Epicurean free will

by Tim Harding

Epicurus’ philosophy of mind is perhaps best explained in terms of Epicurean physics.  Epicurus was a materialist who thinks that the natural world is all that exists, so his physics is a general theory of what exists and its nature, including human bodies and minds (O’Keefe 2010: 11-12).

Epicureans thought that there are only two things that exist per se – atoms and void.  Atoms are the indivisible, most basic particles of matter, which move through void, which is empty space (O’Keefe 2010: 11-12).  Objects as we know them are compounds of atoms, and their various natures are explicable in terms of the different properties or attributes of their constituent atoms (Baltzly 2016: 02-1).

When Epicurus refers to the ‘soul’ he means what we today refer to as the mind, so ‘mind’ is the term I shall use here.  He identifies the mind with a compound of four types of atoms – air, heat, wind and a fourth nameless substance (Long and Sedley 1987: 14C).  Because the mind is composed of atoms, it must be corporeal – only the void is incorporeal (Long and Sedley 1987: 14A).  The mind is a part of the body (located in the chest), responsible for sensation, imagination, emotion and memory (Long and Sedley 1987: 14A, 14B, 15D).  Other functions belong to the ‘spirit’ which provides sensory input to, and carries out the instructions of the mind throughout the body (Long and Sedley 1987: 14B).

According to O’Keefe (2010: 62-63), another Epicurean argument for believing that mind is corporeal is as follows:

Premise 1: The mind moves the body and is moved by the body.

Premise 2: Only bodies can move and be moved by other bodies.

Conclusion: Therefore, the mind is a body.

Long and Sedley (1987:107) identify Epicurus as arguably the first philosopher to recognise what we now know as the philosophical Problem of Free Will.  This problem is if it has been causally necessary we should act as we do, it cannot be up to us, therefore we cannot be morally responsible for our actions (Long and Sedley 1987: 20A).  On the other hand, Epicurus notes that ‘we rebuke, oppose and reform each other as if the responsibility lay also in ourselves’ [Long and Sedley 1987: 20C(2)].

According to Cicero, ‘Epicurus thinks that necessity of fate is avoided by the swerve of atoms’ [Long and Sedley 1987: 20E(2)].  Baltzly explains this ‘atomic swerve’ as atoms moving a minimal distance sideways, apparently for no reason at all, from time to time.  This swerve from their natural downward motion results in atomic collisions (Baltzly 2016: F2.2-14).  Although this swerve is not explicitly mentioned by Epicurus himself, Cicero writes that:

‘Epicurus’ reason for introducing this theory was his fear that, if the atom’s motion was always the result of natural and necessary weight, we would have no freedom, since the mind would be moved in whatever way it was compelled by the movement of atoms’ [Long and Sedley 1987: 20E(3)].

Lucretius presents an argument that the atomic swerve enables free will (Long and Sedley 1987: 20F).  O’Keefe (2010: 74-75) states this argument in the following form:

Premise 1: If the atoms did not swerve, there would not be ‘free will’.

Premise 2: There is free will.

Conclusion: Therefore, atoms swerve.

This argument is logically valid, so if the premises are true the conclusion must be true.  Lucretius spends most of this passage trying to show that Premise 2 is true.  However, even if Premise 2 is true, we do not know that Premise 1 is true.  The atomic swerve introduces a slight element of indeterminacy, but this swerve does not necessarily entail free will, since no mechanism is given to explain the connection between these two concepts.  Indeed, Annas (1991: 87) argues that there is a fundamental problem in thinking of human motivation in terms of only the motion of atoms.  She thinks that occurrence of atomic swerves in ordinary macro-objects has no effect on them (Annas 1991: 96-97).  For this reason, I do not think that the introduction of random atomic swerves solves the Problem of Free Will.

Sedley (1987: 107) agrees that taken in isolation such a solution is ‘notoriously unsatisfactory’.  He offers an alternative explanation in terms of ‘development’ which contributes psychological autonomy and which is distinct from the atoms in a kind of differential or transcendent way (Long and Sedley 1987: 107-18).  In other words, these distinct developments are psychological rather than physical properties of the mind.  In particular, the development of consciousness which is an ‘emergent’ property of complex atomic systems like human beings (Baltzly 2016: F2.2 – 17).

In a later paper, Sedley provides some more detail on what he means by emergent properties:

‘I take Epicurus to be sketching some sort of theory of radically emergent properties.  Matter in certain complex states can, he holds, acquire entirely new , non-physical properties, not governed by the laws of physics’ (Sedley 1988: 323-324).

It is important to note that Sedley is attempting here to make a connection between free will and the atomic swerve.  As Baltzly (2016: F2.2 – 18) puts it, the swerve means that not every motion of the atoms which make up our bodies is determined by those atoms themselves.  Baltzly thinks that the swerve does not introduce an element of randomness or indeterminacy into our free choices:

‘Rather, the swerve leaves a gap where the psychological properties of my soul [mind] can cause something to happen where behaviour of the atoms that make up my soul [mind] leave it open what will happen’ (Baltzly 2016: F2.2 – 18).

My own view is that Sedley and Baltzly provide a plausible explanation of the connection between Epicurus’ atomic swerve and free will.  It is possible that consciousness is an emergent psychological property of the material mind.  Free will could be seen as a manifestation of consciousness.  Whilst we cannot yet fully explain what consciousness is and how is works, there is little doubt that consciousness exists.  If consciousness can exist, then so can free will.  However, where I part company with Sedley is that I find Epicurus’ theory of the atomic swerve unconvincing.  Neither Epicurus nor his followers provide any evidence for the existence of the atomic swerve.  It has been postulated as a kind of ‘retrofit’ in an attempt to solve the problem of free will by introducing an imaginary element of indeterminacy.  I think that Sedley’s idea of emergence could help to explain free will even in the absence of the Epicurean atomic swerve.

I would now like to draw towards a conclusion about Epicurus’ philosophy of mind, by comparing it with the theories of his competitors.  According to O’Keefe (2010: 80-83), these were mainly Carneades (214-129BCE) the head of the skeptical academy; and Chrysippus (c.280-206BCE) the third head of the Stoic school.

The most relevant criticism of Carneades is that positing a motion without a cause, like the atomic swerve, would be beside the point in solving the problem of free will (O’Keefe 2010: 82).  Carneades’ solution is to say that all events, including human actions, have causes   These actions are the result of ‘voluntary motions of the mind’ rather than external causes.  He thinks that there is no reason to posit, in addition, a fundamental indeterminism like the atomic swerve (O’Keefe 2010: 82).  In this way, Carneades was perhaps the forerunner of a compatibilist solution to the problem of free will, allowing both determinism and voluntary choices to co-exist.

Chrysippus criticises Epicurus from the opposite direction.  He shows that causal determinism does not make the future inevitable in a manner that renders action or deliberation futile.  In this way, determinism is compatible with human agency (O’Keefe 2010: 82).

In conclusion, I think that Sedley, Carneades and Chrysippus have pointed the way towards a compatibilist solution to the problem of free will, that does not depend on the dubious Epicurean postulation of the atomic swerve.  I therefore think that their approaches to this problem are more compelling than those of Epicurus.

Bibliography

Annas, J. ‘Epicurus’ Philosophy of Mind’ Companions to Ancient Thought: 2 Psychology, S. Everson, ed. (1991) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Baltzly, D. ATS3885: Stoic and Epicurean Philosophy Unit Reader (2016). Clayton: Faculty of Arts, Monash University.

Long A. A. and Sedley, D. N. The Hellenistic Philosophers, Volume 1 (1987). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

O’Keefe, T. Epicureanism. (2010). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Sedley D. ‘Epicurean Anti-Reductionism’ in Jonathan Barnes Mario Mignucci (ed.), Matter and Metaphysics. Bibliopolis 295–327 (1988).

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Patricia Churchland on the effects of neurobiology on criminal law

Why Evolution Is True

Scientific American has a new article, “20 big questions about the future of humanity“, in which twenty well known scientists prognosticate about our collective fate. It’s not clear whether the questions were generated by the scientists themselves or by the magazine, but most of them, and the answers, don’t inspire me much. It’s not that I think the answers are bad, I just think that predictions of this sort—will sex become obsolete? will humans survive the next 500 years? when and where will we find extraterrestrial life?—are shots in the dark, and the answers not that enlightening. After all, the extraterrestrial question is simply a big fat unknown.

But one question and answer, called to my attention by reader John O., intrigued me for obvious reasons. The respondent is the well known philosopher Patricia Churchland. Here’s the question and her answer, and the bold bit in the answer is my…

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Quilliam co-founder appears to be an evolution denialist

Why Evolution Is True

Stephen Knight, the Godless Spellchecker, has done another bit of sleuthing and found out, sadly, that Ed Husain, the co-founder of the anti-religious-extremism think tank Quilliam (the other founder was Maajid Nawaz) appears to be an evolution denialist—or at least a questioner.

Here’s the first tw**t from Husain,

It was followed by followed by some pushback by geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford as well as journalist and t.v. presenter Nicky Campbell. Husain replies to the pushback with a definite indication that he doesn’t accept evolution (it’s other people’s “theory”, he notes but doesn’t seem to comport with “Husain’s own facts”).

Husain then follows with a snarky remark about the evolution “cult”:

Husain doesn’t appear to be on staff at Qulliam any longer, so this is not on Maajid Nawaz’s watch. Still, according to Wikipedia, Husain is on several “moderate” faith organizations, and it doesn’t help his credibility if he…

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A big dust-up about marijuana between Maajid Nawaz and Peter Hitchens, with a note on free will

Why Evolution Is True

UPDATE: Note that Peter Hitchens himself has responded to this post, somewhat acrimoniously, at this link in the comments below. He’s not banned or anything, so feel free to address his remarks. Maybe he’ll respond; who knows?

_________________

Here’s an interesting—and acrimonious—conversation between Maajid Nawaz, who apparently has a program on Britain’s LBC Radio, and journalist Peter Hitchens (brother of You Know Who). Go to the link to hear the 9 minutes of bluster and yelling—almost all of it from Hitchens—or hear it on YouTube, without only the audio, here.) The topic is marijuana, and before Hitchens and Nawaz got into the fracas, Nawaz had expressed the opinion that marijuana should be legalized (see video at bottom of the page at the first link).

I didn’t know that Peter Hitchens was stringently against drugs, including marijuana, which he says in this interview is clearly connected with mental illness and should remain illegal…

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Telegraph story on research funding does nothing to advance Australian journalism

Ben Eltham, Deakin University

The Daily Telegraph breached its own code of conduct in its coverage of the Australian Research Council (ARC) this week.

On Monday, the News Corp Australia tabloid splashed with a story by Natasha Bita entitled:

Taxpayer dollars wasted on ‘absurd’ studies that do nothing to advance Australian research

The article was highly critical of a number of research projects funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in recent rounds. It began:

Millions of taxpayer dollars destined for vital research have been handed to arty academics for social engineering projects ranging from Tibetan philosophy to office gossip and warfare in ancient Tonga.

The Daily Telegraph did not approach many of the researchers whose projects it ridiculed for comment. And while Bita approached and received comment from the ARC for her story, she did not run its comments in her report. The ARC’s chief executive, Professor Aiden Byrne, wrote in an email:

The ARC was contacted by Natasha Bita about The Daily Telegraph article prior to publishing. The ARC provided a response to Natasha, but this was not used in the article.

Daily Telegraph front page, August 22.
News Corp Australia

The Daily Telegraph’s code of conduct clearly says “facts must be reported impartially, accurately and with integrity”, and reports should “try always to tell all sides of the story in any kind of dispute. Every effort must be made to contact all relevant parties.”

However, despite gathering comment from the ARC, The Daily Telegraph elected not to tell the ARC’s side of the story. The deliberate decision to refuse the ARC and academic researchers a right of reply appears to be a straightforward breach of the News Corp Australia code of conduct and, more broadly, of basic journalistic principles of balance and accuracy.

In a public statement, Byrne defended research in the humanities. He wrote:

It is misleading to judge the short titles or brief descriptions of research projects and infer that they are not useful research without looking at the detail of the project, which is extensively considered by the ARC expert assessors in determining its worthiness for funding.

Ridiculed researchers not contacted

The Conversation has contacted all the chief investigators of the projects mentioned in Bita’s article. None of the researchers we have spoken to were contacted by The Daily Telegraph before the article was published.

Professor John Powers, of the Australian National University, is a co-chief investigator on the research project about Tibetan philosophy ridiculed by Ray Hadley on 2GB, who read about it in Bita’s article. “No, no-one contacted me about the article,” he told me in an email, adding that Buddhist studies were important for Australia’s relationship with Asia.

He continued:

There are hundreds of millions of Buddhists in Asia and around the world. Better understanding of their worldviews helps in many intangible ways, and if our leaders and policymakers had better insight into these things they’d probably be more effective in their diplomacy and in their interactions with Asian counterparts.

Associate Professor Hannah Lewi, of the University of Melbourne, is a co-chief investigator on a project examining post-war Australian universities, also attacked in Bita’s article. She confirmed The Daily Telegraph had not contacted the researchers. “No, no-one consulted us before these articles,” she wrote in an email.

We are, I guess, used to the annual research-bashing articles that come out in the press about politicians calling out waste-of-money ARC-funded research. It feels like whacking day for the humanities.

Monash University’s Andrew Benjamin shares an ARC Discovery Award with Jeffrey Malpas which “proposes a new philosophical vision of what it means to be human”. Benjamin told me bluntly:

I was not contacted, and that I think is a betrayal of journalistic standards.

Like many other academics that I spoke to, Benjamin was profoundly disappointed that The Daily Telegraph had not even bothered to let him explain the merit of the project for which he had received funding. He found the article especially frustrating, he told me, as he argues that “it’s the job of philosophy to provide criteria for social judgment”.

Monash University scholar Shane Homan’s project on Australian contemporary music also featured in the article. “I can confirm that I was not contacted by anyone from News Corp about the article,” he said.

The article ignores the precepts of good journalism. Good analysis ensures that the reader has context – to let rip simply on the basis of grant abstracts is lazy, Homer Simpson journalism.

I reached Discovery Early Career Researcher Award recipient Lucas Ihlein on the road, as he travelled to Queensland to research his project on the social engagement of art in the complex environmental dilemma of the Great Barrier Reef. He said:

No-one got in touch with me. The first I heard about it [was when] the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at Wollongong Uni sent me a message to say ‘we’re very sorry about it and we hope you’re okay’. There was no attempt [to contact me] whatsoever.

Ihlein argued his research would benefit the farming communities of central Queensland. He wrote in a Facebook post:

The desire to make changes is coming from within the farming community itself, which has begun to recognise that traditional farming methods using chemical fertilisers and pesticides are no longer financially viable, nor are they environmentally responsible.

Instead of contacting academics, or running the comment she gathered from the ARC, Bita went shopping for an expert to buttress her report. Her article cites Michael Potter at the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), a neoliberal think-tank, as its only expert source.

The CIS did not put out a publication or media release about ARC funding results, and Potter is not an economist known for his work in research policy. His publications for the CIS have all been about tax and superannuation. The Conversation understands the CIS did not pitch any remarks about research policy, but rather that Bita contacted the CIS seeking comment for her story.

The CIS refused an interview with Potter on Thursday and Friday, claiming he was “unavailable”. A spokesperson would not comment on questions about Potter’s scholarly credentials in research policy or higher education, instead issuing a statement from Potter reiterating his remarks. “I stand by my comments,” he wrote.

I contacted a number of leading economists with research profiles in research policy and innovation. None would endorse Potter as a scholar with any record in research policy.

The University of Queensland’s highly cited innovation scholar Mark Dogdson told me:

I’ve never heard of Michael Potter, but he appears not to know that societies advance more when knowledge is pursued for its own sake, rather than for instrumental reasons, and no-one can ever predict what knowledge will be useful.

University of Queensland economist John Quiggin, author of Zombie Economics, lamented the decline of the CIS as a serious think-tank:

In the 1980s and 1990s, the CIS was at the forefront of policy debate, pushing an intellectually bold and coherent argument for free-market policies. But I haven’t seen a new idea from them in years. This tired rehash of a theme that was done to death by the late US senator William Proxmire 40 years ago, and by his Australian imitators under the Howard government, is sad evidence of this.

In a phone interview, Professor Susan Dodds, president of the Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, attacked the journalistic ethics of Bita and The Daily Telegraph. She said:

To simply pluck things from the ARC website and to question whether that’s a valid use of taxpayers’ resources without contacting the researchers is just a distortion. It’s a cheap move, a populist move, and it smacks of a certain type of anti-intellectualism.

The Queensland University of Technology’s Stuart Cunningham has written extensively on research and innovation policy. “As a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, I endorse the Academy President Professor John Fitzgerald’s response to The Daily Telegraph attack,” he wrote in an email. He continued:

Science and technology can’t go it alone. Tackling today’s global challenges requires deep knowledge of people, societies and cultures that underpin, fuel or react to these challenges.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the ARC controversy is that no media outlet has mentioned the federal government’s latest Review of Research Policy and Funding Arrangements, handed down last November. Carried out by Ian Watt, a former secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the report was largely supportive of the quality of federally funded academic research. Its very first line reads:

The overall quality of the Australian research sector is high by OECD standards.

Political ripples

Bita’s Daily Telegraph article was politically significant. It was taken up by radio host Ray Hadley, who lampooned many of the projects cited in the article on his 2GB show that day.

Hadley directly attacked the ARC, claiming its funding was “piddling up against the wall”, and used his weekly interview with Treasurer Scott Morrison to call for a “pub test” for federal research funding.

After a lukewarm defence of ARC-funded work on snail infestations, Morrison agreed with Hadley about the need for ARC decisions to enjoy “public support”. He said:

It’s a fair point, Ray, and I think it shouldn’t be lost on those who make these decisions, and it’s certainly not lost on us, and we expect them to take into account public support for these types of activities.

Those who make those decisions, whether they’re bureaucrats or ultimately politicians, you need to be mindful of that.

Morrison’s comments were then widely and shared on social media and reported by other media outlets, including an article by Jared Owens in The Australian.

Scott Morrison later discussed the research funding story with 2GB’s Ray Hadley. AAP/Sam Mooy

I made repeated efforts to contact The Daily Telegraph about this article. I emailed, tweeted and called journalist Bita – a Walkley Award winner – and The Daily Telegraph’s editor, Chris Dore, putting a series of questions to them in regard to this story.

In particular, I asked them whether the researchers working on the projects mentioned in the article had been contacted, whether the ARC had been contacted, and whether the article represented a breach of The Daily Telegraph’s code of conduct.

At the time of writing, no response had been received.

Ben Eltham, Research Fellow, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. (Reblogged by permission). Read the original article.

 

Cicero’s critique of Stoicism, part I

How to Be a Stoic

Cicero, bust in the Capituline Museums, Rome (photo by the Author)

When one is immersed into a particular philosophy or point of view it is always a good idea to hear some vigorous critique of it. This will help us maintain a critical attitude toward our own beliefs, and as a bonus it will allow us to practice the virtue of temperance, since people are apt to get seriously irritated when their positions are critiqued by others!

That’s why I went through the painful exercise of reading Frank McLynn’s (unfair, in my mind) blasting of Stoicism in his biography of Marcus Aurelius (on the same book, see also here, here, and here). It is now time to look at a more serious, and much more ancient, attack on the Stoics, the one articulated by Cicero in book IV of his De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the…

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Cicero’s critique of Stoicism, part II

How to Be a Stoic

Cicero in the Forum

We have seen some of the major arguments that Cicero uses against the Stoics, in book IV of his De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the Ends of Goods and Evils), and I’m going to complete my brief analysis in this post.

At #48 we find a fascinating, and in some sense, very modern, passage: “Considerations of conduct or duty do not supply the impulse to desire the things that are in accordance with nature; it is these things which excite desire and give motives for conduct.”

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What is a scientific consensus?

 

Hooray! My university sends letter to incoming students decrying safe spaces and trigger warnings, promoting free speech, and refusing to cancel controversial speakers

Why Evolution Is True

I’m not much of a jingoist: I don’t root for America in the Olympics, I don’t favor my home-town sports teams, and, although I like the University of Chicago, which has treated me very well, I don’t go around touting it as The Best School in the World.

But today I’m feeling quite proud to be here, for the U of C has just affirmed its commitment to free speech in a letter sent by the Dean to all incoming first-year students. So suck it up Oberlin, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Amherst, Portland State, Yale, and all the other timorous schools that want to restrict speech. We’re better than you! We’re not going to cancel invitations to Ayaan Hirsi Ali; we’re not going to bow to protests about “culturally appropriated” food, and we’re not going to let students shout down speakers. In other words, we’re going to expect our students to…

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Paul Keating on Pauline Hanson