Classics and the Western Canon discussion

After another paean to Epicurus and a guide to Book 5 (does this remind you of a college syllabus?), we get into Lucretius's cosmology. Contrary to Hesoid, Lucretius rejects the idea that the gods had anything to do with the creation of the earth or heavens. Rather, it's just a matter of clashing atoms, though he offers several options without committing himself to any. And, discouragingly, the world is mortal and there is an apocalypse coming.

The cosmology is of some interest, but of more interest to me is his concept of the development of social society. And here, once again, he seems to me amazingly prescient, maybe not getting the details right but proposing the basic concept of Darwinism. And again, he rejects Hesiod by ignoring his Five Ages of Man concept. Indeed, while Hesiod tracks humanity from near divinity (the Golden Age) downward to the current (for him) Iron Age, Lucretius seems to give us a human pattern that is improving over time, with what seem some fairly modern concepts of human development from hunter-gatherer to city dweller, through the development of language and other aspects of civilization. I'm not up on modern sociology, but I'm sure others are and can comment on whether, once again, his general concepts and ideas are remarkably modern, even if the details aren't.

I don't know about others, but I found this one of the more enjoyable sections of the work.

I, too, have enjoyed this chapter more than most others (not quite finished). To really appreciate Lucretius's chronicle of origins, I feel we'd have to compare it with other semi-naturalistic cosmogonies of the time. How unique was Lucretius's approach, versus the mythological approach of Hesiod (who was, in any case, not of particular interest to Roman authors)? I assume there were Stoic equivalents to Lucretius's cosmogony, though probably nothing contemporary has survived. I think most of our knowledge of Stoic physics comes from non-Stoics such as Diogenes Laertius three centuries later.... I do know the Cappadocian Hexamerons of the fourth century, whose authors possessed an excellent Greek education, took careful account of proto-scientific observations of the natural world in their theistic accounts of creation.

Note that Lucretius doesn't abandon his conception of plant and animal forms to chaos and flux; he argues for an immutable nature possessed by each creature, born individually from the earth. This is one of the places where his atomism definitely seems more ancient than modern, philosophically.

Martin Ferguson Smith notes that Lucretius is probably basing his account of primitive humanity, like most other things in this chapter, on Epicurus. And it makes sense what I've read elsewhere that book five of Lucretius was a favorite of Rousseau, whom we nearly got to read next. His description of humankind in a "state of nature" certainly borders on rosy, socially speaking. Notice Lucretius's assertion that the primitive's chance of getting eaten isn't half as bad as the devastations of civilized war and seafaring, and starvation isn't as ruinous as death from overeating. His view seems to be quite similar to that of the Cynics, who held that primitive humans had a life that was both harder than ours and, in at least some respects, morally preferable.

Lucretius's discussion of the origin of language roughly corresponds to the "Pooh Pooh" or interjectional hypothesis, which posits that language began as a series of responsive instinctive vocalizations that gradually got assigned concrete meaning. Words are ultimately wholly arbitrary assignations of sound to meaning. This theory went back to Democritus and, I think, survives in some form despite the permutations of the field of evolutionary linguistics.

Lucretius wasn't the only one to reject the Hesiodic view of man descending from a golden age; Monica Gale in her book on Lucretius traces two alternative views to the Hesiodic: the "heurematistic," which emphasized inspired first inventors and genius cultural heroes; and the "evolutionary," which was worked out by Xenophanes and Democritus, according to which human culture development is gradually impelled forward by necessity and human ingenuity. Gale notes Lucretius seems most influenced by the latter.

Lucretius's genealogy of the state is familiar: people got tired of violence and anarchy, so they opted for the stability provided by harsh laws. His genealogy of religion, interestingly, begins with religious experience. And this was legitimate religious experience, except people misinterpreted their visions and supposed that such lofty, blissful beings were in control of everything, and so must also possess the properties of cruelty and wrath.

"Further, if earth and sky had no beginning,
No first-becoming, but have always been,
Why haven't other poets sung other songs
Besides their "War at Thebes" and "Death of Troy"?
Where have men's myriad deeds all gone, to bloom
Nowhere implanted in fame's eternal records?
No; as I think, our universe is quite new,
Our world is young; it started not long ago"

This struck me as pretty funny. I guess Lucretius is the first "young earth materialist"?

Genni wrote: ""Further, if earth and sky had no beginning,
No first-becoming, but have always been..."

Rex wrote: "Note that Lucretius doesn't abandon his conception of plant and animal forms to chaos and flux; he argues for an immutable nature possessed by each creature, born individually from the earth ..."

I think this is the weirdest thing about Lucretius. I can accept his mistaken conclusions because I can see a reasonable thought process behind them, but the idea that the earth and sky had no beginning, and that creatures emerge wholly formed without a process of becoming seems counter-intuitive. Is he in fact opposed to the idea of change or evolution? If I read him correctly, he does not believe that there is a design or intelligence at work -- it is all merely random pieces coming together and either succeeding or failing -- but isn't this a kind of becoming or evolution?

Patrice wrote: "It startles me to read something from so long ago that is in synch with modern thought. "

I have felt the same way through much (most?) of the book.

While as we have noted often, he gets some details wrong (based on what we now think we know), but his general approach is often very modern. And it's not only the conclusions he comes to but the method he uses -- rejecting any appeals to the gods or to supernatural forces and starting with observation and developing arguments from that.

Patrice wrote: "Line 592

He doesn't realize that the sun is huge. What a surprise. He calls it tiny and wonders how such a tiny thing can create such heat. I find this hard to understand. Can he not have been awA..."

Yes this was puzzling, because he would have noticed how the lambs look like white dots from a distance and made an analogy on the basis of that perception.. Hmm..

L. was well aware of perspective, though the sun is of course difficult to observe. However, on the moon L. said something remarkable: it must be small because we don't see an aerial perspective (579).

I have read that biological evolution was one of Epicurus’ 'correct' prescientific ideas. But of adaptive evolution not a trace is to be found here.

Instead it is assumed that 'young nature' produced a multitude of life forms through 'spontaneous generation'. From these most were culled, after which the surviving forms remain stable (for the duration of this world). In this way there is both change and stability in Lucretius’ universe.

So what we have is a a period of selection (’survival of the fittest’), but no adaptive evolution. Though, Lucretius comes close when he discusses the development of language, comparing it with animal communication. We can see the advantage he gets from not putting humans in a category beyond comparison - which may be seen as a corollary of his materialism. But he does not follow up.

Instead he explains language with a comparison to the development of speech in the child - which presumes the existence of a ready speech facility. Again, he lacks the central insight in evolution - adaptation. We talk because we can, says Lucretius, but that will not do. Hands may not exist to play the piano, and our mind may not exist to contemplate metaphysical truths. But the function of a heart is none other than to pump blood, and our vocal capacities have not fallen from the sky either.

Epicurus is so afraid to leave a loophole for the gods that he rather denies 'purpose' even when it’s obvious. Here we see that the Epicureans were philosophers, not scientists: the system overrules the facts. There is always an ulterior motive. The closest parallel in the modern world is probably Marx' 'scientific' socialism.

I did some probing, and apparently the Epicureans were kind of eccentrics about the size of the heavenly bodies, asserting they were the size they appeared. This is clearly stated by Epicurus himself. But their position was widely dismissed by ancient astronomers and ridiculed by philosophers of other schools. Greek astronomers guessed that the sun was between nine and thirty times as large as the moon. Cleomedes, possibly writing around the same time as Lucretius, wrote that the sun is 6.5 times the diameter of the earth, and he reported that he could find no astronomer who would give a smaller ratio (though Ptolemy's widely accepted calculations later reduced this to 5.5). Cleomedes added that the Epicureans think it's only a foot across.

A little survives of the early debates, and basically the Epicureans argued that since the sun appears small, it is. Epicurus points out that fires, seen at a distance, do not appear smaller than they are, and the sun is fire. The other probable reason they maintained the sun was small was to discourage the sort of religious awe and worship advocated by Platonists and others. Belief in an inconceivably large sun was not an ally to ancient naturalism.

This is certainly a place one could argue that Epicureans' commitment to their founders' opinions failed them (see also the issue of the location of the mind which I cited elsewhere). That, and Epicurus's eagerness to trumpet empiricism and the principle that things are the way they appear.

As so many other Greek thinkers Epicurus struggled with the division of space and time: should we assume the existence of minimal sizes (as a way to solve Zeno's paradoxes)?

Epicurus did, leading to what we might call a digital view of the world. When this conflicted with the observation that the length and side of a square are not commensurable with its diagonal, the Epicureans simply dismissed mathematics, giving Cicero a field day (from O'Keefe's excellent introduction to Epicurean thought, p. 23-24).

This same digital view of the world led Epicurus to assume a universal speed limit. However, this is seems entirely coincidental with the modern discovery of the speed of light.

Rex wrote: "A little survives of the early debates, and basically the Epicureans argued that since the sun appears small, it is. Epicurus points out that fires, seen at a distance, do not appear smaller than they are, and the sun is fire. The other probable reason they maintained the sun was small was to discourage the sort of religious awe and worship advocated by Platonists and others. Belief in an inconceivably large sun was not an ally to ancient naturalism.."

Very interesting, and understandable.

Wendel wrote: "So what we have is a a period of selection (’survival of the fittest’), but no adaptive evolution. Though, Lucretius comes close when he discusses the development of language, comparing it with animal communication. We can see the advantage he gets from not putting humans in a category beyond comparison - which may be seen as a corollary of his materialism. But he does not follow up.

Instead he explains language with a comparison to the development of speech in the child - which presumes the existence of a ready speech facility. Again, he lacks the central insight in evolution - adaptation. We talk because we can, says Lucretius, but that will not do. Hands may not exist to play the piano, and our mind may not exist to contemplate metaphysical truths. But the function of a heart is none other than to pump blood, and our vocal capacities have not fallen from the sky either.

Epicurus is so afraid to leave a loophole for the gods that he rather denies 'purpose' even when it’s obvious. Here we see that the Epicureans were philosophers, not scientists: the system overrules the facts. There is always an ulterior motive. The closest parallel in the modern world is probably Marx' 'scientific' socialism.


Yes, the more and more I read Lucretius, I find that this book is more or a philosophical/ethical propaganda than a scientific treatise. The scientific 'theories' seem to be more of a means to support and propagate his belief system. Some of his theories on celestial bodies (such as the size of the sun or the multiple explanations for the phase of the moon and the eclipse) seem to open up all possibilities to not fall into the trap of being totally in the wrong. However opening up all possibilities to avoid loopholes doesn't equate with the truth and sometimes even falls into self-contradiction. On the other hand, his method of accepting all possible theories seem to hit the right target coincidentally on some points (like the survival of the fittest or the speed of light) and it's remarkable how much coincides with modern scientific discovery occur in this Epicurean world view. It goes to show how much is possible through insight, reasoning and open-minded thinking, even without the scientific experimentations and methods. I think it's something to note as many scientists have an abundance of the right materials, methods and theories but lack the intuition or observation needed for new innovative discoveries.

Rex wrote: "I did some probing, and apparently the Epicureans were kind of eccentrics about the size of the heavenly bodies, asserting they were the size they appeared. This is clearly stated by Epicurus himse..."

Ah, thank you. I was wondering about that. Interesting.

Patrice wrote: "Fires seen at a distance don't appear smaller than they are?"

Well, often you really can't tell, can you? If it's at night and all you can see is the fire, you have no idea how big it is. (Not an unusual circumstance in a society without any lighting other than fires or oil lamps where at night there are no other distracting lights from windows, street lighting, etc.)

If during the day, because you're looking at the fire in the context of the landscape, it is clear how big it is because you can see whether, for example, its a campfire that's just a dot of light or a forest fire which is consuming a hillside. Either way, you automatically resize it in your mind, don't you, to recognize its actual size?

Borum wrote: "Yes, the more and more I read Lucretius, I find that this book is more or a philosophical/ethical propaganda than a scientific treatise. "

It certainly has that aspect for me, too, though I don't see that it discounts the scientific aspects. But he was using the work to present a philosophical viewpoint and to argue an atheistic position in addition to its scientific value. In a way it reminds me of some of the political writers of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Locke, Hobbes, and Marx, who were ostensibly writing about governing policies and practices but were just as much writing about political principles. I see Lucretius doing much the same thing, in a way.

Everyman wrote: I don't know about others, but I found this one of the more enjoyable sections of the work.

Gosh, I hope so!! Just starting Book 5.