Epicureans and the Present Past

Author(s): James Warren

Source: Phronesis, Vol. 51, No. 4 (2006), pp. 362-387
Published by: BRILL
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182815
Accessed: 12-05-2015 02:26 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Phronesis.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Epicureans and the Present Past*

JAMES WARREN

ABSTRACT

This essay offers a reading of a difficult passage in the first book of Lucretius'
De RerumNatura in which the poet first explains the Epicureanaccount of time
and then responds to a worry about the status of the past (1.459-82). It identifies
two possible readings of the passage, one of which is compatible with the claim
that the Epicureanswere presentists about the past. Other evidence, particularly
from Cicero De Fato, suggests that the Epicureansmaintainedthat all true assertions must have a contemporaneoustruth-makerand that no contingent futuretensed assertionsare true.It appears,however, thatthey did not asserta symmetrical
view of past-tensedassertions. There is no compelling reason, therefore,to think
that the Epicureanswere presentists about the past.

In the course of his exposition of the fundamentals of Epicurean natural

philosophy, Lucretius turns in book one of his De Rerum Natura to give
a demonstration of the thesis that all things depend ultimately for their
existence on the existence of atoms and void. One of those things which
depend for their existence on underlying matter and its arrangement in the
void is time. Lucretius is very clear in his insistence that time does not
exist per se. That, however, is about as much as can be thought to emerge
clearly from a brief passage at DRN 1.459-82. This essay aims to offer a
close reading of that passage and asks what it can add to our understanding of the Epicurean view of the past and future.
Modern metaphysics has become increasingly concerned over the last
century or so with revisiting questions about the nature of time and, in
particular, the existence of the past and future. One of the current strands
of thought, presentism, holds that only present states of affairs exist.
Presentism might claim a number of considerations in its favour. It might

Accepted February 2006

* I would like to thank Malcolm Schofield, David Sedley, Charles Weiss, and the
journal's reader for comments on previous drafts of this essay. A version was read at
a conference in Cambridgein July 2005. My thanks to the audience on that occasion
for their reactions.

o Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006

Also available online - www.brill.nl/phro

Phronesis L114

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

363

claim to give due weight to a reasonable conviction we tend to have about

the special status of the present and of present events. It might also claim
that it explains the conviction that there is something 'open' or notyet-determined about the future, since it says that the future does not exist.
However, in denying that any events other than present events exist, it
appears unable to give a satisfying account of the conviction we have that
the world has a past. In particular, it seems hard pressed to explain how
it is possible to talk about past events and how it is possible to make statements which involve, for example, comparisons between the present and
the past.' It has been claimed that Lucretius, in the same passage in which
he denies that time exists per se, both promotes a presentist ontology and
also offers a presentist account of the status of the past, maintaining that
the past consists in a set of present states of affairs.2 However, there is no
compelling reason to think that Lucretius is offering a presentist account
and there is no other evidence which demonstrates that the Epicureans
were presentists. Moreover, the search for presentist claims might distract
us from the Epicureans' primary interest in the past and future, which was
tied intimately to their conceptions of the nature of truth and to concerns
about determinism.
The structure of my argument is as follows. Section II shows that there
is no direct evidence for presentism in Epicurean texts outside Lucretius.
Section III identifies two possible interpretations of Lucretius DRN 1.45982, one of which is compatible with presentism. Section IV discusses the
Epicurean conceptions of the truth of past- and future-tensed statements
and suggests that the Epicureans' views were driven not primarily by
thoughts about the ontology of past, present, and future, but instead by
concerns over the truth-makersfor future-tensed statements and the avoidance of determinism. They were not much interested in using their view
on truths concerning the future to make clear symmetrical claims about
truths concerning the past. We cannot, therefore, conclude that they were
presentists about the past.

' On defining presentism see Crisp and Ludlow 2004. For a brief introductionto
varieties of presentism and the problems they face see Dainton 2001, 79-92 and cf.
Tooley 1997, 234-40.
2 See Bigelow 1996 for this
claim.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

364

JAMES WARREN

II
Were the Epicureanspresentists?We can be optimisticaboutthe chances
of resolving this questionsince we are relativelywell suppliedwith Epicureansources and reportsof Epicureantheoriesabout time. In addition
to the brief treatment in Epicurus' Letter to Herodotus (Ep. Hdt.), we have

the remainsof a portionof Epicurus'On naturedevotedto the subject(in

PHerc. 1413) and SextusEmpiricus'outlineand criticismof the Epicurean
view of time in M 10.3
In Ep. Hdt. 72 Epicurus'primaryinterestis to assert that time exists
and that there is no need to adopt any new terminologyto describe it.
However, time requiresa differentkind of investigationfrom the other
Lrn) such as shape, colour and magnitude(which he
accidents (c
has dealt with in paragraphs68-71). These lattercould be investigatedby
examiningthe preconceptions(npoXiVEt;)built up throughrepeatedperceptualexperiences.Time, on the otherhand,is to be investigatedby consideringonly 'that to which we attachthis peculiarcharacteristicand by
which we measure' (&AX&
go6vov ) aiirXEoK0giEVTb '6ibovToiTo KaCicpaEp. Hdt. 72). This is explained by
?irtpob4iev ga'Xtara 1X0oytatoT?ov:

Epicurus'assertionthat there is no proof needed of the existence of time

other than the fact that we attach(ionXF_KioFrv) time to days and nights
and their parts,to states of affairsand feelings such as pleasureand pain.
Time is an accidentof these. The referenceto measurementis meant to
show how, from this primaryand earliest impressionof temporalchange
and duration,we come to be able to evaluateother temporalchanges by
using days and nights as some sort of comparativemeasure. Epicurus
refers to some unnamedothers (rtv5;) who, in contrast,want to identify
some characteristicof time which places it in some special ontological
class.4 His own approach is more down to earth; we should think about

time in termsof whateverwe primarilyassociatetime with and whatever

we use to measuretime.
Much the same pictureemergesfrom Sextus Empiricus'outline of the
Epicureanaccount of time at M 10.219-27. At 10.226, paraphrasingthe
Epicureans,he writes that 'we measurethe speed and slowness of motion

I For discussions of the place of PHerc. 1413 within Epicurus' On nature see Barigazzi 1959, 29-34; Arrighetti 1973, 650; Luciani 2000, 105-6; and Sedley 1998,
118-19, who argues that it is part of Nat. 10.
I Cf. Bailey ad loc.: 'He must of course here be thinking of some special efforts
to class time with something else, but it is not clear what.'

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

365

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

and the greaterand lesser rest by time'.' PHerc. 1413 restatesthe same
general position, but there are serious difficultiesfor any more precise
interpretation.In additionto the usual problemsof the state of the text,
this section of Epicurus'On nature appearsto have been written in the
form of a dialogue and it is thereforesometimesunclearto which of the
speakers a particularsection of text should be assigned.6Nevertheless,
once again we have an account of time in terms of a sense-impression
(pavtai{xa)of, principally,nightandday, which is used as a standardmeasure of time.7The view being opposedby Epicurusthroughoutthe text is
preparedto considera notionof time which makes no necessaryreference
to perceptionor experience.8
These sources offer no Epicureanresponseto the questionof the ontological status of past and future. Instead,Epicurushas given an epistemological accountfocused on the way in which humansperceivethe passage of time througha direct acquaintancewith, in the first instance,the
alternationof night and day. This alternationis then used as a measure
of durationaccordingto which the durationand speed of other processes
might be measuredin comparison.In this way, Epicuruscan attemptto
The verb for 'measure' here is icvcGurpoIJgrv, where Ep. Hdt. 72 uses lcxpxThere is probablylittle of significance in this small alteration.Sextus never
iictpo6RFcv.
uses the napa- compound, preferringthe K(atQ- form. Epicurus uses the nuapa-form
only in Ep. Hdt. 72, but elsewhere also uses the iccTa- form. The latter occurs prominently in PHerc. 1413's discussion of time and also in Ep. Hdt. 58-9 where Epicurus
explains how the

X&XtaTca (in Latin, minima) can be used to 'measure out' smaller

and larger bodies. All spatial magnitudes can be expressed as sums of some finite
whole numberof these minima. (At Ep. Hdt. 59, Epicurusrefers to this smallest measure as

Tr&V gIOV

Tr6 wKran.TapsiIca.)

KaTaxgEpEiv

also occurs in KA 19, used of the

person who correctly 'measures out by calculation the limits of pleasure'.

6 There are signs of textual markers denoting different speakers. See e.g. 9pTI
at
Arr. 37.12.3. References are to the edition in Arrighetti 1973, 381-415.
See e.g. Arr. 37.17.1-11:
VUKTCOV, |I KXA'
KElVf?0530)-

'R

Tl.iq

iE]IXo,i-v
t vol[o]i4iev

OVA'I [Y&p] 062OgEv

[Tiva
irpi

A&rO[' I Ta;J]

(pav]Irc4G][a3v
a'TEa';

awUiTai;

rlV
T[&lv

I[Kata]cxhTpTll
Uer[priael

pCov Kac
O'v I [na

To'[7 XPO]VOV 6[g]

cf. Arr. 37.31.1-7, 37.36.1-1 1. This would also make

good sense of an objection made later in the text on the basis that nights and days
vary in length (Arr. 37.25). Given this variation, the objector claims that nights and
days cannot be standardsagainst which all other durationsare measured. Lucretius is
well aware that days and nights vary in length over the year: DRN 5.680-88.
8 Early in the text there is a complaint made against any view which posits a state
of the universe before time (Arr. 37.3). This might suggest that the opponent is some
kind of Platonist. Cf. IsnardiParente 1976 and Barigazzi 1959. CompareCic. De Nat.
Deorum 1.22, where Velleius ridicules the Platonist cosmogonical account: ne in cogitationem quidem cadit ut fuerit tempus aliquod nullum cum tempus esset.
I [gEpCO]V [Kail vUK[TCOv].. .;

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

366

JAMES WARREN

accountfor humans'generalawarenessof temporalpassageand theirability to recogniselongerand shortertemporaldurationswithoutmovingoutside his standardaccount of learningand perception.'He has ventured
furtherinto the ontologyof time, but only to offer an accountof its nature
in termsof the persistentor temporarynatureof variousaccidentalproperties; the comings and goings of these properties can be perceived
directly.A pain in my foot may come and go, so it is an accidentalproperty of my foot or, perhaps,of me. But time, it seems, can thereforebe
said to be an accidentalpropertyof the pain; it is, in the famous slogan,
an accidentalpropertyof accidentalproperties( oviTcOa
Nothing in the Epicureanscheme elucidatedthus far commits them to
presentism,so in orderto conclude that they were presentists,we would
have to find evidence elsewhere. But such evidence is very hardto find.
No otherknownEpicureanargumentsrely on a presentisttheory.'"Nor is
it convincing simply to assert that presentismwas the 'default' or common view of philosophersof this period.'2The Stoics, for example,explicitly grantto the presenta privilegedontologicalstatus, but also say that

I Epicurus' tendency to claim that time is some sense-impression(e.g. in PHerc.

1413, Arr. 37.31.1-4 and n.7 above) might seem to make time somehow dependenton
a perceiveralthough Epicureansources in general stress the infinity of past and future
time (see Cic. De Nat. Deorum 1.21, Lucr. DRN 3.1087-94). Morel 2002, 200-205,
tries to alleviate the problem by insisting that phantasiai are produced by the object
of perception itself.
" See SE M 10.219. Long and Sedley 1987 vol. 1, 37, take the evidence from
Sextus to depend on DemetriusLacon and suggest that Demetriuswas himself attempting to offer a more precise ontological classification of time drawing on the material
in Ep. Hdt. 70-73. At SE M 10.225 time is a a1ugEiPTK6; of a night or day, but here
that term is presumablybeing used merely to mean 'property' in general: the genus
of which accidental and non-accidentalpropertiesare species. See Sedley 1988, 308.
Sextus pointedly uses both aUVPEIJP11o;and aI'cgnv a of time at M 10.242, perhaps
intending to suggest some confusion or inconsistency in the Epicureans'classification.
" Bradley 2004 claims that the argumentthat 'death is nothing to us for when we
are it is not and when it is we are not' (Ep. Men. 125) must rely on the notion that
only the present exists if it is to avoid obvious counterexamplesof harms brought
about by non-contemporaneouscauses. He furtherclaims that since, granted presentism, the Epicurean argument would be sound, this is itself a good reason to reject
presentism. But in fact the Epicurean argument relies on the weaker claim that no
harms can be caused posthumously (since death is the end of a person's existence).
Cf. Warren2004a, 41-55.
12 See e.g. Bigelow 1996, 35, 37, 41. Cf. Owen 1976, 15 and Owen 1966 for a discussion of whether Parmenidesor Plato (perhapsat Tim. 37-38) managed to articulate
a timeless sense of 'to be'.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

367

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

all time, the present included, since it is not corporeal, has at best a weak
claim on existence. They insist that although the present is privileged (they
refer to its existence using the verb t&apXetv),
past and future still 'sub-

sist' (for which they use the verb

xPrEaTava0.'3

Aristotle too is particu-

larly concerned with the nature and status of 'now' in Physics 4.10-14.
But he is equally concerned to insist on the idea of the temporal continuum, one part of which is picked out as 'now'. 'Now', he tells us, both
divides and unites past and future.
However, Aristotle certainly shows some signs of presentist arguments
when he outlines his opening aporiai about time, one of which (see
Phys. 217b33-218a6) relies on the claims that the past is 'no longer' and
the future is 'not yet'.'4 Arguments similar to this aporia were popular
throughout antiquity. Sextus Empiricus, for example, launches this argument against the Epicureans at M 10.242-4.'5
71 YOiV

LEpa

o6&Ka`XCpO;

UPOEUVIKE WaITOXTa;

OiK EGTtV ilicpx.

Voo00tV1i

6806eKa

o 6'

?Vatl

XEqO?eVTI,

'pa;,

acTO'; Xoyo;

KOcI OtOV TptPEpil;

Ka0(eO

ta?,V

ipOTepOV

ktav govilv
Kai E01 T?i V1)KTO.

aXX&cc jT

cKEWayEVoi;

1J'M6?&iaEV,

o0b

TIV ?vEaTdyav,
iTjt;
ii Tt Wpca EV nX&TEt

TlgtV aVnOnYtXT0to;

(pqEVTxtl.

OVt?rryap OT? TO TEp&COV CA,)TnS g0o;

?o1(YlV V9?,T1KEV,
(0-6no yap rCaX0oxa,
TOxE yap TO tv npITOV OUKETIt WaTiv, 10b
WTMV), ox00? T6E O86E?trpoVTpi-Tov ouVtw UcTIv. TiEV &? n4tX6vov ai)"-; REp6V KaTa ToVTov TOV Tp0mOV ~I
)ViXI
)lcapXovrco)v0ov C1
I

XapXtEv.

So, since the day is said to be twelve hours in duration,as we demonstratedearlier [M 10.1821, it does not exist as twelve hours, but as the one single hour
which is present, and this hour is not a day. The same reasoning applies also to
the night. And the hour too, conceived of once again as being in three parts,
when we consider it appears to us not to exist. For it neitherexists when the first
part of it exists (for the rest do not yet exist) nor when the second exists (for
then the first no longer exists and the third does not yet exist). Since it has a plurality of parts which in this way do not exist, it too cannot exist.

Sextus notes that days and nights have a temporal extension. Each is conventionally divided into twelve hours. Next he claims that the whole day
'" See Arius Didymus (ap. Stob. Ecl. I p.106,5ff. W.) SVF 11.509;Plut. Comm.Not.
1081F, SVF 11.518;and Schofield 1988.
'4 Cf. Miller 1974; Inwood 1991; Cavagnaro2002, 10-16; Coope 2005, esp. 17-26.
Aristotle goes on to assert that time 'is' (e.g. 219b33-220al). Hussey 1993, xlvii-xlviii,
notes that although the aporia is never directly answered there is little reason to doubt
that Aristotle is a realist about the past. Owen 1976, 20: 'The outcome is that, so far
from shedding the past and future as unreal, the present cannot do without them.'
'" Cf. Warren 2003. Compare also Plut. De E apud Delphos 392E-F, Augustine
Conf. 11.14-18.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

368

JAMES WARREN

does not exist, only a partof it. Sextus takes this to amountto the claim
that those parts of today which are not presentdo not exist (they either
no longer exist or do not exist yet), which follows only if he is already
grantedthe crucialpremisethat only what is presentexists. So what does
exist? Not even an hour,says Sextus, since this too is tripartite,by which
he means that any durationhas a partwhich is present,a partwhich is
past, and a partwhich is future.No two of these partscan exist simultaneously, so no partof time exists.'6
Sextus' argumentswill have force for the Epicureansonly to the extent
to which they are inclined to agree that the past and futurefail to exist
in contrastto the presentor, in otherwords, share the presentistintuition
that 'to be is to be now'. But the text gives us no reasonto thinkthat,on
reflection,the Epicureanswould have endorsedsuch a view.
III
Let us turnnext to the Lucretianpassage in which the poet discusses the
existence of the past, since this seems to be the most promisingplace to
huntfor Epicureanpresentism.For Lucretius,storiessuch as those told of
the TrojanWar were the very first recordedhistoricalevents.'7In referring to such stories in his own poem, Lucretiusis not only markinghis
place in the poetic traditionof Greece and Rome by incorporatingelementsof the most august,Homeric,poetry,but is also demonstratinghow
it is possible to refer even to these most distantof historicalevents.
tempus item per se non est, sed rebus ab ipsis
consequitursensus, transactumquid sit in aevo,
tum quae res instet, quid porro deinde sequatur;

460

16

One might claim that there is a limit to temporaldivisions: partless but extended
'time atoms'. Simpl. in Phys. 934, 25-30 says that oi nlrpi 'EntiKoipovmake spatial
magnitude, motion, and time out of partless units. Sextus, M 10.142-56, deploys an
argumentof Diodoran inspirationagainst the Epicureans,one of the consequences of
which is that time must be atomic. (Cf. Denyer 1981.) The Epicureansthemselves talk
about durationsof time which can be conceived 'only by reason' but these need not
be atomic: see e.g. Epic. Ep. Hdt. 47 and 62 (oi 5& ko6youOr-wpioi Xpovot) and
Lucr. DRN 4.794-6. For discussion see IsnardiParente 1976; Sorabji 1982 and 1983,
375-7; Asmis 1984, 107-10; Schofield 1988, 339 n.10.
1 See 5.324-9, where Lucretiusasks why, if the kosmos did not come to be at some
time in the past, the poets do not sing of events earlier than the Theban cycle and the
fall of Troy. The implication is that were the kosmos eternal, the historical record
would extend back infinitely far into the past.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

369

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

nec per se quemquamtempus sentire fatendumst

semotum ab rerum motu placidaque quiete.
denique Tyndaridemraptam belloque subactas
Troiugenas gentis cum dicunt esse, videndumst
ne forte haec per se cogant nos esse fateri,
quando ea saecla hominum, quorumhaec eventa fuerunt,
inrevocabilis abstuleritiam praeteritaaetas;
namque aliud tenis, aliud regionibus ipsis
eventum dici poterit quodcumqueent actum.
denique materies si rerum nulla fuisset
nec locus ac spatium, res in quo quaeque geruntur,
numquamTyndaridis forma conflatus amore
ignis Alexandri Phrygio sub pectore gliscens
clara accendisset saevi certaminabelli
nec clam durateusTroiianis Pergama partu
inflammassetequos nocturno Graiugenarum;
perspicere ut possis res gestas funditus omnis
non ita uti corpus per se constare neque esse
nec ratione cluere eadem qua constet inane,
sed magis ut merito possis eventa vocare
corporis atque loci, res in quo quaeque gerantur.

465

470

475

480

Time, however, has no independent existence, but a perception follows from

things themselves: what did take place in the past, then what thing is present,
what then will follow next. But it should not be stated that anyone perceives time
itself, independentof the motion and tranquilrest of things.
Next, when people say that Tyndareus'daughterwas kidnapped,or the Trojan
peoples were beaten, we must take care that they do not force us to say that these
things exist per se, when those generations of men whose accidental properties
these were have now been stolen away completely by the irrevocablepassage of
time.
For whatever will have taken place will be able to be called an accident, in
one case, of the earth, in anothercase, of particularregions. And indeed, if there
had been no constituentsof these things nor place and space in which these things
took place, then never would the fire kindled by love for the beauty of Tyndareus'
daughter, burning in Alexander's Trojan heart, have inflamed the famed struggles of savage war. Nor would the wooden horse, giving birth by night to the
Greeks without the Trojans noticing, have set light to Pergamon.
So you can see that absolutely all things which have taken place are not real
per se as is body, nor do they exist, nor are they spoken of in the same way as
that in which void is real. But ratheryou might rightly call them accidents of the
body and place in which all these things take place.

Characteristically, Lucretius begins by stating his conclusion: time does

not exist per se (459). But what does he mean by 'time' (tempus) here?
The next few lines seem to be concerned not so much with the dimension
of time as with the passage of time, the sequential occurrence of events.
We experience things changing or moving: first one thing happens, then

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

370

JAMES WARREN

the next, and so on (transactum quid sit. . . tum quae res instet, quid porro
deinde sequatur: 460-61). Lucretius insists that time in this sense is perceived, an insistence which accords with the Epicurean description of
'time' as a sense-impression (pvtaxdx -rI;) of change or rest.
At 464, Lucretius turns to consider the past and takes as his example
a set of events from the Trojan War. He is first of all concerned to show
that although Latin uses 'to be' (esse) as an auxiliary verb in the construction of the perfect tense, this should not be taken to indicate that these
perfect-tensed propositions describe things that 'are' per se (466). So,
although Latin will express 'Helen was kidnapped' as 'Tyndaris rapta est',
there is no need to infer from the presence of the 'est' that some kind of
commitment is required to the per se existence of either Helen herself or
Helen's being kidnapped.'8
Lucretius faces a problem in explaining how it is possible to make
statements about past events, not because he asserts quite generally - as
might a modern presentist - that the past does not exist, but ratherbecause
the people and places mentioned in these statements about the past no
longer exist. The past is therefore an appealing case for an objector who
is trying to find an exception to the Epicurean assertions that (i) the only
per se existents are body and void (1.445-8) and (ii) that all other things
depend for their existence on these, being either an eventum or coniunctum (1.449-50). When we say that 'Helen was kidnapped' we are talking
about an eventum and asserting that this was a property of Helen. ('Being
kidnapped' presumably fits easily with the list of states offered at 1.455-6
as eventa: being a slave, being poor, being rich, being free and so on.)
But at least for the more distant past, the original agents and cities in
question no longer exist, and yet although the original bodies to which
these eventa belonged are no longer around it still seems possible to say
true things about the past, to describe these eventa correctly. Do these
eventa therefore now exist per se?'9 Lucretius neither wants to admit that

1
The usual Greek equivalent for Tyndaris rapta est would be something like
esse
of
tense
of
the
use
the
present
caused
by
confusions
similar
For
'EXevinipnidca.
as an auxiliary verb see Cic. Tusc. 1.11-12 and cf. Warren 2004a, 44-5. The Greek
use of a periphrasticpast tense (perfect participle+ some form of 'to be') might cause
similar worries when the auxiliary verb is in the present tense: i 'EXEvIi~pnaaEv
caTIV. For Epicurus' use of such constructionssee e.g. Ep. Hdt. 69 and cf. Widman
1935, 135-6.
'9 Some (e.g. Bailey and Robin ad loc.) think that Lucretiusis respondingto a Stoic
critic. Furley 1966 disagrees. Cf. Bollack and Bollack 1983, 312; Luciani2000, 96-100.
X1

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

371

Helen of Troy exists now, nor does he want to claim that her being kidnapped somehow exists per se. Instead, he has to find some way to avoid
the potential threat of 'detached' eventa, which might then have to be
accepted as existing per se. The problem is not that the past as a whole
is not there to be talked about at all so much as the less controversial
claim that Helen is no longer around to be talked about.20
At 469 Lucretius begins his response and relates all this to his more
general thesis about the most fundamental existents and his claim that only
they exist per se. First, in 469-70 he asserts that all occurrences happen
somewhere. This, he hopes, will help to tie the eventa to some place or
area and, ultimately, back to some body or region of void. At this point
it is not clear whether he is referring to all events, past, present and future,
and securing our agreement with the uncontroversial claim that all occurrences happen somewhere, or whether he is already referring more narrowly to the past occurrences which are the source of his present difficulty.
Glancing ahead to 471-7, the pluperfect subjunctives (fuisset, accendisset,
inflammasset) show clearly that at that point of the text Lucretius is referring to the time of the Trojan War itself and reasserts that it was, at that
time, a necessary condition of the various events taking place that there
should be matter and void existing per se. Without these fundamental
existents the Trojan War could not have taken place and all the things
involved in that war (Helen, Paris, the horse, Troy) were themselves collections of atoms arranged in the void. This restates what Lucretius has
asserted already at 449-50: all things are parasitic for their existence on
those things which do exist per se. Without matter and void no eventa can
be; without matter and void there would have been no Trojan War. Had
there been no matter and void at that time then the Trojan War could not
have occurred when it did.
This is not yet an explicit answer to the problem at hand. Lucretius
needs to tell us not about the ultimate grounds for the existence of Trojan
War at the time it was taking place, but rather what grounds our present
ability to talk about the Trojan War now that all the participants are long
dead. Yet Lucretius confidently asserts in 478-82 that he has successfully
avoided this particular problem. There is no exception, he says, to the

20 Cf. Tooley 1997, 239. The tensed-fact presentist wants to allow us to say truly
'Caesar crossed the Rubicon' since there is a present state of affairs of Caesar having
crossed the Rubicon. But, objects Tooley, just what is this state of affairsat least some
of whose constituents(Caesar, in particular),no longer exist? He concludes that 'states
of affairs cannot exist at times when their constituents do not exist.'

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

372

JAMES WARREN

claim thatonly bodies and void exist per se, and thatall eventaare eventa
of body and void. Our imaginedobjectormightjustly feel that his question has not been answered.Whatof the presentstatusof these past states
of affairs?
If Lucretiusdoes have an answerto this question,it mustbe somewhere
in the precedinglines. Lines 464-8 quite clearly set up what we should
not say and 471-7 tell us about the time of the TrojanWar. The crucial
move, therefore,must be buriedin 469-70. We should not say that when
Helen, for example, is no longer, the eventumof her having been kidnappedexists per se. Whatwe shouldsay is that this is an eventumeither
of the world as a whole or of some particularregion.2'These lines can be
interpretedin two ways, only one of which sees Lucretiusofferinga presentist responseto the problemposed.
Reading (A)

On reading(A), Lucretiusstartsin 469-70 by makinga generalclaim that

all occurrences take place somewhere.22Lines 471-7 then go on to make

the more complicatedpoint that not only did the TrojanWarhave to happen somewhere,it also requiredmateries.This has the advantageof being
plausibleand uncontroversial,and likely to appealto his imaginedobjector, but it threatensto leave him withouta clear answer to the puzzle at
hand since, as we have seen, 471-7 secureonly the claim that at the time
of their occurrencethe events of the TrojanWar requiredsome basis in
bodies and void. These lines say nothing additionalabout the status of
those occurrencesnow the people involvedare dead but only thatthey too

21 For terris meaning 'the world' see Dunbabin 1917 and Wellesley 1963 and cf.
Virg. Aen. 1.460. Understood in this way, there is no need to emend terris to avoid
an unwarrantedrepetitionwith regionibus. Cf. Bigelow 1996, 46: 'I suggest a modification to the Lucretiandoctrine. One of the things that exists is the whole world, the
totality of things that exist. The world can have propertiesand accidents, just as its
parts may have. It is a present propertyof the world that it is a world in which Helen
was abducted and the Trojans were conquered.'
22 Bailey ad loc. takes these lines to refer to all past events, glossing quodcumque
erit actum as 'everything that shall prove to have taken place', 'all the events of history as you look back at them'. Munroad loc.: 'notice too the quodcumqueerit actum
of a special past event, not agetur' (but Munro also reads Teucris for terris in 470.
Bailey rightly rejects this emendation.) Bailey also notes, of poterit in 470, that the
future tense conveys only that once this confusion is removed it will be possible to
classify these things as eventa. Bollack and Bollack 1983 take these lines to refer to
the indeterminacyof the future. Cf. Luciani 2001, 96-8.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

373

can be classified as once having been (namely at the time of their occurrence) eventa of some place or region.
Reading (A) has two possible interpretations. Perhaps Lucretius has
failed to see that he ought to say something about the status now of the
eventa which were formerly eventa of Helen, the city of Troy and so on.
He merely assures us that they were once eventa of places and people.
Alternatively, and more charitably, this is an informed and deliberate
refusal by Lucretius to be drawn into the game of offering some present
bearer for these eventa. Rather, he reminds us that (i) all eventa are spatially located (11.469-70) and (ii) these eventa, at the time of the Trojan
War, were grounded in the per se existents, body and void (11. 471-82).
The crucial lines 469-70 do not, on reading (A), tell us that the eventum
of Helen's having been kidnapped is now an eventum of some place, but
that when Helen was kidnapped, she was kidnapped somewhere. Lucretius
insists that this should be enough to answer the objector. There is no further question to be answered about what the status of these eventa is now,
once their original bearers are no longer, since all that matters, all that is
needed for them to exist and be available to be talked about, is that at
some time they were grounded in the per se existents, body and void.
This interpretation, importantly, has Lucretius give a reasoned and nonpresentist answer to the problem posed.
Reading (B)
On reading (B), Lucretius does not merely say that all past occurrences,
when they occurred, occurred somewhere. Rather, he also says that past
occurrences can rightly be classified as now being eventa of some place
which itself exists now.23On reading (B) lines 469-70 are intended to tell
us something about the current bearer of the eventa which were once the
eventa of Helen and so on. In this way, Lucretius is trying to find some
per se existent which can serve now as the bearer of eventa which were

Long and Sedley 1987 vol. 1, 37 and 2, 26 offer a form of the (B) interpretation
which specifies that what is at stake is the existence not of 'the past' but of 'facts
about the past'. They rightly note that not even the most desperate presentist would
want to say that the TrojanWar is happening now, but to say that the past exists does
not commit one to saying it exists 'now'. Still, for there to be 'facts about' the past
there must be some truthmakersfor such facts. The difference between (A) and (B)
turns on whether the truthmakerfor the fact that Helen was kidnapped,and therefore
my ability today to say truly 'Helen was kidnapped',is some occurrencein the Aegean
Bronze Age (A) or some facet of the world today (B).
23

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

374

JAMES WARREN

once borne by no longer existing people. (B) has the benefit of offering a
clearer answer to the metaphysical problem at hand, but leaves us with
the difficulty of making sense of a much more controversial metaphysical
claim. (B) tells us that all eventa are grounded in some present existent,
even such eventa as Helen's being kidnapped. Reading (B) makes Lucretius a presentist about the past.
Comparison and evaluation
Lines 478-82 summarise the conclusion of the section which began at 459.
They contain an interesting distinction between the past-tensed 'what
has happened' (res gestas, 478) and the present-tensed 'things which take
place' (res ... gerantur, 482), which might be adduced in support of (B)
since they seem to claim that 'things which happened' (res gestae) are
now 'taking place' (gerantur) as accidents of body and void. But even if
we accept that 'res gestas' here means 'past events' and not just the generalising 'whatever happens', these lines too are compatible with both (A)
and (B). The (B) reading thinks that they say that past events do not exist
per se but do now 'take place' (gerantur) by being accidents of bodies
and void. The (A) reading, however, sees this as a further elaboration of
the claim that past events do not exist per se but are rather accidents of
the bodies and void in which they take place. Helen's being kidnapped is
an eventum of the body and void in which it takes place. That is all we
need to say about it, and the fact that we now are talking about it many
years later is irrelevant: no new bearer of this eventum needs to be found.
It might be objected that, if this is Lucretius' meaning he should have
retained a past tense in 482: these are accidents of the body and void in
which they took place. But the supporter of (A) can, I think, reply that
Lucretius is generalising here: the bearers of all eventa are the body and
void in which they take place, whenever that should be. (Let us say, for
example, that Helen herself is the bearer of the eventum of her being kidnapped). This reveals what we should say about all eventa, whether or not
they are, given our current temporal perspective, in the past.24
Both (A) and (B) are compatible with the text as it stands. Our choice,
therefore, is guided by philosophical rather than philological considerations. Reading (B) shares the advantage of the charitable interpretation(A)
24

At 479 Lucretius asks us to agree that these past events neither 'are real' (con-

stare) per se nor do they 'exist' (esse). constare is sometimes used by Lucretius to

denote how compound objects exist as collections of atoms arrangedin a particular

manner;the prefix carries the desired connotation of something being a collection of

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

375

of seeing in these lines a reasoned response to the problem outlined in

464-8, but it does so by making Lucretius a presentist. The difficulties
with reading (B) are mainly caused by a lack of further explanation on
Lucretius' part. If (B) is Lucretius' intended meaning, he does not, for
example, make clear in 469-70 whether this eventum is transferred from
belonging to Helen to belonging to some area or place only once Helen
herself is no longer alive, or this eventum is always a property of the world
or of some place, but while Helen is still alive it is also a property of her.
A further question centres on what Lucretius has in mind by the regio in
the case, for example, of Helen's kidnap. Perhaps he means where the
event took place (for instance, Menelaus' palace) which would exist both
during Helen's life and for some time after her death. Alternatively, we
need to identify some regio which takes over as the bearer of these properties only after the death of the agents. Lucretius does not pursue this
question. He is interested only in maintaining that some place must and
in fact does fill this role once the agent has died.
If reading (B) is correct we should realise its full commitments. Lucretius will be committed to an extremely large range of eventa, including
what we might call 'tensed' accidental properties. This is the sense in
which presentism is much less ontologically parsimonious than it might
appear at first glance.25 A presentist will have to convince us to accept
such properties, and Lucretius will, for example, have to persuade us to
accept such properties as 'being the place where Helen was once kidnapped'. Further, Lucretius will have to be able to convince us that the
past in fact consists in the set of such past-tensed properties held now by
their various bearers.
Further difficulties for this Lucretian presentist view arise when it is
asked what will become of the past (now understood as certain past-tensed
properties held in the present) when the present bearers of those properties
elements 'standing together' (cf. 1.204, 302). Elsewhere it is used simply as a synonym for esse (cf. 1.480, 509 (of void), 607 (of minima)). PerhapsLucretiususes both
constare and esse to prevent his objector offering some nuanced ontology, accepting
for example that these past events do not 'exist' per se (esse) but somehow 'are real'
or 'subsist' per se (constare).
k
25 Bigelow 1996, 47 is happy to admit this. Presentismtrades the ontological extravagance of eternalism, the acceptance that all times exist, for a new extravagance in
the propertiespossessed by what exists, i.e. exists now. Cf. Keller 2004, 94-6; Lewis
2004, 7. Sider 2001, 35-41, is unconvinced by this presentist move. (41): 'Whether
the world has the propertypreviously containing dinosaurs is not a matterof what the
world itself is like, but points beyond itself, to its past.' His general unease with this
tactic is shared by Armstrong2004, 146-7.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

376

JAMES WARREN

themselvespass away. If, when Helen dies, what happenedto her becomes
a propertyof some partof the world (regio), what happenswhen thatpart
of the world no longer exists? After all, the cities of Troy and Mycenae
eitherno longerexist or else cling to existence only as ruinsand will not
last forever.PerhapsLucretiuswill say that if the regio in questiondisappearsthen the pastevent will becomea propertyof the worldas a whole
(terrae). But thatonly delays the problem,since Lucretiushimself is elsewhere insistentthat the world is itself only temporary.Eventuallyit too,
like all other compounds made of conglomerationsof atoms, will be
erodedand cease to be. What then?
Sextus Empiricusoffers a similar objection to the Epicureansat M
10.188, exploiting their claim that time is the sense-impression(qa6v'raaga) of day and night (illuminatedand un-illuminatedair). If, when the
world (KoGgo;) is destroyed,there will be no days and nights (let alone
anyone to perceive them), then accordingto this Epicureanaccount of
time there should be no time. But then it would not be possible to say
that there was a time before the world came to be and anotherafter it
will cease to be. A similar problemcan be raised withoutrelying on the
claim that the Epicureansdefined the natureof time in terms of senseimpressionsof days and nights. Given that all compoundbodies are corruptible,then the problemwe faced aboutwhat to say when Helen passes
away will be repeatedand repeated,even to a cosmic scale. Lucretiusis
faced with a dilemma.Eitherhe offers some ultimatebeareror bearersof
these past-tensedpropertieswhich are not themselves corruptibleor he
must accept that the past can cease to be, not just in the sense in which
anyone will be happy to think that the past is no longer but in the more
serioussense of agreeingthattruthsaboutthe pastcan disappear.At some
point in the future,if no continuedbearerof the eventum of Helen's having been kidnappedcan be found, it will cease to be true that Helen was
kidnapped.The statement'Tyndaris rapta est' will fail to correspondwith
any feature of the world. It will also not be false that Helen was kidnappedsince the statement'Tyndaris non rapta est' will fail to correspond
with any featureof the world.
Lucretiusmight indeedbe happywith thatconsequence.And he would
not be alone in acceptingit.26 Perhapsit would fit with his generalview
of the universe.Once his world, in which Helenwas kidnappedand so on,
ceases to be it would perhapsmake little sense to thinkthat the universe
26 See Lukasiewicz 1967, 38-9; Bollack and Bollack 1983, 316; Markosian 1995;
Dummett 2004, 74-9.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

377

as a whole is still one in which this Helen was kidnapped.27Alternatively,

Lucretius may remind us that the atoms and void themselves are the ultimate bearers of all eventa, and that these atoms and void are everlasting.
This would be a way of preserving the past by tying it to some per se
existents which will never themselves pass away.28 But it is odd to think
of individual atoms or of areas of void acquiring such properties and histories as time passes. Eventually, on this picture, it will be possible to talk
about an event in the very distant past because a number of atoms scattered now throughout the universe and/or a region of void in the infinite
universe have the property of once having constituted or hosted one of the
compound bodies involved in that event.

IV
DRN 1.464-82, therefore, need not show that Lucretius is committed to
some kind of presentism. It is possible to read it either as relying on an
implicit presentism (B) or as a conscious refusal to think that anything
new needs to be said in the case of eventa whose original bearers no
longer exist: they were once borne by per se existents and that is enough
(A). Can other evidence be offered to support one or other of these
interpretations?
What we know about the Epicureans' notions of truth and, in particular, of the truth value of non-present tensed statements, suggests that they
held the logical thesis that any statement is true if and only if it is true
in virtue of some present (that is, contemporaneous with the statement)
state of affairs. Even if it is a past or future-tensed statement then it is
true in virtue of some present state of affairs. The Stoics articulated a clear
version of this outlook in their discussion of 'assertibles'.29If, in that case,
all statements require present truth-makers, this might be used as support
for reading (B) of Lucretius DRN 1.464-82. However, as we look more

27 However, in the infinite universe, there will always be worlds in which a Helen
is being kidnapped,has been kidnapped,or will be kidnapped.See Warren2004b.
28 Compare Keller 2004, 99-101, on 'atomic presentism'. The Epicureanswould not
be as squeamish as Keller about the positing of eternal elemental particles.
29 Perhaps the best piece of evidence for the Stoic view comes from SE M 8.255
where Sextus is outlining the Stoic defence of the view that a sign ("etiov), which
is a kind of assertible (&4i1x,u, cf. SE M 8.244-5), is 'always a present sign of a present thing' (5tau navtob; iapbo nxpo6vro; Fci arll.Teiov: M 8.254, 256), even when its
content makes reference to the past or future. For more discussion of the Stoic assertible see Kneale and Kneale 1962, 153-8; Denyer 1988, 377-86; and Bobzien 1999,

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

378

JAMES WARREN

closely, it becomes clear that the Epicureansare committedto this conception of truthprimarilybecause of concernsaboutdeterminismand the
necessitationof the future.They are much less concemedaboutthe truthmakersfor past-tensedstatements.
For the Epicureansas for the Stoics, it seems that the truth-valueof
The clearestevidence of
any statementis stronglytemporally-relativized.
the Epicureans' attitude to the truth-valueof future-tensedstatements
comes from Cicero's De Fato. Cicero dwells on the difficultiesthe Epicureans faced in marryingtheir intuitions about temporally-relativized
truth with a determination to avoid universal causal determinism.
Accordingto the De Fato, the threatof determinismis what led Epicurus
to deny that propositionssuch as 'Scipio will be murdered'are eithertrue
or false and also to introducethe atomic swerve.
sic si diceretur,'morieturnoctu in cubiculo suo vi oppressusScipio', vere diceretur; id enim fore diceretur,quod esset futurum;futurumautem fuisse ex eo, quia
factum est, intellegi debet. nec magis erat verum 'morieturScipio' quam 'morietur illo modo', nec magis necesse mori Scipioni quam illo modo mori, nec magis
inmutabile ex vero in falsum 'necatus est Scipio' quam 'necabiturScipio'; nec,
cum haec ita sint, est causa, cur Epicurus fatum extimescat et ab atomis petat
praesidiumeasque de via deducat et uno tempore suscipiat res duas inenodabiles,
unam, ut sine causa fiat aliquid, ex quo existet, ut de nihilo quippiam fiat, quod
nec ipsi nec cuiquam physico placet - alteram, ut, cum duo individua per inanitatem ferantur, alterum e regione moveatur, alterum declinet. [191 licet enim
Epicuro concedenti omne enuntiatumaut verum aut falsum esse non vereri, ne
omnia fato fieri sit necesse; non enim aeternis causis naturaenecessitate manantibus verum est id, quod ita enuntiatur:'descendit in AcademiamCarneades',nec
tamen sine causis, sed interest inter causas fortuito antegressas et inter causas
cohibentis in se efficientiam naturalem. ita et semper verum fuit 'morietur
Epicurus,cum duo et septuagintaannos vixerit, archontePytharato',neque tamen
erant causae fatales, cur ita accideret, sed, quod ita cecidit, certe casurum sicut
cecidit fuit.
Just so, if it were said 'Scipio will die in his room at night overcome by force',
it would be said truly. For it said something was going to happen which was
going to happen;and it ought to be understoodthat it was going to happen from
the fact that it did happen. 'Scipio will die' was no more true than 'He will die
in that way', nor was it more necessary for Scipio to die than to die in that way,
nor is 'Scipio was murdered'any less changeable from true to false than 'Scipio
will be murdered'; nor, since that is how things are, is there any reason for
95-6. (See Bigelow 1996, 42-3, for his discussion of the passage.) SE M 8.85 notes
a verb
that the Stoics say that a true proposition is one which 'obtains' (InAdpWyt),
which they also used to denote the special sense in which the presentexists (see above
n.16). Cf. Schofield 1988, 354-8; Burnyeat 2003, 15 n.56. Also see KUnne 2003,
303-6, for what he dubs the 'Requirementof Compresence'.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

379

AND THEPRESENTPAST
EPICUREANS

Epicurus either to fear fate and seek some defence from the atoms which might
lead them from their path or simultaneously to hold two inexplicable notions:
1. that something might occur without a cause (from which it follows that something might come from nothing - which neitherthe Epicureansnor any other natural philosopherbelieves); 2. that when two particularatoms are moving through
the void, one might move straight on while the other swerves. It is possible for
Epicurusto concede that every assertible30is either true or false and still not fear
that everything comes about by fate. For it is not as a result of eternal causes
which hold by natural necessity that the assertion 'Carneades goes down to the
Academy' is true, nor on the other hand is it without any cause. But there is a
difference between chance antecedent causes and causes which posses in themselves a natural efficiency. So also 'Epicurus will die, at the age of 72, in the
archonship of Pytharatus'was always true, though there was no fate causing it
to happen as it did. Rather, because it did so happen, it was certainly going to
happen as it did.
Cicero De Fato 18-19

Cicero ends this passage by contrasting what he sees as the confused Epicurean view with a more sober - Academic inspired - approach which can
retain bivalence for all assertions but avoid determinism. At Fat. 19-20 he
offers the alternative view, in which 'Scipio will be murdered' is true now
(and has always been true) if and only if Scipio will in fact be murdered.
The passage ends by claiming that the Epicureans' anxiety is generated
by thinking that if 'Epicurus will die at 72' is now true, then Epicurus
must die at 72. Rather, Cicero says, the direction of explanation should
be reversed. Because Epicurus will die at 72, 'Epicurus will die at 72' is
now true. If Epicurus will not die at 72, the statement is now false. Either
way, the truth or falsehood of an assertion about the future is governed
by the future; the future is not governed by the truth or falsehood of statements made about it now.3' Nothing about how the world is now necessitates Scipio's murder, but that has no bearing on the truth or falsity of
an assertion now that such a murder will take place.32 Cicero takes evident pleasure in noting that all these difficulties could have been avoided
by dismissing the opening assumption that all true statements say something true about how the world is at the time the statement is made.
The Epicureans, however, have a good reason for asserting a temporally-relativized view of truth: they think it properly describes causal
30

Cicero explains at Fat. 1 that he is using enuntiatio to render &aicoga.

1' Cf. Ryle 1954.

32 Cic. Fin. 19: ita et semper verumfuit 'morietur Epicurus, cum duo et septuaginta annos vixerit, archonte Pytharato', neque tamen erant causae fatales, cur ita
accideret, sed, quod ita cecidit, certe casurum sicut cecidit fuit.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

380

JAMES WARREN

relationships.'Hermarchuswill die' is true at time t, if and only if at t,

the world is such that it containssufficientcauses for Hermarchus'death
For statementssuch as 'Hermarchuswill die',
at some time in the future.33
the Epicureans'view well describeswhat they take to be a causal claim
about Hermarchus'nature.Since every atomic composite is corruptible
and every humanis mortalthen at every momentof Hermarchus'life it
is the case that the world is such that it contains sufficient causes of
Hermarchus'death. In this way, some future-tensedstatementscan have
a truth-value,but only providedthat their content is either causally necessary or impossible.So, 'The sun will rise tomorrow'mightbe accepted
as true (true now) given that the currentstate of the world and the laws
of naturenecessitatethe sun rising tomorrow.Similarly,'My pet cat will
give birthto puppies'is false (false now) since given the currentstate of
the world and the laws of natureit is impossiblefor my pet cat to give
birthto puppies.Not all discussionof the future,therefore,is condemned
to lack a truth-value.
The interestingcases, however,are preciselythose which involve things
which are neither necessary nor impossible. Epicurusappears to have
thoughtthat if I say, for example, 'Helen will be kidnapped'and thereby
say somethingtrue,then this amountsto saying trulythatthe presentstate
of the world is such that Helen's being kidnappedin the futureis necessitatedby a combinationof thatpresentstate and the relevantcausal laws.
If statementssuch as 'Scipio will be murdered'are either true or false,
then they too would be trueor false now in the sense of correspondingto
some presentstate of affairsof the world which, combinedwith relevant
causal laws, either guarantees(if the propositionis true) or prohibits(if
the propositionis false) Scipio's being murdered.If 'Scipio will be murdered' is true, it is true now. And if is true now then alreadythe causae
fatales are in place sufficient to ensure that Scipio will be murdered.
Further,if all statements,such future-tensedones as 'Scipio will be murdered' included,are either true or false then determinismthreatenssince
all futureevents will be necessitated.34

33 By 'sufficient causes' I mean what are referredto here in Cicero's De Fato as

causaefatales. See e.g. Cic. Fat. 19. The link between the truthof the propositionand
the causal necessity of the event coming to be is emphasised by Sedley 2005 and
O'Keefe 2005, 138-44. Bobzien 1998, 65-75 makes a similar case for Stoicism.
14 Cf. Cic. Fat. 26: futura vera non possunt esse quae causas cur futura sint non
habeant; habeant igitur causas necesse est ea quae vera sunt; ita cum evenerintfato
evenerint.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

381

Plutarch'sDe Pyth. Orac. shows the Epicureanstaking the offensive

againstthose who believe in the efficacyof prophecyand lends some supportto the thoughtthatit was primarilyworriesaboutthe predetermination
of the futurewhich promptedthe Epicureansto consider the truth-value
of predictions.Boethus,the Epicureanspokesman,explains that if prophesies are ever fulfilled, that is merely accidental.Given the sheer number
of propheciesand theiroften generalnatureit would be surprisingif none
of them ever appearedto 'come true'. Two pieces of evidence are important for our purposes.First, at 399A Boethus assigns to the Epicureans
the paradoxicalview that a contingent future-tensedstatementis false
now, even if what it predicts should later occur.35 So, 'Hermarchus will

die on Wednesday', uttered on Monday, is false on Monday even if

Hermarchusdoes in fact die on Wednesdaysince, on Monday, it is not
necessarythat Hermarchuswill die on Wednesday.By the same reasoning, the negation of that proposition, 'Hermarchus will not die on
Wednesday',is also false on Monday, since on Monday that too is not
necessary.So each of a pair of contradictorystatementsis false, although
the Epicureans apparentlyaccepted the truth of the disjunction 'Hermarchuswill or will not die on Wednesday'.This is at odds with our other
more detailed source of informationon this point, Cicero De Fato 37-8,
which says the Epicureansheld thatsuch propositionsas 'Hermarchuswill
die on Wednesday'(said on Monday)are neithertrue nor false.36The two
reportsagree that the Epicureansheld that the disjunctionof two contradictory contingentfuturestatementsis true, and also agree that the Epicureanswere sure that future-tensedcontingentstatementsare never true,
so we can be confidentthat this is the core of the Epicureans'view.37
Second, at 398F Boethus refers to prophecyas 'a statementabout the
non-existent'(o ciicxv t& til tinapXovxa).38
This does indeed look like a

35 399A: 'o,oicoq xiV s ?tb

vVv Xe7y6pevov KaV utaepov
iaV
a,rEO, ?i TUX01,
yEvwrct. Cf. Warren2004a, 49-50. For more discussion see especially Bobzien 1998,
75-86, and Ferrari2000.
36 Cf. Lukasiewicz 1967, 32-6, Dummett 1978, and Dummett 2004, 64: 'It may be
uncomfortableto admit that a disjunctive statementmay be true although truthattaches
to neither of the disjuncts; but it is a discomfort to which we may need to adjust.'
Compare also Aristotle De Int. 9 and cf. Inwood 1991, 154-5; Hussey 1993, xlvii;
O'Keefe 2005, 125-49.
37 Cf. Ferrari2000, 161.
38 Ferrari2000, 155 translatest&
v J 1indap%ovtaas 'cio che non e al momente presente'. (Cf. Schroder ad loc.) This is potentially misleading. Even someone who
accepts the reality of the future event would agree that the future is not now.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

382

JAMES WARREN

plain assertionof the non-existenceof the future,even if we might suspect that it has been cast in Stoic ontologicalvocabulary.However,that
prophecyattemptsto speak aboutthe non-existentdoes not entail that all
future-tensedclaims similarlyreferto the non-existent.Afterall, prophecy
is concerned precisely with contingent future events. Events such as
tomorrow'ssunriseor Hermarchus'eventual death (the fact that he will
die, not thathe will die at a particulartime or in a particularway), because
they are necessary,are not the sortof thingsfor which prophecyis needed.
It is more likely, therefore,that here the Epicureansare claiming once
again that statementsabout contingentfuture events lack a truth-value,
indeed are statementsabout 'what is not', because there are no present
states of affairsand no causaefatales, which can serve to make themtrue.
We can be confidentthat this was the Epicureans'stance when discussing the future.On the assumptionthat Lucretiussharedthe general
Epicureanlogical outlook,we can also assumethathe sharedsuch a temporally-relativizedview of truth values. And this view should hold for
statementsof all tenses. Thus, 'Helen was kidnapped'is true at t,, if and
only if it says somethingtrue about the state of the world at t,. So it is
now true if and only if there is some presentstate of affairsin the world
which serves as its truthmaker.However,if we pursuethis thoughtthere
are some strangepossible consequences,much like those we noted in discussing reading(B) of the Lucretiuspassage. In particular,we can again
raise the questionwhethersome past events will eventuallydisappear.If
it is a necessaryconditionof the truthof 'Helen was kidnapped'thatthere
be somethingfor this to be true of which is contemporaneouswith the
utterance,then it is presumablypossible for this conditioneventuallyto
fail to be satisfied.Just as, accordingto the Epicureans,a future-tensed
statementis true (or false) only if the presentstate of the world is such
as to necessitate(or prevent)the futurestate of affairsto which it refers,
so a past-tensedstatementwould seem to be true (or false) only if the
presentstate of the world is such that it requires(or is incompatiblewith)
the past state of affairsto which it refers.Therewould thereforeseem to
be plenty of past-tensedstatementsanalogousto the future-tensedstatements about contingent events to which, as we noted, the Epicureans
refuse to assign a determinatetruth-value.Eventually,the whole kosmos
whose historycontainsboth the events of the TrojanWar and Lucretius'
presentwill be dispersed.In that case, will 'Helen was kidnapped'simply fail to be true any longer?(If this claim fails to be true then it need
not become false; for 'Helen was kidnapped'to be false, its contradictory
would have to be trueand this equallyis a statementaboutthe past which

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

383

would need some relevant materies and so on to be present now.) It

is not merely that eventually it will no longer be known whether Helen
was kidnapped. Rather, it will eventually cease to be true that Helen was
kidnapped.39
Our evidence suggests that the Epicureans were not much interested in
pursuing the consequences of their preferred stance on truths about the
future for thinking about the past. They might well have been uneasy with
accepting the thought that some statements about the past might lack a
determinate truth value. There is also some support for the view that they
wished to think that all past-tensed statements have and retain a determinate truth-value from a brief aside in Cicero, De Fato 27:
nam ut praeteritaea vera dicimus quorum superiore tempore vera fuerit instantia, sic futura quorum consequenti tempore vera erit instantia, ea vera dicemus.
For just as we call true those past things whose obtaining was true at some earlier time, so we will call true those future things whose obtaining will be true at
some later time.

Cicero is continuing his attack on the Epicureans' refusal to accept bivalence for all propositions. If this is intended as an argument with some
force for an Epicurean opponent, it should be demanding an attitude concerning the truth of future-tensed statements symmetrical to one which the
Epicureans are happy to accept - or could be expected to accept - concerning the truth of past-tensed statements. As a dialectical manoeuvre,
Cicero demands that the Epicureans should accept bivalence for futuretensed statements just as they in fact already do for past-tensed statements.
A statement about the past is true if what it describes did take place or
was the case at some previous time. (Or, a statement about the past is true
if the present tense version of that statement was true in the past.)'" Put
in those terms, this stance is closest to that provided by reading (A) of
19 Cf. Bollack and Bollack 1983, 316. Cf. Dummett2004, 74-9; O'Keefe 2005, 145;
and Lukasiewicz 1967, 38: 'We should not treat the past differently from the future.
If the only part of the future that is now real is that which is causally determinedby
the present time, and if causal chains commencing in the future belong to the realm
of possibility, then only those parts of the past are at present real which still continue
to act by their effects today.'
I The noun instantia, translatedas 'obtaining', is used only here in Cicero's philosophical works. Merguet s.v. insto, -are gives 'nahe sein' and this seems to be the

sense requiredhere. It is likely that Cicero is reportingan Academic argumentwhich

used originally Stoic terminology, and Cicero offers instantia as an equivalent for the
Greek o ivr?ort
[sc. Xpovo;J, which is both the usual Stoic term for the present and

also the term in grammaticalwritings for the present tense (cf. LSJ s.v. ivianrug B

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

384

JAMES WARREN

the Lucretianpassage. If that is correct,then we should assume that the

Epicureansdid indeed allow all past-tensedstatementsto have a determinate truth-value(even if, for example,it is impossiblefor us now to know
whether some particular claim about the past is true) dependent on
whethertheir contentcorrespondswith what was the case at the time to
which they refer. It remainsunclear,in that case, whetherthey saw the
potentialfor a tension between this claim and the thoughtthat if a statement is true - whatever the tense of that statement - it says something

true about the state of the world at the time it is uttered.It is likely that
they did not see the tension between these claims and wanted ratherto
retainthe common-senseview that the past is unalterableand that truths
about the past remaintrue.4'
V
We cannotdeclarein favourof reading(B) of the Lucretianpassage and
concludethatLucretius- and thereforepresumablyEpicurustoo - is a presentist.Thereis no clear endorsementof a presentistpositionin Lucretius,
nor in any otherEpicureansources.And it is not clearthatsucha presentist view is the 'default' or 'common-sense'view for ancientGreek and
Roman philosophers.The case for attributinga presentistposition to the
Epicureanswould have to rest on two pieces of evidence:(I) one of two
of DRN 1.469-70 (my reading(B) above)- which
possible interpretations
itself leads rapidlyto a set of difficultmetaphysicalquestionsto which
Lucretiusprovidesno explicit answer- and (2) a generalEpicureanthesis
natureof truthvalues.The secondof these
aboutthe temporally-relativized
elements is the more secure. The Epicureans,like the Stoics, were committedto a view thatall truestatementsare truein virtueof how the world
is now, that some state of affairs now obtains for each and every true
statementwhich can now be made, whateverthe tense of that statement.
III and SVF II.165, 517-20, and esp. 509: note Chrysippusap. Stob. 1.106, 13-18).
Lucretius may reflect a similar use by writing instet at DRN 1.461. For Diodorus
Cronus' rejection (and Sextus' restatement)of the view endorsed here by Cicero see
SE M 10.97-100.
41 A further reason to think that the Epicureans considered the past immutable is
provided if part of their reason for denying the truth of all contingent future tensed
statements is the worry that otherwise not only is it now true that it will rain on
21 July 2050 but also it has always been true that it will rain on 21 July 2050. If we
add to a temporally-relativizednotion of truth the thought that the past is immutable
then it was true that it will rain on 21 July 2050 and it is necessary that it will rain
then. See O'Keefe 2005, 128 n. 11.

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

385

The relationshipbetween this logical commitmentand the modernpresentist'sontologicalview is complex.The stanceon temporally-relativized
truthvalues does not itself provideindependentsupportfor reading(B) of
the Lucretiuspassage and, in any case, we have seen that there are reasons to doubt whether the Epicureansthemselves wished to pursue the
truthvalues for
strictconsequencesof theirview on temporally-relativized
the status of the past as well as the future.No doubt, anyone fully committed to an anti-realistview of the past and future will have to try to
find some propertiesin the presentto stand as truth-makersfor past- and
future-tensedstatements.(That is merely to state the presentist'stask of
findingsome means of saving talk about non-presentthings.)But it is not
necessaryfor anyone committedprimarilyto the logical thesis of temporally-relativizedtruthto think that the past and futuredo not exist. The
Stoics, for example, despite their insistence that true assertibles,whether
past, presentor future,subsist in the presentand are true 'now', did not
say that the past and futurefail to exist at all.42
There is no compellingreason, therefore,to think that the Epicureans
were presentists.Even the passage of Lucretiusfrom DRN 1, the prize
exhibit for the presentistinterpretationof Epicureanism,is compatible
Whatis moreclearis thattheEpicureans
with a non-presentist
interpretation.
held that the past is unalterableand, in principle,knowable. Statements
aboutthe past are trueif they correspondwith what did in fact take place.
The future,on the otherhand, is, to a degree, open and unpredictable.In
so far as a futureevent is necessaryor inevitable,that too is unalterable,
knowable,and can be spokenof trulyor falsely. In so far as a futureevent
is merely contingent,it is as yet not only undecidedand unknowable,but
also 'is not'. Such an event cannot be spoken of either truly or falsely.
Only for this last categoryof futurecontingentevents is there clear evidence that the Epicureansdeny theirexistence, since they deny that statements made in the presentabout such events can be true.
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
jiwlOOl @cam.ac.uk

42 Schofield 1988, 358, argues that the Stoics' ontological commitments were
derived from their logical theory: 'Chrysippusderives his theory that only the present
obtains from seeing that, in order to express what it is for a predicate to belong to a
subject, the present tense is indispensable;or, as one might say: what obtains obtains
only in the present tense. In the end he proves to be in agreement with Epicurus that
time is an accident of accidents.'

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

386

JAMES WARREN

References
Armstrong,D. 2004. Truthand truthmakers.Cambridge
Arrighetti,G. 1973. Epicuro: opere (2nd edition). Turin
Asmis, E. 1984. Epicurus' scientific method. Ithaca
Bailey, C. 1947. Titi Lucreti Cari De rerumnatura libri sex. Edited with prolegomena,
critical apparatus, translation, and commentary(3 vols.). Oxford
Barigazzi, A. 1959. 'II concetto del tempo nella fisica atomistica' in Epicurea in
memoriamH. Bignone. Genoa: 29-59
Bigelow, J. 1996. 'Presentismand properties'in J. Tomberlin(ed.) Philosophical perspectives 10, Metaphysics 1996. Cambridge, MA: 35-52
Bobzien, S. 1998. Determinismandfreedom in Stoic philosophy. Oxford
. 1999. 'Logic: the Stoics' in K. Algra, J. Barnes, J. Mansfeld, and M. Schofield (eds.) The Cambridgehistoryof Hellenistic philosophy.Cambridge:92-157
Bollack, J. and M. 1983. 'Temps, comme devenir (Lucrece X 464-482)' in XYZHTHX1I: studi sull'epicureismo greco e romano offerti a M. Gigante. Naples: 309-27
Bradley, B. 2004. 'When is death bad for the one who dies?' Nous 38: 1-28
Brown, P. M. 1984. Lucretius De rerum natura 1. London
Burnyeat, M. F. 2003. 'Apology 30b2-4: Socrates, money and the grammar of
yiyveoaot'

JHS 123: 1-25

Campbell, G. 2003. Lucretius on creation and evolution. Oxford

Cavagnaro, E. 2002. Aristotele e il tempo. Analisi di Physica, IV 10-14. Naples
Coope, U. 2005. Timefor Aristotle. Physics IV.10-14. Oxford
Crisp, T. and Ludlow, P. 2004. 'Symposium: defining presentism' Oxford studies in
metaphysics 1: 15-46
Dainton, B. 2001. Time and space. Chesham.
Denyer, N. C. 1981. 'The atomism of Diodorus Cronus' Prudentia 13: 33-45
. 1988. 'Stoicism and token reflexivity' in J. Barnes and M. Mignucci (eds.)
Matter and metaphysics. Naples: 375-96
Dummett, M. 1978. 'The reality of the past' in his Truthand other enigmas. London:
358-74
. 2004. Truthand the past. New York
Dunbabin, R. L. 1917. 'Notes on Latin poets' CQ 11: 135-40
Ferrari,F. 2000. 'La falsita delle asserzioni relative al futuro: un argomentoepicureo
contro la mantica in Plut. Pyth. orac. 10' in M. Erler (ed.), Epikureismusin der
spaten Republikund der Kaiserzeit.Aktender 2. Tagungder Karl und GertrudAbel
Stiftung vom. 30 September-3Oktober 1998 in Wiirzburg.Stuttgart:149-63
Furley, D. 1966. 'Lucretius and the Stoics'. BICS 13: 13-33
Hussey, E. 1993. Aristotle Physics books 111and IV (translated with introductionand
notes) (revised edition). Oxford
Inwood, M. 1991. 'Aristotle on the reality of time' in L. Judsoned. Aristotle's Physics:
a collection of essays. Oxford: 151-78
IsnardiParente,M. 1976. 'XPONO?EFIINOOYMENOX
e XPONOXOY NOOYMENOX,
in Epicuro, Pap. Herc. 1413' Parola del passato 31: 168-75
Keller, S. 2004. 'Presentismand truthmaking'Oxfordstudies in metaphysics 1: 83-104
KUnne,W. 2003. Conceptions of truth. Oxford
Kneale, W. and M. 1962. The developmentof logic. Oxford
Lewis, D. 2004. 'Tensed quantifiers'Oxford studies in metaphysic.s1: 3-14

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

EPICUREANS AND THE PRESENT PAST

387

Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N. 1987. The Hellenistic philosophers. 2 vols. Cambridge

Luciani, S. 2000. L'&lair immobile dans la plaine: philosophie et poetique du temps
chez Lucrece. Paris
Lukasiewicz,J. 1967. 'On determinism'in S. McCall (ed.) Polish logic 1920-39. Oxford:
19-39
Markosian,N. 1995. 'The open past' Philosophical Studies 79: 95-105
. 2004. 'A defense of presentism' Oxford studies in metaphysics 1: 47-82
Merguet, H. 1961. Lexicon zu den philosophischen Schriften Ciceros. Hildesheim.
Miller, F. D. 1974. 'Aristotle on the reality of time'. AGPh 56: 132-55
Morel, P.-M. 2002. 'Les ambiguYt6sde la conception epicurienne du temps' Revue
philosophique de la France et l'etranger 2002: 195-211
Munro, H. A. J. 1886. T. Lucreti Cari De rerum natura libri sex (3 vols.) 4th edition.
Cambridge
Oaklander,L. N. 2002. 'Presentism,ontology and temporalexperience' in C. Callender
(ed.) Time, reality, and experience. Cambridge:73-90
. 2003. 'Presentism: a critique' in H. Lillehammer and G. Rodrigues-Pereyra
(eds.) Real metaphysics. London: 196-211
O'Keefe, T. 2005. Epicurus on freedom. Cambridge
Owen, G. E. L. 1966. 'Plato and Parmenideson the timeless present' The Monist 50:
317-40
. 1976. 'Aristotle on time' in P. Machamer and R. Turnbull (eds.) Motion and
time, space and matter. Columbus: 3-27
Ryle, G. 1954. 'It was to be' in his Dilemmas. Cambridge: 15-35
Schofield, M. (1988) 'The Stoics on the retrenchable present' in J. Barnes and
M. Mignucci (eds.) Matter and Metaphysics. Naples: 329-74
Schroder, S. 1990. Plutarchs Schrift De Pythiae Oraculis. Stuttgart
Sedley, D. N. 1988. 'Epicureananti-reductionism'in J. Barnes and M. Mignucci (eds.)
Matter and metaphysics. Naples: 295-327
1998. Lucretius and the transformationof Greek wisdom. Cambridge
2005. 'Verita futura e causalita nel De fato di Cicerone' in C. Natali and S.
Maso (eds.) La catena delle cause. Determinismo e antideterminismonel pensiero
antico e in quello contemporaneo.Amsterdam:241-54
Sider, T. 2001. Four-dimensionalism.Oxford
Smith, Q. 2002. 'Time and degrees of existence: a theory of "degree presentism"' in
C. Callender (ed.) Time, reality, and experience. Cambridge: 119-36
Sorabji, R. 1982. 'Atoms and time atoms' in N. Kretzmann(ed.) Infinity and continuity in ancient and medieval thought. Ithaca: 37-86
. 1983. Time, creation and the continuum.London
Tooley, M. 1997. Time, tense, and causation. Oxford
Warren,J. 2001a. 'Lucretius, symmetry arguments, and fearing death' Phronesis 46:
466-91
2001b. 'Lucretianpalingenesis recycled' CQ 51: 499-508
2003. 'Sextus Empiricus and the tripartitionof time' Phronesis 48: 313-43
2004a. Facing death: Epicurus and his critics. Oxford
2004b. 'Ancient atomists on the plurality of worlds' CQ 54: 354-65
Wellesley, K. 1963. 'Lucretius i.469-70' CR 13: 16-17
Widman, H. 1935. Beitrage zur Syntax Epikurs. Stuttgart

This content downloaded from 143.107.252.166 on Tue, 12 May 2015 02:26:34 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions