Vitae philosophorum

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.[*](i.e. in conformity with the sense-data which precede the recognition.) 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?

Opinion they also call conception or assumption, and declare it to be true and false[*](See § 124, where a true πρόληψις is opposed to a false ὑπόληψις. In Aristotle ὑπόληψις is often a synonym of δόξα· cf. Bonitz, Index Ar., s.v.); for it is true if it is subsequently confirmed or if it is not contradicted by evidence, and false if it is not subsequently confirmed or is contradicted by evidence. Hence the introduction of the phrase, that which awaits confirmation, e.g. to wait and

get close to the tower and then learn what it looks like at close quarters.[*](See §§ 50, 147. The tower which seems round at a distance and square when we get up to it was the typical example in the school of that process of testing beliefs by observation which is here prescribed. Cf. Lucr. iv. 353 sqq., 501 sqq.; Sext. Emp. Adv. math. vii. 208.)

They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined[*](i.e. pleasure and pain are the criteria by which we choose and avoid.); and that there are two kinds of inquiry, the one concerned with things, the other with nothing but words.[*](Cf. inf.§ 37.)So much, then, for his division[*](Division of philosophy is probably meant.) and criterion in their main outline.

But we must return to the letter.[*](The letter to Herodotus is the second and most valuable instalment of Epicurean doctrine. The manuscript seems to have been entrusted to a scribe to copy, just as it was: scholia and marginal notes, even where they interrupt the thread of the argument, have been faithfully reproduced. See §§ 39, 40, 43, 44, 50, 66, 71, 73, 74, 75.)

Epicurus to Herodotus, greeting.