Posts by Godfrey

Pardon the delay.... Referring back to post #66, here's the Wikipedia link for desire fwiw:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire. I haven't had the chance to read the whole article but this excerpt from the beginning is to me pretty spot. I've underlined one sentence but the rest is also pertinent.

Quote

Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affairs. They aim to change the world by representing how the world should be, unlike beliefs, which aim to represent how the world actually is. Desires are closely related to agency: they motivate the agent to realize them. For this to be possible, a desire has to be combined with a belief about which action would realize it. Desires present their objects in a favorable light, as something that appears to be good. Their fulfillment is normally experienced as pleasurable in contrast to the negative experience of failing to do so. Conscious desires are usually accompanied by some form of emotional response. While many researchers roughly agree on these general features, there is significant disagreement about how to define desires, i.e. which of these features are essential and which ones are merely accidental. Action-based theories define desires as structures that incline us toward actions. Pleasure-based theories focus on the tendency of desires to cause pleasure when fulfilled. Value-based theories identify desires with attitudes toward values, like judging or having an appearance that something is good.

I wouldn't limit a desire to a mental concept, it could also be a physical or psychological craving.

I'm not very familiar with Nussbaum. Is she in the "absence of pain" camp? I can see how, if one was so inclined, they could mistakenly interpret Epicurus' categories of desires as tending toward asceticism. I look at them more along the lines of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which maybe could be thought of as a positive, not negative, hedonic treadmill. More of a hedonic ladder.

Quote from Cassius

But in the end, the whole exercise is nothing more than posing the same question: How much pain is my chosen pleasure going to cost me to obtain? And in that, you rank the intensity and satisfaction you get from your pleasure, and you rank the intensity and length of the pain it is going to cost you, and you make a totally personal and subjective decision based on your own unique circumstances.

The result (to me) is that you've performed a mental exercise that really does nothing but help you reflect on what you expect to be the pleasure and pain that you yourself expect to experience, and you decide to go forward or not on that basis.

I agree with much of this, but I still think that there are subtle but useful differences between desire and pleasure.

- Pleasure is a Feeling, a faculty, a criterion or measurement. Desire is not.

- To my limited understanding, pleasure and desire are neurologically/biochemically different.

- Pleasure is "The Goal", desire is not.

- As a Feeling and as "The Goal", pleasure is what organisms strive for from birth in order to thrive. Desire is something that can be either good or bad, and often needs to be reined in.

- For me, when considering whether or not to do or partake of a given thing, there's a significant difference between thinking of something as a desire as opposed to a pleasure. Thinking of it as a pleasure, which is inherently good, means that it is worth pursuing on its own merits but may end up involving more pain than pleasure. Thinking of it as a desire, which I posit that it is until it is experienced, means that it may not even be worth pursuing on its own merits. For me, this greatly simplifies decision making. For someone else it may not. I see the exercise of evaluating desires, which Epicurus proposes through the use of his categories, as more "scientifically" (for lack of a better word at the moment) and psychologically sound than trying to rank duration and intensity of pleasures and pains. At a minimum, it provides an alternative method for choosing and avoiding. The bottom line I imagine is to work with and compare both methods.

- Again for me, I find evaluating desires to be good for a first pass at choosing. Sometimes that's all that I do, other times I take another pass and consider pleasures v pains. It's something of a process.

Communicating is a good start!

So to me the key idea is that desires are fundamentally different from pleasures. At least this is how I understand it. As to categories, I think that Epicurus would consider his categories of desires to be "natural", but a useful tool.

Unfortunately my dinner is getting cold so I'll need to come back to this....

I was trying to point out that "these things" or "these matters", being the various categories of desires, "makes it possible" or "enables one" to refer choices and avoidances to pleasure and pain. So, conversely, without understanding the categories of desires one can't make proper decisions regarding pleasure and pain.

It wasn't my intention to question that bodily health and freedom from disturbance could refer to anything other than pleasure in this instance. Apologies for the lack of clarity!

LM 127, Epicurus Wiki: One should keep in mind that among desires, some are natural and some are vain. Of those that are natural, some are necessary and some unnecessary. Of those that are necessary, some are necessary for happiness, some for health, and some for life itself. A correct view of these matters enables one to base every choice and avoidance upon whether it secures or upsets bodily comfort and peace of mind – the goal of a happy life.

LM 127, Long and Sedley's The Hellenistic Philosophers: We must reckon that some desires are natural and others empty, and of the natural some are necessary, others natural only; and of the necessary some are necessary for happiness, others for the body’s freedom from stress, and others for life itself. For the steady observation of these things makes it possible to refer every choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the soul’s freedom from disturbance, since this is the end belonging to the blessed life.

Skipping over meats for a moment, there's the above from the Letter to Menoeceus. The underlined portion, to me, says that without understanding the categories of desire we wouldn't be able to make proper decisions relating to pleasure. Which implies, to me, that if we want to usefully rank anything it would be desires, not pleasures.

I still want to dig into the PDs, but I just ran across this

Quote from Cassius

Well there I would say that each reference goes in the direction of the purely practical: "What will happen to me if I make this choice?" So rather than "categorizing" which would be definitional logical analysis which might actually sound platonic, I would say he is emphasizing the reverse and say evaluate them pragmatically only by their results. And their results are not measured by categories but only by the resulting feeling. In that respect I see "natural and necessary" categories in that same way - strictly biological or feeling-driven, rather than by any intellectual categories.

To me, by giving categories of desires he's providing a method for prudent analysis of a given decision or action. The feelings are a critical part for evaluating but having the framework of categories is, to me, a major innovation: we experience feelings but we can work with desires.

Quote from Cassius

So we still have to deal with the question: "Are all pleasures the same in all respects so that we should consider the choice of any pleasure to be equivalent to the choice of any other?"

Of course they're not. But at what point are we becoming Plato writing Philebus? Neither pleasures nor desires should be generalized, they are all specific to person, time, situation, etc. But isn't discussing whether duration is more important than intensity (regarding a particular Feeling) tantamount to discussing whether it's better to look at a squirrel than a tree (an admittedly poor example regarding the importance wrt a particular sensation)?

Maybe it would be more productive to examine the PDs as the best record of Epicurus' own thinking. This is off the top of my head, but if I'm not mistaken, the only mechanism that Epicurus gives for evaluating choices and avoidances is by categorizing desires.

This is getting interesting, digging into the weeds!

Don makes an excellent point!

Thinking out loud (as it were), pleasure is nothing more than one "side" of the faculty of feelings. That's it. It's a reflex and a guide. If the goal is a life of continuous pleasure, all that means is to continuously be aware of and be guided by your faculty of feelings. So wouldn't all the talk of duration, intensity, absence of pain and so forth really be misleading? At least it seems so in terms of daily living. Analyzing one's desires would be far more useful and effective in determining how to live pleasurably. Continuous pleasure just means, at least in this line of reasoning, that one is living well by prudently choosing and fleeing from one's desires.

I remember the discussion, but I don't remember the pleasing graphic quality of the final product. Very nice!

Quote from Philia

It seems that one could do a hedonic calculus when making choices, but if the underlying assumption is that short-term physical pleasures are equally as important as long-term mental pleasures, then the long-term results will be a mixed bag (pleasure mixed with pain or pleasure resulting in pain), and/or one will find oneself on a never-ending hedonic treadmill.

So an Epicurean philosophy of life would be a life of guaranteed continuous pleasures ---- of a medium intensity (a nice well built fire to warm oneself together with one's friends) vs. a high intensity (too much fuel on the fire burns out too quickly). And this would be the difference between the Epicureans and the Cyrenaics.

I'm not sure that it's correct to have an underlying assumption that short-term physical pleasures are equally as important as long-term mental pleasures. To put words into Epicurus' mouth, I think that he would say that the most important thing is a correct understanding of his philosophy and that this would provide the pleasure of freedom from fear. Having achieved that, one can vary, embellish, and add icing to the cake through various other pleasures, both short- and long-term and of varying intensities.

Further, if the hedonic calculus is indeed subjective then the underlying assumption is different for each person: some preferring short-term physical pleasures and some preferring long-term mental pleasures, and of varying intensities. And preference would be different in time as well, varying over the course of an individual's life.

So I don't come to the conclusion that an Epicurean philosophy of life leads to continuous medium intensity pleasures, although the fire and friends example is quite pleasant! That conclusion, to me, is more like population based medicine which ignores the individual and averages out the entire population.

As to the Cyrenaics, I can't recall their overall philosophy at the moment, but I would consider that in comparing them with Epicurus (or anyone else). Epicurus has a very coherent overall philosophy, of which pleasure is a part, and the way that I understand that philosophy brings me great pleasure as being a fairly accurate representation of "the way things are". If the Cyrenaic philosophy as a whole made more sense to me then I would consider applying that to my life.

That's a juicy question Marco !

There has been a controversy over the centuries over just that, and the terminology is "katastematic" v "kinetic" pleasure. Katastematic is considered "stable" pleasure and kinetic is considered "active" pleasure. There's a ton of technical debate over whether there are actually two types at all and whether one is a "higher" pleasure or whether pleasure is pleasure, period.

Here's a place on the forum to explore the subject:

Kinetic and Katastematic Pleasure

The "go to" paper on the subject is Nikolsky's article in the forum filebase: Nikolsky - Epicurus On Pleasure

As I recall, I got a lot out of reading Wenham's paper which is shorter and maybe a good preparation for reading Nikolsky. I can't find Wenham's paper in the filebase, so I've attached it below.

Having said all that, I see that your question also touches on "duration", which is often combined with "intensity" in describing pleasure. I think this terminology is more practical, where the katastematic/kinetic debate might be considered more philosophical. "Practical" as in choosing between pleasures of varying durations and intensities in a given situation, with the knowledge that a given pleasure is not universally better than any other pleasure.

Quote from Don

***3. The idea of tranquility and peace of mind still appeals to me. I find it easier to appreciate pleasures with a tranquil mind, and, from my readings of the text, Epicurus backs this up. I recognize that tranquility isn't the goal, pleasure is. But tranquility/peace of mind makes appreciating pleasure much easier from my perspective.

I agree with this: well stated!

I would add that an Epicurean understanding of pleasure is tied to an understanding of desires. Desires are not pleasures, and desires are integral to the conditions of one's life.

Epicurus famously breaks desires into natural/necessary, natural/unnecessary, and unnatural thus unnecessary. Whether something is natural, necessary, etc is to some degree determined by the amount of pleasure and/or pain it will cause to a specific individual. And this varies based on specifics such as the person's age, financial situation, health, culture, living situation, friends and so on.

As to your list Kalosyni I have a few comments (my numbers match yours):

1) This is a great example of the relativity of pleasures. A personal example that comes to mind is from a couple of years ago, when I was planning a garage remodel. It was "necessary" in order to carry out structural repairs, but of course there were lots of things that I thought about adding that weren't strictly necessary to solve the basic problem. So I evaluated them in terms of how much pleasure they would bring vs how much pain they would cause in terms of money, time, disruption, etc. I added some things and decided not to add others, and it turned out that the final project has solved the necessary problems but also brings me much joy beyond the utilitarian aspect of having a structurally sound garage. It's not as swanky as it might have been but it brings me lots of pleasure.

So this is how I approached this particular issue on a personal level. Another person might consider it a waste of time and money to do any work on the garage at all: perhaps they don't have the money, maybe they don't expect to live much longer, maybe they're about to move to another state. Yet another person, perhaps homeless, might be happy to live in the garage, repairs or not. And so on....

2) I think this is important, but to me it illustrates to some degree just how natural Epicurus' philosophy is. Because this is something that I think we're all drawn to do, at least on some level. If I have a pain, I try to eliminate it, whether it's chromic disease or acute hunger. You might even say that the faculty of pleasure/pain is to some degree a reflex! To me what is more important is to be as aware as possible of what pains me and what brings me pleasure and why I do the things I do. Examine the sensations and my "preconceptions" about the discomfort and use this information to follow the guide of pleasure and pain.

3) At a minimum, I would add a comma after philosophy: "Study philosophy, which leads to tranquility and peace of mind." Studying philosophy is important but it can bring up difficult truths. Eventually these bring peace of mind, at least in my experience. Maybe I would re-word this item as "enjoy the pleasure of the study of philosophy".

4)

5) I would say "savor the sweetness of life as you follow the Canon".

6) This I think is more of a philosophical argument; personally I don't think about a totality of pleasure or of additional pleasures, just pleasure. I'd probably eliminate this item and end with 5).

Quote from Cassius

As I have said before I really like Rolfe Humphries' version.

Cassius I finally got a copy of this version due to your repeated praises (and also Joshua's if I'm not mistaken). I've just begun reading it, starting with Book 6 (to stay close to the podcast) and so far it really does make for good reading, flowing noticeably better than other versions. Thanks for the recommendation!

  Joshua you bring a nice perspective to the podcast, and your reading voice is quite enjoyable: smooth and extremely clear.

A very insightful post, Kalosyni ! What you are describing is exactly the process of opening to the Feelings as a guide. Half of the guide is "pain": not avoiding or suppressing the unpleasant, but being guided by that as much as by pleasure.

A pleasant and fulfilling recovery to you!

A couple of quite pleasurable activities that I've recently begun are restorative yoga and meditation. Although I've done both activities for years at a time in the past (yoga having been far more active than passive), I'm pursuing them free of dogma and with no "path" and am discovering a new and somewhat guilty and decadent pleasure in them. Which somehow makes them even more pleasurable!

I second your last statement Cassius! And I don't see anything to pick apart in your commentary. What I'm trying to discern is whether there are any Epicurean formulas comparable to the formulas for various types of logic. These would be useful both for discussion with non-Epicureans, and also for practical decision making. Personally I find the Canon very useful, as well as considering pleasures and desires in my decisions; I'm just curious as to whether there is evidence of "formulaic" reasoning in Philodemus.

I'll need to wade back into OMOI, but I won't be getting to it for awhile. I can only take it in small doses before I get lost in the terminology

I think that this much is pretty clear. Is this all that Philodemus is saying in Methods of Inference, or is he putting Epicurean reasoning into more formal terms?

Quote from Cassius

What we are trying to do ultimately is get a firm fix on what it was that Epicurus was rejecting, while still embracing "reason" in PD16!

All this discussion of details is irrelevant and worthless unless we keep that goal in mind.

Exactly.

But even more important is to understand what Epicurus was proposing! It would be great to have a presentation discussing that; I've found it quite a challenge sorting through Methods of Inference. I would find it extremely useful, and would be quite grateful, if someone with more knowledge of the subject than I have could put something together.