"Absence Of Pain Is Pleasure" - How Would You Articulate That To Someone?

Here's a start. I will expand on this but I want to go ahead and add an explanation that Joshua just found in the Aulus Gellius material:

It is a perfectly acceptable construction in grammar, used by numerous people but no less than Virgil and Homer, to express one of a pair of opposite terms by stating its negation. For example, when Homer wanted to describe a virtuous person, he would call him "without fault." When Virgil was describing a horrible person, he described him as "without praiseworthiness." We could go on and on to expand this list, but these are among the examples that Aulus Gellius cites as perfectly acceptable and clear language, and we are all familiar with similar usages.

Aulus Gellius then goes on to include Epicurus' use of "absence of pain" as an example of the same kind of grammatical construction. This shows that Epicurus' usage is not intended to be mysterious, but to be a normal construction when discussing opposites.

Epicurus can describe pleasure as "absence of pain" because he holds that pleasure is the opposite of pain, and that all feelings resolve into one of the two, so that if you are feeling anything at all you are feeling either pleasure or pain but not both at one part of your body or mind, and not "neither" -- there is no neutral state. The universe is made up of atoms and void and nothing else, and all feelings are either pleasure or pain and nothing else. So "absence of pain = pleasure" and "absence of pleasure = pain."

Expressing feelings by using negations emphasizes that the worst pain is the total absence of pleasure, and the best pleasure is the total absence of pain. Further, use of the negation helps emphasize that we are not concerned with describing an exact experience of pleasure or an exact experience of pain. We aren't concerned about doing that because it can't be done, because there is nothing common between all pleasures expect that we feel them to be agreeable, and there is nothing in common between all pains except that they feel disagreeable.

Expressing pleasure in such sweeping terms was important to Epicurus because he wanted to emphasize that "pleasure" is not limited to "stimulative" experiences, but that pleasure also includes all normal and healthy mental and bodily experiences of life. There's no way to express those in greater detail without providing an innumerable list of experiences, or without simply calling them experiences in which pain is absent, or "absence of pain."

And using DeWitt's words, this extension of the name of pleasure to the normal state of life is the key insight:

“The extension of the name of pleasure to this normal state of being was the major innovation of the new hedonism. It was in the negative form, freedom from pain of body and distress of mind, that it drew the most persistent and vigorous condemnation from adversaries. The contention was that the application of the name of pleasure to this state was unjustified on the ground that two different things were thereby being denominated by one name. Cicero made a great to-do over this argument, but it is really superficial and captious. The fact that the name of pleasure was not customarily applied to the normal or static state did not alter the fact that the name ought to be applied to it; nor that reason justified the application; nor that human beings would be the happier for so reasoning and believing."

The only way that Epicurean philosophy makes sense is to see "Absence of Pain" as synonymous with "pleasure," and "Absence of pleasure" as synonymous with "pain." If you try to divorce the two and make absence of pain something different from, and higher than, pleasure, then you tear the heart out of the insight that pleasure includes both pleasures that are stimulating and pleasures that are part of normal daily healthy life, and you lose the trail to see that "pleasure" is the term to use to describe the alpha and omega of life.

For those who are into the details, I would say that this is why examining closely Torquatus' response to the Chrysippus' hand argument is so important. The normal hand in a normal state without pain IS in a state of pleasure, and if you state that anything is "without pain" then you are stating that it's at 100% pleasure. This is also the way to understand why the pain-free host pouring wine for the thirsty but otherwise pain-free guest are both experiencing the same level of pleasure - "pain-free" is "pain-free." And it's why Torquatus is so adamant in insisting to Cicero that "pleasure" and "absence of pain" are the same.

Quote

Cicero: "...[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'" Torquatus: "Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be." ... Cicero: Still, granting that there is nothing better (that point I waive for the moment), surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?" Torquatus: "Absolutely the same, indeed the negation of pain is a very intense pleasure, the most intense pleasure possible." CIcero - "On Ends" Book 2:iii:9 and 2:iii:11 (Rackham)

Quote from Eoghan Gardiner

Experientially I have discovered this to be true but I don't think I could explain it in a good way.

Interestingly I am not sure that I would agree that "absence of pain = pleasure" can be "discovered to be true experientally" -- at least not fully.

Everything we are doing here in this discussion is defining terms and attempting to attach words to feelings. The only way to be confident that "Absence of pain" equals "pleasure" is to assign in your mind the meanings of these terms and then hold them firmly. Cicero's objection that "absence of pain is not equal to pleasure" is a perfectly reasonable assertion to many people, and it isn't met fully by saying "your definition is erroneous." Who gets to set what the "right" definition is?

That's why I think this statement is hugely important: "The fact that the name of pleasure was not customarily applied to the normal or static state did not alter the fact that the name ought to be applied to it; nor that reason justified the application; nor that human beings would be the happier for so reasoning and believing."

The "ought" in that sentence then has to be explained, and it's going to ultimately be a matter of your ultimate views of the universe. If life is a privilege and a short-term gift to be treasured, then we will see it as a pleasure. If life is a prison and a burden and a torture by the gods, then we'll see life as a pain.

I suppose yes you can introspect and learn to see that life IS really a pleasure, but in the end I think you end up needing to add the philosophical viewpoint to reach the ultimate understanding. As Lucretius says (paraphrasing) it's not the light of day that opens our eyes to these things, but a scheme of philosophic contemplation.

Also:

PD12. A man cannot dispel his fear about the most important matters if he does not know what is the nature of the universe, but suspects the truth of some mythical story. So that, without natural science, it is not possible to attain our pleasures unalloyed.

PD19. Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure.

PD20. The flesh perceives the limits of pleasure as unlimited, and unlimited time is required to supply it. But the mind, having attained a reasoned understanding of the ultimate good of the flesh and its limits, and having dissipated the fears concerning the time to come, supplies us with the complete life, and we have no further need of infinite time; but neither does the mind shun pleasure, nor, when circumstances begin to bring about the departure from life, does it approach its end as though it fell short, in any way, of the best life.

PD21. He who has learned the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain due to want, and makes the whole of life complete, is easy to obtain, so that there is no need of actions which involve competition.

Physical contentment is achieved frequently and naturally by the internal process in our bodies when we have the necessary accommodations of food, shelter, and security.

Mental contentment is achieved just as naturally and frequently, by realizing the ease of obtaining physical contentment and fostering gratitude for our success in doing so.

Failing to appreciate this fact, most people, even when in a painless state, often try to add to their pleasure – from here most perils of their lives arise.

Metrodorus is quoted by Plutarch as "Τhis very thing is the good: Escaping from the bad -- because It is not possible for the Good to be placed anywhere, when neither What is painful nor What is distressing is any longer making way for it.

Τοῦτο αὐτὸ τὸ ἀγαθόν ἐστι: τὸ φυγεῖν τὸ κακόν -- ἔνθα γὰρ τεθήσεται Tἀγαθόν οὐκ Ἔστιν, ὅταν μηθὲν ἔτι ὑπεξίῃ μήτε Ἀλγεινὸν μήτε Λυπηρόν. (Plutarch Non posse, 1091 A-B)"

Quote from Bryan

Metrodorus is quoted by Plutarch as "Τhis very thing is the good: Escaping from the bad -- because It is not possible for the Good to be placed anywhere, when neither What is painful nor What is distressing is any longer making way for it.

Wow that's another one that if I've read it before I don't recall it --- but isn't that making exactly the same point in another way!

I don't want to press to hard since we're not talking about the Greek wording exactly, but do I read that correctly to say that we should understand that "removing pain" is the same thing as pleasure because pleasure cannot exist where pain resides?

Is the implication that like two atoms, where only one atom can be in a place at a time, you have to move pain out of the way for pleasure to occupy the same spot?

Now in this case we'd also want to refer back to where Torquatus said that we don't admit that when one pleasure leaves that pain *necessarily* fills its space, because the norm would be that one pleasure can take the place of another ("variety").

So there's not necessarily going to be a pain at a particular location if we've ordered our lives successfully, but as to adding *more* pleasure to the total we're experiencing, we can't add any more pleasure once all pain is ejected.

Are you reading it that way Bryan?

Quote from Cassius

Is the implication that like two atoms, where only one atom can be in a place at a time, you have to move pain out of the way for pleasure to occupy the same spot?

Yes, as we have seen, the Cyrenaics viewed the removal of pain as a state of calm to which pleasure could then be added. Plato argued for the existence of mixed pleasures (μικταί ἡδοναί), which he imagined as pleasures which contained an aspect of pain.

In reality, at any particular time, pain and pleasure are mutually exclusive at any particular point in the body.

KD 3 …whenever there is Pleasure,

then for that time that it is present,

there is no Pain or Sadness

or any Mixture of both.

Also relevant is Vatican Saying 42, recently shared by Onenski.

Ὁ αὐτὸς χρόνος καὶ γενέσεως τοῦ μεγίστου ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ἀπολύσεως <τοῦ κακοῦ>.

The same moment has both the origin of the greatest good and the release from evil.

"The production of the greatest good and (the) release from evil (happens at) [the same time]." [Epicurus Wiki]

"The same time corresponds to the birth of the greatest good and the dissolution of evil." (Enrique Alvarez trans.)

Quote from Bryan

Also relevant is Vatican Saying 42, recently shared by Onenski.

Ὁ αὐτὸς χρόνος καὶ γενέσεως τοῦ μεγίστου ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ἀπολύσεως <τοῦ κακοῦ>.

The same moment has both the origin of the greatest good and the release from evil.

Problem is there's no "from evil" in the manuscript.

Quote from Don

Problem is there's no "from evil" in the manuscript.

Don what did you conclude "should" be there at the end?

Edit: This is Don's post from earlier this month:

Post

RE: VS42 - Versions of Vatican Saying 42

I happened to tackle this exact saying here: RE: If Death Is Nothing To Us, Then Life Is Everything to Us

First, we return to the manuscript:

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/4260/

https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1950.pt.2/0255

Here's what I see in the manuscript itself:

Ὁ αὐτὸς χρόνος καὶ γενέσεως τοῦ μεγίστου ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ἀπολύσεως.

The pivotal last word is:

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/4261/

From what I see it's α'π^ολύσε(ως).

That last swoopy letter is a ligature substantiated in…

Don

November 8, 2023 at 10:49 PM

This is how I currently sort it:

Pleasure and pain are like opposite ends of a rope on a pulley: as one goes up, the other goes down. There is no neutral state.

The opposite of physical pleasure is ponos (pain, however mild or strong); the opposite of mental pleasure is tarache (disturbance). Aponia is the absence of pain; ataraxia, the absence of mental disturbance/dis-ease (e.g., anxiety).

Pleasures can be kinetic (e.g., orgasm) or katastematic (e.g., the lingering, contented afterglow). In the mental realm, suppose I suddenly conclude that an important check bounced: anxiety (tarache); then I realize that was an error and my finances are all in order: I relax, the anxiety abates, I rest in the satisfied realization (ataraxia).

So, on the one hand, I think that ataraxia can be episodic with tarache; on the other hand, I think a more enduring ataraxia can be cultivated – perhaps as a stable equanimity, rather like the Zen calm of a warrior in the turmoil of battle.

But it is not the apatheia of the Stoics: ataraxia is felt -- at least as a background felt-sense.

Pacatus if that makes sense to you I say go for it.

I think I am content to say in plain English that because there are no gods and absolute rules and no heaven and hell to calculate for, I am left to look to nature for guidance, and nature gives me only pleasure and pain. I want as much pleasure and as little pain as possible. In evaluating what is pleasure I include everything that is agreeable to me, and I find agreeable both active stimulation from the outside as well as my own "quieter" internal appreciation of healthy normal mental and bodily life.

We can embellish all that with lots of additional words but I see no reason to be concerned that the ancient Epicureans saw things in a much more complicated way than that. The commentators can fight over the details as long as they like but I won't let them worry me that I missing anything more sophisticated than what I just described, because at the end of my life I am unlikely to be any better off than Epicurus himself, offsetting pleasure against pain as best I can.

Quote from Eoghan Gardiner

"Epicurean Philosophy teaches that absence of pain is pleasure"
"Ok, but isn't the goal of Epicureanism ataraxia and not pleasure? Also isn't the absence of pain just a tranquil state?"
How would you respond to someone like this?

The goal, the fulfillment, of a life of well-being consists of both the health of the body and the tranquility of the mind. The absence of pain in the body and of disturbance in the mind IS pleasure, because there are only two feelings we can experience: pleasure and pain. Being alive is to experience sensations, to FEEL things. At the most basic level, we either feel positive nurturing feelings, which we call pleasure; or negative harmful feelings, which we call pain. Within pleasure and pain, there are numerous shades and intensities of feeling; from ecstasy to serenity, from annoyance to agony.

But when we rid ourselves of the gnawing anxiety and the dreadful worry about death, divine retribution, and the like, we can have a tranquil mind, we can have "ataraxia." If we have tranquility of mind, we can FEEL our other positive feelings more clearly, untainted by the nagging worry that it'll all fade away. Once we rid ourselves of those fears and worries, when they are uprooted and torn from the ground of our mind, they can't grow back. We can then make better choices. We can pluck the ripe fruit of each moment and REALLY savor it. That is the goal of Epicureanism. If you say a tranquil mind - ataraxia - is the only goal and don't include the health of the body, you stop short of the fulfilling life that Epicurus offers. Yes, you NEED a tranquil mind free from anxiety and worry... but you also need a healthy body attached to that tranquil mind. The mind works through the body, and the body provides the mind with its seat. We are both a mind and a body, together, inseparable. Pleasure is the path but also the fulfillment of prudent choices and rejections. Tranquility - ataraxia - makes the sea calm for sailing. When other pleasures are encountered, they are welcomed but not greedily grasped. You are already at the fullness of pleasure! The horizon beckons with a variety of pleasures to experience. Sail off. You are already filled with pleasure, secure in your own self-reliance, your mind is strong and unassailable by worry, anxiety, fears, and dread. You've drank the wormwood through the honeyed rim. The medicine is sweet. The physician was correct. This is the way to live!

I think Don's post 15 is very close to where it needs to be, but I sense there is still equivocation on the issue that the single word that expresses the ultimate goal in most sweeping terms is not "Tranquility" or "Ataraxia" but "Pleasure."

(And this post is not by any means targeted at Don. We're all doing this at times, me included. Eoghan has asked for proposed responses to explanations to outsiders, and that's what we're working on improving.)

Pleasure is the global term; tranquility and ataraxia are fully contained within the word pleasure, but "pleasure" is not fully contained within tranquility or ataraxia. There are pleasures which do not involve tranqulity or calmness or any other similar term. Are those other pleasures less "worthy" than calmness?

When tranquility and ataraxia are used in a way that conveys that they, and not pleasure, are the goal, then the other pleasures are deprecated, and the issue of their status remains muddy. Epicurus was extending the definition of the word Pleasure so that it would include all agreeable feelings, including feelings such as Don is describing and that many people don't ordinarily think of as "Pleasure." If we fail to follow his lead and use the umbrella term, then we're throwing away the main tool that gets us to the point of clarifying what pursuing "pleasure" really means and how it fits into "the nature of things."

The reason this is a continuing question, and the reason that Eoghan is posing it again, is that the orthodox view is that it is wrong to say that "Pleasure" is the goal. The orthodox gatekeepers of acceptability say we should be saying "Tranquility" or "Ataraxia" or some other "acceptable" word instead. And in most cases they are not saying it because they really believe in calmness -- they're saying it because they have another agenda, and they don't want *you* to see pleasure as a legitimate goal.

I don't think these questions will ever begin to clarify in peoples' minds unless the focus remains first, last, and always on "Pleasure." We should say to heck with the nay-sayers who think that the medicine is too bitter to drink. This issue has become as muddy as it is precisely because of this equivocation that we all are tempted to make -- We all know that the Stoics and the Buddhists and the Humanists and the Virtue-crowd are the majority, and we hear in their tone of voice the same condescension and bitterness that we hear in Cicero's abhorrence at the very idea of saying that "Pleasure" is the goal of life.

We should make a clean break with that equivocation and never back down from saying clearly that "Pleasure" is the goal of life. After that, we can then explain all the many facets of what "Pleasure" means for as long and as far as we'd like to go. But the battle is going to be won or lost on keeping it clear that it is Pleasure which is the banner under which we're traveling, and the banner's not ataraxia or aponia or tranquility or any other word than "Pleasure."

When you enter a discussion looking like you're apologizing for the word Pleasure, then you look afraid and you lose the argument before it's even started.

We're "Living for Pleasure," and we're not "Living For Ataraxia" or "Living for Tranquility" or anything else - unless, that is, that we're ready to admit that joy and gladness and what everyone admits to be under the definition of Pleasure are not a legitimate part of the goal of life. Every time we indicate that Ataraxia or Tranquility is more important than Pleasure we are repudiating the definition of pleasure that Epicurus was promoting. An apt analogy is Peter swearing to Jesus that he is a disciple and then immediately turning around and denying him three times before the cock crowed.

If we don't insist on continuing to use the word "Pleasure" as the description of the goal, then we're admitting that the Ciceros of the world have won. No one really believes that there is some special transcendental state constituting "ataraxia" or "tranquilty" which is outside of pleasure and is the real goal of life. The issue is whether we are going to defend the word "Pleasure," or whether we retreat under pressure to what we think is a respectable euphemism, and admit that Cicero has won.

Torquatus didn't retreat and we shouldn't either.

Quote from Cassius

Pleasure is the global term; tranquility and ataraxia are fully contained within the word pleasure, but "pleasure" is not fully contained within tranquility or ataraxia. There are pleasures which do not involve tranqulity or calmness or any other similar term. Are those other pleasures less "worthy" than calmness?

I wonder if the idea of "mixed" pleasure might need some further examination because it seems that there may be pleasures which are mixed with a tinge of mental uncertainty. There are times in life when you chose pleasures in which you are uncertain what the final result will be (mental pain or a minor problem may result but you are fairly confident that you won't end up physically wounded or dead).

And thought that came to me regarding "pleasure is the absence of pain" is that this is simply a guide or a tool to find moderation...rather than arbitrarily deciding "I will only eat one heaping full plate of spaghetti" then if you use the phrase "pleasure is the absence of pain" to decide to stop eating when you aren't feeling hungry anymore.

So it is moderation based on sensation and not on abstractions.

The best pleasures are those which occur without pain, and when we are in a state of being without pain we come to appreciate it as being a pleasure.

Quote from Kalosyni

I wonder if the idea of "mixed" pleasure might need some further examination because it seems that there may be pleasures which are mixed with a tinge of mental uncertainty. There are times in life when you chose pleasures in which you are uncertain what the final result will be (mental pain or a minor problem may result but you are fairly confident that you won't end up physically wounded or dead).

OK someone correct me if I am wrong but care has to be taken here: "mixed" is exactly what a feeling *never* is: a feeling is either pleasure, or it is pain. It is never "both" or "neither" or "mixed."

"Mixed" is a word that describes results which have multiple feelings, in that Epicurus' feelings were mixed on his last day - he felt some pleasure and some pain -- but in different parts of his experience. His gladness of his feelings for his friends was not mixed - it "co-existed" in his experience with other experiences which were painful.

But at the feeling level, feelings are discrete, at the total experience level, multiple feelings co-exist to produce the full level of experience that we're talking about as 100%, such as 60% pleasurable feelings and 40% painful feelings.

Quote from Kalosyni

And thought that came to me regarding "pleasure is the absence of pain" is that this is simply a guide or a tool to find moderation...rather than arbitrarily deciding "I will only eat one heaping full plate of spaghetti" then if you use the phrase "pleasure is the absence of pain" to decide to stop eating when you aren't feeling hungry anymore.

"Moderation" is never the ultimate goal either, any more than calmness is the 'ultimate' goal. Moderation in eating is a tool to find pleasure. It's pleasure that is the ultimate goal and sometimes you're going to eat more than other times. So I'd say you never set out to "Find moderation," you set out to find pleasure, through which moderation is often (not always) an appropriate tool.