Episode 331 - The Self-Defeating Paradox of Radical Skepticism
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Welcome to Episode 331 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 we 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 discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero’s “Academic Questions” from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato’s Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus. This week will focus on Section 12. and transition to Book Two, where we will begin with Section 7
Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We’ll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we’ll also refer to the Rackam translation here:
And when he had spoken thus — You have, said I, O Varro, explained the principles both of the Old Academy and of the Stoics with brevity, but also with great clearness. But I think it to be true, as Antiochus, a great friend of mine, used to assert, that it is to be considered rather as a corrected edition of the Old Academy, than as any new sect.
Then Varro replied — It is your part now, who revolt from the principles of the ancients, and who approve of the innovations which have been made by Arcesilas, to explain what that division of the two schools which he made was, and why he made it; so that we may see whether that revolt of his was justifiable.
Then I replied — Arcesilas, as we understand, directed all his attacks against Zeno, not out of obstinacy or any desire of gaining the victory, as it appears to me, but by reason of the obscurity of those things which had brought Socrates to the confession of ignorance, and even before Socrates, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and nearly all the ancients; who asserted that nothing could be ascertained, or perceived, or known: that the senses of man were narrow, his mind feeble, the course of his life short, and that truth, as Democritus said, was sunk in the deep; that everything depended on opinions and established customs; that nothing was left to truth. They said in short, that everything was enveloped in darkness; therefore Arcesilas asserted that there was nothing which could be known, not even that very piece of knowledge which Socrates had left himself.
Thus he thought that everything lay hid in secret, and that there was nothing which could be discerned or understood; for which reasons it was not right for any one to profess or affirm anything, or sanction anything by his assent, but men ought always to restrain their rashness and to keep it in check so as to guard it against every fall. For rashness would be very remarkable when anything unknown or false was approved of; and nothing could be more discreditable than for a man’s assent and approbation to precede his knowledge and perception of a fact. And he used to act consistently with these principles, so as to pass most of his days in arguing against every one’s opinion, in order that when equally important reasons were found for both sides of the same question, the judgment might more naturally be suspended, and prevented from giving assent to either.
This they call the New Academy, which however appears to me to be the old one, if, at least, we reckon Plato as one of that Old Academy. For in his books nothing is affirmed positively, and many arguments are allowed on both sides of a question; everything is investigated, and nothing positive affirmed. Still let the school whose principles I have explained, be called the Old Academy, and this other the New; which, having continued to the time of Carneades, who was the fourth in succession after Arcesilas, continued in the same principles and system as Arcesilas. But Carneades, being a man ignorant of no part of philosophy, and, as I have learned from those who had been his pupils, and particularly from Zeno the Epicurean, who, though he greatly differed from him in opinion, still admired him above all other men, was also a person of incredible abilities…
The rest of this Book is lost.
Transcript (Unedited)
Section titled “Transcript (Unedited)”Cassius:
Welcome to episode 331 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucious 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 we 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@epicureanfriends.com where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes as we’ve been doing for many weeks. Now we are in Cicero’s academic questions from an epicurean perspective because of course Cicero and his book Academic Questions are not focused on Epicurean philosophy, but what they are focused on is a key question of philosophy about the nature of knowledge and whether it is attainable or not. And in the debate that Cicero is conveying through academic questions, we can see the outlines of the Epicurean response to that.
And today especially, we’re going to be moving into a transition section of the book where we’re going to highlight how there are some similarities between the epicurean and the stoic position with the skeptics lining up on the side of the successors to the academy. Now as a prelude to today, it is very unfortunate to have to point out that the version of academic questions that we’ve been going through and will continue to go through is not well preserved from the ancient world. It appears even that Cicero may have started a rewrite of the book in the middle, and as best I can understand what the commentators are saying, what we really have left is some combination of an original and a rewrite and they don’t all fit together like Cicero originally intended. We have been starting out in this book one with Cicero, using Vero to introduce a basic outline of the development of Socrates, Plato the Academy, the split off from Aristotle, and most recently in our discussions, the split off of the stoics and he’s done that in very general terms.
When we finished section 12, which we’re going to read today, the book stops abruptly. What we have is what’s listed for us by young as Book two, and the discussion picks up in a totally different place and going in a totally different direction than where we end section 12 today. What we are doing in the podcast and going through academic questions is trying to focus on the theories of knowledge that were being debated during the epicurean timeframe. So what we’ll do is skip over a lot of introductory material, not specifically related to this question. We’re going to pick up a discussion that gives us more detail about the stoic position, and again, in doing so, what we learn will assist us in understanding Epicurus viewpoint and how it differed. So last week we ended introducing the fact that Zeno had appeared on the scene. So now we’ll turn to Joshua. He can remind us of anything he thinks is significant from where we left off last week. And when he’s ready, we will move into section 12, which is the final section we have of book one of academic questions.
Joshua:
So before I go directly into section 12 to finish out book one, let me read something from section five of book two, which we were planning on skipping over, but it’s kind of relevant to what we’re talking about in section 12, and this whole book is out of order anyway. In section five, we have the interlocutor lays a very interesting charge at the feet of Cicero, a charge that we ourselves have laid at the feet of Cicero. Many times you appear to me in the first place addressing Cicero by name when you speak of the old natural philosophers to do the same thing that seditious citizens are in the habit of doing when they bring forward some illustrious men of the ancients who they say were friends of the people in the hope of being themselves considered like them, they go back to Valerius who was cons the first year after the expulsion of the kings.
They enumerate all the other men who have passed laws for the advantage of the people concerning appeals when they were consoles. And then they come down to these better known men, MIUs, Lucius, Cassius and Quintes Pompeo. They are also in the habit of classing africanus on the same list with Publius, Craus, Publius, Skyla, Tiberius, g, GRCA, CAAs, Marius. So it’s a list of distinguished names and in like manner you when you are seeking to overturn a well-established system of philosophy in the same way as those men endeavored to overturn the republic, bring forward the names of impedes and ris, Democrat, par Parmenides Zno, and even Plato and Socrates. And yet those natural philosophers, though very seldom when they have any very great difficulty make loud and violent outcry as if under the influence of some great excitement impedes indeed does so to such a degree that he appears to me at times to be mad crying out that all things are hidden, that we feel nothing, seem nothing and cannot find out the true character of anything whatsoever.
But for the most part, all those men appear to me to affirm some things rather too positively and to profess that they know more than they really do know. So four of the philosophers that were mentioned in that section five in book two were Socrates, Democrat and Exegists and impedes. This is all going to click when I read what I’m about to read. So at the end of section 11, last week we came to the end of Vera’s summary of the old Academy of Old Platonism and of the ways in which the descendants of the academy, the successors of the academy, modified and changed and expanded on that original foundation. And Cicero says this and when he had spoken, thus you have said, I Cicero, you have said, I Ero explained the principles both of the old academy and of the stoics with brevity, but also with great clearness.
But I think it to be true as Antiochus, a great friend of mine used to assert that it is to be considered rather as a corrected addition of the old academy than as any new sect. So then Vero replied, it is your part now who revolt from the principles of the ancients and who approve of the innovations which have been made by our CLIs to explain what that division of the two schools which he made was and why he made it so that we may see whether that revolt of his was justifiable. Then I Cicero replied, our CLIs as we understand directed all his attacks against Zino, not out of obstinacy or any desire of gaining the victory as it appears to me, but by reason of the obscurity of those things which had brought Socrates to the confession of ignorance and even before Socrates, ISTs and Ris impedes and nearly all the ancients who asserted that nothing could be ascertained or perceived or known, that the senses of man were narrow, his mind feeble the course of his life short and the truth as Democrat said, was sunk in the deep that everything depended on opinions and established customs that nothing was left to truth.
They said in short that everything was enveloped in darkness. Therefore our CLIs asserted that there was nothing which could be known, not even that very piece of knowledge which Socrates had left himself. Let me read that passage from the Rackham edition Accordingly, our clu said that there is nothing that can be known, not even that residuum of knowledge that Socrates had left himself. The truth of this very dictum that is the dictum that all that I know is that I know nothing and our CLIs is saying, no, Socrates, you don’t even know that you know nothing. Thus he thought that everything lay hidden secret and that there was nothing which could be discerned or understood for which reasons it was not right for anyone to profess or affirm anything or sanction anything by his ascent, but men ought always to restrain their rashness and to keep it in check so as to guard it against every fall for rashness would be very remarkable when anything unknown or false was approved of and nothing could be more discreditable than for a man’s ascent and approbation to proceed his knowledge and perception of a fact.
And he used to act consistently with these principles so as to pass most of his days in arguing against everyone’s opinion in order that one equally important reasons were found for both sides of the same question, the judgment might more naturally be suspended and prevented from giving ascent to either this system of thought described by our CLIs they call the new academy, which however appears to me to be the old academy if at least we reckon Plato as one of the old academy for in his books. Nothing is affirmed positively and many arguments are allowed on both sides of a question. Everything is investigated and nothing positive. Affirmed still let the school whose principals I have explained be called the Old Academy and this other the new which having continued to the time of caries who was the fourth in succession after our CLIs continued in the same principles and system as our CLIs, but caries being a man ignorant of no part of philosophy. And as I have learned from those who had been his pupils and particularly from Zeno Zeno of Sidan, the Epicurean who though he greatly differed from him in opinion, still admired him above all other men, he’s also a person of incredible abilities. And the book seems to end at the mid-sentence there. That’s the end of what survives from Book one.
Cassius:
Yeah. Joshua, at this point, let’s have a conversation now about what you’ve just been reading in book 12 because it can be very confusing to even keep track of who is saying what. So maybe the first thing I would stress, and you’d be sure to correct me if I’m wrong, but Varo, who has been speaking in most of what we’ve read earlier in the book about the development of the academy, Varo is opposing Cicero’s position because Cicero is ending up on the side of what he’s describing as the new academy started by our cili developed by caries with Cicero and the new academy on the face of it, taking the position that all they’re doing is really extending the thoughts of Socrates and Plato of the old academy, but with Varo who is in fact more of an adherent to the old way of thinking, pointing out that that’s not correct, that Cicero, you and the new academy are CLIs, carne ease.
You were going much, much, much further than Socrates and Plato ever did because while they were rigorous in keeping separate those things that they thought were true versus those things that they thought were untrue, you Cicero, along with our CLIs and ides have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and you have completely gone off the cliff of taking the position that nothing whatsoever can be known. And Cicero is defending the new academy on the basis of, well, they’re not saying anything that Democrat, Socrates and Ris and pedes and nearly all the ancients had already said, all of them had already pointed out the difficulties of knowledge. They’d pointed out that life was short and the senses are narrow and the mind is feeble. And that truth, as Democrats said, is sunk in the deep and everything’s just opinion and custom and we can’t be sure of anything.
So Cicero and the new Academy are saying we’re not doing anything that the old guys didn’t do. But the response to that, which is part of this discussion is that that’s not the way Socrates himself had expressed it. Socrates himself had said that he knew that he knew nothing. Our clu caries and the guys you’ve gone with Cicero are stripping him. Even of that knowledge, you’re saying that no knowledge of any kind is possible and when you get down to it, even the statement that no knowledge is possible is questionable as well because we are never in any circumstance going to admit that anything has been established with confidence before we establish some of the details, the general direction that the issue is whether the old and the new academy were really two separate things or not.
Joshua:
Yeah, you’ll recall from Tuske and Disputations, we had a very similar conversation about Aristotle and which side he should be regarded as falling on in this question, and Cicero himself has been contradictory in his discussion of that. He said one thing in on ends and he said something completely different in Tus Disputations and the interlocutor in Tus Disputations called him out on that and he said something to the effect of, I alone do not have to be consistent because I alone speak only to what is probable. What we have in this text is a similar argument over slightly different matters, but in section four of book one, we got the initial description of the relationship between Cicero and Vero and their respective positions. Vero says to Cicero, he says, what is this, which I hear about you yourself and Cicero says on what’s subject, and Vero says Why that the old system is deserted by you and that you have espoused the principles of the new school.
Cicero says, what of that why should anus my own intimate friend be more at liberty to return back again from the new school to the old and I myself to migrate to the new from the old? For certainly everything that is most recent is corrected and amended in the highest degree. Although Philo, the master of Antiochus, a great man as you consider him yourself, used to deny in his books that there were two academies and we ourselves have heard him assert the same things in his lectures and he convicts those who say that there are of palpable mistake. What Cicero is doing is he’s doing another one of these interesting balancing acts where he is trying to split the difference. He wants to say that he’s part of the new academy system. He also wants to say that the new academy system and the old academy system are the same, or if it comes to it that the new academy system that are salis and caries are the true heirs to Plato and Socrates and that precipitous and Theophrastus and Aristotle and all the rest of them are actually more removed from the old academy.
It’s a very deft piece of work, but this is the major outline of the system. And of course Vero is on the other side of this question. Vero is a member of the old academy, meaning Plato and Aristotle and Ous and so on and regards Cicero as having jumped ship. You’ll remember that section five of book two had said on this very question that Cicero brought to mind what seditious citizens are in the habit of doing when they bring forward some illustrious men of the ancients in the hope of being themselves considered like them. The stakes are much smaller in philosophy hopefully than in Roman politics, much less deadly, I should say maybe not less important, but Cicero is doing the same thing that seditious citizens do in seeking to overturn a well-established system of philosophy. And that by bringing forward the names of impedes and ris, Democrat par amenities, ZNO and even Plato and Socrates, and he drives home this accusation with a reference to our CLIs again, he says, so our CLIs rose up to overturn the established philosophy and to shelter himself under the authority of those men who asserted that nothing could be known or perceived in which number we ought not to include Plato or Socrates, soor.
You do not get to include Plato in Socrates in your new academy quotes, which is actually the old academy air quotes. The old academy is Plato in Socrates and the new academy is our CLIs and caries. We shouldn’t include Plato under the heading of the new academy because he left behind him a most perfect school, namely the Peripatetics and the academics differing in name, but agreeing in all substantial matters and from whom the stoics themselves differ in words rather than in opinions. And we shouldn’t include Socrates either in the new academy who always disparaged himself in arguing attributed more knowledge to those whom he wished to refute. So we’ve seen the basic division several different ways now, and the question of whether Aristotle should be regarded as a part of the old academy or not, depends on which book you read and who you talk to, but the major conflict is between Vero on the one hand, arguing that Cicero is being frivolous and even perhaps a little bit deceptive in trying to claim that our CLIs and carne are the true heirs with himself of the old academy.
Cassius:
Joshua, before we move into the second book, let’s talk a little further about this. It’s a real shame that the book is cut off where it is because while from an epicurean perspective, I’m not going to be interested in siding with the old academy because the book is cut off. We don’t have Ros response and further argument against Cicero, and I think it would help us to talk a little bit further about what that might be. The bottom line is that the new Academy or Esless IDE and Cicero are arguing that no knowledge is possible. They are taking the extreme skeptical position. We’re going to be talking when we get into the second book about how the stoics reacted to that. We already know a lot about how Epicurus would react to that, but I wonder if we can’t say something about how the old academy, how Varo viewed these revolutionaries such as Cicero and what they would’ve said to defend Socrates and Plato against what caries and our Cs did.
Because Cicero seems to say that he doesn’t think that our CLIs was motivated by any improper motives. He thinks he was just trying to pursue the logic of the difficulty of knowledge just as the parr philosophers had done. But I think we could put ourselves in the shoes of Varo who is defending the traditional views of the old academy and have something to say to Cicero about his embrace of this radical skepticism. And among the things that I think if I were Vero, I would say to Cicero would be, if you’re going to jump off this cliff of skepticism, Cicero, where do you get your justification for being so emphatically strong in supportive virtue being the only good of talking the way you talk Cicero about all this morality that is so beautiful and important and looking down at Epicurus for destroying philosophy and destroying morality.
How in the world, Cicero, when you’re committed to radical skepticism, are you able to distinguish up from down left from right, good, from bad, or anything else? Socrates and Plato from their own viewpoint as an epic curing, I might say that grounding their ideas in ideal forms and past lives and geometry and logic don’t make a lot of sense, but at least I would give them credit that they were trying to find some firm basis for their belief. Socrates seems to have been pretty firm in the idea that even though he knew nothing, he knew that he knew nothing. He seemed to be firm in that. What gives you Cicero in this new academy, the idea that you’re in a better position by just throwing all knowledge out the window. In other words, would Socrates and Plato, had they known what our cili, Carnegies and Cicero were going to do, would Socrates and Plato say, attaboy, you’re going exactly the right direction, or would they say, hold up guys, you’re missing the point?
Joshua:
Well, regarding your first criticism, they certainly, I don’t think would object to the focus on virtue. That’s a very epicurean response. Other schools could make that response potentially. That’s not a response I see being made from within the context of the academy. And one of my big problems as I read through this is we’ve dealt with the Socratic dictum. All that I know is that I know nothing and our cesan response, which is you don’t even know that you know nothing. There’s not much to choose between when it comes to these two positions, right? I don’t favor either one necessarily because both positions, if taken to absurdity, both positions make life impossible. I think pretending that we can’t have confidence or pretending that we have no basis upon which to make a decision, this is an absurd way to go about your life. I think if we’re talking exclusively in the strictest possible terms in which someone says, well, you don’t know because how do you know that you’re not a brain in a vat? How do you know that the universe wasn’t created last Thursday in the strictest terms, right? I think that there’s potentially a point to be made there with Socrates and his dictum, but in normal everyday life, which is where I prefer to consider these questions, neither position, neither the position of Socrates nor the position of our CLIs is of any benefit really in going about our day. So for that reason, the thing that stands out to me the most is how similar they both seem.
Cassius:
So you think if confronted by our CLIs and Carnegie that you don’t even know that nothing, you think Plato and Socrates would say, you’re right. I didn’t think of it that way. Or would they have said, hold up guys.
Joshua:
Obviously for Socrates, it had been an honorific from the Delphi. Oracle conferred upon him to say that he was the wisest man in Greece because he knew that he knew nothing. And for our cecils to come along and say, actually, you don’t even know that you know nothing. How would Socrates have responded to that? I don’t know.
Cassius:
Well, Joshua, I would say that this is where Epicurus comes in. Obviously, we are not members of the old academy and we’re not going to defend Socrates in Plato, and in response to this controversy that was brewing, the stoics attempted to defend knowledge based on these ideas that we’re going to pursue as we move into the second book. But Epicurus saw the dead end of all these approaches, even though of course car lived after Epicurus Epicurus and his philosophy of knowledge, his canons was intended to address these weaknesses That exploded into the skepticism of our cly and IES later on, but were in fact present as Cicero is arguing in the original positions of Socrates and Plato. I guess in that sense, I would say Varo has the worst of the argument in that Cicero is probably right. These arguments were present in at least an early form in the arguments of Socrates, Plato and Democrats.
I remember as we discussed what Norman Dewitt says about Epicurus. In his book, Dewitt points out that Epicurus saw Plato as being a skeptic, even though Plato is putting all of this material in his books about the nature of the universe and how it came about from demigods and demi urges and all sorts of things that are very specific, and that Plato’s looking to geometry and logic and coming up with all sorts of information from his ideal forms. In the end, the roots of what developed into radical skepticism were present already, and Epicurus is diagnosing them at the earlier phase before they were developed by caries and SLAs and the rest. At this point, as we said earlier in the episode, we’re going to skip most of the workup in sections one through five. As we get into section six, the debate begins to clarify, but we’re going to go straight into section seven where the argument becomes more clear because as we left off in discussing where the stoics were, a lot of the issue turns on your view of the senses and whether they are lying to you or whether the census are simply reporting to you what they receive, which is the position we’re going to build on from the epicurean perspective, or whether there’s some other viewpoint on the census that allows for the argument that under certain circumstances the census can be trusted, not the epicurean position, that the senses are never giving you an opinion that the senses are never right and wrong, but are there circumstances under which the senses are actually giving you an opinion that you can trust?
Again, not the skeptic position that the senses are always lying, but that there are situations in which you can trust the senses. And I think that’s going to be a way of looking at the stoic position that we’re going to see them try to develop into an argument in which there is a way in which the senses can grasp the truth, and that’s going to lead us down a road that again, I believe we’re going to strongly disagree with from the epicurean perspective, but learning a little bit about the argument is going to allow us to see the difference. As we see in our discussions of Epicurean philosophy on the forum and over the years, it trips up a lot of people until they see the distinction that Epicurus is making, that the senses don’t have opinions at all, that the senses are never right or wrong.
Right or wrong, is what the mind does with the data that the senses provide, with the perceptions that come through the census. That’s not the way we generally look at things. And so it takes a while to understand where Peus is coming from. The standard paradigm that most people work with is either the senses are always lying or that the senses are sometimes lying and sometimes telling the truth, which is the position that the stoics are going to develop. So Joshua, at this point in the conversation before we move to book two, let’s just summarize where we are in this episode and focus on the fact that the issue of skepticism is where we’re going to be going from here, or any parts that we do get out of the book two section that the key issue is whether any knowledge of any kind is possible and that this was tearing the academy apart from the inside with Aristotle going off in a direction. But most important for our own analysis, the epicureans, the stoics going off in different directions when we return to book two, we’re going to see the stoic position advanced and then Cicero argue against the stoic position. And as we go through that material, I think it will clarify for us why Epicurus took the position he did.
Joshua:
As we come to the end of Book one, let me point out how arbitrary so much of this conversation turns out to be when we have Cicero endorsing the view of our cists that Socrates does not even know that he knows nothing. Couldn’t you equally say of ISTs who has been enlisted by Cicero and or CLIs and caries by the new academy to demonstrate a link between themselves and the presocratics, in other words, between themselves and the oldest schools of philosophy, couldn’t it equally be said of Democrats that he does not even know that truth lies at the bottom of the well? And so what is he doing talking about it? What is the point in even saying it if he can’t even say that he knows that that’s the case? I mean, so much of this just comes down to particular uses of language, and as I said before, my own view is when skepticism sinks to that depth, it becomes totally impractical for a lived life.
And that for me is where philosophy is interesting is when it comes to the level of lived experience, right? Sitting in an ivory tower talking about truth, lying at the bottom of the well. And all we know is that we know nothing. That kind of thing may be important to keep in mind when we come to the limits of our knowledge or when it comes to understanding that we are not omniscient and that it’s important that we realize this. I think that that’s where this kind of thing is maybe useful. But to go to the farthest extreme and say that, no, we know nothing and we don’t even know that we don’t know anything, I don’t find it helpful. I don’t know how they pretend to find it helpful because if you truly based your life on this, you wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed in the morning. So my prevailing feeling right now as we come to the end of Book one is it’s just a feeling of mild irritation dealing with these objections to knowledge and this persistent desire to demonstrate humid ignorance to an extreme that is so absurd and so impractical.
Cassius:
Joshua, I think you have just captured exactly why we are going through this material and why it is so important. If you do not resolve these issues in your mind, you will end up blowing up everything that you’ve attempted to accomplish. And that’s exactly what happened to the academy, to the ancient schools of philosophy. Despite all the brilliance, despite all the benefit, despite all the practical improvement that they brought to the human condition by doing what they did, they ended up being totally swept away as an intellectual movement, as a society by religions and movements and views that totally contradicted what they had built up from their earliest work. In attempting to understand nature and the failure to withstand that attack from the outside, I would lay largely at the feet of this very discussion that we are having because when you get so caught up in the inadequacy of knowledge and get so consumed by those things that you do not know, that you forget those things that you do know, then you lose all grip on why you’re fighting for knowledge in the first place.
And in that sense, despite all the concerns I have about stoicism, I would say that at least the stoics were attempting to come up with some ability to be firm about something. There are times in life when we can afford to spend our time musing about the things that we do not know, but there are many times in life where we have to take a position that what we are doing is important enough to stand up for and to fight for. But if you become so infected with skepticism that everything just becomes a matter of indifference to you, a matter of apathy, a matter of preferred versus non-preferred, then you like the old academy, are going to be swept away by the forces of history.
Joshua:
There’s kind of a paradox inherent to blatant in that he adopted the physics of Heraclitus in that everything is in constant flux and that this is part of why we can’t know anything and why we need to retreat into the abstract mental space of geometry and why we need to ascend morally to the realm of ideal forms. But the paradox is this, because everything is constantly changing around you, life is going to force your hand. You have to make real decisions in the real world. Most of the guys we’re talking about here in academic questions were associates of the Roman General Sulla or Sons of fathers who were associates of the Roman General Sulla whose involvement in the Mithridaic war, which is discussed to some extent in book two, which is a part we’re going to skip over, led to the destruction of the academy in its physical sense, at least partially and the complete deforestation of the area around the city of Athens to a distance of a hundred miles.
What are you going to do in a situation like this? What are you going to do? And it’s no good hiding behind the claim that you don’t know, so you shouldn’t be asked. You shouldn’t be forced to make a decision because of your own ignorance. You have to make decisions in life. It’s like I said earlier, if we were to all base our lives on this, we wouldn’t even get out of bed in the morning because there’s no justification for that kind of thing. There’s no justification for the belief that we should live virtuously because we can’t even know if we know nothing what it means to live virtuously. It’s such a self-defeating paradox that lies at the core of these systems of thought, and it’s incredibly frustrating to have to deal with that.
Cassius:
I hate to close without bringing in still po as an example in this situation, the irony that basically Cicero ends up in a still like stoicism, you end up losing all contact with reality and the people that are around you, your families, your friends, everything that you value, and you end up investing all your emotional capital into what amounts to a dream instead of the reality of this world. Well, there’s a lot more to say about these issues and we will pursue those further when we come back next week as we move into book two, we invite everyone as always, to drop by the Epicurean Friends Forum and let us know if you have any comments or questions about this episode. Thanks for your time today. We’ll be back again soon. See you then. Bye.