Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure -- Morten L. Kringelbach and Kent C. Berridge

"From sensory pleasures and drugs of abuse to monetary, aesthetic and musical delights, all pleasures seem to involve the same hedonic brain systems, even when linked to anticipation and memory."

You mean there's no special mechanism involved in the pleasure of contemplating the majesty of Zeus, or considering yourself to be a flickering part of the Divine fire? That won't please the Stoics if they find out!

I read the article today by chance and wanted to start a thread. But looked to see if there was already an article about neuro science and found it with exactly this article 🤗. In positive psychology, a distinction is made between hedonistic, happiness(Pleasure) and Eudaimonia. Do I understand it correctly that Eumonia happiness is also hedonistic happiness at its core? That would really be a point on the side of the Epicureans against the Stoics. Then there would be no essential difference between pleasure and the Stoic joy (chara).

In Stoic groups it is often claimed that Stoics understand Human Nature better and that like in Ciceros „On Ends“(the Stoic parts ) that Pleasure is only a delusionary byproduct of self preservation and that sociability / familiarization ( oikeiosis ) is an essential part of human nature and that Epicureans would deny that humans are social beings. I would like to discuss more about the current view of neuroscience/psychology of human nature to get clear how much it fits with Epicurean Philosophy ( a further example would be the hedonic treadmill)

Quote from Matteng

Epicureans would deny that humans are social beings

Oh, the Stoics...

Epicurus stressed the importance of friendship (φίλιας) throughout the extant texts and the history of Epicureasnism. It seems to me that Stoics emphasized duty to the state as a virtue, whereas the Epicureans stressed interpersonal relationships as a virtue.

For example:

VS23. Every friendship is an excellence* in itself, even though it begins in mutual advantage.

* The word used is ἀρετή aretē usually translated as "virtue" in other contexts.

Don, thanks. Another prejudice is that Epicureans friendship means to them to isolate with only some few friends from society.

But I understand friendship (Philia) in Epicureanism as a attitude / virtue like also Aristotles defines it.

Philia - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

And it is a form of love. That would challenge Senecas quote where he mentions that the Stoic school is the most kind:

https://modernstoicism.com/the-stoic-love…Clemency%203.3).

Quote from Matteng

In positive psychology, a distinction is made between hedonistic, happiness(Pleasure) and Eudaimonia. Do I understand it correctly that Eumonia happiness is also hedonistic happiness at its core?

Most of the Hellenistic philosophers can be described as "Eudaimonic" in their ethics. Overwhelmingly, they agreed that "happiness" (being the general translation with which we are largely comfortable) was the goal in life. Their definitions of "happiness", however, (and how to obtain it) differed drastically, so the word was employed in differing, technical ways.

We might prefer to call Socrates "pre-Hellenistic", but, as per Plato's dialogues, he (and Plato) discuss eudaimonia often. For them, it was a function of temperance (in particular, I would argue, self-restraint, or self-denial). Socratic happiness strikes me as tending toward asceticism. From this, Plato argues that a eudaimonic person has an organized soul, in accordance with the Form of the Good, so this sort of happiness is highly abstract (and I question if it can actually be felt).

Aristotle saw eudaimonia as "excellence", exemplified by a Man of Action, an engaged, public figure (typically male; he wasn't convinced that females were intellectually capable of pursuing philosophical excellence). The excellent Aristotelian can be evaluated as a function of their moral adherence to the Golden Mean, and the utility they provide to their polis. For Aristotle, a person could not enjoy excellence without engaging in a reputable, profitable occupation. Simply clearing one's mind of anxiety, and enjoying simple pleasures of life was not enough.

Epicurus, of course, thought this was all malarky. Eudaimonia for the Epicureans was "pleasure", pure, unadulterated, unapologetic pleasure, fearlessness of the mind, and painlessness of the flesh. The happy Epicurean was not limited by political duties or occupational obligations. Of course, nature compels a happy person to be practical, have integrity, and treat others with decency, so he was not alien to civic engagement. However, having a prosperous career was not seen as being necessary to happiness, and politics was seen as being (usually) anti-thetical.

Pyrrho (the Skeptic) said this was all nonsense. Eudaimonia for him was a kind of epistemological "tranquility" and was only attainable by suspending all alleged judgments, having concluded that no dogma can be justified. He doesn't trust sensation, pleasure, or, for that matter, the possibility of reliable knowledge through logical inference. His type of eudaimonia strikes me as being unpleasant, or, perhaps, cold, unfeeling, and unrewarding. That bring me to the Stoics.

For the Stoics, eudaimonia is "virtue", cold, calculated virtue (I don't think they'd like the "cold" description, so forgive my clear, Epicurean bias). The happy life of the Stoics may not be a pleasurable life, but is definitely a life in which one's behavior is governed by the conclusions of logical propositions, and never by the pleasurable or painful consequences of actions.

Of all of these philosophers, few equated "happiness" with "physical pleasure". Largely, happiness was associated with prosperity or self-denial, and usually not "feeling happy".

Quote from Matteng

Another prejudice is that Epicureans friendship means to them to isolate with only some few friends from society.

See my article somewhere on this site on the location of the Garden. It was not a convent cut off from society. Supposedly, there was even a sign welcoming passers-by. There was no isolation.

FYI

File

Where was the Garden of Epicurus? The Evidence from the Ancient Sources and Archaeology

While we will probably never know the exact location of Epicurus’s Garden in ancient Athens, we can take a number of educated guesses.

Don

April 19, 2023 at 11:10 PM