Interpretations of PD 10 Discussion

"Fill in the intervals" sounds to me like "accumulate". I interpret "accumulate" as something that happens in the body, but "condense" as something that happens to the pleasure.

Right now I'm thinking that the blunt force meaning is of the PD something like "if you make all of the external, objective aspects of various pleasures equal, then the pleasures will be equal". So this seems to say that pleasure itself, the pathe, is a specific thing (maybe an on/off switch), and the only differences between pleasures are where in the body or mind they occur and for how long. "Condense" would imply an additional difference in intensity, "accumulate" would not.

No, the opposite. The source, the pathe, is the same but our experience of it is different in different parts of the mind/body, over different durations and, depending on how one interprets the Greek, due to varying intensities.

Looking at it like this I'd say that all three apply: location, duration, intensity.

Yes I was saying that the source is the pathe.

If I eat a delicious apple, I experience that through my sensations. Then the feeling of pleasure arises from these sensations. So in the specific context of post #122 I'm suggesting that the feeling of pleasure, not the apple, is the source. There's the stimulus (the apple), the pathe, and the experience of the pathe: duration, location, intensity.

Quote from Don

When discussions like this come up, I always have the feeling that the ancient Epicureans read this and went "Yep, I totally agree with that and it makes perfect sense

Absolutely!

Probably there is some discussion in Plato and/or Aristotle relevant to this but if so I am not aware of it. This does not seem to me to be the same as the "purity" issue which to me is related to the "limit" issue.

I sense that Godfrey's suggestion that the bottom line is the pleasures are similar (all are feelings) but cannot be ranked absolutely (as there is no objective standard) but there likely was some existing contention that he was bouncing off of by constructing the discussion in this way.

Quote from Don

If all pleasures were alike in these respects, then there would be no difference at all between them, but as it is, a ‘calculus of pleasures ’ becomes possible, we can select our pleasures, either according as they are more pure, i e. more completely exclude pain (VIII and XI), or as they are more lasting or affect the whole organism or its more important parts.

The sweetest of pleasures bring no regrets.

Quote from Kalosyni

The sweetest of pleasures bring no regrets.

Kalosyni are you quoting someone or suggesting that as a conclusion?

As an assertion it is almost poetic, but I suppose it is also the issue under discussion so I would not say it is self evidently true. Would you?

I can probably suggest all sorts of pleasures that are extremely pleasurable but obtainable only at the cost of some pain, some of which pain might prove to be unnecessary had I worked more intelligently so I might regret that error in working for the pleasure. Does that regret make that pleasure not among "the sweetest?"

I am mainly wondering if that sentence is primarily good poetry or whether philosophically Epicurus might endorse it as fully true.

It is my conclusion, though I don't yet know if we can determine if Epicurus would have agreed.

So another way of saying it is:

----The sweetest kinds of pleasures will not come with any regrets.---

Because the kinds of regrets that I am thinking about are:

1) You ended up causing more pain to yourself than it was worth - you went for a short-term pleasure that in now causing you on-going long-term pain.

2) You ended up causing pain to someone else - and now you must live with a variety of consequences resulting from that.

3) You sacrificed pursuing your own pleasure or freedom, in order to maintain some aspect of the "status quo" of your life - so later you think back and regret that you didn't choose to be more bold and live more fully.

And to define the "sweetest kinds of pleasures" - these would be things that are important in life, such as friendship and comradery - and so they are longer lasting pleasures that are always good all around.

An excerpt of a work of mine entitled "Some thoughts for the epicurean Gnoseology (The CANON)".

<<The wise Heraclitus said these two words: “μεταβάλλον αναπαύεται» (metavalon anapavetai) i.e. “in rest is changing”, and that means we may perceive the environment and the Universe as to be static, but in the same time it is changing/moving.

However, and as the epicurean Diogenis of Oinoanda remarks, although the reality is flowing/changing/moving, but we can perceive and pre-receive a situation of it, with our senses and feelings in the basis of the experiences along with their consequences, as we are also able to think and to describe with words what is happening in us, and around us. So with epicurean philosophy the endless doubtful that nothing can be known as Socrates said, it is wrong as well as, with the manifold way /multivalued of the epicurean Canon and in the basis of hedonic calculus it depends on whatever we are choosing it takes different values, for this the pleasures are varied, but the result and the goal is always the pleasure that its limit is : to not feel pain in the body and agitation in the soul and both at once.

So, Epicurus unites the knowledges, as one thing, the sensed or perceptible or observable (αισθητά) along with the conceivable (νοητά) and connects both of these two, as mechanism of the materialistic brain/body in the materialistic reality, and gives the word “prolepses” that always must be testified through the senses/feelings and are transmuted to the others (i.e. are making sense) through the speech. The fact is that Epicurus insists that the meaning of the words must be grasped immediately.

He said that you do not need so much effort to understand each other of what the words denote. You do not need endless definitions of the words, because you would end up your researches and the conversation in confusion and doubt. As he also said, you do not need to be focused to just one theory as the absolute truth, since the truth is relevant according to the experiences and circumstances of the materialistic reality and as the phenomena are proceeding and evolving. The reality is not linear of one cause and one effect, it is not predetermined. The reality and Nature is dynamic and works in the basis of many causes and many effects. So, with this, Epicurus breaks the inexorable of the Necessity and Fate and introduces the Swerve, and our autonomous responsibility to choose the best among many options for living pleasantly>>.

Our whole organism or aggregate (as Don remarks) is a dynamic system and it is in accordance with Nature/enviroment that may seem to be in rest/static but it is changing/moving in accordance what we choose and what we avoid.

Example: let's think that I give a great importance to the friendship and comradery without giving a great importance to the right study of Nature, to the self-sufficiency (that means freedom, bravery and generosity) and the first principle of friendship that is based on common benefit (which is enricheed with deeds and what we call trust). What kind of friendship is that and where can be found ? In Plato's imaginative ideas!

Thanks

Elli your post references the "manifold way" and that reminds me that we have a significantly different group of people active now as opposed when we had past discussions about that - and some of those discussions were possibly on facebook.

Do you recall if you had an article or reference point that we could point out to people now who might not be familiar with what you mean by that term? Was there a Dimitri Atlas article or something you wrote that summarized the point?