Philodemus de Signis An Important Ancient Semiotic Debate

Review article Philodemus' `De signis': An important ancient semiotic debate*
GIOVANNI MANETTI
This book is based on ve lectures originally given by Marcello Gigante ge de France during the winter of 1985 and subsequently at the Colle published under the title La bibliotheque de Philodeme et l'epicureisme romain (1987), with an introduction by Pierre Grimal. The French edition was revised and published in Italy under the title Filodemo in Italia (1990). The book presents an overview of the philosopher and writer Philodemus of Gadara (circa 11040 B.C.E.), a follower of Epicurus and proponent of Epicureanism in Italy in the rst century B.C.E.. The work is an outgrowth of the intense study which has been devoted in recent decades to the philosophical and philological signicance of Philodemus and his work, in conjunction with the archaeological discoveries and interpretations oered by art historians regarding the so-called `Villa of the Papyri'. This is a villa discovered in Herculaneum, where it lay buried under the lava and ashes during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E.. A large number of papyri were discovered in the Villa containing works belonging to Epicurean circles (either works of Epicurus himself, or of his followers, Philodemus among them). The Villa, with its library of papyri, is considered to be the center of what was the Epicurean school in Italy, headed by Philodemus himself. The rst chapter of Gigante's book provides a comparison of the various interpretations which have been oered of the sculpted decorations which were discovered in the Villa, whose dense array of symbols seems certainly to refer to the world of Epicurean philosophy. Gigante is especially indebted to the treatment of the problem by Pandermalis (1971), who considers the sculpted decorations to be arranged in opposing pairs so as to express a symbolic contrast between the Epicurean universe and everything that diers from it, especially the contrast between the Epicurean universe and the Stoic alternative, and thus between the
*Marcello Gigante, Philodemus in Italy: The Books from Herculaneum, trans. by Dirk Obbink. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Semiotica 1381/4 (2002), 279297 00371998/02/0138 0279 # Walter de Gruyter
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280 G. Manetti Epicurean ideal of the private contemplative life on the one hand and the ideal of the active public life which was typical of the Stoics. Philodemus, according to Gigante (again following Pandermalis), played a prominent role in determining the artistic tastes of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the aristocratic Roman owner of the Villa and a prominent representative of Philhellenism in Italy. Gigante returns to the subject of Philodemus's relations with Piso in chapters four and ve, emphasizing the fact that Philodemus's book entitled On the Good King According to Homer is dedicated to Piso, following in the tradition of Epicurean teachings regarding the proper relationship between the monarch and the sage. A famous epigram attributed to Philodemus (Palatine Anthology, 11.44) is also dedicated to Piso. Moreover, Gigante establishes a connection between the contents of Philodemus's political tract and a series of sculpted portraits which were found in the Villa, which Gigante takes to be indicative of the relationship between Philodemus and his patron Piso, the Villa's owner. Other elements of Philodemus's biography are analyzed in chapter three, using his epigrams as a means to trace in outline various aspects of life. The heart of Gigante's book, however, is in chapter two, which presents a masterful treatment of the structure of library which was found in the Villa. Gigante directly conrms the hypothesis that it was Philodemus who played a determining role in the library's establishment. According to Gigante's argument, the library's older holdings were put together outside Italy, probably in Athens; Philodemus presumably assembled the library out of books that had been handed down to him from his master(s) and which he brought with him to Italy. This original core of the library included the various books of Epicurus's On Nature, as well as the books of Demetrius of Laconia, an Epicurean who was a younger contemporary of Philodemus's own teacher, Zeno of Sidon. A subsequent, and much more substantial, body of material was added to the library later on, including the works which Philodemus himself wrote along with other books of the Epicurean school, including books written after Philodemus's death. Relying on the paleographic studies of G. Cavallo (1983), Gigante outlines the development of Philodemus's scholarly work. During the period 7550 B.C.E., Philodemus was occupied with philosophical historiography. This activity on Philodemus's part was characteristic of the Epicurean school at Herculaneum, and continued even after his death. One of Philodemus's endeavors in this eld is his Syntaxis ton philosophon, a `great philosophical textbook', in which the section dedicated to the school of Epicurus was written not only to provide the followers of Epicurean doctrine with a sense of history but also to present the core
Philodemus' `De signis' 281 ideas of Epicureanism to Roman and Italian intellectual society, which had up until that point been shaped by the Academic tradition, of which Cicero was about to become the key representative. To this same period can also be assigned the beginnings of Philodemus's philosophical reections on the subject of ethics and the emotions, as well as topics having to do with teachings that are formative for the human spirit and for the sage in particular, as represented by such volumes as On Music, On Rhetoric, and On Poems. These volumes show that Philodemus oered an interpretation of Epicureanism that was both personal and critical, given that Epicureanism is well known for its lack of interest in humanistic cultural pursuits, even regarding them as a possible obstacle in the pursuit of happiness. Around the year 50 B.C.E. we nd Philodemus's major work on the schematization of moral concepts, entitled On the Vices and the Virtues Juxtaposed, and the years subsequent to 50 B.C.E. feature writings on Epicurean theology, which were also used by Cicero. To this same period, but at the end of Philodemus's philosophical itinerary, Gigante assigns the three volumes Ethica Comparetti, On Death, and On Signs. On Signs The treatise On Signs plays a fundamental role in the reconstruction of ancient semiotic thought because it presents a wide-ranging, sophisticated set of philosophical speculations concerning sign-inference. Gigante considers the treatise to be a book on logic, at least in the ancient sense of the word, which is much broader than the modern sense, although On Signs also contains a number of topics that continue to form part of logic today. Gigante emphasizes that this was probably not the only book that Philodemus dedicated to the study of logic (as M. Capasso has shown, 1980), and there is evidence that other papyrus scrolls might have been on logical topics. In any case, as Gigante rightly observes, On Signs ìs a work of considerable maturity and both theoretical and historical consistency' (42). Based on paleographic evidence discussed by Gigante, the book is supposed to date to the year 40 B.C.E., rather than to 54 B.C.E. (as earlier suggested by Philippson). On Signs is a unique text in the sense that among the topics of logic that it considers, it provides a specic account of the way in which the Epicureans understood the process of sign-inference, based on the principle of analogy. In addition to logical themes, it is not surprising to nd here many of the topics that were hotly debated within Epicurean philosophy, such as prolepsis, memory, and the gnoseology of the gods.
282 G. Manetti In this regard, the treatise On Signs has an exceptional importance, as Gigante emphasizes (42), because it provides an explicit acknowledgment of the theory of the deviation of the atoms, parenklisis (XXXVI.13), which was not, according to Philodemus, a sucient basis on which to explain Chance or Volition. This ancient evidence plays a key role in refuting the hypothesis formulated by Jean Paul Dumont, which held that the theory of parenklisis could not be attributed directly to Epicurus, but was supposed to be instead an invention of late Epicurean sources, such as Plutarch. Relying on this evidence in Philodemus, Gigante still maintains that Usener was not correct in detecting a reference to parenklisis in the Epistle to Herodotus (} 53), while holding out the possibility that `we may expect to nd it one day in the remains of Epicurus's On Nature' (43). Philodemus's On Signs even attracted the attention of Charles Sanders Peirce, the American philosopher who, beginning with his rst Lecture of FebruaryMarch of 1865 (see Peirce 1982), evolved a general science of signs understood as a science of formal logic. It was a reading of On Signs that suggested to him the idea of an autonomous science of signs, semiotics, as well as a name for inference specically by signs, semiosis. This took place in 187980, when Peirce was supervising the doctoral thesis of his student Alan Marquand on `The Logic of the Epicureans', including a translation of Philodemus's treatise. The rst critical edition of the papyrus containing this work of Philodemus (PHerc. 1065) was published by T. Gomperz, who signi ber Induktions-schlusse (1865). The cantly gave it the title Philodem U current standard edition is the text published by Phillip and Estelle Allen De Lacy, On Methods of Inference (1978). This is a revised version of an earlier edition (1941), now improved by the contributions of Marcello Gigante who, together with Francesca Longo Auricchio and Adele Tepedino Guerra, made an inspection of the papyrus with microscopic binoculars, allowing them to recover many previously unrecognized readings of the text. The length of the treatise is unknown, and the part of the text that has been preserved is limited to the concluding portion of the papyrus scroll. The original title of the treatise is a matter of debate, but based on a discovery made by Daniel Delattre (reported by Asmis 1996: 158 and n. 2) it seems more likely that the title should be On Signs and Sign Inferences (Per semeon kai semeioseon). Daniel Delattre has also discovered that this is likely to be the third book of the treatise (based on a Greek gamma that has been detected under the title written on the papyrus), and that the treatise contained at least one additional book, since the conclusion of the book that we possess promises a discussion of medical doctors and their ideas.
Philodemus' `De signis' 283 Given, however, the asystematic nature of the materials that are preserved, Jonathan Barnes (1988: 92) has argued that On Signs is not so much a methodological treatise as it is a sort of book of annotations, perhaps for Philodemus's private use, providing an account of the Epicurean position with regard to inference by signs. This was a topic of great concern among the post-Aristotelian philosophical schools, in that semiotic inference constituted one of the cardinal elements of scientic procedure. The treatise is subdivided into four parts, which vary in length but deal with the same topic, in that they all contain responses to criticisms made against the Epicurean theory of inference by signs. The rst part contains Philodemus's own account of the ideas of his teacher Zeno of Sidon (15575 B.C.E.). The second part continues to treat the ideas of Zeno as expounded by one of his students, Bromius. The third part reports the ideas of Demetrius of Laconia, a contemporary, perhaps somewhat younger, of Zeno, while the fourth part continues with a series of responses on the part of an Epicurean author whose name is not attested in the text that has been preserved, although many have thought that they too belong to Demetrius of Laconia. These various representatives of Epicurean philosophy respond to the objections that have been advanced against them. The commentators usually assumed that their opponents were Stoic philosophers, relying on references to a certain Dionysius in the text, who is regularly identied as Dionysius of Cyrene, a student of Diogenes of Babylonia and Antipater of Tarsus. Above all the text suggests that this group of opponents formed a homogenous group, unied by their use of the method of anaskeue. Although there is no direct evidence that the method of anaskeue was associated with the Stoics, this traditional explanation is defended by David Sedley (1982: 241), who maintains that these critics were Stoic contemporaries of Philodemus who were themselves proposing ideas that diered from those of earlier Stoic philosophers. More recently Jonathan Barnes (1988: 94, n. 18) has attempted to minimize any such assumptions about the identity of these critics. The one assertion that he does make in this regard is that if it were in fact Dionysius the Stoic who is cited in the text, then it would make sense that all of the critics are Stoics, although their arguments might also have benetted from the ideas of other groups, such as the Academic or Peripatetic philosophers. Still more recently Elizabeth Asmis (1996: 159160) has questioned even the identity of Dionysius, and has argued instead that he is actually an Academic philosopher. According to Asmis, it makes more sense generally that an attack against the Epicureans would have come from the
284 G. Manetti Academic philosophers (a hypothesis she had already suggested in 1984: 198), given that they aligned themselves against non-evident signs in general and especially against Epicurean inference by signs. As evidence in support of this hypothesis, Asmis mentions the criticisms against Epicurean inference launched by the Academic Cotta in Cicero's De natura deorum, which match the criticisms refuted in Philodemus's On Signs. According to Asmis, the Academic philosophers were in any case responsible for mobilizing a unied opposition against the Epicureans, drawing allies from various philosophical schools: Ì conclude, therefore, that the arguments against Epicurean induction in On Signs were shaped in the Academic school. It is plausible that Carneades rst gave systematic form to these arguments. The Academic objections are indebted to the Stoics and others, just as the Epicurean answers are indebted to Stoics and others. It would not be at all surprising if Stoics such as Chrysippus also attacked Epicurean induction. But if they did, their arguments were reshaped by the Academics. The Academics may be seen as the master tacticians who led an army of opponents against the Epicureans. The troops under their command include Stoics, Empiricists, and others' (1996: 179). Semiotic inference The discussion of inference by signs at the center of debate in On Signs involves a host of important elements from semiotics, logic, and epistemology, which are variously intertwined, as are the positions of the contenders in the debate. In one of the most interesting aspects of his contribution on this subject, Jonathan Barnes (1988) has shown that it is possible to take the various phases of the prolonged debate on signs between the Epicureans and their opponents and to consider each one separately. There are basically six distinct phases, as follows (and as alluded to in VII.57): (i) an account of the theory of Epicurean inference by signs; (ii) the objections to this theory advanced by their opponents; (iii) the responses of the Epicureans to these objections; (iv) the technical objections of Dionysius to the Epicurean responses; (v) the counterobjections to Dionysius made by Zeno of Sidon, Philodemus's teacher; and (vi) Philodemus's own version of Zeno's approach. Even though this exact sequence, with its precise cast of characters, applies only to the rst of the four parts of On Signs, its inventory of positions and counterpositions is valid for the entire treatise. Following Barnes, we can then proceed to analyze the contents of this series of arguments and counter-arguments.
Philodemus' `De signis' 285 The Epicurean position The Epicurean theory of inference begins with a denition of inference itself. A `sign-inference', or semeosis, is a process which allows one to pass (metabanein) from a sign to its meaning. This corresponds to a passage from that which is known to that which is unknown or, more specically, from that which is evident to our perception to that which is hidden. The logical form in which the semiotic inference is formulated is the paraconditional ( parasynemmenon), `Since p, q' or, in other words, `since (epe ) p, then q', which implies, unlike the simple conditional (synemmenon), the truth of `p' (Burnyeat 1982: 218224). According to Sedley (1982: 243), this formulation, typical of On Signs, is an improvement on the classic Stoic formula, in which the sign is the antecedent in a conditional statement of the type Ìf p, then q', in which case it is not possible to include any indication regarding the truth of the antecedent, as it must be insofar as it is eectively functioning as a sign. In general this is an abbreviated form of the modus ponens, whose complete formulation is Ìf the rst, then the second; but the rst; therefore, the second'. As Elizabeth Asmis notes (1996: 157), it is interesting that in Epicurus there is no sort of argument which supports the conditional form of the inference. Two generations after Epicurus, Zeno of Sidon and his colleagues seem to formulate the inferential statement in the manner that we have just seen. According to Asmis this leads one to think that they had appropriated their opponents' denition of the sign. The sign (semeon) is that from which the inference begins, and Philodemus generally refers to it with one of the following terms: to phainomenon `that which appears', to phaneron `that which is made clear', to enarghes `that which is evident', but above all with the term to par'hemn, `that which is present to us'. Barnes (1988: 96) maintains that this nal formulation is the most genuinely correct, in that it includes not only that which is revealed to our senses, but also the personal experience, the experience of others, and that which is apprehended by means of testing or argument, while the other expressions are limited to direct and individual perception. The terms most frequently used to indicate that to which the inference leads are to adelon and to aphanes. The obscure object need not be completely obscure, but can instead be something that is simply outside of our own experience. Inferences often lead from a phenomenon that can be apprehended in our experience to àll' analogous phenomena èverywhere'. The following are some typical examples: `Since men in our experience are mortal, then all men are mortal' (II.2628); `Since animals in our experience are mortal, then all animals which exist in
286 G. Manetti Britain are mortal' (V.3436). The general form of this semiotic inference is described by Barnes as follows: `Since all the Ks in our experience are F, then Ks elsewhere/anywhere are F' (1988: 97). This formula accounts for all the cases in which inference begins with a group of individual observations of a species to yield conclusions about the species in general, but it does not seem to cover the cases in which the inference moves from particular individuals to other particular individuals or from one type of body to another of the same type (XVIII.23XIX.4), as in the following examples: Ìf Plato is a man, Socrates too is a man' (XII.1921); Ìt is impossible to conceive that Epicurus is a man and that Metrodorus is not a man' (XIV.2527). Leaving aside for the moment this aspect of the problem, let us proceed to the crucial question: under what conditions is the semiotic inference as conceived by the Epicureans valid? The answer, which is addressed continually throughout the treatise, is that it is valid under the condition of `similarity' which exists between the elements involved in the inferential process, which is to say that the inference proceeds by means of similarity, kata ten homoioteta tropos, or that it makes a transition based on similarity, he kath'homoioteta metabasis (Asmis 1996: 162). According to this model, then, once it is established that two things or two classes of things are similar to one another, one can suppose that a feature which is observed in one must be present in the other as well. For example, if it is observed that Plato and Socrates are similar, the characteristic of being a man which is present in the rst cannot be absent in the second. The same applies to the characteristic of being mortal which is observed in a group of men in our experience, which must also be present in the group of men who live in another geographical region which is not directly observed by us. The notion of similarity is invoked by the Epicureans in a double sense: the observed objects are similar to one another, and the Ks observed are similar to the Ks not observed (Barnes 1988: 134). Moreover, as David Sedley has correctly noted (1982: 256257), the `way' or method of similarity covers both simple resemblance (as in the example about the mortality of men in our experience and the mortality of men outside our experience), and also analogous resemblance (as in cases involving inferences from the perceived properties of bodies to the properties of the atoms). The attack of the critics The critics' opposition consisted of an open refutation of the method of similarity, arguing that the presence of similarity could not ever be a sucient basis on which to make a valid semiotic inference.
Philodemus' `De signis' 287 Central to this attack is the idea that the correct method of inference is not one of similarity, but rather that of anaskeue, a term which had been translated into English as `contraposition' (De Lacy 1978), but which is now better translated as èlimination' (Sedley 1982: 244 and passim; Asmis 1996: 155 and passim) or as `rebuttal' (Barnes 1988: 98 and passim). The meaning and function of this notion is a matter of some debate. In the most clear description provided by Philodemus (XI.32 XII.14) we read that given a conditional of the type Ìf there is motion, then there is empty space', we by hypothesis eliminate the empty space, then in virtue of this elimination the motion would also be eliminated. The truth of a conditional like Ìf p, then q' would then only be properly established according to the method of elimination. Barnes (1988: 100) asks the question how the anaskeue could supply, or seem to supply, a method of semiotic inference. One of the possibilities is that it roughly corresponds to what modern philosophers call ìnference to the best explanation'. We can suppose that in relation to a conditional of the type Ìf p, then q', there is an inference of the type `Since p, then q': the inference would be valid insofar as the corresponding conditional holds due to the method of elimination. In other words, the lack of the second term of the conditional explains the lack of the rst term. Going one step farther, Barnes explains, one could imagine that the Epicureans' critics thought that the second term explained the rst. It is also possible to establish (see Sedley 1982: 243244) a link between the method of elimination and the desire of the Epicureans' critics (the Stoics, according to Sedley) to exclude the validity of the common sign (koinon), accepting only the sign proper (idon), understood as a necessary sign (anankastikon) which cannot exist if the thing signied does not exist. The common sign, on the other hand, is such that it can exist regardless of whether the unknown thing to be revealed exists or not, as in the case in which one infers that a certain man is good because he is wealthy: in some cases, wealth can be taken as a sign of goodness, but in other cases this is not so (I.112), meaning that in certain individuals the rst term can exist (wealth), but not the second (goodness). The adjective `common' was used to characterize this type of sign because the sign is `common' with regard both to truth and to falsehood. The method of elimination is a test which excludes this type of sign, rejecting the case in which the sign can exist without the existence of the thing signied. Sedley, however, goes further (1982: 245), and suggests that the method of elimination could be a test of `cohesion,' synartesis, a criterion for the validity of a conditional attributed to Chrysippus. Synartesis requires that the contradictory (antikemenon) of the consequent enter into conict (machetai ) with the antecedent (Diogenes Laertius, VII.73; Sextus
288 G. Manetti Empiricus, PH, IIIII), as can be established by means of a method which hypothetically eliminates the consequent in order to verify whether the antecedent is co-eliminated together with it. In this way only the sign proper is accepted as valid and owes its infallibility to the fact that it is subject to the test of elimination in a manner that implicates what it signies with all the necessity of a Chrysippean conditional. The common sign, on the other hand, probably belongs to the class of convincing arguments which are nevertheless fallible; therefore, from a strictly philosophical point of view, the common sign is not really a sign at all (Sedley 1982: 256). The Epicurean response There are three dierent versions of the Epicureans' defense in the text (Barnes 1988: 102103): one consists in the categorical refutation of the method of anaskeue as discussed in the fourth part of the treatise (XXX.32XXXI.1); the second, prominently maintained by Zeno, establishes that the method of anaskeue itself depends on the method of similarity, such that if the method of similarity is not valid, the method of elimination is not valid either (VII.812; IX.38); the third maintains that the method of anaskeue only applies in certain cases, while in other cases the method of similarity is what must be used (XIV.1122). The second two forms of defensive positions are in some sense coherent with one another, and one can see how Zeno might have thought that the method of anaskeue depended on the method of similarity. The argument would go something like this for the usual semiotic inference that `Since there is motion, there is empty space'. The connection between motion and the empty space must depend on the validity of the conditional Ìf there is motion, there is empty space'. But to establish this, as Zeno says (VIII.26IX.8), we must have inspected all the things that can accompany objects which move in our experience, and in the absence of which nothing moves. In more formal terms, we must make an inference of this type: `Since the objects which move in our experience require empty space, everywhere moving objects require empty space'. This is equivalent to having made an inferential statement based on similarity, which is in turn the basis for an application of the method of anaskeue (Barnes 1988: 104). An inference from smoke to re functions in the same way, guaranteed by the fact that smoke is, by nature, a product of the re, in such a way that by eliminating the re the smoke is likewise eliminated. Yet this understanding of the nature of the smoke is reached by means of empirical
Philodemus' `De signis' 289 generalization. It is only the empirical discovery of the nature of smoke that then allows one to use the method of elimination applied to a conditional such as `Since there is smoke, there is re'. The Epicureans, however, while they conceded to their critics that a part of the two-stage process was based on anaskeue, reserved the name of sign-inference (semeosis) only for the stage in which the method of similarity was employed (IX.3; XXXII.810) and refused to consider the elimination stage of the process as a sign-inference (XXX.33XXXI.36; XXXII.810). In eect, according to Sedley (1982: 261263) the two-stage process functions in the following way: in the rst stage the nature of a certain object is established, for example `motion' and the observation that it is inseparable from empty space constitutes on its own a semiotic inference by means of similarity: `Since many and various objects within our experience share the characteristic of being unable to move without empty space, then motion is impossible without empty space' (VIII.32IX.3). In the second stage the inference is completed by means of the method of elimination, and concludes that the motion implies empty space, without meaning, however, that this further stage of the process can be considered in and of itself a further sign-inference in that it does not in and of itself have the power to reveal anything. The critics' counter-response The counter-response of the Epicureans' critics consisted in what are basically two lines of attack against the method of similarity. First, they maintained that such a method was intrinsically lacking in necessity, as in an inference of the following type: `Since all men in our experience die when they are beheaded, then all men die when they are beheaded'. The critics objected that the premise does not necessarily lead to a true conclusion; the premise can be true, but the conclusion can be false (Barnes 1988: 106). The second objection raised by the critics was against the very notion of similarity itself or, more precisely, against the range and homogeneity of the two classes of objects linked by the inference (V.815). They demanded that the Epicureans specify whether the inference was supposed to proceed from type to type (for example from ànimal' to ànimal'), or from species to species (`man' to `man'), or from body to body (`corporeal being' to `corporeal being'). In this nal example they sought to drive the Epicureans into an internal contradiction with their own philosophy of physics, insofar as it would lead to unacceptable inferences such as the following (V.14): `Since all bodies in our experience possess color, then the atoms, which are also bodies, possess color.'
290 G. Manetti Moreover, the critics maintained that the term `similarity' was ambiguous, oscillating between the meaning of `that which is indistinguishable' to `that which has a certain degree of similarity'. At this point one can ask, as Barnes does (1988: 109), why both the Epicureans and their critics insisted so much on the necessary character of the inference, considering that Aristotle had demonstrated the existence of valid inferences that were nevertheless not necessary. Certainly the Epicureans could have had recourse to this possibility in order to refute their critics, arguing that an inference by similarity was not true by necessity, but was no less interesting on this account from a philosophical point of view. Instead, they seem to have accepted the presumption of their critics concerning the necessary character of the inference. The reason for this is epistemological in nature and can be explained if one considers that all the Dogmatists, of whom the Epicureans were representatives according to Sextus Empiricus, held that sign-inferences were a way to increase our knowledge of the world. In this case, if the link between the premises and the conclusions were not necessary, we would not be able to trust in the knowledge obtained in this way. Is Epicurean logic inductive? A question that arises at this point has to do with the fact that many scholars have considered the logic used by the Epicureans in On Signs to be inductive. This was asserted in the nineteenth-century edition by Gomperz (1865), and also by Asmis (1984: 197 and 179180; 1996: 163 and passim) and Sedley (1982: 256 .), and also in Manetti (1987). Sedley denes Epicurean logic as `primarily inductive' (1982: 256) as opposed to Stoic logic, which is instead deductive. Discussing the Epicurean insistence on the necessity of the link in a sign-inference as they respond to their critics (who are, for Sedley, the Stoics), and noting once again that for the Epicureans this was a `painstaking empirical matter', Sedley reaches the following conclusion: `This looks like a head-on confrontation between empiricism and rationalism. The Epicureans must have felt that in claiming that science could work purely by deduction from necessary truths the Stoics were failing to attach sucient weigh to the inductive element in the human learning process to which their epistemology paid lip service' (1982: 259). Barnes, however, disagrees strongly, and maintains that Epicurean sign-inference can not be compared to the notion of induction in either of the two modern meanings of the term. One of the modern meanings of induction is the inference `from the particular to the general or from the
Philodemus' `De signis' 291 particular to the particular'. In this sense, it proceeds from singular propositions and its conclusion is either a universal generalization or another singular proposition. Epicurean inference, however, proceeds from a premise which is a universal proposition (for example, Àll the men in our experience die when their hearts are split'). Yet here it can be objected that in some cases Epicurean sign-inference does proceed from the particular to the particular, as in the example Ìf Plato is a man, Socrates is also a man' (XII.1921). The second modern meaning of induction establishes a probable link between the premises and the conclusions. But even in this sense, again according to Barnes, Epicurean semeiosis is not inductive, in that the Epicureans did not concede that there was a probabilistic type of link between the premise and the conclusion; rather, as we have seen, they insisted that this was a necessary link. Barnes's argument has since been refuted by Long (1988: 140) who proposes that the term ìnductive' continue to be applied to Epicurean logic. In fact, Long maintains that the use of universal propositions as the premises in sign-inferences is not sucient to exclude the possibility of calling such inferences ìnductive', and he reports an example oered by Salmon to illustrate that inductive inference in a context in which it can be contrasted with deductive inference: `[Since] Every horse that has ever been observed has had a heart, every horse has a heart.' This example appears to be precisely parallel to those found in the Epicureans and is also compatible with other accounts of induction found in contemporary philosophy. Further response by the Epicureans The Epicureans thus reject the criticism launched by their opponents and insist that their method of sign-inference is based on necessity. The arguments that they introduce are linked above all to the refutation of the attack on their notion of similarity as something vague. This is most apparent in the third portion of the treatise, in which the thinking of Demetrius of Laconia is expounded, as he lists ve points in which the Epicureans' doctrine has been misunderstood by their critics. As enumerated by Barnes, these points are as follows (1988: 112 .). Degrees of similarity The rst matter of misunderstanding has to do with the selection of similarities. The Epicureans' critics object that the Epicureans had not
292 G. Manetti bothered to specify which of the types of similarities could lead to an inference. The Epicureans denied that inference could be based on chance similarities, maintaining that inference was established by means of those similarities which are relative to the specic species taken into consideration, bypassing similarities of a higher order. In other words, the Epicureans apparently presumed that there was a structure of genera and species, such that the only pertinent similarities were those between objects of the same class or a subordinate class, whose individual objects observed were members. So, for example, the properties of birds could be inferred from the properties of the class of birds, and the properties of animals could be inferred from animals, and the properties of robins can be inferred from members of the class of robins, but inferences could not be made on the basis of similarities between members of the class of robins and members of the class of animals. Similarities and dierences The second issue involves the existence of strange or bizarre cases, which according to the Epicureans' critics would invalidate the possibility of inference by similarity. For example, while proceeding by inference from the class of known men to the class of unknown men, one could encounter the dwarf of Alexandria whose head was as hard as an anvil, which would invalidate the inference based on similarity. The same problem would result from the existence of the magnet, the one case of a stone that was supposed to attract iron. The Epicurean response is that unique or strange cases actually reinforce the method of similarity. The argument is basically as follows (XXXV.414): if the inference begins from the observation of cases that are absolutely identical, it would not be an inference; on the contrary, inference should begin from observations of cases that are widely dierent from one another, even including strange cases, so long as they belong to the same class. Absence of contrary proof The third point has to do with the precautionary measure taken by the Epicureans that a sign-inference should involve no possible evidence to the contrary. For example, to infer that atoms have color based on the observation that all bodies in our experience have color would be an error, in that atoms are very dierent from the normal bodies that we perceive: atoms are indestructible, invisible, and so on. These characteristics would
Philodemus' `De signis' 293 qualify as elements indicating a meaning contrary to the possibility that atoms have color. Yet as the Epicureans' critics observed, this becomes a moot point in that it is dicult to establish what would in fact constitute a contrary indication, and the Epicureans did not actually have any valid argument by which to do so. Qua truths The fourth issue treated by Demetrius involves a response to one of the most important contentions of the Epicureans' adversaries, who argued that sign-inferences had to depend on qua truths (III.26IV.2) which can be translated as `truth inasmuch as' or `truth insofar as' and that these qua truths could only be armed by means of the method of elimination (VI.31-VII.5). For example, the Epicureans' critics would reformulate the inference `Since men in our experience are mortal, then if there are men anywhere they are mortal' in the following way: `Since men in our experience are mortal insofar as (qua) they are men and inasmuch as they are men, then men everywhere are mortal'. According to Barnes, the Epicureans agreed that valid sign-inferences had to be based on qua truths, but at the same time they maintained that these would be established by means of the method of similarity. The vocabulary used to express the qua propositions is rather complex and involves common expressions from the philosophical lexicon, such as hei and katho , as well as other words, such as paro and syn, which are peculiar to the text of Philodemus. The author of the fourth part of the treatise identies four senses in which these qua truths can be understood. In some places the text is illegible, but Barnes (1988: 121) supplies a coherent reconstruction of these four interpretations. The rst holds that the expressions mean that given a type K there necessarily follows a property F. For example: `Men are made of esh and are subject to sickness and old age insofar as they are men'. The second holds that Ks are F insofar as F is the denition, gos, or the prolepsis of K. For example: `Bodies have mass and resislo tance insofar as they are bodies', `Man is a rational animal insofar as he is a man'. The third type is stated in a corrupt portion of the text. It is described in a rather vague way (synbebekenai tode toide) and it is not possible to reconstruct any examples with certainty. Barnes argues (1988: 121) that it might deal with that which is direct, but not a matter of denition. There are then examples of the fourth type of qua truth but without a denition; it involves that which is non-direct, which is to say a property which belongs to something which in turn belongs to K.
294 G. Manetti For example: `Knives cut insofar as they are sharpened', À body falls insofar as it has weight', Àtoms are indestructible insofar as they are solid'. All four of these types involve the principle of necessity (XXXIV.2427). To say that Ks have the property F insofar as they are Ks means that Ks are necessarily F, a rule which allows inferences according to which all Ks (even though which are not known) are F. This rule has the advantage of blocking inferences that were unappealing to the Epicureans, such as the attribution of color to the atoms. Their critics' objection had been based on the fact that the observation of objects in our experience shows that all objects are endowed with color: therefore, if the method of similarity were to hold true, then the atoms should also have color. To this the Epicureans reply that the atoms, insofar as they are bodies, can be said to have resistance to the touch (and this in fact forms part of the denition of a `body'), but they do not have color: in fact, bodies in the dark also eectively lack color (XVIII.310). The problem of necessity, however, still remains, since the Epicureans do not make clear in what sense the qua truths are established on the basis of similarity. In other words, one must still ask how it is possible that the observation of similarities between things that are K is able to establish a connection based on necessity between K and F which the qua truths demand. At this point, we must consider the objection of Long (1988: 142143, see also Asmis l996: 164), who maintains that the Epicureans assigned a dierent, empirical sense to the qua truths, which is not the same as that used by their critics. According to Long, the Epicureans do not use formulations as ìnsofar as such individuals are men', but rather something like ìnsofar as the things familiar to us are of such a type'. This fact emerges quite clearly in the following passage from the treatise: `When we say that since things familiar to us are of such a kind, things outside our experience are of that kind, we are judging that insofar as things familiar to us are of such a kind, something outside our experience is conjoined to them, as in the case of ``since men familiar to us, insofar as they are men, are mortal, if there are men anywhere else they are mortal'' ' (XXX.2432). In other words, the Epicureans relate the qua formula (ìnsofar as') not to the thing in general (e.g., `man'), but to the thing in our experience. The Epicureans statement of the qua truth thus takes on the following form: Ìnsofar as Ks familiar to us are F'. In this way they avoid the trap of essentialism into which their critics want to push them. The Epicureans begin from the fact that mortality accompanies the men observed insofar as they are men, and conclude that all men insofar as they are men are mortal. In this way the conclusion is not presupposed by the premises, but is produced by the method of similarity.
Philodemus' `De signis' 295 Inconceivability With the fth point Demetrius makes a serious attempt to establish a necessary link between the antecedent and the resulting consequent. To do so, Demetrius introduces the notion of ìnconceivability' (adianoesa), which raises the question of the modal connection between the class of known objects (K) and their properties (F) on the one hand, and the class of unknown objects and their properties on the other hand. The principle of inconceivability is discussed at various points throughout the text (XXVIII.1524, XXXIII.17, XIV.1727) and can basically be understood as follows: the method of similarity establishes that it is inconceivable that something evident exists and has certain characteristics, while something which is not evident would not exist and would not have such characteristics. It is interesting at this point to recall a suggestive hypothesis of Sedley (1982: 257, n. 46) which compares Epicurean adianoesa and anaskeue, following his assumption that the Epicureans' critics here are Stoics two generations after Chrysippus. In this context, the Epicurean adianoesa would be a test of similarity, based on the fundamental element of signinference, just as anaskeue would be a test of Stoic synartesis, that is, the connection asserted by Chrysippus for a valid conditional.
Stoics Nature of the link Validity criteria synartesis anaskeue Epicureans tes homoio adianoesa
In any case, the notion of inconceivability seems to be the actual principle which the Epicureans can use to reclaim the element of necessity advanced to defend their type of inference. The principle of inconceivability can in fact constitute the link between similarity as attested by experience and logical necessity: similarity leads to inconceivability and inconceivability leads to necessity (Barnes 1988: 124125). Yet Barnes also points out at the conclusion of his essay that there are two diculties with this notion of inconceivability. The rst has to do with the fact that it depends on two attitudes which modern thought rejects: psychologism and conceptualism. Psychologism, which nds its classic expression in Hume, presumes that something is considered possible simply because we are able to conceive of it; likewise, it could simply be a matter of our lack of imagination which renders something impossible. Conceptualism, on the other hand, holds that the non-existence of something depends on the
296 G. Manetti fact that our conceptual apparatus cannot anticipate its existence. Again in this case it might simply be a problem of our feeble powers of conception that are responsible for our conviction about the non-existence of something. The other major diculty cited by Barnes is based on the fact that the Epicureans link necessity to psychological or conceptual inconceivability and this in turn to empirical observation. In eect the Epicureans maintained, for example, that the guarantee of the belief that all men are mortal insofar as (qua) they are men relies on an empirical process of observation of many, varied cases, accompanied by the lack of contrary proof. But how is this possible? asks Barnes (1988: 127). One possible way to explain, if not justify, the Epicurean defense is linked to the particular notion of prolepsis which the Epicureans had developed. This prolepsis consisted in a sort of conception of something, albeit rough and preliminary, that had to be supplied before that thing could begin to be investigated. The process of investigation and of cumulative observation had two purposes, and yielded two types of results: (i) on the one hand it enriched our conception of the object under study, for example by linking two elements which had rst been considered separate (such as a class K and the property F which is attributed to all the members of K), with the result that these elements could be understood as associated by necessity; (ii) on the other hand, it extends our empirical knowledge, an idea which as Barnes suggests (1988: 128) would have pleased even John Locke (Essay, III.vi.4647). Conclusions Although Marcello Gigante's book is not explicitly dedicated to semiotic problems, it nevertheless makes a signicant contribution to the on-going debate, both philological and philosophical, surrounding the gure of Philodemus, a major gure in the study of the history of semiotics. The historical study of semiotics is a relatively recent development, which can in some sense be dated to a debate dedicated to this topic at the second Congress of the I.A.S.S. held in Vienna in 1979. Major steps have been taken in the past twenty years, especially with regard to the history of ancient and medieval theories of the sign, relying greatly on the contributions of philological and philosophical research of the sort I have discussed in this article. The importance of Philodemus is due to the fact that his treatise On Signs is the most complete and best preserved work which has reached us from antiquity on the subject of sign-inference. Moreover, the philosophical debate which it oers is marked by a high level of profound thought and speculation. It is safe to say that it has not
Philodemus' `De signis' 297 yet revealed all its secrets to us, and remains an extremely rich source for further study and reection. Translated from Italian by Laura Gibbs References
Asmis, E. (1984). Epicurus' Scientic Method. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (1996). Epicurean semiotics. In Knowledge Through Signs: Ancient Semiotic Theories and Practices, G. Manetti (ed.), 155185. Brepols: Turnhout. Barnes, J. (1988). Epicureans signs. In Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, supp. vol., J. Annas (ed.), 91134. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burnyeat, M. F. (1982). The origins of non-deductive inference. In Science and Speculation, J. Barnes et al. (eds.), 193238. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Capasso, M. (1980). PHerc. 671: Un altro libro `De Signis'? CErc 10, 125128. Cavallo, G. (1983). Libri scritture scribi a Ercolano. CErc 13, second supp., 118. De Lacy, P. and De Lacy, E. (eds.) (1978 [1941]). Philodemus. On Methods of Inference. Naples: Bibliopolis. ber Induktions-schlusse. Leipzig. Gomperz, T. (1865). Philodem U Long, A. A. (1988). Reply to Jonathan Barnes, Èpicurean Signs'. In Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, supp. vol., J. Annas (ed.), 135144. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Manetti, G. (1993). Theories of Sign in Classical Antiquity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Marquand, A. (1883). The logic of the Epicureans. In Studies in Logic by the Members of the Johns Hopkins University, Charles S. Peirce (ed.), 111. Reprint, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1983. Pandermalis, D. (1971). Zum Programm der Statuenausstattung in der Villa dei Papiri. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts Athenishe Abteilug 86, 173209. [It. trans. by L. A. Scatozza Ho richt. In La villa dei papiri, second supp. CErc 13, 1950. Naples, 1983.] Peirce, C. S. (1982). Writings of Charles Sanders Peirce. A Chronological Edition, vol. 1. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Salmon, W. C. (1963). Logic. Englewood Clis, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Sedley, D. (1982). On signs. In Science and Speculation, J. Barnes et al. (eds.), 239272. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giovanni Manetti (b. 1949) is Professor of Semiotics at the University of Siena, Italy nmanettig@unisi.ito. His principal research interests include the history of semiotics and the classica theory of enunciation. His major publications include Sport e giochi nell'antichita (1988), Theories of the Sign in Classical Antiquity (1993), Knowledge through Signs, Ancient Semiotic Theories and Practices (ed., 1996) and Signs and Signication (ed. with H. S. Gill, 1999 and 2000).

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