We have no reason to believe that reasons do not exist. Contra Bart Streumer’s recent proposal, this has nothing to do with our incapacity to believe this error theory. Rather, it is because if we know that if a proposition is true, we have no reason to believe it, then we have no reason to believe this proposition. From a different angle: if we know that we have at best misleading reasons to believe a proposition, then we have no reason (...) to believe it. This has two consequences. Firstly, coming close to believing the error theory is idle or pointless. Secondly, philosophers who argue that believing sweeping theories like determinism or physicalism is self-defeating because they are either false or believed for no reason pursue a worthwhile argumentative strategy. (shrink)

Free will sceptics deny the existence of free will, that is the command or control necessary for moral responsibility. Epicureans allege that this denial is somehow self-defeating. To interpret the Epicurean allegation charitably, we must first realise that it is propositional attitudes like beliefs and not propositions themselves which can be self-defeating. So, believing in free will scepticism might be self- defeating. The charge becomes more plausible because, as Epicurus insightfully recognised,there is a strong connection between conduct and belief—and so (...) between thecontent of free will scepticism (since it is about conduct) and the attitude of believing it. Second, we must realise that an attitude can be self- defeating relative to certain grounds. This means that it might be self-defeating to be a free will sceptic on certain grounds, such as the putative fact that we lack leeway or sourcehood. This charge is much more interesting because of the epistemic importance of leeway and sourcehood. Ultimately, the Epicurean charge of self-defeat fails. Yet, it delivers important lessons to the sceptic. The most important of them is that free will sceptics should either accept the existence of leeway or reject the principle that ‘“ought” implies “can”’. (shrink)

In his article 'The Evil of Death' (henceforth: ED) Harry Silverstein argues that a proper refutation of the Epicurean view that death is not an evil requires the adoption of a particular revisionary ontology, which Silverstein, following Quine, calls 'four-dimensionalism'.1 In 'The Evil of Death Revisited' (henceforth: EDR) Silverstein reaffirms his earlier position and responds to several criticisms, including some targeted at his ontology. There remain, however, serious problems with Silverstein's argument, and I shall highlight five major ones below. I (...) conclude that Silverstein has not shown that an appeal to four-dimensionalism facilitates a refutation of Epicurus, although a consideration of some of Silverstein's points helps to indicate the limited scope of the Epicurean thesis. (shrink)

The framework of this paper is a defence of Burnet's construal ofApology30b 2-4. Socrates does not claim, as he is standardly translated, that virtue makes you rich, but that virtue makes money and everything else good for you. This view of the relation between virtue and wealth is paralleled in dialogues of every period, and a sophisticated development of it appears in Aristotle. My philological defence of the philosophically preferable translation extends recent scholarly work on εἶναι in Plato and Aristotle (...) to γίγνεσθαι, which is the main verb in the disputed sentence. When attached to a subject, both verbs make a complete statement on their own, but a statement that is further completableby adding a complement. The important point is that the addition of a complement does not change the meaning of the verb from existence to the copula. Proving this is a lengthy task which takes me into some of the deeper reaches of Platonic and Aristotelian ontology, and into discussion of whether Greek ever acquired a verb that corresponds to modern verbs of existence. I conclude that even when later authors such as Philo Judaeus, Sextus Empiricus and Plotinus debate what we naturally translate as issues of existence, none of the verbs they use can be said to have existential meaning. (shrink)

I argue that Descartes' Second Causal Proof of God in the Third Meditation evidences, and commits him to, the belief that time is "strongly discontinuous" -- that is, that there is actually a gap between each consecutive moment of time. Much of my article attempts to reconcile this interpretation, the "received view," with Descartes' statements about time, space, and matter in his other writings, including his correspondence with various philosophers.

In contrast to other ancient philosophers, Epicurus and his followers famously maintained the infinity of matter, and consequently of worlds. This was inferred from the infinity of space, because they believed that a limited amount of matter would inevitably be scattered through infinite space, and hence be unable to meet and form stable compounds. By contrast, the Stoics claimed that there was only a finite amount of matter in infinite space, which stayed together because of a general centripetal tendency. The (...) Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius tried to defend the Epicurean conception of infinity against this Stoic alternative view, but not very convincingly. One might suspect, therefore, that the Epicureans’ adherence to the infinity of matter was not so much dictated by physical arguments as it was motivated by other, mostly theological and ethical, concerns. More specifically, the infinity of atoms and worlds was used as a premise in several arguments against divine intervention in the universe. The infinity of worlds was claimed to rule out divine intervention directly, while the infinity of atoms lent plausibility to the chance formation of worlds. Moreover, the infinity of atoms and worlds was used to ensure the truth of multiple explanations, which was presented by Epicurus as the only way to ward off divine intervention in the realm of celestial phenomena. However, it will be argued that in all of these arguments the infinity of matter is either unnecessary or insufficient for reaching the desired conclusion. (shrink)

The surviving writings of Epicurus and his followers contain several references to epibolê – a puzzling notion that does not receive discussion in the extant Epicurean texts. There is no consensus about what epibolê is, what it is of, and what it operates on and, moreover, its epistemological status is controversial. This article aims to address these issues in both Epicurus and later Epicurean authors. Part One focuses mainly on Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus, highlights a crucial distinction hitherto unnoticed in (...) the literature between two different types of epibolê, and brings out he necessary connection between epibolê and the application of the criteria of truth. Part Two considers the philosophical merits of the traditional interpretation of epibolê as projection and/or attention. Part Three examines the two aforementioned types of epibolê in Lucretius and Philodemus and shows that these authors accord epibolê paramount epistemological and ethical importance. (shrink)

This paper provides a comprehensive study of the Epicurean theory of ‘preconception’. It addresses what a preconception is; how our preconception of the gods can be called innata, innate; the role played by epibolai ; and how preconceptions play a semantic role different from that of ‘sayables’ in Stoicism. The paper highlights the conceptual connections between these issues, and also shows how later Epicureans develop Epicurus’ doctrine of preconceptions while remaining orthodox about the core of that doctrine.

Ever since classical times, both Greek and Roman, friendship as a philosophical topic has been on the wane. The only notable exception is Montaigne's essay which, however, owes much to classical treatments. This decline of philosophical interest in friendship is not easy to account for. Alasdair McIntyre's overall thesis in After Virtue seemingly affords him with a ready interpretation. The progressive atomization of society, together with the concurrent growth of individualism that characterizes the modern era, claims McIntyre, are responsible for (...) the demotion of friendship from the public to the private sphere. (shrink)

Argument maps represent some arguments more effectively than others. The goal of this article is to account for that variability, so that those who wish to use argument maps can do so with more foresight. I begin by identifying four properties of argument maps that make them useful tools for evaluating arguments. Then, I discuss four types of argument that are difficult to map well: reductio ad absurdum arguments, charges of equivocation, logical analogies, and mathematical arguments. The difficulties presented by (...) these four types appear unrelated to one another, but I show that, in each case, the difficulty can be traced back to the use of metalinguistic reasoning. The need to represent a transition between object language and metalanguage can undermine one or more of the benefits that argument map representation would otherwise confer. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the many philosophical issues discussed throughout Plutarch's Quaestiones convivales has to do with the origin and inner structure of the universe, i.e., cosmological discussions. It would be impossible to discuss in detail every passage of the treatise that deals with cosmological issues. Therefore, I chose to limit my analysis to the concepts of chance, fate, ‘what depends on us ’, and providence. My purpose is to explain these concepts in the QC and to extract from them a (...) cosmological doctrine. RESUMO Entre os vários problemas filosóficos discutidos ao longo das Quaestiones Convivales de Plutarco, um deles tem que ver com a origem e com a estrutura do universo, isto é, discussões de cariz cosmológico. Seria impossível comentar em detalhe todas as passagens do tratado sobre questões cosmológicas. Por isso, preferi limitar a análise aos conceitos de acaso, destino, 'o que depende de nós' eprovidência. O meu objetivo é explicar estes conceitos nas QC e deles inferir uma doutrina cosmológica. (shrink)

Commentators since antiquity have seen connections between Virgil's Dido and the philosophy of the Garden, and several recent studies have drawn attention to the echoes of Lucretius in the first and fourth books of the Aeneid. This essay proposes that there is an even richer and more extensive Epicurean presence intertwined with the Dido episode. Although Virgilian quotations of Lucretius provide the most obvious references to Epicureanism, too narrow a focus on the traces of the De Rerum Natura obscures important (...) resonances with Virgil's more obvious models: the Odyssey and Apollonius' Argonautica. Reversion to Homer and Apollonius, however, does not dim the Epicurean aura around Dido. Rather: echoes of Nausikaa and other Phaeacian traditions reinforce Dido's links with the Garden. At play here is a widespread ancient tradition of disparaging Epicurus by calling him "the Phaeacian philosopher." But by evoking this tradition, Virgil is not necessarily engaging in a standard polemic against the Epicureans. Instead of foreclosing any particular reading, the intertextual modes of the Aeneid turn various possibilities of interpretation over to the reader. (shrink)

How original was the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham? In John Stuart Mill's opinion, not very original at all. Bentham maintained that pleasure and pain should provide our chief criteria of the moral quality of actions, because they are important above all other things in making our lives go well or ill. But two thousand years before Bentham defended the doctrine of utility that ‘all things are good or evil, by virtue solely of the pain or pleasure which they produce”, a (...) gentle and cultivated man had taught in a garden at Athens that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain were the most fitting objectives in the life of the wise man. The name of this sage, who endeavoured to provide in his own career an exemplar of his doctrine, was Epicurus of Samos. On Mill's reading of history, utilitarianism and Epicureanism were in essential respects the same. (shrink)

The article discusses the accusation advanced by Plutarch and Cicero, according to which the Epicureans are unjust, as they would break the law to pursue pleasure if certain of impunity, and deals with this criticism by analyzing the Epicurean theory of law and justice and comparing it with friendship. The article argues that, from a doctrinal standpoint, philia has a higher place in the Epicurean’s priorities and a stronger efficacy than positive law in serving the naturally just. It thus concludes (...) that, as Plutarch and Cicero suspected, the Epicurean’s ultimate loyalty does not lie with positive law, in spite of its importance for social order, but rather with the naturally just, better secured by friendship. (shrink)

Free will sceptics claim that we lack free will, i.e. the command or control of our conduct that is required for moral responsibility. There are different conceptions of free will: it is sometimes understood as having the ability to choose between real options or alternatives; and sometimes as being the original or true source of our own conduct. Whether conceived in the first or in the second way, free will is subject to strong sceptical arguments. However, free will sceptics face (...) a difficulty: doubting the existence of free will might itself be problematic, whether free will exists or not. Three main considerations are offered in support of this claim. Firstly, it is said that free will sceptics confuse contexts: even if they are right to doubt the existence of free will in the philosophy classroom, they are wrong to do so in other contexts, such as day-to-day interactions or a court of law. Secondly, it is said that free will scepticism is incompatible with inescapable and indispensable human practices such as practical deliberation or moral criticism and evaluation. For, to deliberate about what to do, we must presume that we have true options or alternatives. And to judge that some human practices are wrong, we need to assume the existence of moral responsibility. Thirdly, free will scepticism is sometimes said to be self-defeating, on the grounds that it cannot be rational to believe free will scepticism, because free will is required for rationality. This thesis critically assesses these arguments. None takes free will scepticism down, but all are instructive about how not to be a sceptic. They trace the ‘contours’ of free will scepticism by discrediting some conceptions of free will and some arguments for free will scepticism. (shrink)

This paper proposes an interdisciplinary reading of the Bhagavad Gītā, presenting it as a parrhesiastic dialogue between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna, and focusing on the importance attached to memory. Foucault’s studies on the exercise of parrhesia in the Greco-Roman context, but also Heidegger's views on the original memory, and Abhinavagupta’s commentary to the Bhagavad Gītā have been used as important tools of interpretation. Devotion is described as the constant memory of Kṛṣṇa, through which the practitioner succeeds in substituting some subconscious dispositions (...) for others, building a psychic memory that allows for liberation at the time of death. On the one hand, Kṛṣṇa’s goal is to awaken transcendental memory in Arjuna, on the other, at the end of the Gītā we are invited to remember and study this sacred conversation. This leads us to establish a comparison between the use of memory promoted in the Bhagavad Gītā and in the Epicurean school, highlighting important similarities and differences between the two pedagogies. (shrink)

The paper discusses the manner and extent to which Epicurean ethics can serve as a general philosophy of life, capable of supporting philosophical practice in the form of philosophical counseling. Unlike the modern age academic philosophy, the philosophical practice movement portrays the philosopher as a personal or corporate adviser, one who helps people make sense of their experiences and find optimum solutions within the context of their values and general preferences. Philosophical counseling may rest on almost any school of philosophy, (...) ranging — in the Western tradition from Platonism to the philosophy of language or logic. While any specialist school of philosophy may serve valuable purposes by elucidating specific aspects of one’s experiences and directing future action, the more ‘generalist’ the philosophy used as the basis for counseling is, the broader and more far-reaching its potential impact on the person undergoing counseling. Epicurean ethics is a prime example of a philosophy of life that is suitable for philosophical counseling today. Its closer examination reveals that, contrary to superficial opinion, it is not opposed to Stoicism and may in fact incorporate Stoicism and its antecedent virtues (including many Christian virtues) in a simple yet comprehensive practical system of directions for modern counseling. (shrink)

Argues that philosophy can solve the midlife crisis, at least in one of its forms. This crisis turns on the exhaustibility of our ends. The solution is to value ends that are ‘atelic,’ so inexhaustible. Topics include: John Stuart Mill's nervous breakdown; Aristotle on the finality of the highest good; and Schopenhauer on the futility of desire.