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(I realize this thread has strayed waaaaay off the original topic
but this is a good conversation, so I'll let Cassius decide if it needs to be branched off or not)
Do you have a suggestion on where it started branching and how to describe the topic? Are you thinking it's a modern psychology heading?
Maybe back at post 100??
It seems to me we're diving into katastematic and kinetic and modern neuroscience??
Okay, further thoughts...
Epicurus likes his parallel constructions (ex., his "never too old... never too young..." sections in Menoikeus), so how would those (conveniently) four feelings of pleasure line up ... extrapolating from my thoughts above in post 128:
| "Feeling" | Pleasure Category | Valence | Arousal | "Source" |
| Ataraxia | Katastematic | Positive | Low | Mental Source (Internal Stimuli); Not Observable |
| Aponia | Katastematic | Positive | Low | Bodily Source (Internal Stimuli); Not Observable |
| Khara | Kinetic | Positive | High | Mental Source (External Stimuli); Observable |
| Euphrosyne | Kinetic | Positive | High | Bodily Source (Exterinal Stimuli); Observable |
What I'm proposing here is that Ataraxia is the parallel to Khara; Aponia is the parallel to Euphrosyne.
Khara is "joy, delight" in being a spectator or member of audience. You experience pleasure from the experience. You can still be observed (it's a kinetic pleasure) engaging in the activity, but the pleasure is felt primarily as an internal feeling. It's still an external stimuli, but your "body" isn't as involved. LSJ definition includes "joy in or at a thing." Think watching a dancing or singing performance. The corresponding katatematic pleasure example is ataraxia.
Euphrosyne is "mirth, merriment, esp. of a banquet, good cheer, festivity." Euphrosyne is the pleasure you feel when actually involved yourself - with your body - in an activity. The oorresponding katastematic pleasure example is aponia.
(I realize this thread has strayed waaaaay off the original topic but this is a good conversation, so I'll let Cassius decide if it needs to be branched off or not)
In thinking about this a little more...
We always have to remember not to confuse desires with feelings. I don't think we're doing that here, but just putting that notice up again.
It also seems to me that ataraxia ((tranquility), aponia* (see footnote), chara, (joy) and euphrosyne (delight) could be described as *emotions* that is how we *experience* pleasure in our body and mind. Pleasure and pain are the two valents available to us to describe our affect with level of arousal the other axis. I go back to the circumplex model of affect:
Euphrosyne and xhara would be positive (pleasant) valence with high arousal (in the Happy Quadrant); ataraxia and aponia would be high positive valence and low arousal (in the Content(ment) Quadrant).
Maybe katastematic and kinetic were simply Epicurus way to describe the quadrants on the right (NOTE: Knowing fully well he didn't have a circumplex model of affect!! This is just a modern way of diagramming affect). Cyrenaics ONLY accepted the upper right quadrant as "Pleasure"; Epicurus accepted everything to the RIGHT of the vertical axis. I've stated this before (I think on one of the podcast threads, so sorry if this is duplicating what you've already read there.)
I have no trouble accepting that some people, ancient and modern, would only use PLEASURE to describe active pleasures one engages in with their body. I'd still call those kinetic pleasures... a pleasurable feeling *caused* by a external circumstances in which one engages. To describe it another way, people can SEE you engaging in activities from which you derive kinetic pleasures. Katastematic pleasures are those engaged in INSIDE your head (or in your chest if we're using the "your mind is in your chest/abdomen" paradigm of Epicurus). People can't SEE you engaged in those activities although they can be very powerfully felt by you.
Again, running the risk of thinking out loud but trying to add fuel to the fire for further conversation... or maybe that's fire to the minefield to paraphrase Little Rocker 
.
*aponia - I don't see - and don't think it's interpreted correctly - aponia as "being free from pain" in the sense of just "not feeling any pain." The word is "a + ponia (ponos)". Ponos includes:
πόνος (pónos)
It seems to me that aponia is to the body as ataraxia is to the mind. Ataraxia is a tranquil, well-functioning, calm mind. Aponia is the sense of your body working perfectly, the sense/feeling that athletes (And I wouldn't know this from first-hand experience 
) get when they're in the flow and their bodies are just acting effortlessly. That's my sense of aponia.
I agree that a basic understanding of neurochemistry can aid in the pursuit of pleasure and well-being.
Agreed!
pleasure remains the way that we experience our neurochemical functioning
Agreed!! And well put, Godfrey.
I think, [pleasure] remains the highest good/the goal/the guide. Neurochemistry is the mechanism of pleasure but, to my way of thinking, doesn't supercede pleasure. For it to do so we would need equipment that would instantaneously monitor our levels of the various chemicals. The equipment that we have for that is our faculty of Feelings.
Again, well put. If I may add, our brains are what we have to "monitor our levels of the various chemicals." Our feelings and sensations (including interoception) are how we experience that monitoring. And as Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett points out, that monitoring and prediction function is the main job of our brains... that whole reasoning thing comes along for the ride later on as I understand it.
I think TauPhi is onto something here with this line of thinking. My suggestion would just be to expand beyond dopamine when we consider the parallels between ancient katastematic/kinetic categories and modern neuroscience, and I do believe there are parallels. Maybe not one to one correspondence since Epicurus had no access to the research we have, but I feel his observations and intuition were ahead of their time.
Interesting articles/papers. The NLM ones are waaay into the weeds and I haven't read past the abstract, but sharing for possible future reference. The Psychology Today and other ones are a little more accessible.
I return to this section of Diogenes Laertius (10.136) over and over again when this topic comes up:
(Quote)
[136] He (Epicurus) differs from the Cyrenaics with regard to pleasure (περὶ τῆς ἡδονῆς). They do not include under the term the pleasure which is a state of rest (τὴν καταστηματικὴν - tes katastematiken), but only that which consists in motion (ἐν κινήσει - en kinesei). Epicurus admits both (i.e., katastematiken and en kinesei); also pleasure of mind as well as of body (ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος),
as he (Epicurus) states:
The words of Epicurus in his work On Choice (and Avoidance) are: "Peace of mind (ἀταραξία - ataraxia) and freedom from pain (ἀπονία - aponia) are pleasures which imply a state of rest (καταστηματικαί - katastematikai); joy (χαρὰ khara) and delight (εὐφροσύνη euphrosyne) are seen to consist in motion and activity (κατὰ κίνησιν ἐνεργείᾳ - kata kinesin energeia)."
(End Quote)
According to this report, Epicurus mentions katastematic and kinetic (and mental and bodily) pleasures in at least four books, and the Epicureans Diogenes of Tarsus and Metrodorus each mention it in their books.
I'm still not entirely convinced that the best translation of katastematic is "state *of rest*". I think stable pleasure would be good, but is it stable because it's reliable - or 100% available at all times to paraphrase Little Rocker. καταστημα is defined by LSJ as "condition, state, not necessarily permanent: 1. bodily or mental condition, “τὸ εὐσταθὲς σαρκὸς κ.” Epicur.Fr.68, Metrod.Fr.5, cf. Diog.Oen.29" (3 Epicurean sources cited)
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Κκ , κατάσσυ^τος , κατάστημα
[ U68 ] Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 4, p. 1089D: It is this, I believe, that has driven them, seeing for themselves the absurdities to which they were reduced, to take refuge in the "painlessness" and the "stable condition of the flesh," supposing that the pleasurable life is found in thinking of this state as about to occur in people or as being achieved; for the "stable and settled condition of the flesh," and the "trustworthy expectation" of this condition contain, they say, the highest and the most assured delight for men who are able to reflect. Now to begin with, observe their conduct here, how they keep decanting this "pleasure" or "painlessness" or "stable condition" of theirs back and forth, from body to mind and then once more from mind to body.
Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, IX.5.2: Epicurus makes pleasure the highest good but defines it as sarkos eustathes katastema, or "a well-balanced condition of the body."
> Metrodorus, Fragment 5: "Metrodorus, in his book On the Source of Happiness in Ourselves being greater than that which arises from Objects, says: 'What else is the good of the soul but the sound state of the flesh, and the sure hope of its continuance?'" (Source: Metrodori Epicurei Fragmenta collegit scriptoris incerti Epicurei Commentarium moralem, subiecit Alfredus Koerte)
> Diogenes of Oenoanda:
Let us now [investigate] how life is to be made pleasant for us both in states (katastēmasi) and in actions (praxesin).**
(εισαν τὰ φ̣ρόν[ιμα]. ἡμ[εῖς δὲ ζη]τ̣ῶ̣μεν ἤ̣δ̣η πῶς ὁ βίος ἡμεῖν ἡδὺς γένηται καὶ ἐν τοῖς κατασ̣τήμασι καὶ ἐν ταῖς πράξεσιν.)
Let us first discuss states (περὶ δὲ τῶν καταστημάτων πρῶτον εἴπωμεν), keeping an eye on the point that, when the emotions which disturb the soul are removed, those which produce pleasure enter into it to take their place.
Well, what are the disturbing emotions? [They are] fears —of the gods, of death, and of [pains]— and, besides [these], desires that [outrun] the limits fixed by nature. These are the roots of all evils, and, [unless] we cut them off, [a multitude] of evils will grow [upon] us.
**in actions (praxesin) < πράξεσιν dative plural of πραξις "act, action, activity, deed, doing"
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, πρᾶξις
Don do you see homeostasis as being a helpful idea in sorting out this conundrum?
I do think "homeostatis" is helpful, but... I've come to understand that the concept of "homeostasis" has been somewhat replaced by "allostasis." Ex.: "Clarifying the Roles of Homeostasis and Allostasis in Physiological Regulation" (2014)
BUT when I talk (colloquially) about "homeostasis," I'm going to say that I mean an awareness of the well functioning of the body and mind accompanied by a state of satisfaction and contentment.
*That* I think is helpful, and what I believe I would call "ataraxia."
One thing I want to emphasize, too, is that I do not think there are only two katastematic pleasures, e.g., ataraxia and aponia; just like I don't think there are only two kinetic pleasures, e.g., khara and euphrosyne. Those are the four pleasures that Epicurus provides as his examples... but there is no way that those are the only four pleasures that Epicurus believed existed.
Little Rocker's point about katastematic pleasures being always there, always available to perception is exactly right (in my opinion). Ataraxia is always available to be sensed (IF you're body and mind are working right with correct attitudes toward the gods and death etc.) BUT, from my perspective, we also always have access to our memories, to our anticipations (in the colloquial sense not the Epicurean canonic sense). That availability to access and/or generate a particular mental state is what I think katastematic pleasures are. They are not dependent on outside circumstances or chance or fortune.
This is a minefield
LOL! Well, that hasn't stopped us before! 
Pleasure appears to be a "feeling," since it is canonically defined as one of the two feelings of the canon.
Is "feeling" a sensation? I would have to say yes, in the sense that every feeling is a sensation in the sense of PD2, but interestingly, Saint-Andre doesn't use sensation but awareness there:
Death is nothing to us; for what has disintegrated lacks awareness, and what lacks awareness is nothing to us.
We are *aware* when we are *feeling* pleasure...therefore, it seems to be that feelings = sensations.
Or we may just be splitting hairs to no purpose:
αἴσθησῐς (aísthēsis)
So for what it's worth, I'm inclined to think the difference is that katestematic pleasure is always there, always available to perception. I can call it to mind and experience it wherever I am. 'Kinetic' pleasure comes and goes.
Now, *THAT* I agree 100%! To continue on my soapbox/hobby horse: That's why we can be more confident in katastematic pleasures: They are always available to us. We can enjoy kinetic pleasures, but they are dependent on circumstances external to ourselves.
I realize I still need to again read G&T (Why do I read that "gin & tonic"??) but then I think... do I? I need to back and read Epicurus and what's left of the Epicureans first, I think.
If in fact Farrington's position reduces to "generated from within" vs "generated from without" that would at least have the virtue of being clear and understandable, whether it's agreeable or not.
there's something to be said for "clear and understandable"
Good questions, Cassius. I'll have to dig into Farrington... But, in all honesty, I agree with him because he agrees with my interpretation not the other way around.
I've never been overly enamored of G&T's interpretation anyway IF I remember it correctly.
As a further explanation of my perspective:
Katastematic is derived from καθιστημι (kathistēmi) which, among its many definitions, is "bring into a certain state; come into a certain state, become" LSJ references PD13 specifically.
It is useless to be safe from other people while retaining suspicions about what is above and below the earth and in general about the infinite unknown.
οὐθὲν ὄφελος ἦν τὴν κατὰ ἀνθρώπους ἀσφάλειαν παρασκευάζεσθαι τῶν ἄνωθεν ὑπόπτων καθεστώτων καὶ τῶν ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ ἁπλῶς τῶν ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ.
I believe the word there is talking about bringing into the state of viewing something with suspicion
Even though the anticipation or recollection of eating are "inner" pleasures, they are very kinetic.
How?
And I realize typing that as a one word question *looks* combative or defensive. It's not meant to be. I'm just curious to hear your thinking behind how you'd characterize the anticipation or recollection as kinetic.
I'm getting my train of thought from Farrington's The Faith of Epicurus:
Kalosyni Thanks for the thoughts.
From my perspective:
The pleasure derived from the activity of eating is always kinetic.
The pleasure derived from the anticipation of eating or the recollection of eating is always katastematic.
The issue I have is with the modern implications of "tranquility" as being "at rest" or "inactive" or similar words circling the drain of "nothingness.
Agreed.
I maintain (and I think we agree) that activity can be undertaken with a calm, tranquil mind.
For example, if I ever found myself in a foxhole, I would want a commanding officer who approached the mission with a clear eye and calm mind rather than some screaming, yelling lieutenant.
ADMIN NOTE: This thread was originally a part of a discussion of the translation of the Letter to Menoeceus by Peter St. Andre started here. This first post below was near the start of the tangent that led to the split-off, but you may need to read several posts before you get an idea of how the new thread title applies. -- Cassius
Hello Don,
What about taking the second τὰς back to τὰς ἡδονὰς?
Granted, I'm just eyeballing it, so I should take some time to give it closer attention, but I'm reading the second τὰς as a reference back to τὰς ἡδονὰς, with the ἡδονὰς understood, so taken together 'the pleasures of profligates or the [pleasures] lying in consumption.'
I address that elsewhere in my translation commentary, but, briefly, even if that's the course taken, I would still stand by something like "those (pleasures) stuck in the enjoyment of (only) those things from outside ourselves."
My take is that this is a direct swipe at the Cyrenaics.
Okay, here is a sneak preview of my Menoikeus update. I still have a lot to do before posting the revision, but I thought this would stir up some controversy so here it is
I am now of the opinion that τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας should be interpreted as "those who are stuck in enjoying (only) those things which provide enjoyment from outside themselves." To me, this is a direct reference to the "incorrect" beliefs of the Cyrenaics and others in relation to pleasure. And, yes, the reader is correct that I'm referring to the kinetic and katastematic pleasures that Epicurus mentions. I realize this is considered controversial by some, but I believe this best explains Epicurus's being able to use ἀπολαύσει in both positive and negative senses.
Epicurus is on record for including both kinetic and katastematic pleasures within his definition of "pleasure." I have come to understand kinetic pleasures as those arising from factors and circumstances outside of ourselves; katastematic pleasures are those arising from within ourselves (such as tranquility, pleasurable memories, etc.). While Epicurus conveys (along with Metrodorus and Philodemus) that we can be more confident in katastematic pleasures, he clearly says that we should continue to "delight" in kinetic pleasures when they are available. It is the exclusivity of "getting stuck in" only seeing kinetic pleasures as pleasure that Epicurus is objecting to here with τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας.
PS. I am MORE than happy to entertain other ideas. This one is the one (so far) that makes the most sense to me.
Pleasure is cultivating the virtues so as to be serene and live a pleasant life.
By Zeus! They're trying to make Epicurus a Stoic!
Here are some notes of mine I had on VS9
This is a clever bit of writing from Epicurus. The original Greek reads "κακὸν ἀνάγκη, ἀλλʼ οὐδεμία ἀνάγκη ζῆν μετὰ ἀνάγκης." Note those three occurrences of ἀνάγκη/ἀνάγκης. The word itself means force, constraint, or necessity; so a literal translation would be something like "An evil, necessity (is); but (there is) no necessity to live in the midst of necessity." This retains the clever wordplay but is honestly a little clunky in English. To get the import of the statement, a paraphrase may be better. Consider what he is saying. Being constrained in your choices is an evil. If you have only one choice - or feel you only have one choice - that is an evil. However, we have free will, so we are not required to live having our choices curtailed and constrained. Even if we make choices we don't want to make, we are exercising our free will. "I don't want to go to work today, but I have to." No, you don't. You could quit. But are you ready to face the consequences of quitting your job? You can consciously decide today is not the day I quit. I make the decision to get up and do the work. Likewise, maybe getting a new job is the right decision. Weigh your options. Exercise your faculty of choice and rejection. You are not forced to be forced to do something. Make your choices and rejections. Practice well!
