The confirmation of the just
The presence of the Epicurean technicality ‘to confirm' (or ‘to witness in favour of': επιμαρτυρεrν )24 in the first line of PD 37, referring to what is taken to be just, certainly suggests a similarity between the validation of what is just and the confirmation procedures recognized by Epicurean epistemology.
Sextus Empiricus, reporting Epicurus' view, defines confirmation [επιμαρτυρησις] as a grasp [καταληψις] through evidence of the fact that the subject on which the opinion (or conjecture) is held is such as the opinion (or conjecture) held it to be (M 7.212; Us. 247).25 For Epicurus, perception works as a criterion and implies that we can deliberately direct our attention to carry out processes of confirmation. The question arises as to what makes it possible to trigger such processes of confirmation or verification. In Epicurus' view, human perceptions are related to an internal movement that gives rise to opinions, suppositions and conjectures (DL 9.34: LH 50. Sextus Empiricus, M 7.203; 7.212, 215, Us. 247). The epistemic agent has the possibility of considering the truth of these opinions, suppositions and conjectures as ‘waiting' [ προσμενον ], since it is a truth that future perceptions will either confirm [επιμαρτυρειται] or not disprove [ουκ aντιμαρτυρεrται], or not confirm [ουκ επιμαρτυρεrται] or disprove [aντιμαρτυρεrται]. Unfortunately, the extant texts of Epicurus are extremely sparse at this point, where prudential tradition also seems to be present in Epicurean epistemology. However, it appears that, when speaking of opinions, suppositions or conjectures as ‘that which awaits' (i.e. which awaits confirmation), Epicurus attributes to this movement (which combines perception and opinion) a sort of recognition, and a certain sketch of the conditions of confirmation. Such recognition and sketch of confirmation conditions is tantamount to a certain recognition of the best conditions of the exercise of perception. We can only highlight the general relevance of this topic in Hellenistic philosophy by saying that it is enough to point out that one of the most significant results of the bitter disputes between the Stoics and the Academic Sceptics was that it forced both schools to try to limit the best conditions of the perceptive exercise, as is clearly witnessed by Sextus Empiricus (M 7.166-189, 253-260, 424-425).In ancient tradition, there are two examples of the ‘waiting for' confirmation regarding opinions and conjectures (DL 10.33; Sextus Empiricus M 7.212, 215), where what is subject to confirmation is the form of an object seen from far away (the repeated example of the tower)26 or the identity of a person who is seen in the distance (Plato, in Sextus' example). Under this aspect, the verification or confirmation moves in a restricted area: the world of objects located in an accessible space. Not every opinion matters to this field since opinions and conjectures are also concerned with the non-manifest [αδηλον]. Epicurus distinguishes two domains of the non-manifest: objects that can only be observed from far away, such as astronomical and atmospheric phenomena, and unobservable objects, such as atoms and void. In both cases, it is only possible for opinions or conjectures to be ‘counter-witnessed' (αντιμαρτυρεtται)27 or not ‘counter-witnessed' [ουκ aντιμαρτυρεtται].
In his brief treatise on ‘meteorology' in the Letter to Pythocles, Epicurus refers to astronomical and atmospheric phenomena and stresses that they can be explained differently (LP 85-87). In his opinion, to seek unique explanations in this domain not only corresponds to a life of irrationality and empty opinion [ου γαρ αλογ(ας καi κενης δoξης î βiος], but also to an abandonment of physical inquiry (in the sense of a ‘scientific treatment of nature'). In this case, one ends up having to resort to a mythical account that offers no real explanation (LP 86-87; 113).28Finally, it could be said that, in the complex articulation existing between perceiving and supposing, lies the possibility of using perception as a criterion of truth. To clarify this relationship, the Epicureans tried to accurately delimit perception through an exhaustive explanation of its cognitive content. This task demanded a supposedly ‘phenomenological' conception of perception, accompanied at all times by the corresponding physical explanations of the theory of‘images' [ ειδωλα] or rather ‘simulacra' (as Lucretius says, surely thinking of Epicurean ειδωλα, ‘the mind is deceived by “images” - simulacra - in sleep when we have a vision of one whom life has deserted'; RN 5.62-63).
In the practical domain, confirmation [επιμαρτυρησις], as Epicurus himself seems to have pointed out in his treatise On Nature,29 has specific features that are underlined by PD 37 and 38. This is so because in the practical domain opinions are not properly contrasted with bodies or properties of bodies, but by an examination of their practical consequences, that is, the advantageousness or disadvantageousness of the actions that are based on the opinions.30 The practical consequences of certain convictions about justice, embodied in the laws, are actually examined as to whether they are convenient or useful as a result of not harming each other or being harmed.31 The language of PD 37 and 38 clearly reflects the confirmation process [επιμαρτυρησις] specific to the domain of praxis. PD 37 uses the verb αποβα(νειν (‘to turn out') to refer to the practical consequences that derive from the establishment of a law.
PD 38 refers to the practical consequences of what is sanctioned as just through the proposition ‘it was evident... in the facts themselves' [ανεφανη... επ' αυτων των εργων]. Consequently, the process of validation or confirmation mentioned in PD 37 and 38 obeys, rather, the dynamic that is established in the relationship between means and ends, or instruments and functions.32 Ends and functions sketch the suitable means: a plasticine hammer, for example, is an absurd tool, as are laws whose consequences would be collective starvation and the disappearance of the community. In this sense, ends and functions (‘neither harming one another nor being harmed’, PD 33) constrain means and instruments. But circumstances also constitute another unavoidable factor to be considered in the validation of the conformity of means to ends. This implies, of course, that the validation itself is temporary: what has been confirmed or counter-witnessed in the present as just, may not have been confirmed or counter-witnessed in the same terms in the past or may not be confirmed or counter-witnessed in the future (this epistemological procedure is not alien to Epicurus; see LH 51-52).In our opinion, this detail explains in a clear way the sense in which it can be said that Epicurean justice is a sort of ‘modality of usefulness’.33 It also explains why Epicurus holds that justice is not something by itself, but instead a certain kind of pact [συνθηκη τις] that refers to neither harming nor receiving harm, which is always the case in reciprocal relationships in specific places and times (PD 33). In other words, justice is not something entirely invariable and immutable by itself: according to the circumstances, so too is what is just. However, this does not mean that justice is something ‘relative’ (in the sense of a crude relativism), but rather that the law must be flexible enough to adapt itself to the concrete situation in which people are living.
This approach also helps to understand why, even though Epicurus states that justice is not a thing in its own right ( PD 33; see also Lucretius, RN 5.855-877), it is nevertheless generally the same for everyone since it is something useful in association with one another (συμφερον... εν τη πρoς αλληλους κοινωνlg; PD 36). For example, suppose that food reserves in a city are low because of a poor harvest; it may be fair and reasonable to pass a law requiring the citizens to consume smaller rations of grain (at least while the food emergency lasts). Of course, that law should be identical for everyone: if a person received any privileges connected with the distribution of food, anyone else could claim the same privilege, which eventually would lead to the destruction of the city. Thus, the pact would not be kept, which is the same as saying that the political community would be dissolved. Indeed, if the agreement is annulled according to which harming and being harmed is avoided, then there will be no pact. This trivial example is helpful since it shows how justice must be considered as a modality of usefulness. Furthermore, it shows the sense in which what is just is valid for the time and circumstances in which that law is reasonable as a means of preserving the political community (PD 37).As already stated, the relevance of a specific time and circumstance mostly depends upon Epicurean contractualism.34 However, once again, there is an interesting remark in Plato regarding the time and circumstance in which laws have their legal power. In the Statesman (294a7-8), he underlines the tension existing between the establishment of laws and the infinite variability of the circumstances related to specific actions. This topic is also reflected in Aristotle's debates on the universality of the law and the singular character of actions (this is especially evident in the recognition that the ‘situational' nature of praxis has in his ethical investigations; see EN 1141b14-21).
Plato had no doubts that human goods and the good are not the same thing. Even though the highest standard of what is good is the Form of the Good (Resp. 6), he reminds us that the just person will be just in the usual sense of keeping an oath, not committing robberies, thefts, or betrayals of friends, and avoiding adultery, disrespect for parents, and neglect of the gods (Resp. 442e-443b). More importantly, Plato explicitly notes that the legal norm is in various ways subordinated to the person knowing what justice means for the city.35 Of course, the person who actually knows what is right is the Platonic philosopher; but what is relevant here is that Epicurus, probably inspired by this remarkable Platonic passage, reminds us that the law cannot be universal in scope always and everywhere regardless of the circumstances and the person applying it. Circumstances are relevant, but so is the sober calculation of the person who can discern the specific circumstance in which a rule should be applied.The epistemological aspects discussed above and related to the issue of justice, as well as its confirmation or validation as discussed in PD 37 and 38, concern the ‘truth' of things instituted by people and not the substantial objects of the world that they find before themselves. Some of its elements, as we have indicated, are present in the philosophical tradition, but perhaps the most interesting parallel is Aristotle's attempts to clarify the specificity of practical truth and, of course, the assumption of modern philosophies about the notion of truth as an active constitution on the part of the subject.36 The aforementioned Principal Doctrines allow us to understand how the Epicureans dealt with the nature of the ‘truth' of that which the human beings had established.
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