Epicurus on "Up" and "Down" ("Letter to Herodotus" 60)Author(s): David KonstanReviewed work(s):Source: Phronesis, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1972), pp. 269-278Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4181894 .Accessed: 03/05/2012 00:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Phronesis.

http://www.jstor.org

Epicurus on "Up" and "Down" (Letter to Ilerodotus 4 60)1

DAVID KONSTAN

In this paper, I shall defend an interpretation of section 60 of Epi- curus' Letter to Herodotus which is faithful to the best manuscript tradition of the text, credits Epicurus with a clear and plausible

(though lamentably fallacious) argument, does least violence to the syntax and natural meaning of the passage, and renders the paragraph appropriate to its context. An account similar to mine was first put forward in a learned and imaginative article by Jiirgen Mau published in 1954.2 My own arguments are independent of Mau's, and my con- clusions differ in certain important respects. There is, moreover, reason enough for a re-examination of this difficult paragraph in the fact that Mau's work seems to have been altogether neglected in the more recent literature on Epicurus' cosmology.3 I shall, in this study, present the text and translation, an analysis of the argument as I understand it, and a commentary on particular phrases and problems; then an account of the relevance of the paragraph to its context, and finally a critique of Bailey's interpretation of the section, which represents most clearly and fully the traditional view.4

1 I wish to thank David J. Furley, David Hahm and Gregory Vlastos for helpful criticisms and remarks at various stages of the composition of this paper. ' Jurgen Mau, "Raum und Bewegung: Zu Epikurs Brief an Herodot ? 60," Hermes 82 (1954) 13-24. 3 Thus, Graziano Arrighetti, Epicuro Opere (Torino, 1960), follows the inter- pretation of Hicks (see below, p. 277). Russel Geer, Epicurus (Indianapolis, 1964) and G. K. Strodach, The Philosophy of Epicurus (Evanston, Ill., 1963) appear to follow Bailey, as do Jean Bollack, Mayotte Bollack and Heinz Wismann, La Lettre d'Atpicure (Paris, 1971). In none of these is there mention of Mau's con- tribution. 4 I shall note in the course of this article the places where Mau has anticipated my arguments or results, as well as where our conclusions diverge. Mau ap- proached the problem from a point of view somewhat different from my own, and the reader is urged to consult his paper for many interesting suggestions which I have not taken the space to reproduce.

269

1. THE TEXT's

Kct [L?v xatl 'ro &nEdpou &q 5 v civurk'ca xoc xal X scirc ouC Bet xmqyopctv TO6 &VC % X&k6). etE 0iVrOL tO &nvp xccpm5),i, 8cv b &v a:c7tcv, tE &trCLpov &yCLv 6v, q8bio'rc (pmveaba= 'rouo iFLV, ^ 'z UnOX&rc 'IOU VwnVkOr CL &7t cpOv &9X & r9 etvct xxl x&Tm 7tp6q rit6 roi3To yxp &86vmcrov 8Lavo-n*&vact.

5 6=c laL 1.tv ?apclv topo v 'rvv &v& voou~Liv ? &7tv pOKetpov xmL 'rm Tivx xcic, &v xal I?ukPL&L np6; rouCq tk68kq - tc7Cv &T&vo 6 wp' t[Wv cpcp6Lvov roV unip xpcXi); ,tiv Tr6rouq &c xVAL X &7dl 'rrv xegp)y 'ir&v i'nfox&m u 6 7 oLp' *F& x&r cpcp6pcvov * yxp tn vop& ou'*v :tsrov ixotripm IxxripqC ivcttXvr- &n' &1Lpov vocttrt.

2. TRANSLATION

Furthermore, of the infinite it is necessary that one not use the expressions "up" or "down" in the sense of "highest" and "lowest." For certainly, while it is possible to produce [a line] to infinity in the direction overhead from wherever we may be standing, [it is necessary] that this [view] never seem right to us, or that the lower part of the [line], imagined to infinity, be at the same time up and down with respect to the same thing. For this is impossible to conceive. Therefore one may assume one upward course imagined to infinity and one downward, even if something moving from us toward the feet of those above us should arrive ten thousand times at the places over our heads, or something moving downward from us at the heads of those below. For the whole course is nonetheless imagined to infinity as one [direction] opposed to the other.

3. ANALYSIS OF THE ARGUMENT

The argument, as I understand it, intends to expose a logical im- possibility in the Aristotelian view (cf. De caelo 1.8, 3.2) that "up" is defined by the periphery of the (spherical) cosmos, and "down" by the center. (I shall support the claim that Aristotle is the target of Epicurus' criticism in the commentary and discussion of the context below.) The structure of the argument is a disjunctive syllogism:

' The text is that of H. S. Long, Diogenis Laeriii Vitae Philosophorum (Oxford, 1964). Mau employed P. Von der Muehll, Epicuri Epistulae Tres et Ratae Sen- tentiae (Stuttgart, 1922).

270

Either (A) the Aristotelian view is wrong (t-8brore pveZalX To3o5o t"v). Or (B) the lower part of the line is at the same time up and down with respect to the same thing.6 Not (B) (ro5'ro y&p &86vavov 8&avoj&vxL). Therefore (A) (la-r&... XmPe3v xr)X).

While the argument is expressed as a disjunctive syllogism, it rests in fact upon the implication: Aristotle's view implies (B). Basically, then, the argument is a reductio ad absurdum ((B) is inconceivable).7 The argument is invalid because the implicationi does not hold. It is rendered plausible by an elementary confusion: "up" and "down" as descriptions of a direction of motion with respect to a point or points of natural attraction are identified with "up" and "down" in the sense of "above" and "below" with respect to any given observer. On the Aristotelian view, an object moving below an observer in a straight line toward the center of the cosmos and then beyond the center would be moving, first "down," and then "up" with respect to the natural directions "down" and "up". From this, Epicurus concluded that the region (or line) below the observer would be both "down" and "up" with respect to the place where the observer was standing. On Epi- curus' own view, anything moving down with respect to an observer would always be moving down with respect to the natural orientation of the universe. (An alternative interpretation is possible: &vco and xaVm refer consistently in the section to directions of motion, and the lower part of the "line imagined to infinity" is conceived of as moving (i.e. being produced or extended, cf. &yetv) in a straight line, without change of direction, but must nevertheless be described, when taken as a whole (cf. i 6kX (popa in line 10), as moving both downward and upward with respect to a single point of reference. The motion, of course, is not down and up, but first down, then up. The reader may decide which confusion is more likely to have been Epicurus'.)

In a second argument, Epicurus meets an objection concerning observers on different levels, for whom the space between would be

6 The clause cEt jvrOL. . . yEYLV 6v is taken as concessive; cf. the translation above and the commentary below. 7 Cf. Mau's comment (p. 16) on lines 2-4 in the text reproduced above: "Die erste Hialfte illustriert das in 1 [i.e. lines 1-4] Ausgesagte; in der zweiten Halfte kann nichts anderes als die platonisch-aristotelisch-stoische Kugelwelt abge- lehnt werden... Eine nach unten in Unendliche verlangerte Linie wird, auf ein und denselben Punkt bezogen (den Erdmittelpunkt), zugleich nach oben und nach unten sein, was nicht vorstellbar ist."

271

(respectively) "up" and "down". Epicurus replies that motion up or down will be the same for all observers. The final sentence reaffirms the general conclusion: there is a single direction "up" and a single "down," and not, as in Aristotle's account, two "ups" and two "downs.""

4. COMMENTARY

1. '0o3 &'tspOU @ 0?V &vC-z-r& xa' XCr:XT the formulation appears tendentious, for "the infinite" obviously cannot have a "top" and "bottom". However, -rO 17tepoV is Epicurus' regular phrase for "the universe." &vTCTrW and xovrwrm' are not Aristotle's words: he speaks of &VW xa' xcm-,&, as does Epicurus, but adds that these are limited (WpLaCL, De caelo I.6 [273 a 16.]) Epicurus calls Aristotle's "limited" up and down "top" and "bottom" or "highest" and "lowest" to avoid confusion with his own sense of 4vo and xcrw. Bailey, against all the MSS., accepts Usener's emendation iv&Tvu&t and xocatx, but I should like to see another illustration of xxTryopev with the dative in this sense.

2. e' pev'oL 6 Tz rep xcx),iq: the neutral expression "overhead" is used to avoid begging the question. For Aristotle, Epicurus will argue, "up" is also beneath our feet. {iev'rot here is "progressive" (Denniston, Greek Particles2, p. 406).

2-3. eK lireLpOV &yetv 6v: I am not sure whether this refers to a line or a course of motion along a line (cf. the alternative interpretation above). In either case, a line overhead is introduced because "up," in Aristotle's view, is always defined along a radius of the cosmos. es 17retpov is here used loosely for "indefinitely," since, strictly speaking, Aristotle does not allow infinite lines or motions. For 1yev 6v in this sense, cf. R. D. Hicks, CR 37 (1923) p. 109.

3. -8eO7-e CXvezau TroVTro fZLV: the construction depends on W. For c9cLve'ra meaning "to seem so" or "to seem the case," cf. Plato Resp. 517 b 14 t& 9'oiSv ?0ol cv6tvo ou,r px'verot, where Adam

s Cf. Mau (p. 17): "Schon seit Platon unterschied man zwischen dem 9t)cEL &vo und dem 7rp6; AL&q &vc bzw. xok-xc." My account differs from Mau's insofar as it stresses the idea of direction of motion.

272

compares 334 b 14 ro'rUo jieT'rot 9poLye 8oxet. Cf. LSJ s.v. def. B II 4. For a survey of various views on the meaning of this sentence and emendations in the text, cf. Mau (pp. 17-18). Mau reads ta0?e rot instead of etL [J.kV'OL, and substitutes xx for ov. The word 'rO3-ro is usually taken to refer to "the absolute highest point" (Bailey). I take it to mean the proposition dependent on ou 8eL in 1-2 - i.e. the use of the expressions "up" or "down" in the sense of "highest" or "lowest."

3. 'T6 6ox&'( 0ou VO-V'?r0o et; .7Cepov: "the lower part of the hne imagined (in turn) as extended indefinitely;" or possibly, "what is below the line."

4- &{o &vw X? elvat xmo xkico tp6q '0 MUTO: cf. the similar language in Aristotle De caelo I.3 (269 b 27-8): &vayxn ' -ra-v T6 9epO'evov T X&'rC & {V XOUC6'nqr' lXCtV I' PMpoq &[L yW , 1! np6s TO a'4 8.

4. &atvoraov 8taojvx: conceivability is the Epicurean test for pos- sibility, cf. Letter to Pythocles 97.

5. ,av ... pop&v rqv &v& x'r: as opposed to Aristotle's view, where two opposed directions of motion on a single line are equally "up".

6. &v xodL puuptMx xwr: we have here a parenthetical argument, as I understand it, in which Epicurus shows that the fact that the stand- point of an observer is relative does not render Epicurus' theory liable to the kind of "inconsistency" he found in Aristotle's view. The "ten thousand times" has no particular function in the argument, so far as I can see. If it needs to be explained, I would very tentatively suggest it is an ironic quotation from Aristotle Nic. Ethics I.1 (1103 a 20 ff.) where, however, it is essential to the argument: otov o 4 Aoq yt'ae xs& scp6Xevos o6x av e'awetin &vcr ypeaocl, o?v8' av ,LUpLMXL au-r6v 94C-n rq &vco '=,tCv (emphasized words are apparently picked up by Epicurus).

6-7. 7rp6q ro'u n6Qx4 '4v XVrMA... Urnep XVPMXc) ~iZLv: i.e., under those above us, but over us. (I see no reason to suppose that there is a reference here to other worlds, as Bailey supposes; cf. note 11 below).

8.. U-1 cpop&: a course of motion along a single line taken as a whole.

273

8. ixcxopcx&x xcxpqf &v'nLxetXL?rVn: that is, there are two absolutely opposed directions, "up" and "down," whereas in Aristotle's system "up" and "down" are not unqualifiedly opposed as directions, since "up" on one part of a line is the same direction as "down" at another part. aXV XeL;L&v- perhaps deliberately recalls Aristotle's often repeated principle that motions must be etq &V'txetLzva (cf. De caelo I.8 [277 a 22, 26, etc.]).

5. THE CONTEXT9

The Epicurean theory of the atom, which is the subject of sections 54-62 of the Letter to Herodotus, required that atoms have a natural tendency to move in a single direction, which was by definition "down" and was accounted for by ascribing to the atom the property of "weight" (r3&pu). For if atoms had "weight" or "heaviness," then the phenomena of heavier and lighter things could be accounted for by the theory of W$Xt1tq or "extrusion," which Strato and Epicurus both adopted (cf. Simplicius on De caelo pp. 267.29 ff., 269.4 ff. Heiberg, cited as Strato fragments 52 and 50 Wehrli; cf. also Letter to Herodotus 53, Letter to Pythocles 109, and Strato fragments 51 and 53 Wehrli). In De caelo I.8 Aristotle attacked the theory of extrusion, but his critique involved the assumption of natural places, a crucial notion in Aristotle's cosmology. Now, the idea of an infinite universe necessarily involved the rejection of natural places, but Aristotle had charged that without natural places there could be no up and down [cf. De caelo I.7 (276 a 8-11)]: 687X re, o6 pm lan i?kaov jq' faxw'ov, ,u-8 C6 sZ v &VW r6 8i X&cM, r6noq s O?Lq gmaL rozq saG'CCL -q o ;. TOUbrou 8i ,uA 6G'rog xv-atg o6x a. Cf. also Physics III 5 (205 b 30 ff.)]. Epicurus of course rejected this conclusion, but not without con- ceding to Aristotle certain important arguments. In any case, if my interpretation of section 60 is nrght, Epicurus thought he had a logi- cal argument against Aristotle's theory of natural place, in which he did not have to treat specifically the matter of orientation in an infinite universe.

That Epicurus should have in mind specifically Aristotle's theory of natural place in this passage is no cause for surprise, since, as David Furley has shown, Epicurus' treatment of minima and atomic motions

9 Cf. Mau's remark (p. 14): "Da der Zusammenhang mit dem Kontext so lose ist, dass auch er uns bei der Erklarung nicht helfen kann..."

274

in sections 56-9 and 61-2 is heavily indebted to Aristotle's analysis of minima in the Physics. Epicurus was compelled to conclude that the theory of minima entailed the constant motion of atoms at equal speed. Epicurus, as Furley sums up the position, "accepted Aristotle's con- clusion that there must be indivisible units of time, distance, and motion if there are indivisible units of any one of these three... And he accepted Aristotle's contention that faster and slower motion entails the divisibility of time and distance; he developed the theory that there are no real differences in speed, and undertook to explain away the apparent differences in the speeds of visible moving bodies" (Two Studies in the Greek Atomists, p. 121). I believe that Furley's analysis of Epicurus' position is correct. There is, however, a difficulty in employing this analysis to explain the transition from the theory of minima in sections 56-59 to the account of atomic motions in sections 61-62 of the Letter to Herodotus.10 For section 61 begins with a dis- cussion, not of any and all atomic motions, but specifically of motion downward through the void and with particular emphasis on the in- difference of this motion to heaviness and lightness. On my inter- pretation of section 60, it is possible to say why this should be so.

In the De caelo, Aristotle set forth certain consequences of rejecting the doctrine of natural places and a finite universe: (1) there would be one direction of motion for all things (275 b 30 - 276 a 3); (2) the speed of all bodies would be infinite (277 a 30-34); (3) bodies would neither accelerate nor decelerate (277 b 5-8). I think it is safe to add one more consequence, which Aristotle does not make explicit: (4) no body would naturally be at rest. Conclusions (2) and (3) rest on the premise that bodies accelerate as they approach their natural place, an as- sumption which was widely accepted, according to Simplicius' com- mentary on the passage. Without going into the details of Aristotle's arguments, the important thing for our purposes is to note that Epicurus essentially admits as valid all four conclusions: (1) the basic motion of the atoms is in a single direction; (2) their speed is, not infinite, but inconceivably great; (3) they neither accelerate nor decelerate, but move at uniform speed; (4) and, of course, they are never at rest. Thus the discussion in section 61, which begins with a terse recapitulation of these notions, emerges naturally out of the refutation, in section 60, of Aristotle's conception of "up" and "down."

10 Furley does not discuss section 60.

275

6. CRITIQUE OF THE PREVAILING INTERPRETATION I shall examine in detail Bailey's version, which is the fullest statement of the view. Bailey sets out Epicurus' argument as follows (all quo- tations from Bailey are from his Commentary on Epicurus ad loc., pp. 213-215; numbers in parentheses refer, for convenience, to lines in the text reproduced above):

A (1-2): "We must not speak of the 'up' and the 'down' as though (measured by) the highest or a lowest" (reading &v arco m

A' (2-3): For, "even if we were to prolong to infinity the line passing above our heads, we shall never reach the top" (Bailey adds, "nor the bottom... ," but this is not warranted on his interpretation of the text).

B (3-4): "We must not either say that that which stretches down- ward to infinity... can be at once up and down in reference to the same thing," (that is, up and down "have a relative truth.")

B' (5): For this is inconceivable. C (5): "We may then in this conventional sense say that there is

a motion upwards and a motion downwards in respect to us." D (6-8): "Even though there are thousands of worlds above and

below us..." E (8-9): "A summing up: for in any case, whether you call them

up and down or not, the two motions are diametrically opposed to one another. Of course once more, not a mathematical statement but R conclusion based on experience."

Bailey's account raises insuperable objections. First, the paragraph is irrelevant in its context, as Bailey acknowledges, printing his translation in brackets. Second, much of the argument is trivial, irrelevant or otiose: (i) A and A' are merely another argument, and a worse one, for the infinity of the universe, which was already demon- strated in section 41; (ii) there is no point to the phrase "downward to infinity" in B; (iii) D is irrelevant (Bailey remarks, "the clause is not very satisfactory");"1 (iv) E is trivial, for if "up" and "down" conventionally describe opposed motions, the sentence reduces to: "opposed motions are opposed to one another" (what Bailey means by "a mathematical statement" here eludes me). Third, Bailey's is an unnatural reading of the text: (i) the emendation in A gives awkward Greek (Bailey calls it "a sentence of some difficulty;" Usener, who

11 It was Gassendi who first supposed our text to refer to other worlds above and below us. It is a quite unnecessary supposition, as Mau (p. 20) demonstrates clearly.

276

proposed the emendation, suggested a lacuna); (ii) it is difficult to make B depend on xzarjyopsev (Bailey notes the "somewhat awkward want of parallelism" between A' and B). Fourth, C is a distortion of the text, where (i) nothing corresponding to the phrase, "in this con- ventional sense," is to be found, and (ii) Epicurus speaks of one motion up and down, not a motion (VACv... pop&v); but this conclusion will not follow from A and B. Fifth, and most damaging of all, Bailey's interpretation of the passage makes it inconsistent with Epicurean theory, and this for two reasons: (i) Epicurus does not believe that "up" and "down" are conventional, he believes they are natural. Of course it does not matter "whether you call them up and down or not," but whatever you call them, down is different from up not merely in being the opposite direction, but in being the direction in which all bodies by nature tend (cf. Lucretius 2.184 ff. and 2.217-8 corpora cum deorsum rectum per inane feruntur/ponderibus propriis). If section 60 says anything about down and up, it must be consistent with this. (ii) The fact of natural directions "up" and "down" is not "a conclusion based on experience" in the sense Bailey intends when he remarks: "we know what we mean by motion upward and downward in reference to ourselves, and we have only to prolong such motion to infinity, and we then have the conception we need." By this reasoning one could argue that because we know what we mean by right and left in refer- ence to ourselves, there must be a right and left in the natural universe, a conclusion the Epicureans would not countenance. That atoms tend naturally in a single direction is a theoretical premise of the atomic hypothesis of Epicurus, which is consistent with and can account for the "up" and "down" which we perceive (the natural "up" happens to coincide with our sense of "up"). The argument is not worked out explicitly in Epicurus or Lucretius, but if we put together the premise that all things tend naturally downward (save when forced upwards by "extrusion") and the notion that the earth, for various reasons, tends to be at rest relative to its own local cosmos (Lucretius 5.534 ff.), then we can see, I think, the general structure of the account.'2 (R. D. Hicks [CR 37 (1923) 108-110] proposed to read A' and B as a single argument to the effect that "infinity will be either up or down

Mau remarks (p. 20): "Im unendlichen Raum gibt es kein absolutes Oben und Unten, demnach auch keine Mitte." Whatever the status of this proposition in modern physical theory (which acknowledges, incidentally, an absolute right and left in infinite space), it is surely the case that Epicurus would reject it. There exists, for Epicurus, an absolute up-down orientation in space.

277

- it cannot possibly be both up and down - in reference to the same point" (p. 110). Apart from the awkwardness of calling "infinity" either up or down, Hicks' view does little, so far as I can see, to redeem the traditional interpretation.)

7. THE EVIDENCE OF LUCRETIUS

While Lucretius does not appear to employ the argument against the doctrine of natural places which Epicurus used in section 60, it is perhaps significant that he does specifically attack the idea of a natural center of the universe toward which all heavy things tend (1.1052 ff.). The doctrine he is criticizing includes the notion that the antipodes of the earth are inhabited by creatures who walk upside-down (suppa, line 1061), and this is perhaps a Stoic elaboration. The details of Lucretius' arguments need not concern us (in any case, the text is badly mutilated here). For my purposes, it is enough to show that the Epicureans, at least, directed special arguments against the doctrine of natural places, apart from their arguments in defense of an infinite universe. It is perhaps worth noting that when the discussion of physics resumes, after the proem to Book 2, the subject is the motion of the atoms.

Wesleyan University

278

Article Contentsp. 269p. 270p. 271p. 272p. 273p. 274p. 275p. 276p. 277p. 278

Issue Table of ContentsPhronesis, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1972), pp. 193-286Front MatterHeraclitus: Fragment 31 [pp. 193-197]Equality, Recollection, and Purification [pp. 198-218]" ": A Passage of Some Elegance in the "Theaetetus" [pp. 219-226]A Speculative Note on Some Dramatic Elements in the "Theaetetus" [pp. 227-238]Aristotle and the Principle of Individuation [pp. 239-249]A Parallel with "de Anima" III, 5 [pp. 250-251]Aristotle on Eudaimonia [pp. 252-259] ("EN" 1135 a 5) [pp. 260-268]Epicurus on "Up" and "Down" ("Letter to Herodotus" 60) [pp. 269-278]Poion and Poiotes in Stoic Philosophy [pp. 279-285]Back Matter