Sunday, February 13, 2011
What about drugs, eh?
According to Epicureanism, human reason does not lead to knowledge, but human sensation, which leads to the truth. With this in mind, I was wondering how hallucinogenic drugs alter the mind and present the user with fanciful, frightful, and in general mind-bending hallucinations. In this case, would not Epicurus' theory expose a contradiction, in which the senses are lying to the person? Unless, Epicurus would argue that using drugs would be a pleasure that the drug user is seeking, when falling into this "other world". If anyone could answer this, I would like to hear their response.
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YES! I wrote a paper when I was a senior in high school in response to the empiricist movement, and my biggest objection was... WHAT ABOUT DRUGS?!?!? There are drugs, such as SALVIA, ACID, PCP, DMT, etc... which have the ability to take the user COMPLETELY out of reality. I'm not entirely sure whether or not Epicurus had the knowledge of such substances, but perhaps he would respond in saying that when someone is not UNDER THE INFLUENCE of a completely mind-altering substance, then the senses do not lie.
ReplyDeleteEpicurus tackles this problem (mind altering drugs) in an interesting way. He distinguishes sharply between the sense-impression itself and judgements, or the identification of sense-impressions with objects. Our sense impressions are no judgements, nor are they dependent upon reason.
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