Reason in Plato & Lucretius

Observations on The Timaeus and On The Nature Of Things.

It must be the historical distance from these writers that makes the use of the term ‘reason’ or ‘science’ very strange. The reasoning or logic in these two works seem hardly scientific in the current sense of the term. There seems to be a disdain for empirical observation and experimentation in the science of Plato and Lucretius: they both rely heavily on a priori reason to build their arguments and come to ‘conclusions.’

 

There are differences in their approaches though. Lucretius is certainly more concerned with observable phenomena than Plato, and so has a somewhat more empirical bent to his arguments. Because of this, Plato’s reasoning can be seen to take a more ‘top down’ approach as opposed to Lucretius’ ‘bottom-up’ approach. Lucretius is concerned with emphasizing the importance for each individual in a society of pursuing and exhibiting exemplary behaviour. Were all citizens to follow that directive then society would organize itself accordingly. Plato sees the state and it’s laws as the major factors in determining the behaviour of individuals. For Plato, the idea of individuals determining the behaviour of the state is absurd. 

 

Still, the forms of reasoning found in these and other classical texts seem odd to me in most cases. There seems to be a mania for unified theories to explain everything. So while what each writer is trying to say varies, their reasoning processes have much in common and are dominated by the search for single unifying principles. Their use of rhetorical devices to lead the argument and substantiate various premises seem benign on the surface, but are quite misleading when observed more closely. To avoid the infinite regress problem in their search for ‘first principles’ ‘God’ always ends up being the cause.

 

An example of odd reasoning: in Plato’s Timaeus section 44 (P 111) regarding ‘diseases of the body’ he says: “The origin of diseases should be obvious. The body is composed of four elements-earth, fire, air, and water; and disorders and diseases are caused by an unnatural excess or deficiency of any of them,…” I’m not sure how any of this is ‘obvious’ by any means. This could only be obvious to one situated in that particular historical and cultural context. How would one go about experimentally verifying such suppositions?

 

Lucretius, who doesn’t apparently depend on a particular ‘God’ (although his thought seems fairly mono-theistic) develops a system of principles based on arguments with an internal, almost mathematical precision, yet without ‘real’ explanations of the initial causes of phenomena. He makes simple assertions based on observed phenomena without pursuing what could be called scientific or experimental justifications. Lines 89-142 provide a good example of these assertions. He advises us to “…remember that the whole universe has no bottom and thus no place where the ultimate particles could settle;…” and then adds “since this is an established fact…” These ideas are speculations without any form of verification, yet his whole atomic theory is based on such ‘facts.’ He builds a sort of internal cohesion in his system and that in itself suffices as ‘explanation.’ From this observation he elaborates a theory of how various substances have come to be dependent on the movement of ultimate particles. If one accepts his initial proposition then there is a coherency to the model, but he offers no good reason to accept those propositions at all.  Reason and speculation don’t seem very far apart in the thought of these two writers.