| 1. Theophrastus, De Signis Tempestatum, 15.21 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •cognition, theological Found in books: Mackey (2022) 218 |
2. Cicero, On The Nature of The Gods, 1.43-1.45 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •cognition, theological Found in books: Mackey (2022) 218 | 1.43. With the errors of the poets may be classed the monstrous doctrines of the magi and the insane mythology of Egypt, and also the popular beliefs, which are a mere mass of inconsistencies sprung from ignorance. "Anyone pondering on the baseless and irrational character of these doctrines ought to regard Epicurus with reverence, and to rank him as one of the very gods about whom we are inquiring. For he alone perceived, first, that the gods exist, because nature herself has imprinted a conception of them on the minds of all mankind. For what nation or what tribe is there but possesses untaught some 'preconception' of the gods? Such notions Epicurus designates by the word prolepsis, that is, a sort of preconceived mental picture of a thing, without which nothing can be understood or investigated or discussed. The force and value of this argument we learn in that work of genius, Epicurus's Rule or Standard of Judgement. 1.44. You see therefore that the foundation (for such it is) of our inquiry has been well and truly laid. For the belief in the gods has not been established by authority, custom or law, but rests on the uimous and abiding consensus of mankind; their existence is therefore a necessary inference, since we possess an instinctive or rather an innate concept of them; but a belief which all men by nature share must necessarily be true; therefore it must be admitted that the gods exist. And since this truth is almost universally accepted not only among philosophers but also among the unlearned, we must admit it as also being an accepted truth that we possess a 'preconception,' as I called it above, or 'prior notion,' of the gods. (For we are bound to employ novel terms to denote novel ideas, just as Epicurus himself employed the word prolepsis in a sense in which no one had ever used it before.) 1.45. We have then a preconception of such a nature that we believe the gods to be blessed and immortal. For nature, which bestowed upon us an idea of the gods themselves, also engraved on our minds the belief that they are eternal and blessed. If this is so, the famous maxim of Epicurus truthfully enunciates that 'that which is blessed and eternal can neither know trouble itself nor cause trouble to another, and accordingly cannot feel either anger or favour, since all such things belong only to the weak.' "If we sought to attain nothing else beside piety in worshipping the gods and freedom from superstition, what has been said had sufficed; since the exalted nature of the gods, being both eternal and supremely blessed, would receive man's pious worship (for what is highest commands the reverence that is its due); and furthermore all fear of the divine power or divine anger would have been banished (since it is understood that anger and favour alike are excluded from the nature of a being at once blessed and immortal, and that these being eliminated we are menaced by no fears in regard to the powers above). But the mind strives to strengthen this belief by trying to discover the form of god, the mode of his activity, and the operation of his intelligence. |
|
3. Lucretius Carus, On The Nature of Things, 5.1161 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •cognition, theological Found in books: Mackey (2022) 218| 5.1161. Nunc quae causa deum per magnas numina gentis | |
|
| 4. Sextus, Against The Mathematicians, 7.216 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •cognition, theological Found in books: Mackey (2022) 218 |
5. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 10.33 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •cognition, theological Found in books: Mackey (2022) 218 | 10.33. By preconception they mean a sort of apprehension or a right opinion or notion, or universal idea stored in the mind; that is, a recollection of an external object often presented, e.g. Such and such a thing is a man: for no sooner is the word man uttered than we think of his shape by an act of preconception, in which the senses take the lead. Thus the object primarily denoted by every term is then plain and clear. And we should never have started an investigation, unless we had known what it was that we were in search of. For example: The object standing yonder is a horse or a cow. Before making this judgement, we must at some time or other have known by preconception the shape of a horse or a cow. We should not have given anything a name, if we had not first learnt its form by way of preconception. It follows, then, that preconceptions are clear. The object of a judgement is derived from something previously clear, by reference to which we frame the proposition, e.g. How do we know that this is a man? |
|
| 6. Epicurus, Letter To Menoeceus, 123-124 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Mackey (2022) 218 |
| 7. Epicurus, Ep. Hdt., 82 Tagged with subjects: •cognition, theological Found in books: Mackey (2022) 218 |
