The Epicurean, Animals, and Freewill

17.

145. C .H . Kahn Anaximander and the Origin of Greek Cos-mology 134 ff. postulated a derivation f rom thesky, sea, earth and underwor ld as four luorld-regions.This is speculative and unnecessary, but sounderprocedure than the derivation f rom the opposites.

146. This paper mas first written in 1961, and lost by aneditor who shall be nameless. Since then G . E . R .Lloyd has published his useful "The Hot and the Cold,the Dry and the Wet in Greek Philosophy" 3HS 84(1964) 92 ff. This goes over some of the sameground in a d i f f e ren t may, but has not led me toalter anything u/hich I have written, though I havetakSn two references f r o m it. Since then again hasappeared his Polarity and Analogy , a most valuablebook, not least in its citation of dualist notionsas fundamental to primitive thought in many partsof the world.

THE E P I C U R E A N S . A N I M A L S , AND FREEWILL

De Rerum M a t u r a II 250-276 is a startling passage:Lucretius uses the behaviour of race-horses at the startof a race as an example of the kind of spontaneity thatis evidence for the swerve of the atoms. Indeed he goesso far us tc speak of freewill in this context: theimplication is that horses have freewill.

Not only is this a surprising claim in itself, butit seems to be in conflict with a f ragment of Epicurus 'Tlepl Φΰσεωζ preserved in Here . Pap. 697 (31. 25Arrighet t i ) . Here Epicurus appears to be distinguishingbetween animals and men , and saying that men havefreewillbut animals do not.

Unfor tunate ly neither the Lucretius passage nor theone f rom Epicurus is free f rom textual difficulties, andwhile I do not think that the answer to our problem lieshere, these must first be cleared out of the way.

1) Lucret ius. No word for horses or anything solelyconnected with horses is to be found in our manuscripts.Line 264 ends p ro rumps re quo rum in both 0 and Q, but theearly emendation proruppere «quorum has found universalacceptance. U/e then take careeritrjs in the same line as'starting-gates' and the whole picture fits together.But if, instead of eq jorum, we read some other uiord, wecould get a picture of a number of prisoners eagerly rushingout of gaol. However this solution is made unlikely bythe fact that Virgil seems to be imitating this passageat Georqlcs I I I 104-5, where he undoubted ly refers to thestart of a race, Even so, he does not directly conf i rmequorum; his linos might lead to suggesting ^urrurn withthe emission of a single fo l lowing line. Such omissionsare p lausibly suggested elsewhere in Lucret ius . Witnthis change we might then be able to treat the charioteersas the original sources of m o v e m e n t , not the horses. Butthis is not 3 pa r t i cu l a r ly a t t r ac t ive suggestion and I donot press it.

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18.2) Epicurus . This f ragment presents many difficult ies

and I would like to suggest some changes in the acceptedreadings. These will not however a f f ec t the point at issue.At lines 27-4 Gomperz and all af ter him read εν •νονθε'ύήσεΊ τωμεύτοι μάλλον τρόπω,

This is. awkward , and I 'would prefer εν νούθέτήτ ΐκω μέντοίμάλλον τρόπω. '

This would 'fill the gap in the papyrus with one letter toofeu/, but with a papyrus of this kind that is not an insup-erable objection. The same expression occurs at lines 30-31and makes better sense here"." ί also find Diano''s suggestedreading for lines 32-4 improbable, but cannot' think of any-thing better. lily proposed translation of lines 21-31 isthen:

'Furthermore we sometimes use disparaging words to men,but in a warning kind of way, and not as we treat wildanimals, which we do not hold culpable because we combine

• in a single whole their acquired reactions (?) andtheir innate constitution. Indeed we do not deal withthem by giving warning or improving advice *

The expression translated 'acquired reactions' isa difficult one to render, but it is clear f rom jhat Epicurussays in many other passages that it is here that he findsthe seat of freewill , and I do not think that there is anymay of taking this passage which jjjill alter the main point,that wild animals do net have freewill . (For good measurethere is also something about animals in an aarlier fragment ,31.21.θ ff., which may confirm this point but is exceedinglyobscure. W h y , for instance, does Epicurus write <j£)V

πάντων ξ ώων and'not πάντω^ τωνζωών? This passage calls for a separate study.)

I do not think we can reconcile Lucretius andEpicurus by saying that they are dealing with two indepen-dent points. It is true that Epicurus is talking aboutpraise and blame, and Lucretius about spontaneous action,but that is not all they are saying. Lucretius is alsoclaiming, and Epicurus denying, that animals have free-will. But a more hopeful line of attack may be found inthe fact that Epicurus speaks of τα αγρίΟΓτων ζώων»Now dfpto?. is the usual word for 'wild' as opposedto ήμερος for ' tame' and perhaps we should press ithere. UJe could then say that Epicurus held that wild animalshad no freewill , but tame ones were different . This couldindeed fit in with his point about praise and blame. Ιϋθdo use them in training seme tame animals at least, but,with the exception of people like lion tamers, do nottreat wild animals in the same way. Further , we knowthat Epicurus was interested in animal psychology andin tameness. See for instance Lucret ius V 13(38 ff withits account of the at tempt to use bulls, boars and lionsin battle, and its fai lure, and the passage on NaturalSelection at V 855-77 whore he mentions domestic animalswhich have come under m a n ' s protection because they areuseful to him.

The similarities and di f ferences b'etween animalsand men must have raised many problems for Epicurus , asthey did for Ar i s to t l e . Both in their d i f f e r en t waysheld theories tha t s t r f i scod the similarities; Aristotleby his theory of the nature of the psyche, and Epicurusby his mater ia l ism, for each, drawing linns raised



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problems. For Aristotle, however , man was set apart in many u/aysby his reason, and in particular he says explicitly that only man,μόνον ITCJV ζώων3 could be an βργΐ] πράξεωντινών των γ«ρ οΑλ;ον ο'*θ«·ν ε^ποψεν cv πράττε ιν

(EudeiTijan Ethics ' 1222b 19-21). The context, ujith its referenceto praise and blame, rrakes it clear that he is concerned luith thesame kind of thing as Epicurus in the passage discussed abovel

For Epicurus we can be sure only that elsewhere, in adifferent connection, he dreiu a line at a different place. AtRatae Ssntentiae X X X I I he says that justice and injustice have noplace among animals ujho cannot come to an .agreement about notinjuring each other and being injured, nor among tribes of menluho cannot or mill not do the same. At first sight he seems tobe saying that only among civilised men can justice and in-justice be found , with the implication that savages and animals areall on the same footing. But here too a question may be raised.He actually says that those animals ( δο'α ~τών ζώων)that cannot come to an agreement, have n j justice* or injustice,which leaves open the possibility that he thinks that someanimals - tame ones, ants and the like - can-do so.

Unfortunately I can find nothing else that mill throw .lighton the problems discussed here. And so I return to my originalquestion, 'Uid Lucret ius say that horses have freewill?1

University of Liverpool Pamela ΙΪΙ. Huby

PLATO; ABOUT L A N G U A G E ; T H E C R A T Y L U 5 R E C O N S I D E R E D

An obvious objection to an attempt to elicit f rom the dialoguesPlato's doctrine concerning language may be thought to be that it ismisleading to speak of Plato's doctrine on any subject. One suspectsfrom a reading of the dialogues, the objection continues, that Platois more bent on dramatizing and extolling a way in which philosophyought to be done than on formulat ing and promulgating any well-defined philosophical doctrines. To be sure there is present in allthe dialogues, either overtly or implicitly, a view as to what thingsthere are and what their relative importance is (subsequent gener-ations have alluded to this as Platonism); and undeniably Platois less loath to adopt a positive philosophical posture in theRepublic and post-Republic dialogues than in the earlier dialogues.Nevertheless it cannot be gainsaid that one of the purposes upper-most in Plato's mind when he wrote the dialogues u/as that ofstaging vividly the way in which a philosophical investigation -whatever its subject might be - ought to be conducted.

UJhile conceding the considerable force of this objection,one may nonetheless, I beliove, approach with some optimismthe task of ex t rac t ing f ι om Plato 's wr i t ings his views on languageand its uses, In the first, place, the dialogues by their verynature exhibit intnrlocutors constantly employing language intheir inquiries. Secondly, Pla to ma in ta ins that, discussion isessential to the philosopher in the conduct of his business.



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The Epicurean, Animals, and Freewill