Another Article Insisting On The Importance of the Kinetic / Katestematic Distinction, Despite Citing Nikolsky

Thanks to Hiram for pointing out today an article on the kinetic / katastematic issue. The article is ""Epicurus’ “Kinetic” and “Katastematic” Pleasures. A Reappraisal", Elenchos xxxvi (2015) fasc. 2: 271-296." I find the conclusion (which includes the assertion that kinetic pleasure is unnecessary) most unpersuasive:

On the other hand, the article I think helps bolster the argument that the entire katatesmetic / kinetic distinction is a dead end. Note here the opening, which alleges that these are "the most dominant terms in Epicurus' theory of pleasures:

That's just pure nonsense. Did he not read his own footnotes, which cites the Nikolsky article I point toward so frequently? This shows that the writer fully understood that the kinetic / katastemtic classification cannot be traced to the founding Epicureans themselves.

So in my view this article does not help in the way the writer intended, but it does help illustrate once again how little evidence there is that this distinction mattered to Epicurus.

I see my links have disappeared. Will try to reconstruct them.

OK Did the best I could. I will now add the conclusion statement. Does this help anything at all? We are now supposed to consider katastematic pleasures as all pleasures concerned with removal of pain and therefore "necessary" pleasures and kinetic all other pleasures and therefore "unnecessary"? I don't think that makes any sense at all.

Without taking the time to look back at the editing history of that entry, I would say that is a good example of how Wikipedia must be taken with a grain of salt. There really is no one who is an "authority" on this issue, so anyone who stands up to present a definition ought to be clear to state that there are experts on several sides of this question. I doubt seriously whether Gosling and Taylor of Nikolsky or any number of others would endorse that passage in whole.

Flatly stating something as if it accepted, without noting controversies, is a good way to pile misinformation on top of misinformation. That's pretty much the core thrust of the Epicurean sayings about waiting and not selecting only one position when the evidence is not clear.

And almost every phrase of that summary is open to serious question, and as It is I would say that entry does a lot more harm than good.

Just to be clear of course I do not mean to criticize anyone citing that article, because it's important for us to know that it is there, and we can't expect everyone to trace back every issue to it's core..

But the cultural effect of a resource like Wikipedia appearing to be an arbiter of truth in an instance like this is really an interesting and not a positive thing.

I guess the ultimate Epicurean perspective is to always remember that there IS no "arbiter of truth" and we are always just doing the best we can to develop opinions consistent with the evidence in front of us.

Kalosyni"s caution to the extrovert in her post above reminds me of the flip side: Thomas Jefferson's caution to an "introvert" (of a kind) in his letter to William Short:

"I take the liberty of observing that you are not a true disciple of our master Epicurus, in indulging the indolence to which you say you are yielding. One of his canons, you know, was that “that indulgence which prevents a greater pleasure, or produces a greater pain, is to be avoided.” Your love of repose will lead, in its progress, to a suspension of healthy exercise, a relaxation of mind, an indifference to everything around you, and finally to a debility of body, and hebetude of mind, the farthest of all things from the happiness which the well-regulated indulgences of Epicurus ensure; fortitude, you know is one of his four cardinal virtues. That teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties; not to fly from them, like cowards; and to fly, too, in vain, for they will meet and arrest us at every turn of our road. Weigh this matter well; brace yourself up; take a seat with Correa, and come and see the finest portion of your country, which, if you have not forgotten, you still do not know, because it is no longer the same as when you knew it."

To Don's point:

Right, and of course -- there are definite distinctions between pleasures. The real issue and controversy is over the place and hierarchy of the two categories, as conveyed in" "Absence of pain, aponia, and lack of disturbance of mind, ataraxia, are two of the katastematic pleasures and often seen as the focal ones to Epicurus." To the extent that that sentence says that (1) aponia and ataraxia are katastematic pleasures, and (2) they are "focal ones" to Epicurus (implying of central importance) I would context both of those statements are highly open to debate and the controversy should have at least been noted in the article.

And the really irritating aspect of the controversy is that the implication of those who are primarily arguing for katastematic pleasure as being superior is that they also argue that katastematic pleasure is not something that is "sensed" in the normal way. As pointed out by Wenham, to any normal interpretation of the sensory basis of Epicurean philosophy, something that is not experienced is worth nothing.

And all of this argument is based on the most slender of threads in Diogenes Laertius as amplified by Cicero hundreds of years later, while not a word about it is breathed in Lucretius or virtually any other source.

Two more comments:

1 - I am always quick to remember the William Short quote about guarding against lethargy because of all people I am the most guilty of it!

2 - Those Wikipedia articles on Epicurus and Epicureanism are full of the same assertions, without any reference to any disagreement among those who read him. And they all lead back and lay the groundwork for the conclusions in the main article, that the "greatest good" is not pleasure, but ataraxia / aponia / "peace of mind." That the key to working with desires is to LIMIT them and live "the simple life" (which is not *always* the case), that all Epicureans should withdraw from politics (with which the Roman Epicureans begged to differ)

I try to always be clear on that. Someone who values that aspect of Epicureanism will benefit from Epicurean philosophy and find justification for their choices. But in doing so, such people are way out of line in suggesting that that is the ONLY way to practice Epicureanism, and that their reinterpretation of the key wording, displacing "Pleasure" from the ultimate standard of action, is again way over the line in what the texts allow them to do.

It's not the "kinetic" valuers who try to writer the "katastematics" out of Epicurean philosophy, it's the "Katastematics" who use every opportunity to claim Epicurus for themselves as if they needed more than the Stoics and the Platonists and the entire rest of Greek philosophy to justify their choices.

When all the while Diogenes Laertius was very clear that Epicurus held both to be valuable, and he never clearly labeled one as subordinate or instrumental to the other.

"Epicurus differs from the Cyrenaics about pleasure. For they do not admit static pleasure, but only that which consists in motion. But Epicurus admits BOTH kinds BOTH in the soul and in the body, as he says in the work on Choice and Avoidance and in the book on The Ends of Life and in the first book On Lives and in the letter to his friends in Mytilene"

Quote from Kalosyni

it looks like the Wikipedia article is saying that the goal of life is living a quiet and simple life and not doing anything fun.

Yes that is exactly my concern, with the caveat too that "fun" means a lot of different things to different people.

What I mean even more clearly is that the "Academic World," which is firmly Stoic/Platonic/Aristotelian, has a strongly vested interest in conveying to everyone that : "Epicurus held the goal of life is living a quiet and simple life and not doing anything to displease the Stoics / Platonists / Aristotelians."

None of these guys have cared to lift a finger to support or reinvigorate the Epicurean school for 2000 years, but they are all to happy to give YOU a hundred reasons why YOU should sit quietly and should not do so yourself!

"Just stay home and live a quiet simple life and forget about Cassius Longinus and the whole flock of Epicurean Romans from poets to leaders of society to generals who refused to go quietly and be told what to do.."

That's the clear message I get from the way these guys are focusing on "tranquility" and acting as if "pleasure" wasn't in Epicurus' vocabulary.

That's what I would tell my cows and my pigs if I were a farmer as I lead them to the slaughterhouse too!

Yes Godfey, lots of good stuff in your post. The single thing I would particularly echo is the concern about "necessary" and "unnecessary" pleasures. There is no way to avoid, IMHO, the implication that someone who is talking about "unnecessary" pleasures seems to be relegating those pleasures to the modern ear to a second-place status.

I don't think that this was Epicurus' intent, and I don't think that he expected his words to be interpreted that way, but that's the way they are being interpreted in many corners, and I think that a full understanding of Epicurus requires a clear position that there isn't a list of "unnecessary" absolutes out there that end up pointing us to life in the proverbial cave in pursuit of only those that are "necessary."

"I can show you at this moment in the writings of Epicurus a graded list of goods just like that of our own school."

Yes that's a good catch, but as far as we know the Epicureans themselves (Philodemus, Lucretius, etc) didn't see fit to preserve such a list. There are lots of other cautions that could be made to taking that too far, but I think that's the most important ones, plus we do have the parts about natural and necessary and other issues that could also be considered to be sort of a gradation. But in the end, would one expect there to be an absolute list that's much more specific than food, water, air, shelter, etc? And in the end, even those do not take precedence at every moment of life.

Quote from Kalosyni

Also, there are circumstances in modern life that are much different than in Epicurus' time, which may alter how the teachings should be interpreted.

Absolutely there are differences in circumstances that would lead the general principles to be APPLIED in different ways, but if the core teachings themselves needed fundamental "reinterpretaton" then that would just be a way of saying that the philosophy core teachings are no longer relevant, which I would say is not true.

Quote from Kalosyni

then it would only make sense if Epicurus had clearly defined all of these categories.

Yes, any categories that Epicurus were really concerned about he would want to define, I agree. But the absence of more deliberate and stricter definitions in the core teachings also says something in the direction that what we are talking about are "principles" that will have different applications in different circumstances.