The development of language, the origin of justice and law, and the preconception of the just
In the discussion put forward by PD 37 and 38, what is just appears as object of preconception. The practical effects of what is held to be just, the circumstances, and the preconception of what is just are, indeed, the factors involved in the previously mentioned discussion.
According to the above considerations regarding what is just, the correlate of this preconception is the sense of something that is ‘advantageous because of not harming one another or being harmed’. It is enough to look at the terms of this expression to understand the formal and operative nature of the preconception of what is just, which forces one to ask oneself to whom one should attribute the belonging of preconception in the debate presented by the passages under review. The Principal Doctrines 37 and 38 differ from the other Principal Doctrines concerning justice because of their greater concreteness. They oppose to the indeterminacy of the gnomic style of these other Principal Doctrines specific approaches that can be exemplified in the practice of Athenian law.37 The Principal Doctrines 37 and 38 do not mention pacts, nor do they refer explicitly, as do Hermarchus and Lucretius, to the origin of justice and the causes of the subsequent need to establish laws and sanctions. They do not refer to the origin of the preconception of the just, either. They consider societies with the preconception of just, laws and magistracies and, from them and concerning them, they examine what is held to be just and the nature that the just should possess. If this is so (and we think it is), the Epicurean political model must have been designed not only to provide guidelines for what a society of ‘Epicurean friends’ should look like (a society Epicurus must certainly have been thinking of), but also to describe the political organization understood as a polis, in which not necessarily everyone was an Epicurean. Like any other political model, the Epicurean one has a compelling normative character which may have shortcomings. Moreover, it is not entirely idealistic, and is intended for human beings capable of understanding the normative principles that are supposed to guarantee a healthy social community.In this spirit, Goldschmidt (one of the few scholars who, like Muller, has investigated where the Epicureans locate the preconception of the just) maintains that in PD 37 and 38, the preconception of the just is the political community. Goldschmidt also distinguishes this preconception from the universal or philosophical preconception of the just which, according to him, would not allow for the validation of what is taken to be just due to its generality. The preconception mentioned in PD 37 and 38 is the idea that citizens make of the common interest and thus embody in their constitution and their legal system. The validation they present would primarily concern the conformity of legal provisions with the constitution.38 Changes to the constitution (that is, the redefinitions of the public interest)39 would raise this conformity in new terms, but would not imply any denial of the just while the abolished constitution and the legal provisions adjusted to it were still in force. In the history of Athens, the constitution of the ancestors would represent a principle of permanence and continuity regarding the changes of a regime similar to that which, in general terms, performs the philosophical preconception of the just. Goldschmidt also maintains that, if we consider these maxims in relation to the Hellenistic era in which Epicurus lived, it becomes necessary to grant to the issue of security the role of permanence and continuity that he attributes to the ancestral constitution.40
The first interpretative framework suggested by Goldschmidt is very appealing: while highlighting the continuity of laws and justice, it has the merit of agreeing with one of the fundamental purposes of the Epicurean political theory: the apology for the security and tranquillity of civilized life governed by laws and magistracies.
It also makes clear the collective belonging of the preconception of justice. However, apart from relying on readings that do not enjoy consensus, such as the aforementioned interpretation of μεταπiπτειν in PD 37, it introduces a hierarchical plurality of preconceptions of the just that, at least from the evidence of PD 37 and 38, is hard to sustain.Principal Doctrines 37 and 38, as we have already noted, consider societies and the place of justice in them as a backdrop to the preconception of the just, laws and magistracies. They do not refer, like Hermarchus and Lucretius, to the genealogy of justice and laws. Muller posits different modalities of preconception of the just, taking as his standpoint the extract of Hermarchus where he argues that the original establishment of laws and sanctions by outstanding men (not by force of their body, but by the wisdom of their soul) was preceded by an irrational perception of what is useful [αλoγως αυτου -sc., του χρησfμου- πρoτερον αiσθανομενους]; that is, one that operated without using reason and often went unnoticed. These wise people, who were aware of usefulness, instigated a reflection on such usefulness [εiς επιλογισμoν του χρησfμου].41 Further, they frightened the others by the severity of the punishments (Abst. 1.8 1-2). In Muller's view, these two moments in the conceptualization of the useful in human groups correspond to two levels of the preconception of the just. The lower or simpler level is the result of the irrational memory of what is useful (αλογος μνημη του συμφεροντος; Abst.
1.10, 4); the higher level is reached through ‘comparative appreciation' of the useful (επιλογισμoν του χρησfμου; Abst. 1.8, 2).42 Interestingly, Muller also states that the modalities of the preconception of the just correspond to distinct stages of language development. Although we do not have a systematic discussion in Epicurus' texts about the origin of language, we do possess clear statements that (i) names did not come into being from the beginning by convention, but by the constraint of nature,43 and (ii) that later, in order that the meanings of words might be less ambiguous and more concise, such names were established by a general convention in each tribe (Epicurus, LH 75-76). This being so, language is something natural, but it can be ‘perfectioned’ through its use and thereby by a sort of convention. In Muller’s opinion, the inferior modality of the preconception of the just would be inscribed in the natural stage of language; the superior modality of preconception of the just takes place, on the contrary, in a third stage of language development,44 in which some individuals establish words to express unobserved (or rather ‘non-understood’) facts (ου συνορωμενα πραγματα; LH 76), which he, like other interpreters, identifies with abstract entities.45 Goldschmidt also relies on this extract of Hermarchus to argue that the preconception of the just implies a comparative appreciation [επιλογισμoς] and is the most advanced stage of language development.46As can be seen, in Muller’s and Goldschmidt’s remarks three obscure ‘genealogical’ themes are interwoven: the origin and development of language, that of justice and laws, and that of preconceptions. It is natural that the result is speculative and has not given rise to consensus.
Unlike Goldschmidt’s position, PD 37 and 38 seem to link the preconception of the just with the nature of the just without intermediation, as evidenced by the formal and operative nature of its content, which can also be assimilated to what Epicurus presents as the just according to what is common and similar for all (PD 36). From this reading, we can maintain the collective belonging of the preconception of the just no longer, as Goldschmidt suggests, due to its incarnation in the constitutions (in which the communities define public utility), but through another more general reality that represents a more significant and denser continuity than the constitutions for the communities. This ‘denser continuity’ is also intertwined with the history of justice and with another realm of experience which the Epicureans deemed to be equally crucial for the survival of the human species: language.The decisive contribution of language in the formation of human associations and pacts was a topic of ancient literature that Isocrates used skilfully used skillfully in his discourses.47 The idea is found at the beginning of Aristotle’s Politics 1253a7-18, as well as in Cicero’s Republic (1.25, 40) and Lucretius (RN 5.1021-1023). There were fathers in neighbourhood relations, who, according to Lucretius (as we stressed in chapter 1), eager not to harm or be harmed, began to make friends [amicities], (RN 5.1019-1020). Lucretius proceeds in a rather dramatic tone, stating that those neighbours started claiming protection for their children and women, indicating by means of clumsily articulated sounds and gestures [vocibus et gestu cum balbe signarent] that it was right to have compassion for the weak (imbecillorum esse aequum misererier, RN 5.10211023). Those who make the pact were not the prehistoric and rude people, whose wandering and solitary life ‘in the manner of beasts' (more ferarum; RN 5.931932) Lucretius had described earlier in the poem. They are beings humanized through physical and psychological ‘processes of softening' [mollescere] brought on by the use of fire and clothing, life in dwellings with a partner, and the recognition of children (RN 5.1011-1027).
Their language is not in the manner of beasts; it has the essential characteristics of human language: an articulated system of words with conceptual meaning and objective reference. Therefore, it constitutes a collective phenomenon and not something private.48For the Epicureans, the origin and development of language represented a central issue in their rational and naturalistic reconstruction of human history. So was, as we have shown, the origin of justice and laws. Philippson held that the Epicureans defended the idea of natural law in the supposed parallelism existing between the origin and development of language and that of justice and laws.49 But as we have already advanced, if Epicurean contractualism is so strong that justice is not possible without such a contract (based on the fundamental rule ‘neither harming nor being harmed'), the iusnaturalistic approach is untenable as a likely reading of the Epicurean theory of law. As a matter of fact, Epicurean justice depends on a pact (in addition to the fact that, as Epicurus himself stresses, justice is not incontrovertible; PD 38). Neither the texts of Epicurus nor the verses of Lucretius' On the Nature of Things book 5 (describing the emergence of pact and justice of the first human groups) endorse the Philippson interpretation.50 At any rate, the interesting point in Philippson's suggestion lies in the fact that the origin and development of language is, to some extent, associated with the problem of justice. These last lines allow us to turn to the issue of language and the preconception of what is just.
The ‘most accurate' way to understand the preconception of justice, we hold, is through a reference to the issue of language. Among interpreters, there is a certain consensus in believing that Epicurus held that there is a natural connection between things and words.51 By the time Epicurus focuses on whether names are natural or conventional, that issue had already been largely debated by the preceding philosophical tradition. As pointed out above, language appears naturally for Epicureans, but it can be ‘perfectioned' through its use and thereby by a sort of convention.
Moreover, if language is not something private (but rather a collective phenomenon that is shared by every member of a ‘linguistic community'), it must be the basic fact from which our conceptualization of the world (and likely that of Lucretius' neighbours [fi nitimi ], who are ‘eager not to harm or be harmed') is derived. Further, if Epicurus recommends that we must grasp first what is ‘subordinated' to our words (τα υποτεταγμενα τοtς φθoγγοις; LH 37-38),52 language should have a founding character in the concept formation and, of course, in the preconception of what is just. The Epicureans rejected the value of definitions and insisted that the ordinary use of words is more helpful than that of definitions.53 Hirzel conjectured that the antecedent of this ingredient in the Epicurean notion of prolepsis was already present in Democritus, as various recent works have also pointed out.54 Thus the Epicurean preconceptions appear to constitute ‘schemes' or ‘sketches' (υπογραφαf or υποτυπωσεις in Hellenistic terminology) rather than definitions, which enable the identification of objects and the beginnings of research. Galen underlines that such schemes and sketches do not express more than what everyone knows.55
As is well known, the explanation of an Epicurean preconception (and of how it is acquired) as put forward in DL 10.32-33 suggests that a concept arrives at one's mind through the repetition of sensory impressions stemming from the corresponding representations or images of things. Thus, the preconception of the just (such as that of god or usefulness) should derive from the external environment. This kind of explanation works relatively well when it refers to empirical concepts, such as ‘man' and ‘horse' (which are the examples provided by DL 10.32-33); it is more difficult to uphold when it refers to the preconception of what is just since, as Konstan (2011, 70) has acutely remarked, there is no physical object to which the preconception of justice corresponds. One might think, however, that the same occurs in the case of the preconception of god (although if Sextus Empiricus is to be trusted,56 Epicurus believed that people get the notion of god [εννοια θεου] from the representations they have in dreams); therefore, if people have representations of divinities, then, they must be bodily entities and, from that perspective, they are no different from other corporeal things. But what of the preconception of justice, which has no physical object linked to it? Following the empirical explanatory framework of Epicurus, one might suggest that the external physical object impressing upon one's mind must be a just action, in which case the problem is how to determine what action is just, apparently just, likely just, and so forth. Once again, the relevance of language arises, and especially of how a speaker incorporates that language. Parents can teach their children from a very young age what kind of actions are either just or unjust; if a child asks why an individual action is unjust, their parents can answer: because if you perform that action, you will harm another person, and you do not wish to harm anyone, because if you do, that person will also wish to harm you (here again the connection between justice and usefulness can be seen). A father or a teacher can show in a very concrete way the sense in which individual acts are either unjust or just (those are the ‘external or extramental bodily objects' that provide the sensory data to the subject). And in that ‘exemplification process,' so to speak, the teacher or parent can say ‘this act is just, this one is unjust'. In fact, Philodemus seems to refer to this kind ofexemplification process' in the teaching of the just. According to Philodemus, it is necessary to teach children never to touch injustice, just as they are taught never to touch fire, since both injustice and fire are destructive by nature (oλεθριοι φυσει; see On Rhetoric, PHerc. 1078/1080, fr. 13.9-22, 2.155 Sudhaus).
The character Alcibiades says to Socrates that he learned the just and the unjust in the same way that he learned to speak Greek (ελληνiζειν ; Alcibiades I 111a). Socrates, of course, uses this statement to try to show him that those who taught him ‘the many' [οt πολλο(] lack, just like him, knowledge about what is just. To do that, as observed by Denyer, Socrates assumes a minimal interpretation of the meaning of ‘to speak Greek' [ελληνiζειν].57 For Alcibiades, to speak Greek involves moral implications that reflect cliches of Greek culture. To speak Greek means to possess a way of being distinct from and superior to those who do not speak Greek, i.e. the barbarians. The Greeks' moral superiority over the barbarians consists primarily in their sense of justice and readiness to obey the law.58 The Epicureans were not admirers of Socrates and ascribed great importance to the ordinary use of language. Philodemus, for example, in On the Management of Property, attributes to Socrates a frivolous attitude towards the regular use of language (Frag. 2, col. v lines 1-4). In his view, when Socrates distinguishes the rich from the poor, he does so in a way that depends on opinion, not on preconception in accordance with ordinary usage [ δοξαστικως, ου προληπτικως κατα συνηθειαν]. Clearly, what Philodemus wishes to point out is that this kind of Socratic procedure is impracticable and is at odds with reason (απορον τω εργω καi τω νω μαχoμενον ; Frag. 2, col. v, 13-14). Indeed, when Philodemus says this, he is not innovating but evoking Epicurus' primary teaching. For an Epicurean, when one examines a problem (such as whether or not gods exist), one should do so not according to a vain opinion but according to a preconception. That is the reason why, if someone denies ‘the gods of the many' he is not impious, since what the many say about the gods are not preconceptions but false suppositions (Epicurus, LM 123-124). As is obvious from the context, Philodemus believes that this procedure can also be applied to cases which are seemingly more pedestrian cases but no less important, having to do with the relevance of showing how to cover basic needs through ‘actually existing money', which, strictly speaking, is the only thing that can perform this function.59
To be sure, Epicurus and the Epicureans offer an assessment of the world's conceptualization that involves the transmission and learning of (especially Greek) language that is very different from that of the Socrates of Alcibiades I. As we have tried to show, the prolepsis of the just is a good example of the recognition they give to the conceptualization that involves the transmission and learning of language.
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