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Cosmic Science and Wisdom in Classic Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Jean Bayet
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Extract

Can our present-day anxieties be stated in terms of the ancient world ? Can this be done without risking the accusation of self-deception or pedantry? That is the question.

Hellenism in en vogue; there is satisfaction in defining in ever more exact terms a new aspect, long underestimated, of Greek grandeur. A certain ‘modernism’ cannot be denied to Greek thought: a tendency that existed then as it does now. Two millennia and more have trimmed down what was pretensions: tricks and scandals of innovation become less important ; the essence of contributions becomes apparent, distilled by the labour of preceding centuries. It remains sure that the Greeks faced new human circumstances with the vigour of youth and with intelligence, and launched themselves freely upon the path of world discovery. This is truly modem: modern for us as it was for the Greeks of the third century B.C. A comparison between such experiences may be worth while.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 2 , Issue 6 , March 1954 , pp. 32 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © 1954 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1 Euripides, Hippolytus, 78-81.

2 Cf. Otto Weinreich, Einfuehrung zu Aristophanes, I, Zuerich, 1952, pp. LXXXVIII et seq.

3 Lucretuis, De natura rerum, II, 700-729; V, 837-924.

4 Ibid. II, 646-651 (ethical formula); III, 18-24 (Homeric vision); V, 146-199 (general theories on physical organisation); V, 1161-1240 (superstition: false conception of the gods).

5 Cicero, De natura deorum, II, 23-28.

6 Cf. L. Robin, La pensée grecque et l'origine de l'esprit scientifique (Paris, 1923), p. 418.

7 Lucretius, op. cit., III, 41 et seq.; IV, 1037 et seq.; IV, 379 et seq. (illusions of sight); V. 706 et seq. (phases of the moon); and the whole of Book VI (beginning at V, 43, on the physical mirabilia.

8 He does not do it. The ‘liberty' of the atom precedes the birth of life: Lucretius, op. cit., I I, 863-901, and above all, 902-930. See also: Ibid., 963-990.

9 Lucretius, op. cit., III, 307-322.

10 On this fatalistic pessimism, see Lucretius, op. cit., V, 1233-1235 (Usque ades res humanas jus abdita quaedam obterit et pulchros fascis saevasque securis proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur).

11 Lucretius, op. cit., II, 251-293.

12 Lucretius, op. of., 257-258: Unde est haec, inquam, fatis avulsa voluntas/ per quam progredimur quo ducit quemque voluptas. Text as re-established by Lambin (by transposition of voluntas and voluptas which the manuscript gives in inverse order) and adopted by Cyril Bailey (Oxford, 1947) as against Lachmann and A. Ernout. Cf., with reference to this, Lucretius, op. cit., IV, 1045-1048: Irritata tument loca semine fitque voluntas/ licere id quo se contendit dira libido,/ idque petit corpus mens unde est saucia amore. The relation between voluntas and libido is defined more clearly by verse 1057: Namque voluptatem praesagit muta cupido.

13 Lucretius, op. cit., IV, 1063 et seq.; 1149 et seq.; 1198 et seq.

14 Cf. Lucretius, op. cit., IV, 881-885: on the impressions on sight which are the creators of the will.

15 Lucretius, op. cit., IV, 886-905.

16 See Lucretius, op. cit., IV, 779-798 and 802-817.

17 Lucretius, op. cit., III, 674-676.

18 Cf. Lucretius, op. cit., IV, 379-461, numerous examples of illusions of sight.

19 Seneca, De Vita Beata, 7; 6; 9.

20 Seneca, op. cit., Quidquid timui (thus speaks the aspirant to wisdom) di boni, quanto levius fuit quam quod concupivi?

21 Seneca, Ibid., 3 (Sana mens, … deinde fortis re vehemens).

22 We are only regrouping the formulas of Seneca, De Vita Beata, 2 and 8: O quam sibi ipse verum, tortus a se fatebitur …Animi bonum animus inveniat … Incorruptus vir sit externis et insuperabilis, miratorque tantum sui … : fidens animi atque in utrumque paratus, artifex vitae.

23 Ibid., 3 and 8.

24 Ibid., 6 and 7. But, as far as the second point is concerned, keeping on a very vulgar level.

25 For example: Lucretius, op. cit., 1, 15-22 (Nonne videre/ nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi utqui/ corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur /jucundo sensu cura semota metuque? / Ergo corpoream ad naturam pauca videmus / esse opus omnino, quae demant cumque dolorem, / delicias quoque uti multas substernere possint) and Seneca, op. cit., 8 (Natura duce utendam est: hanc ratio observat, hanc consulit. Idem est ergo beate vivere et secundum naturam).

26 Erit vera ratio sensibus insita (Seneca, op. cit., 8); Beata est ergo vita conveniens naturae suae (ibid., 3).

27 Seneca, op. cit., 3: Rerum naturae assentior.

28 Ibid., 25.

29 Ibid., 5.

30 Lucretius, op. cit., V, 10-12; VI, 35-38.

31 Ibid., VI, 39-41 =1, 146-148. Cyril Bailey (Lucretius, I, Oxford, 1947) translates these last words: …. ‘but by the outer view and the inner law of nature'.

32 Cf. Lucretius, op. cit., I, 72-77 (… unde refert nobis juctor quid possi oriri, / quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique / quanam sit ratione atque alte terminus haerens); 107-109 (Nam si certam finem esse viderent / aerumnarum homines …).

33 Seneca, op. cit., 16; 20; 21.

34 Ibid., 15-16.

35 See G. Festugière, Epicure et ses dieux (Paris, 1946), Chapter IV: he represents the Epicurean god as a ‘projection' of the sage. See further on.

36 Lucretius, op. cit., V, 52-54; II, 646-651.

37 Ibid., V, 153-155.

38 This hypothesis of Munro seems to us very likely. Moreover, it corresponds to the stylistic technique of composition by involvement (en amande) that the Hellenistic age had succeeded in developing and which was also used by Catullus.

39 Seneca, op. cit., 19.

40 Ibid., 1-3.

41 Lucretius, op. cit., II, 1-19. A similar passage, the conclusion of which deals feelingly with the misery and the blindness of men.

42 Lucretius, op. cit., II, 29-35.

43 Ibid., V, 7-8 et seq.; 49-51. The prologue of Book VI (1-42) helps to defme the word deus: a man who has risen so high on the road to truth that his (spiritual) advantages surpass all those (material ones) of the gods of the fable and that his moral serenity brings him nearer to the εὐδαiμOνíα of the true gods.

44 Seneca, op. cit., 25.

45 Cicero, In Pisonem, 56-58.

46 Seneca, op. cit., 24, 4. It is known that the overbearing tone of assurance and of contempt for the stulti was parodied by Horace, Sat., II, 3 and 7.

47 Magnitudo cum mansuetudine (Seneca, op. cit., 3). The word mansuetudo is well applied to the animals that are tamed by man.

48 Seneca, op. cit., 20; 24.

49 Lucretius, op. cit., III, 40-93; 995-1002; 1014-1017.

50 Lucretius, op. cit., V, 925-1457, an anthropology closely allied to the cosmology by the explanation it gives on the youth of the earth and of its creatures (V, 772-924); to the ex planation of the mirabilia, by the strong contrast between the misery of man and the action of Epicurus leading to salvation (VI, 1-42). On the hypothesis of a 'theology' which might have concluded the work, see above, Note 38.

51 Cf Jean Bayet, ‘Études lucretiennes', in La Profondeur et le Rythm. (‘Cahiers du College Philosophique', Grenoble-Paris, 1948), pp. 57-138.