The Ethics of Epicurus and its Relation to Contemporary Doctrines by Jean-Marie Guyau. Edited by Testa and Ansell-Pearson, translated by Testa

    This is a fascinating read: Guyau, at the age of 19, wrote a 1300 page critique of Utilitarianism as an entry to a competition. The dissertation was very well received at the time; subsequently it was revised into two volumes, of which this is the first. This volume (240 pages or so) is dedicated to Epicurean philosophy.


    This volume is divided into four books:

    Book 1: The Pleasures of the Flesh

    Book 2: The Pleasures of the Soul

    Book 3: Private and Public Virtues

    Book 4: The Modern Successors of Epicurus


    Apparently the second volume deals with utilitarianism.... However, Guyau considers Epicurus to have been the first utilitarian philosopher. I've just finished Book 1, but already I think that this would be a great book for more people here to read and discuss. Not so much for utilitarianism, but because it's an excellent treatment of Epicurean philosophy. By virtue of being originally written in French, it has a slightly different linguistic approach to ours which will potentially depth to our understanding.

    Here are some excerpts from the Editors Introduction, considering utilitarianism. Note that EP is being discussed in the introduction as utilitarian, not Utilitarian. Further, in Book 1 it's hardly mentioned: the focus is EP (as it appears to be throughout the book).


    "In a way, one could say that utilitarianism is but a chapter (although an important one) in a broader history of Epicureanism."


    "Against the traditional reconstruction of Epicureanism as an egoistic and apolitical morality, characterized by a lack of attention to social concerns and a withdrawal from politics, Guyau shows that it was within the Epicurean tradition that important notions of modern political thought were first developed, such as a society founded on mutual agreements and the idea of social progress. To the Stoic tradition of natural law Guyau opposes the Epicurean ‘pact of utility’, which embodies the natural right of not harming and not being harmed by others. The pact, as Guyau sees it, is a way to come to terms with the tension existing between individual and society, between egoism and altruism."


    "For Guyau, Epicureanism’s distinctive character resides in also considering the future when acting in the present. For the Epicurean, the present must be linked to the future, and both present and future converge in the composition of a ‘whole of life’. It is this encounter between present and future in enjoyment that Guyau calls ‘utility’: utility is pleasure fecundated by the idea of time."

    For Cassius , here are some excerpts from the end of Book 1 regarding the absence of pain:


    "We conclude then that the sovereign pleasure and the sovereign good is the absence of pain and trouble, aponia, ataraxia; it is rest itself and tranquillity, katastēma.


    "Should we believe, following most critics, that Epicurus understood absolute imperturbability to be a state similar to sleep and death? – The idea of trouble, which Epicurus strongly conceived and developed, has its natural principle in the idea of harmony. One can only disturb that which is harmonious, and one only fears turmoil and trouble because one wishes to preserve harmony. The last word of Epicureanism, therefore, should not be aponia, the absence of pain, but rather the conservation of pleasure: it is with a view to conserving pleasure that we must avoid every change, every movement coming from the outside. It is to preserve pleasure that we must reduce ourselves to [a state of] imperturbability regarding the outside. This imperturbability is itself only a means – indeed, an infallible one – with the help of which one preserves oneself, one maintains oneself, one persists in being and in the harmony of being.


    "To summarize, the good according to Aristippus consists in moving, in changing oneself, running from pleasure to pleasure, enhancing past enjoyment with a new enjoyment. In contrast, to possess the good, Epicurus says, is to rest immobile in oneself. Instead of concerning oneself with gaining [new enjoyments] we need to make every effort not to lose anything. It is to restrain and restrict all the fugacious and superficial enjoyments to just one, an indestructible and profound one, which is an enjoyment of life itself. The good, then, is serenity."


    "To express the ineffable enjoyment that Epicurus experiences when elevating himself above what is accidental and variable, he finds the word euphrosunē insufficient. The etymology of this term is eu-phrēn, and it expresses a fortunate disposition of the soul, a sort of fugitive chance. He situates the euphrosunē among the inferior pleasures of movement. Additionally, he even demotes to a second rank the chara, that is to say, the joy, elation, that has its source in movement (kata kinēsin) and in the tension of muscles or energy (energeia). The only really profound pleasure is constitutive pleasure, which is, as we have seen, the one that engenders the absence of pain and trouble: aponia and ataraxia. The Epicurean sage does not rejoice himself, rather he enjoys. – If Epicurus excludes everything that appears to imply movement and change from happiness, he does not limit himself to express his conception negatively. First, the term hēdonē katastēmatikē (stable and constitutive pleasure), which constantly appears in his writings, expresses something different from the absence of trouble and absolute imperturbability; it seems to designate a pleasure that is at the same time stable and profound, inherent in our nature, in our sensible constitution. Epicurus employs another term which is even more positive, eustathes katastēma sarkos (stable constitution of the flesh). We have seen him employing another expression that is not less striking: sumplērōthēsetai to tēs psuchēs kai to tou sōmatos agathon (will fulfil the good of soul and body). This plenitude of good cannot be the void defining insensibility. Epicurus uses words like pistis bebaios, pistōma bebaiotaton, which are anything but negative: the unshakable assurance of the sage is not the laisser-aller of apathy. We will see him speaking elsewhere of the courageous struggle of the sage against fortune, tuchē antitattesthai. How could this conscious struggle be considered as that passive and empty resignation, which is so often attributed to the Epicureans? Finally, another strongly positive term that is employed by Epicurus confirms our interpretation: it is the term hugieia; that is, the healthy and good proportionate state of the being as a whole, body and soul, in order and harmony. This is undoubtedly the happiness that the Epicurean sage finds within himself once he has eliminated all trouble. 51"


    Footnote 51: "Félix Ravaisson (Essai sur la Métaphysique d’Aristote, II, 105, 106) seeks to refer [or reduce] hugieia and aponia to the mere absence of peine and trouble. Having this identification [of hugieia and aponia] as his starting point, this is Ravaisson’s conclusion: ‘The goal of wisdom and the art of living is, according to Epicurus, to reach a point where one no longer feels anything … Epicureanism finds sovereign good in a state of absolute impassibility, which is an abstraction, a negation, in a word, nothing.’ – Impassibility in relation to the exterior, maybe; but inner insensibility? – The [Epicurean] texts we have quoted prove the opposite. Ataraxia is, without any doubt, the negation of all that which is foreign to [a certain] being; but what is left is the being itself, which affirms itself in face of the exterior: the ineffable enjoyment of intimate harmony – spiritual and material – is this an abstraction, is this nothing? It seems much more logical to refer, by finding support in [Epicurus’] texts, aponia (the absence of ponos, pain or suffering) and ataraxia (the absence of trouble or turmoil) to hugieia (health) than to reduce, without a clear reason, hugieia to aponia. Epicurus does not say anywhere that the absence of pain [peine] constitutes pleasure all by itself. He rather says that ‘pleasure is perceived as soon as all pain is subtracted [enlevée],’ percipitur omni dolore detracto (Cicero, De finibus, X, xi, 37). Epicurus’ originality in relation to his predecessors – Aristippus, on the one hand, and Hieronymus, on the other –is precise to have denied the existence of a purely negative or neutral state, in which one would only find absence of pain: Epicurus this intermediate state, this medium quiddam (Cicero, De finibus, I, 38); it is not, therefore, turning it into his ideal. That which also helps refuting Ravaisson’s position is the consequences that he extracts from his hypothesis: ‘If the end goal of happiness is not suffering or perceiving any pain, doesn’t this mean that what is most desirable for man is to die – and, what is more, to never have come into existence in the first place?’ (Essai sur la Métaphysique d’Aristote, II, 113). – We will [later] see the verse of the poet that Ravaisson mentions attacked by Epicurus himself. – Moreover, Ravaisson writes, ‘Pleasure is nothing but the end of pain, and whenever pain comes to an end only by means of death itself.’ – Believing that Epicurus did not see these consequences or simply accepted them means attributing to him incredible naivety and absurdity. Let us look, by means of contrast, to a text by Epicurus: ‘Death is indifferent to us, because all good and all evil reside in the action of feeling, and death is the privation of sensibility: mēthen pros hēmas einai ton thanaton, epei pan agathon kai kakon en aisthēsei, sterēsis d’ estin aisthēseōs ho thanatos’ (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, X, 124). How could one [after reading this passage] still defend the thesis according to which Epicurus thought that insensibility and negation found in sterēsis (privation) consisted in achievement and perfection, or the sumplērōsis (plenitude) of the good? Neither insensibility nor death are good for Epicurus, and he clearly responds to all those who attribute this idea to him."


    " ‘From the moment when we are freed from pain, we enjoy the deliverance itself and exemption from every kind of constraint.’ (Cicero, De finibus, I, xi, 37; I, xvii, 56) To live in freedom, in rest and harmony with oneself, to have the inner feeling that one lives, this is supreme pleasure, in comparison to which all the others are but so many changing forms. Forever the same, this pleasure can exist independently and subsist above all others."


    Lots to chew on!

    I downloaded this from Amazon. I think the French version is from 1874, I'm not sure when the English translation was done. But it's readily available.

    Interesting! I googled and look at one of the first pages that came up. Quite a graphic containing a phrase we have used ourselves in our discussions here:


    Godfrey I missed your long excerpt in post 4 earlier. Just to repeat some of it:


    Quote from Godfrey

    "To summarize, the good according to Aristippus consists in moving, in changing oneself, running from pleasure to pleasure, enhancing past enjoyment with a new enjoyment. In contrast, to possess the good, Epicurus says, is to rest immobile in oneself. Instead of concerning oneself with gaining [new enjoyments] we need to make every effort not to lose anything. It is to restrain and restrict all the fugacious and superficial enjoyments to just one, an indestructible and profound one, which is an enjoyment of life itself. The good, then, is serenity."

    Yeah I guess if this is reflective of his views then I doubt I can climb aboard. I will give him credit for looking for something positive in stillness and immobility, and in fact it seems clear that that is the best face that one can put on an ascetic interpretation.


    But I don't buy it at all. Thank Zeus Diogenes Laertius preserved clearly that Epicurus embraced BOTH the pleasures of rest and of motion. That Epicurus did so is to me obvious from many other texts, but there is no doubt that one can read portions of the letter to Menoeceus in isolation and conclude that preservation and immobility are viable interpretations of some kind of ultimate goal. Even I can stretch those words to seem acceptable, but in the end we can't dance around it.


    I think it's highly valuable to have these discussions so we can confront them. It's also essential that we make clear that someone whose number one priority in life is immobility and fear of pain has profoundly misinterpreted Epicurus.


    There's no way to avoid this controversy. It exists and people will always be confronted by it. I think Epicurus would expect us to stand tall and point out the errors as clearly as possible.

    For me, this book isn't about climbing aboard. There seems to be more nuance to his position than what that summary indicates, and that's what makes it interesting to me.

    Quote from Guyau

    Finally, another strongly positive term that is employed by Epicurus confirms our interpretation: it is the term hugieia; that is, the healthy and good proportionate state of the being as a whole, body and soul, in order and harmony. This is undoubtedly the happiness that the Epicurean sage finds within himself once he has eliminated all trouble. 51

    This sounds to me like homeostasis, in current terms.


    Further:

    Quote from Guyau

    51 ...That which also helps refuting Ravaisson’s position is the consequences that he extracts from his hypothesis: ‘If the end goal of happiness is not suffering or perceiving any pain, doesn’t this mean that what is most desirable for man is to die – and, what is more, to never have come into existence in the first place?’ (Essai sur la Métaphysique d’Aristote, II, 113).... Moreover, Ravaisson writes, ‘Pleasure is nothing but the end of pain, and whenever pain comes to an end only by means of death itself.’ – Believing that Epicurus did not see these consequences or simply accepted them means attributing to him incredible naivety and absurdity. Let us look, by means of contrast, to a text by Epicurus: ‘Death is indifferent to us, because all good and all evil reside in the action of feeling, and death is the privation of sensibility...’ (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, X, 124). How could one [after reading this passage] still defend the thesis according to which Epicurus thought that insensibility and negation found in sterēsis (privation) consisted in achievement and perfection, or the sumplērōsis (plenitude) of the good? Neither insensibility nor death are good for Epicurus, and he clearly responds to all those who attribute this idea to him."

    After giving Epicurus' view of death, this:

    Quote from Guyau

    " ‘From the moment when we are freed from pain, we enjoy the deliverance itself and exemption from every kind of constraint.’ (Cicero, De finibus, I, xi, 37; I, xvii, 56) To live in freedom, in rest and harmony with oneself, to have the inner feeling that one lives, this is supreme pleasure, in comparison to which all the others are but so many changing forms. Forever the same, this pleasure can exist independently and subsist above all others."

    Which sounds something like what we often say, that we only have one life to enjoy so we should appreciate and make the most of it. And perhaps another version of homeostasis?

    Quote from Guyau

    It is to restrain and restrict all the fugacious and superficial enjoyments to just one, an indestructible and profound one, which is an enjoyment of life itself. The good, then, is serenity."

    I'm not sure that I would equate "an enjoyment with life itself" with "serenity." My focus in this quote was the former, not the latter. And I was again comparing this to homeostasis. The quote itself seems contradictory, so one has to piece together the totality of his argument at look at the wording, knowing that it's a translation from Greek (or Latin) to French to English.


    This is one reason why I feel that there's much to get from this book. He says a lot that I agree with, some things that I don't, and many that I need to think about more. It may be a little maddening, but at least for me, it's not a book that you can home in on one sentence or paragraph and draw a final conclusion, but an opportunity to consider the puzzle pieces and perhaps come away with a deeper understanding of my own interpretation even if I don't fully agree with him. There's a lot there to dig into, and he's quite sympathetic to Epicurus. So, another source to be aware of!

    Yes I see where you are going Godfrey and I definitely want to read further into this.


    At the moment I am thinking that the issue may be that in glass half full / half empty issue. In the face of an ambiguous construction (the end of pain) we project onto that ambiguity what we think we "should" project there given our cultural overlay.


    Today we are taught either a sort of oppressive religious absolutism or a sort of nihilistic nothingness or other assorted oppressiveness as a default position that would occur when our personal needs and desires are reduced to zero, and so when I hear "absence of pain" I hear nothingness and immobility and nothing attractive whatsoever.


    However if your starting presumption is that being alive in the absence of pain entails a fully effective organism that is able to accomplish everything it has the power to accomplish (and not just does nothing simply because it doesn't want to do anything) then maybe the picture you get of "absence of pain" immediately transforms into such a powerful image - and maybe that is Epicurus' frame of reference.


    But to me it would all boil down to that initial set of presumptions and references that - like all the atoms in the universe - we too are in motion and doing things smoothly in a way that we find makes for pleasure and happiness, and that initial set of presumptions and references cannot be left to ambiguity.


    I strongly doubt that Epicurus left it ambiguous in his own time - I feel sure his other writings explained this much more clearly than the letter to Menoeceus - and I feel certain that given our cultural mess today that it is essential that this not be left ambiguous.


    So yes we can say absence of pain constitutes an interesting generalized way to express the best state of existence, but the "then what is the person doing after that?" cannot be left to abstract notions that sound like "nothing," The explanation demands that the context and premises of the generalization be explained with clarity.

    I probably shouldn't have led with "absence of pain".... I did so knowing that it's a hot-button issue here, and hoping to demonstrate that he presented an interesting view of it.


    Having said that, Guyau does make an emphatic case against "absence of pain." Where I get uncomfortable (in a good way ^^ ) is with his narrowing the goal to a single focus of serenity. However, and I think Don might have something to say about this, it's not wrong to pursue serenity. Especially if you're thinking of it as homeostasis. A singular focus on serenity may not be correct, but serenity allows for maximal appreciation of a variety of pleasures. I think Epicurus repeatedly makes the latter point.


    Part of what's interesting to me is that Guyau wrote in French (which I don't speak) and naturally interpreted some of the tricky Greek words differently than we might. At the same time, much of what he wrote aligns well with my current understanding. Reading this book is making me think deeper, and in a new way, about a variety of ideas.

    Quote from Godfrey

    Where I get uncomfortable (in a good way ^^ ) is with his narrowing the goal to a single focus of serenity

    This is something I wanted to expand on before I saw your last post. I have the same issue with "homeostatus" or any similar words which leaves open the possibility that a human being might decide that his or her best life is sitting crosslegged on a floor staring at a candle.


    I think this is behind the ambiguity of Chrysippus' hand analogy too.


    We have to start with an understanding of what the normal healthy living thing does with its time so that we can understand what is presumed to be the result when all pain is eliminated.


    I know in my case (and I suspect I am far from alone) any construct of the ultimate good or goal must convey as essential a view of what it means for the organism to function at peak performance. While I reject the view that "man is the rational animal" and therefore the exercise of reason is the highest way to spend ones time, I do think we can derive from our nature that we have a full set of bodily and mental faculties to exercise as part of a normal and healthy life, so that any generalization of a life of total pleasure with zero pain is going to incorporate in it the exercise of those capacities.


    I am out of time to continue but this is the direction I would carry this, and it is my main complaint about the whole issue of using "absence of pain" as if it were a full and complete statement of the goal. The positive side of the exercise of mental and bodily functions to experience pleasure is the issue that can no longer (if it ever could) be left to unstated implication.

    Two approaches to clarify an approach to the ultimate goal come to mind offhand:


    1) Is the healthiest functioning of an organism stress free? Not entirely. Being stress free means that one's needs are met, but stress indicates a need for change and is a healthy response to stimuli. As humans, we can arguably be happier and more productive if we subject ourselves to a certain amount of stress (exercise, thinking about the value of serenity &c). But certain baseline mental stresses (fear of gods, fear of death &c) work against healthy functioning; eliminating these produces a baseline of serenity that allows for healthy functioning regarding other stressors.


    2) Looking at the desires: to my understanding the necessary desires are pretty much a given that are specific to each individual at a specific time and are relatively easy to satisfy to maximize the specific individual's pleasure. The unnatural desires are, also, pretty much a given to each individual at a specific time and need to be fled from to maximize the individual's pleasure. This leaves the natural and unnecessary desires (Emily Austin's extravagant desires) as a potentially huge group of possibilities for pleasure, and the most active field of choices and avoidances (or engaging and fleeing). If we were to do nothing but seek serenity and avoid pain, then this category would be nonsensical.

    Quote from Godfrey

    If we were to do nothing but seek serenity and avoid pain, then this category would be nonsensical.

    And if we were to imply that this category is to be frowned upon or minimized, then we would truly have a prescription for minimalism and asceticism that would totally contradict what we know about the facts of life and endeavors of every authentic ancient Epicurean who ever existed. There are literally zero examples of Epicureans who lived that way, and it is only the speculations and rumors surrounding ascetic interpretations of lines like we "could" compete with zeus for happiness with only bread and water and similar anecdotes that allow people to make these arguments. And this isn't just a "Roman Epicureans weren't good Epicureans" thing either - the will of Epicurus and his property holdings at death are only part of the evidence that he lived a normal life.


    Again - presuming "serenity" means what most people interpret it to m\be, as largely denoting mental and physical inactivity. No one generally says "I want to live a serene life" and expects the listener to understand a normal healthy active life.

    Godfrey --


    I relate this issue in my mind with a passage I read years ago in section of Wikipedia which criticized Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I had to go back into the old versions to find this as it seems to be no longer on the current page:




    To be clear, I am not now talking about CBT in any substantive sense, I just want to echo a criticism of ANY approach that it should first define and present what healthy normal human action looks like, and THEN present diagnosis and recommendations on how to proceed from any existing current point to get to that goal.


    Of course I think Epicurus does that - there are many passages remaining, and I feel sure there were many more, about how healthy normal people should spend their time while alive. I do not mean in the sense of recommendations as to careers or other specifics, but in the sense that the underlying presumption of the Greek experience to which Epicurus is in agreement is that one should live a normally active and healthy and full physical and mental life. I cannot imagine that they thought that any healthy normal person would take their statements as a prescription to go live in the proverbial cave on bread and water and stare at a candle.


    Yet in the world we are in today it is my contention that the person who is normally educated and acclimated to prevailing cultural and educational advice is apt to take just that approach when hearing "the goal of life is the absence of pain." For two thousand years we've been subjected to religious absurdities that imply that our treasure is in heaven or somewhere else and that the best we can hope for is to shelter in place from pain while we wait for our Redeemer to come pick us up. In this context it's just not a good idea to expect someone who may be under the influence of such absurd views of the ideal state to take for granted that "living without pain" really means LIVING without pain in normal and healthy human ways, and not like a monk or a lama sitting cross-legged with palms up waiting to absorb the vibrations of the universe (or some such thing).


    It is our lot as modern fans of Epicurus that Epicurus has been lumped in with those who preach quietism and pacifism and similar views, and that means that many people who come here, or who are alert to seeing Epicurean discussion on facebook or the internet, may think that we too here hold and promote such views.


    And that presents an interesting environment in which we need to find ways to make very clear, from the beginning, that the point of Epicurean philosophy is how to LIVE, and not how to while away or time immobilized and fearing the next pin to drop while we wait for death to deliver us to some better world and away from this one which is alleged to be fated to be nasty, brutish and short.


    If we aren't clear on why it is better that we have been born than that if we had not been born at all, we haven't even started to understand how to live.


    And so in answer to that criticism of CBT I underlined above -- I agree with it -- we need to be sure we are being clear about the details of the goal that Epicurus was presuming - I would argue - that we would all understand. That doesn't mean that we have to get involved in every specific of life, but it means we need to find a way to be clear that living means enjoying life fully and not ascetically.

    Since there is ambiguity surrounding the original Greek words and the dearth of extant texts (made worse, as you point out, by rival misinterpretations and the undue acceptance of these) it would seem that the best clarification of pleasure would be in outline form that builds up to a precise explanation.


    I'm time crunched at the moment, but post #13 would be a piece of that: relating pleasure to the doctrines of desire and to modern understanding as well as to the extant texts. Having a document showing how the pieces fit together in the comprehensive philosophy, but focusing on the ethics of pleasure to present a logical argument.

    Quote from Cassius

    We have to start with an understanding of what the normal healthy living thing does with its time so that we can understand what is presumed to be the result when all pain is eliminated.


    41. One must laugh and seek wisdom and tend to one's home life and use one's other goods, and always recount the pronouncements of true philosophy. γελᾶν ἅμα δεῖ καὶ φιλοσοφεῖν καὶ οἰκονομεῖν καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς οἰκειώμασι χρῆσθαι καὶ μηδαμῇ λήγειν τὰς ἐκ τῆς ὀρθῆς φιλοσοφίας φωνὰς ἀφιέντας.

    (source)


    This is clear and simple and I'm thinking that one interpretation of "use one's other goods" is that these are the "goods" of friendship and self-sufficiency, etc.


    It would be good to clearly define "happiness" and the path to it, as that would make things less ambiguous.

    This illustrates my love-hate relationship with the Epicurus Wiki at Epicurism.info: Two excellent paragraphs followed by immediate schizophrenic retraction -- as if "Oh NO Epicurus can't be in favor of a full life -- that would contradict our orthodox view of him! "


    And of course it includes the trope that those poor stupid ROMAN Epicureans just didn't understand what Epicurus was all about! Which of course fails to account for why the Romans would be so stupidly interpreting Epicurus when they had ALL his texts with a complete explanation and 200 years of examples of people applying it, while the writer of this note has access only to a small fraction of that information.


    NUTS TO ALL OF THAT!


    Vatican Saying 41 - Epicurus Wiki


    OK ok I had to look it up: anyone who writes "quotidian" rather than "everyday" or "commonplace" has some interpretive issues of his own to sort out! ;) It's almost as if that note were written by two separate people.



    The part I struck out in red represents everything wrong in modern Epicurean commentary.

    It seems anachronistic to re-contextualize Vatican Saying 41 in a Roman context. I have always taken this pronouncement to be directed toward Epicurus' correspondents who were logistically unable to relocate into the Garden. Unlike Noah's Ark, which apparently functioned like Mary Poppins' carpet bag (finite geometric dimensions with infinite volume), the Garden had limited space. Surely, "his friends who were so numerous that they could not be contained in whole cities" could not all cohabitate with the Hegemon. The author's commentary seems to parrot the criticism that it is impossible to live according to Epicurus' teachings.