cassius, what comes to mind is how the world is different now compared to Epicurus's time. The actual process of dying isn’t right in front of our eyes anymore. It takes place in hospitals, and movies often depict death as something like falling asleep, giving the impression that it’s not a big deal. But imagine back in Epicurus’s time how different things were. People likely died much younger, and there was far more death among infants and young children. Our civilization has changed a lot in how we view death.

Moreover, many people today claim they're not afraid of death, but when they are really confronted with it, it's a completely different experience. Suddenly, you have to deal with the reality of death. If you haven’t done enough thinking about it beforehand, that moment is going to be a very different experience compared to someone who has thought through it in the way the Epicureans advise.

Cassius, I think you’re raising excellent points there, Kalosyni. In the modern world, we have what’s called the hidden death. People don’t die in their beds as much anymore, and they’re not left out in the living room for a wake. All of that has become institutionalized; it’s professional work now, rather than something handled in the home.

Another factor in the modern world is our ability to use the internet, which offers us—perhaps illusorily—a more private and introspective view into people’s mindsets and lives than was available in the ancient world. But we also have the ability to conduct mass polling and statistical analysis. If you check the Wikipedia page for "death anxiety," there are some interesting insights. For example, a 2012 study involving Christian and Muslim college students from the U.S., Turkey, and Malaysia found that their religiosity positively correlated with an increased fear of death. In other words, their religion actually made them more afraid of death.

Most interesting to me, however, was a discovery in 2017 in the U.S. that plotted the fear of death in a bell curve. Religiosity was on the lower axis of the curve, meaning the people least afraid of death were either highly religious or not religious at all. The most fear was found in those in the middle, where there’s less certainty about the afterlife or the role of gods. It’s an interesting phenomenon that those with either strong belief or strong disbelief in gods or an afterlife seem to have less death anxiety.

The phrase "there are no atheists in foxholes" comes to mind. Many hold this to be true, assuming that without religion or God, you would be terrified of death. This phrase itself seems to imply the fear that people associate with death when lacking a religious foundation.

Also, you mentioned people ransacking temples. In ancient societies, the temples were often used as treasuries. They were considered the safest places to store the state’s money, as they were believed to be under divine protection. If this practice held any validity, it suggests that most people were still afraid of the gods, even though some individuals were not.

Cassius: Kalosyni, yes, that’s an interesting observation. I also thought of another example. The Epicureans certainly understood that not everyone lives in constant fear of the gods to the point that they would never commit wrongdoing. In fact, Epicurean philosopher Diogenes of Oenoanda, in Fragment 20, says:

It is obvious that wrongdoers, given that they do not fear the penalties imposed by the laws, are not afraid of the gods. This must be conceded, for if they were afraid, they would not do wrong.

He goes on to point out that some of the most religious people are often those who commit the worst deeds. Lucretius, of course, cites the example of Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia to secure favorable winds for his fleet.

So, what Cotta is doing here is chipping away at Epicurus’s credibility. But the Epicureans certainly understood that people are not robots, driven every moment of their lives by the fear of death or the gods. There are many times in life when we aren’t thinking about death or divine matters. You have to address these issues to form a foundation for setting the course of your life, but you aren’t constantly living in fear, thinking, “Am I going to die in the next two minutes?” or, “Is a god telling me what to do right this second?”

There are people who think that way, but the great majority of people do not, and Epicurus certainly understood that. At this point in the argument, we come to a paragraph that is much clearer about where Cotta is going with his critique. In this paragraph, we can begin to understand the defects of Cotta’s position and his misrepresentation of Epicurus’s teachings on how to think about things that are imperceptible to the senses. This issue is central to much of the controversy surrounding Epicurean philosophy, making this a particularly important passage.

Let me read it first, and then we'll break it down. Here's what Cotta says next:

"But since you dare not (for I am now addressing my discourse to Epicurus himself) absolutely deny the existence of gods, what hinders you from ascribing a divine nature to the sun, the world, or some eternal mind?"

I want to emphasize that the tone of the argument here has shifted. Cotta is no longer criticizing Epicurus for being overly concerned with the fear of gods and the fear of death. Instead, he's making a logical argument. He’s asking, “Why, Epicurus, are you not willing to just absolutely deny the existence of gods?” Cotta believes that everything Epicurus says leads to that conclusion. Since Epicurus does not dare to absolutely deny the existence of gods, Cotta asks why he doesn't simply admit that the sun, the world, or some eternal mind possesses a divine nature. In other words, why not just take the next step and become one of those who believe that the things we see in the sky—or even the world around us, or some eternal mind we can't even see—are gods? What prevents Epicurus from taking that position?

Cotta continues, representing what he believes to be Epicurus’s position:

"I never," says he (Epicurus), "saw wisdom and a rational soul in any but a human form."

Cotta is alleging that Epicurus is saying he will not believe in anything unless he has previously seen it himself. Now, of course, it would be absurd to take the position that one will not believe in anything unless they've personally seen it, and that was certainly not Epicurus’s stance. But this is the claim Cotta is making, and he extends his argument:

"What? Did you ever observe anything like the sun, the moon, or the five moving planets? The sun, terminating his course in two extreme parts of one circle, finishes his annual revolutions. The moon, receiving her light from the sun, completes the same course in the space of a month. The five planets, in the same circle, some nearer, others more remote from the earth, begin the same courses together and finish them in different spaces of time."

Cotta is pointing out that the various celestial bodies move at different rates, which we can’t fully explain. His implication is that since we have never seen anything like these phenomena here on Earth, and even the phenomena in the sky differ among themselves, it is impossible—under Epicurean philosophy—to come to any generalizations or understanding about them.

He continues:

"Did you ever observe anything like this, Epicurus? According to you, there can be neither sun, moon, nor stars, because nothing can exist but what we have touched or seen."

At this point, Cotta’s argument becomes very clear. Let me repeat for emphasis: Cotta is asserting that, according to Epicurus, nothing can exist unless we have touched or seen it.

Cotta then cashes in on the argument he has laid out. He challenges Epicurus by asking, “Why, then, do you believe in gods at all?” This is where Cotta is headed with his line of reasoning.

He continues:

"Have you ever seen the day itself? Why else do you believe that there is such a thing? If this doctrine (your doctrine, Epicurus) prevails, we must reject all that history relates or reason discovers, and the people who inhabit inland countries must not believe that there is such a thing as the sea."

Cotta is arguing that if we adhere to such a narrow way of thinking, we would reject many things that are widely accepted. He then gives an example:

"If you had been born in Seriphos and had never been outside of that island, where you frequently saw little hares and foxes, you would not believe in the existence of lions or panthers. And if anyone described an elephant to you, you would think that he was trying to mock you."

Now Cotta is shifting to an example that we can all understand, one that doesn’t involve anything as controversial as the nature of the gods. He’s not discussing the details of whether the gods have quasi-blood or quasi-bodies. Instead, he is revealing what he believes to be Epicurus's core reasoning process.

This argument touches on our day-to-day activities and the way we think and act in the normal world, making it relatable to our common experiences.

Cotta is alleging that Epicurus takes the position that you should never believe in anything unless you can see or touch it for yourself. This is clearly not Epicurus's position. If we wanted to indict Cicero for misrepresenting Epicurus’s views, this would be one of the clearest examples, because no rational person would assert that they only believe in things they have personally seen or touched. Epicurus certainly didn’t believe that, yet this misrepresentation becomes the core of Cotta’s attack.

At the heart of this argument is a point of logic: Can we, by reasoning based on the information nature allows us to perceive through our senses, form reasonable opinions about the nature of the sun, moon, and planets? Or, must we abandon our senses, let our imagination run wild, and consider possibilities such as the sun, moon, and planets being divine or gods themselves? That’s what’s at stake here.

Epicurus is saying that we can come to reasonable conclusions about the moon, stars, and planets without resorting to supernatural explanations. We can use our observations here on Earth, combined with what we see in the sky, to draw natural, rather than supernatural, conclusions.

Cotta, on the other hand, argues that since we have never seen anything on Earth like the sun, moon, or planets, reasoning by analogy is useless. He raises the example of people living in inland places who have never seen the sea—should they believe that the ocean does not exist just because neither they nor their friends have ever seen it? What about people who live in lands inhabited only by rabbits and foxes, who have never seen a lion, panther, or elephant? Would they be justified in claiming that such creatures do not and cannot exist?

Cotta's argument suggests that, under Epicurean reasoning, no one should believe in anything unless they have seen it themselves or have a trusted friend who has. This is, of course, a gross distortion, and it's entirely ridiculous. Epicurus never claimed that one must directly observe everything to believe in it. Rather, his philosophy allows for reasoning from evidence provided by nature and the senses.

This argument is particularly interesting because it seems to swap the roles of Epicurus and Cotta. Cotta, on the matter of the gods at least, appears to be taking the stance that just because something hasn’t been seen doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, Cotta frames Epicurus as if he were a hardline skeptic, who would say that something like the sea is impossible because he hasn’t seen it himself.

This reminds me of a quote from Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, one of the Sherlock Holmes stories. In it, Holmes says:

"From a drop of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it."

This quote leans heavily on the use of logic as a primary tool of epistemology. It suggests that we can infer much from limited information—exactly the kind of reasoning that Epicurus would support, as long as it’s grounded in the evidence of the senses. In Epicurean philosophy, sensations and feelings are canonical faculties, and the prolepsis (anticipations) also play a key role. While Epicurus emphasized the senses, he clearly employed reasoning along these lines in his approach to understanding the world.

You can't see or touch an atom and know it to be an atom. You can touch objects that we believe are made of atoms and void, but you can't directly interface with an atom because it's far too small to register with your senses. Nevertheless, Epicurus was able to reason from things he could see, touch, and sense and infer the existence of atoms, which he could not sense directly except as part of compound bodies. This clearly shows that, at least on this issue and others like it, Epicurus was more than capable of reasoning beyond merely what his senses provided him.

As Epicurus acknowledges in the Letter to Pythocles, when dealing with celestial phenomena—such as the rotation or evolution of the sun, moon, and, to the ancient world, the five moving planets—you're entering an area of experience that is beyond your ability to measure directly. Therefore, we must be careful with our epistemology, especially concerning what we think we can know about these celestial bodies.

The fact that ancient astronomers only recognized five planets, rather than eight or nine, was due not just to their limited ability to sense them but also to the lack of instruments to detect what their eyes alone could not. When dealing with something so far removed from your own experience, caution is necessary. However, this doesn't mean you must be equally cautious in everything. For instance, observing a small mammal might allow you to believe that large mammals exist elsewhere, even if you haven’t personally encountered them.

There have been challenges, even for great scientists, in applying this method of reasoning. For example, when the duck-billed platypus was first discovered in Australia, a dead specimen was sent back to the Royal Society in London. The biologists initially thought it was a forgery. They searched for suture marks, suspecting that the bill had been stitched onto the body. It wasn’t until they received reports of a live specimen being observed in its habitat that they began to believe it was a real animal.

The failure to predict the existence of the duck-billed platypus, however, is not a failure of epistemology. Part of the process of applying the senses is being willing to apply them to things you encounter in the future—things you didn’t know of previously but gain knowledge of as you continue to live. So, I don’t think Cotta's argument is very strong here.

Cassius: Joshua, I was about to agree with everything you said, but then the very last thing you said—that Cotta’s argument isn’t very strong—I’m inclined to agree with as well. However, I also think his argument resonates with a lot of people, which is why we must carefully deconstruct it to show why it’s wrong.

We do have a natural drive to verify things for ourselves. It’s understandable to think that if we haven’t seen or touched something personally, we won’t have a strong belief one way or the other. We might simply suspend judgment. Of course, in Epicurean theory, you refrain from taking a position when you lack evidence. You would never take a position that undermines your confidence in the senses because you’ve already concluded, through past experience and reasoning, that the senses are your only connection to external reality. If the senses are not valid and cannot ultimately be relied upon after repeated use, then there is no other method you can depend on.

This realization forms the foundation of Epicurean reasoning. Speculation without evidence must be rejected. You always need some kind of evidence on which to base your speculations and theories. In situations where you don’t have all the information you want, if you must take a position, you take one that is consistent with your past observations and rational inferences. You do not allow yourself to entertain supernatural or irrational conclusions just because you lack all the evidence you would prefer to have.

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yYou know that you’re not always going to have all the evidence you’d like, so it’s reasonable in such situations to consider multiple possibilities. You look at everything that is consistent with the evidence you have and recognize that there may be several explanations for a phenomenon. You have to be comfortable with that ambiguity because the only alternative is to reject your senses, abandon reason, and open the door to saying that anything is possible.

In fact, the very next thing Cotta says is:

"You indeed, Velleius, have concluded your argument not after the manner of your own sect, but of the logicians, to which your people are utter strangers."

What Cotta is implying here is that he’s accusing the Epicureans of using a form of logic that they themselves criticize when used by others, such as the Megarians, Stoics, or Platonists, who take logic to extremes. The point to clarify here is that the issue is not that the Epicureans are anti-logic. Rather, they are anti-logic when it is based on no verifiable evidence—when it is cut loose from reality and driven purely by speculation.

Velleius, Epicurus, and the Epicureans are perfectly willing to use logic to reach conclusions on important issues, such as whether gods exist or whether there is life after death. However, they base their logic on the evidence of things we can see and be confident of in the world around us. They are not willing to speculate about life after death because no one has ever seen a person or animal come back to life after being truly dead. They also don't believe in the creation of something from nothing, as no evidence has ever shown this to occur.

Cotta's arguments provide us with valuable insight. He points out that Epicureans are, indeed, willing and capable of engaging in rigorous logical reasoning, but only when it is grounded in the evidence of the senses. This is the foundation of Epicurean reasoning. Based on this, they are willing to take strong positions on controversial issues.

The key distinction between methods of reaching conclusions is whether you ultimately tie those conclusions back to the evidence of the senses. Epicurean conclusions are always held to that standard: can you find some evidence, through similarity or analogy, that connects your theory to something we can confidently observe in the world? Do we have the ability to relate our theories to real, observable phenomena within our experience?

These arguments highlight the distinction. Are people who have never seen the ocean, or people who have only ever seen rabbits and foxes, limited in their thinking? No, they are not. Similarly, an Epicurean is not limited from taking a position on certain aspects of gods just because they have never seen one. Logic is important when used properly, especially when used inductively to reason from the known to the unknown.

This method of reasoning is not a prophetic faculty, but it allows us to expand our inquiry and access to knowledge. When you use deductive logic recklessly, as in the famous story from Plato’s Academy, you could end up saying something absurd. For example, if you claim that "all featherless bipeds are human," you would then have to conclude that a plucked chicken is a human. But when you use inductive reasoning—reasoning from the known to the unknown—you can cautiously expand your understanding while remaining tentative in your conclusions.

As you read last week in Isaac Asimov’s essay, The Relativity of Wrong, gaining understanding about the world is a process of refinement, not necessarily one of wholesale revision.

I think it’s an important distinction because it would be easy to say, as Charles Darwin noted, that "the common sense of man said that the Earth stood still, and the Sun moved around it." However, as every philosopher knows, the saying vox populi, vox dei ("the voice of the people is the voice of God") cannot be trusted in science. In science, we use reason and our ability to expand our experience through instruments to gain new information, which allows us to refine our understanding. The fact that there have been refinements and revisions does not invalidate the whole process or the procedure.

I believe this was the point of Isaac Asimov’s essay, The Relativity of Wrong: just because you’ve changed your mind or adjusted your opinion over time doesn’t mean that your current understanding is as wrong as your original ideas. The process of refinement brings you closer to a more accurate understanding of nature.

Joshua: Yes, that's exactly what I took away from Asimov’s article as well. Current discoveries or theories about quantum mechanics, for instance, haven’t overturned the practical ability to use engineering and mathematical principles that were well-known before quantum mechanics. We still use those principles effectively today. It’s not about overturning old theories entirely, but about refining them.

For example, saying that the Earth is spherical is more correct than saying it’s flat, but it’s still not entirely accurate because the Earth is not a perfect sphere—it’s slightly oblate, bulging at the equator. Nevertheless, the spherical description is far closer to the truth than the flat-Earth view. So, the issue is about the relationship of your position to being right or wrong. Some positions are much closer to the truth than others, even if they aren’t perfect.

In paragraph 32 of Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods, Cotta says:

"You indeed, Velleius, have concluded your argument not after the manner of your own sect, but of the logicians, to which your people are utter strangers."

He’s essentially accusing the Epicureans of using logic in a way that even they themselves criticize in other philosophical schools like the Megarians, Stoics, or Platonists—who take logic to extremes. Cotta says, “You have taken it for granted that the gods are happy.” He allows this point. Then he goes on to agree that “without virtue, no one can be happy,” and that “virtue cannot reside where reason is absent.” However, he takes issue when Velleius says, “reason cannot exist but in a human form.”

Cotta asks, why should he agree that reason is limited to human form? He’s suggesting that Velleius’s logical progression—moving from happiness to virtue and from virtue to reason—suddenly takes an unjustified leap when it asserts that reason is uniquely human. Cotta wants to know why the conclusion suddenly jumps from reason to human form, without gradual steps, as before.

Joshua, I think the way we deal with that is by asking why Cotta accepts the earlier steps but rejects the final one. If Cotta is a skeptic, can he really say with certainty that no virtuous person has ever been unreasonable, or that no god has ever been unhappy, or that no one without virtue has ever been happy? If he agrees with the first steps, why does he reject the last?

This is similar to the discussion we had about featherless bipeds. If you abstractly define a human as a featherless biped and hold to that position, then logically, you would have to accept that a plucked chicken is a human. That’s an example of how abstract reasoning, if not grounded in reality, leads to absurd conclusions.

The way an Epicurean would defend against such logic is by returning to the core principles. As Epicurus stated, the key things to know about gods are that they are living beings, blessed, and imperishable. That’s the critical point—not that they speak Greek or have human-like bodies or blood. We don’t know the details of a god’s body or blood because we’ve never had direct experience with one. This puts us in a similar position as in the Letter to Pythocles, where Epicurus discusses celestial phenomena like the movement of the stars and planets. We seek reasonable explanations consistent with nature, but we recognize that we can’t eliminate all possibilities to arrive at just one definitive answer.

However, by coming up with several reasonable possibilities, we can confidently assert that the explanation must be natural and non-supernatural, even if we cannot determine the exact cause with certainty.

This is very similar, as we've discussed many times, to Lucian's discussion of Alexander the Oracle Monger, where he suggests that although Epicurus may not know the precise way Alexander was manipulating his snake, he would be certain that the snake was not supernatural. This is the same kind of position we’re taking regarding the movement of the stars and planets, which Velleius suggests is a reasonable position to take regarding the gods as well. If gods are living beings and have any kind of body, it must be something like a body, though we don't know the details. If they have blood, then it must be something like a blood system, though again, the specifics remain unknown.

Cotta, however, takes a position that is an unreasonable inversion of the truth. He argues that the Epicurean view—grounded in familiar human experience and reasonable speculation—is absurd, while his own view, which divorces the gods from any connection to bodies, blood, or humanity, is reasonable. In fact, the opposite is true: the Epicurean position is far more reasonable, as it acknowledges multiple possibilities, whereas Cotta’s position rejects natural explanations altogether.

Epicurus fully understood this method of reasoning, as he taught it in relation to the stars, planets, moon, and weather—phenomena for which we don’t have precise explanations. Cotta is taking this reasoning out of context, ignoring Epicurus's approach of considering multiple possibilities, and trying to make it seem ridiculous by presenting it in isolation.

If we compare the positions of Velleius and Cotta from a high-level perspective, we see that Velleius has only speculated that, since gods are living beings, and every living being we are familiar with has some kind of body and blood, it’s reasonable to assume that gods might have similar features. That’s all Velleius is saying.

However, Cotta isn’t presenting himself as a neutral party or as someone advocating caution. He is a priest of the Roman religion, someone who will leave this discussion and go into the forum to sacrifice goats, read their entrails, and predict the future based on their internal organs. Cotta is the one taking truly absurd positions, as he is unwilling to break away from the Platonic, supernatural vision of gods—gods who exist in a mystical realm, demanding worship—rather than approaching the gods as part of the natural universe, as Velleius does.

This is a continuation of the argument we’ve been discussing. Cotta tries to imply that Epicurean reasoning would lead someone living inland to deny the existence of the sea, or that someone who has only lived around rabbits and foxes would deny the possibility of lions, panthers, or elephants. But an Epicurean would not accept that kind of reasoning as valid. An Epicurean would point out that lions, panthers, and elephants are simply larger versions of foxes and rabbits, and they are not supernaturally different from other living beings.

No Epicurean would get trapped into thinking that differences in size, behavior, or survival tactics (e.g., the fox’s cunning versus the lion’s strength) represent differences in kind rather than in degree. Similarly, no one who has only seen a pond or stream would logically deny the possibility of larger bodies of water, like oceans. These are differences of degree, not fundamental differences in nature.

The comparison between living beings and gods follows the same logic. The differences between an ant and a human being are ultimately differences of degree, not differences between natural and supernatural entities. When we talk about species and genera, these are human-imposed classifications based on observations we’ve made and the distinctions we’ve decided are significant. Nature doesn’t consult a list of species and genera when creating life.

One of the fundamental points of the Epicurean perspective is that differences between living beings are matters of degree, not of kind. This applies not only to animals but also to our understanding of the gods.

When we talk about the difference between kind versus degree, what I would suggest is that we are referring to something so different as to be inconceivable. It is very conceivable that there should be rabbits, foxes, lions, panthers, elephants, and all sorts of other animals. Even if you’ve only encountered a small subset of that wide spectrum of living beings, it is still within the realm of what’s possible based on observation. However, to suggest that all living beings in nature can suddenly be endowed with the ability to create a universe from nothing—that’s a leap that is inconceivable, unrealistic, and contrary to the conclusions we draw from nature and physics. It’s simply an illegitimate suggestion.

The defense of Velleius in response to Cotta is that it is appropriate to make observations, draw logical connections, and be flexible in extending those observations in ways that are consistent with what we know. But the key question is: where do we stop? Is it legitimate to say, “I’ve never seen it before, therefore it cannot exist”? Cotta’s argument is persuasive because he points out that it is not sound reasoning to reject something merely because you haven’t seen it. However, while it’s unsound to claim that something doesn’t exist simply because it hasn’t been seen, this does not mean that anything is possible. That’s a non sequitur.

Throwing out the rule that you must have seen something before to believe in its existence does not lead to the rule that anything can exist. We still have all the rules of nature deduced from prior observations, and those rules don’t disappear just because we open ourselves up to the possibility that things might be different elsewhere.

Cotta himself raises an obvious example: people who live inland have no experience with the sea, and people who live on the sea have little experience with mountains. They need to be cautious in making assumptions about each other’s environment. But does that caution mean that anything is possible, such as the idea that everything is controlled by a supernatural being? Of course not. That conclusion would be far more wrong—akin to saying the Earth is flat. Cautious reasoning, based on observation, is the more productive way to approach the unknown.

Joshua: I certainly agree with what you’re saying. We do have the ability to project beyond our experience and infer the possibility of things we haven’t seen. I’ve never seen a brontosaurus or a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but I can imagine them because we have evidence of their existence. Where I would defend the Epicureans on the issue of reason only existing in human form is that this claim doesn’t appear directly in Epicurus’s own writings, but in later fragments or through Cicero’s interpretation. Cicero had access to texts we no longer have, but I would argue that whether gods or beings on other worlds have human forms is largely irrelevant.

In fact, I fully expect that if we discover life on other worlds, it will take forms unlike anything we’ve encountered on Earth due to different planetary conditions and evolutionary histories. But there’s another side to this. For Epicurus, the gods are not just answers to epistemological questions—they represent the best possible life, a life of pleasure that we should emulate. It’s easier to model your life after another human being than after, say, a tree. You can admire certain qualities in other beings, but picturing an optimal life of pleasure is more relatable if you envision a human-like being.

Cotta might argue that humans share the form of the gods, but as a practical matter within Epicurean philosophy, it’s easier to imagine a life of pleasure in human terms. The gods serve as an example for how to live, and imagining them as human-like is useful for that purpose.

Yes, I think that’s the direction all of this goes. Whether one chooses to be an Epicurean shouldn’t rest on whether they think gods have human forms. It’s important to understand that the Epicureans often discussed possibilities, not certainties. They aimed to provide people with something to grasp, something understandable, especially in the face of religious radicals who claimed that gods controlled their lives or determined their fate in heaven or hell.

Epicurus and his followers lived in the real world, dealing with real people and their happiness. They wanted to provide people with confidence to stand up to priests like Cotta, who seem reasonable on the surface but are actually trying to undermine confidence in the senses and reasoning. Cotta isn’t just discussing these things to be friendly—his goal is to lead people to adopt his supernatural view of the gods. By mocking Epicurus for suggesting that gods might speak a language like Greek, Cotta is attempting to discredit the entire Epicurean system. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of Epicurean reasoning, which always rests on the evidence of the senses and reasonable possibilities, not on speculative supernatural claims.

The issue is not what language the gods speak or what the gods look like. The real question is whether there are supernatural gods that created the universe and dictate how we must live, or whether there is only a natural universe in which people live according to the rules of nature. These rules are understandable in human terms, just as elephants, lions, panthers, rabbits, and foxes come to terms with their own existence. Human beings, using the faculties nature has given us, can also come to terms with our existence. We don’t need to discard those faculties, hate ourselves, or reject our ability to reason and perceive, in favor of believing in a supernatural realm that dictates how we should live.

Cassius: Joshua, Any closing thoughts?

Joshua: Cassius, zooming out and taking in the big picture, as you've done, is central to my own view of this topic. If we lose sight of the confidence that there is no life after death and no eternal torture waiting for us, or that there is no creator deity existing outside time or nature, we do ourselves a disservice. The issues we’re discussing in this text—while interesting—are quite minor compared to the core aspects of Epicurus’s thought, which have a much greater impact on how we live.

You’ve said it many times, Joshua: if it turned out that, for example, Christianity were true, it would radically change the way we live our lives if we had certain knowledge of it. Losing confidence in these core Epicurean beliefs because of how Epicurean theology has been transmitted and received would be a major problem. So, we must zoom out, take a wider view, and avoid getting stuck in the weeds. While these discussions are important, they are not central to Epicurus’s philosophy in the same way that his views on death are.

Cassius: Yes, indeed. What’s central to Epicurus’s project is how we analyze things and develop confidence in our conclusions, which allows us to live happily. It’s not essential to know the exact type of pleasure to pursue at every moment or the language the gods might speak. Those details can be helpful to discuss, but the main reason they’re important is that they help us understand the argument well enough to take it apart and reconstruct it. Only then do we gain confidence that our position is the right one.

You can arrive at the same conclusion through different paths, but the steps you take to get there will determine whether you are confident enough to retrace them. Confidence comes from understanding where you came from and where you are going, rather than drifting aimlessly according to circumstances.

There’s still much more to discuss. For instance, we didn’t have time to talk about why Cotta was willing to agree with Velleius on several important points—whether gods would be happy, virtuous, and rational—but refused to agree on the nature of the gods. That’s an interesting question, and it ties into the larger issue of reasoning from the known to the unknown.

We’ll need to explore what is discussed in Philodemus’s On Signs or On Methods of Inference because this method of reasoning is critical to understanding Epicurean thought. We’ll reconstruct as much of the Epicurean method as we can using Philodemus, Sextus Empiricus, and other sources as we continue through Book 1 of On the Nature of the Gods.

Okay, let’s leave it there for today. We’ll come back next week. In the meantime, please drop by the forum and let us know if you have any questions or comments about this or any of our episodes. Thanks for your time. See you next week. Bye!