questions about Epicurus’s use of sense-perception May 14, 2008
Posted by Cole in Epicurus.trackback
Sorry I haven’t posted this earlier, as I have had the question for awhile and just not posted it. There are many places in Epicurus’s writings as well as those of Lucretius where sense-perception is taken to be foundational and unquestionably true, and is the basis for scientific reasoning as well as living generally. My question is that he seems to contradict this on a few occasions to suit his other purposes. The main problem is with his view of the gods. He argues that since people do in fact perceive them, that they exist. The problem is that Epicurus says that the manner in which the gods exist (untroubled, unconcerned with human affairs, etc.) is not how people perceived the gods. Presumably people had visions of the gods acting like they do in traditional Greek mythology. So on one had, he reasons to the existence of gods by appealing to sense-perception and its unquestionable foundational stature, but then proceeds to say that the gods don’t exist as they are perceived by the senses.
I know Epicurus says that it is opinions added after the sense-perception is perceived that add these problems (like visions of dead people acting in dreams are not really ghosts, just atoms thrown off by the dead person). But I just don’t know if this will work. If sense-perceptions are veridical, and the gods or dead spirits are perceived to do something by the senses, shouldn’t what is perceived be considered true. He should not be able to pick and choose which sense-perceptions provide reliable evidence and which ones are altered from within if they are all to be considered true. If not, the foundational veridicality of sense-perception seems questionable. If any one can lead me out of confusion into the light of Epicurus’s garden, I would appreciate it.
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Let me see if I understand you: if I look at an oar that is submerged in water (so it looks bent) and then claim that the oar is straight, am I picking and choosing which sense perceptions to recognize as reliable?
If I understand what you’re saying about the gods, it seems you would be inclined to answer in the affirmative. But our senses do not tell us that the oar is bent; to think this would be to have made an erroneous inference. In fact, our senses register a genuine fact about the atoms: they bend as they pass through water. (We reach this explanation by inference.) So when we hold that the oar is bent, we are not ignoring or contradicting what we see; in fact, it would be difficult to discover refraction without assuming that, when we see a bent oar, we are picking up on something that’s going on in the real world. We are convinced that something in the real world has to be causing the oar to appear bent.
I think Epicirus would have to take a similar approach with the gods. Now, you might think, based on his comments about the size of the sun, that Epicurus is a little bit more of a naive realist than I am suggesting. But remember that he does argue that the size of the sun is what it appears to be; he does not think that the mere fact that we perceive it that way is grounds for thinking that it is that way.
It is Lucretius, of course, who I mean to refer to when it comes to the size of the sun; and in general, I like to look to Lucretius when it comes to this topic.
Dan, you mean to say that the films of atoms (the material images or effluences) are disturbed as they pass through the water, right? Not that the atoms themselves bend. Just clarifying.
Yes, I’m talking about the films of atoms that emanate from the oar. I don’t know that this is Epicurus’ explanation, as I’m not sure he considered this phenomenon. But if he were to consider this phenomenon, I think this would be his explanation. He certainly wouldn’t say that the oar itself bends when you put it in water.