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

Quote from Godfrey

By virtue of being originally written in French, it has a slightly different linguistic approach to ours which will potentially depth to our understanding.

This, I think, is an oft-overlooked principle. I corresponded online for years with a guy whose 1st language was Portuguese; he was also fluent in Spanish and English (and, as I recall, had a good grasp of French). His English was impeccable, better than a great many native-English speakers we also corresponded with – in fact, he wrote his PhD dissertation (economics) in English.

I once asked him if changing languages changed his thinking. His response: Absolutely. In fact, he would often switch languages (at least in his mind) to evoke new perspectives/insights to whatever he was thinking about.

I am sure that translation from, e.g. Greek, through different languages also adds to insight.

[Sadly, I am mostly restricted to English; used to know a bit of Hebrew and a much-impoverished Spanish. All lost in the mists of Lethe.]

Quote from Cassius

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.

Just a brief interjection as I work more through this discussion (and am reading the Kindle free sample of the book):

Personally, I have never thought that's what serenity means – and I'm not convinced that most people do. I think it would be an extremely narrow (mis)interpretation.

Apparently, it was originally related to weather: clear, calm, bright. Figuratively, the Latin serenitas was also used to mean “cheerful, glad or joyous.”

serene | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet's go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words,…

www.etymonline.com

serenitas - Wiktionary

serenus - Wiktionary

In any event, I suspect that Guyau (knowledgeable in philology I think) would have had the notions outlined in etymonline in mind. Nevertheless, if he left it at “The good then is serenity” – without qualification – even in French, I think we would all agree that that is a one-sidedness of the kind sometimes applied directly to the Greek ataraxia (and which has been discussed often on here).

Added note:

I also think that we do well to understand that pleasures do not (necessarily, or even usually) come “single file” as it were – but can (and maybe mostly do) combine in ways to enhance each other in an overall experience. Then it would seem generally to be a misguided reductionism to try to separate and isolate each individual pleasure in some “utilitarian” quest to identify how many “utils” each one contributes.*

I can be serene while robustly cheering on my favorite NBA team, while enjoying a quiet martini on our deck overlooking the lake, while enjoying a good meal or congenial conversation (even friendly debate). Each of those pleasurable experiences is made up of any number of pleasures – and ataraxia/serenity.

+++++++++++

* This is not say that contemplating those individual pleasures might not be useful sometimes – but not, for me, as some kind of abacus-like hedonic “calculus."

I like what the translator says about Guyau taking an evolutionary view of any philosophical system – while recognizing the importance of trying to identify the associated germinal ideas at the foundation. I would add: a dialectical-evolutionary approach, taking into account multiple perspectives (a kind of dialectical perspectivism).

+++++++++++

Okay Godfrey! You got me: I had to buy the book! 😊

I finished reading the chapter in which Guyau says “The good then is serenity.” The preceding pages of the chapter contrast Aristippus’ notion that there exists an indeterminate state between pleasure and pain – and Epicurus’ rejection of such a state. For Epicurus, hedone/aponia/atarxia (and eudaimonia) congeal, as it were – sometimes subsumed under the heading of just hedone (or perhaps eudaimonia*).

In this schema, so-called kinetic pleasure is the active (and enjoyable) response to some pone – such as hunger. Pleasure comes from both satisfaction of the hunger and from the sensual taste of the food (however simple). The afterward feeling of satisfaction and contentment is also pleasure (so-called katastemic?).

In rejecting Aristippus’ neutral state, Guyau uses the word “serenity” to refer to the ability to generally sustain that state of hedone/aponia/ataraxia/eudaimonia. That is, for him, the ultimate hedonic telos – even if perfectly achievable only by an archetypal Epicurean “sage.” (Though Guyau also seems to affirm that – with attention to a due natural frugality/simplicity – such an ideal is within the grasp of most of us, which Epicurus intended.)

+++++++++++++++++++

* I do not see hedone/aponia/ataraxia as instrumental virtues aiming at eudaimonia – as if that were some other value-in-itself. I rather see a eudaimonic life as constitutive of the most pleasurable/pleasant life I can put together. Eudaimonia is not separable from hedone.

Twenty-odd years ago, a philosopher friend of mine suggested that I read Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (though my friend was thoroughly Aristotelian). In the attempt, I had such a strong, negative emotional reaction that I kept throwing the book on the floor and (literally) kicking it across the room. I never got close to finishing it.

Kant claimed a kind of axiomatic “self-evidence” for duty as the basis for all morality and moral agency. The book hit me in the face with the very "Pavlovian" social programming that informed my childhood and formative years – and remained locked in my subconscious, to be triggered (most often with anguishing guilt, sometimes nightmares) by whatever “post-hypnotic” triggers were embedded. (Some therapy helped alleviate that – but, likely due to my own failings on follow-through, did not eliminate it.)

Even after discovering Epicurus, I have not been adept at putting together all the “clues” to complete the puzzle in a therapeutic way (again, my failings). But Guyau takes on that debilitating Stoic/Kantian virtue/duty driven morality (calling Kantianism a “new Stoicism) mano y mano – in a way that just toggled all the right switches in my slow-to-learn brain.

I can honestly say that, had I read Guyau 20 years ago, I would have become an Epicurean 20 years ago. (This is not to in any way deprecate all that I have read on Epicureanism in recent years – including the wonderful stuff on here: Guyau simply hits me directly where I have lived.) Fortunately, as Epicurus said (in other words), it is never too late.

So, Godfrey, I am profoundly grateful! 😊

Thank you Pacatus that gives me more incentive to read this book.

Much as with the other words like "tranquility," I obviously have no problems with the desirability of "serenity," but I continue to think there is something missing when someone seems to be seeking to wrap up in a single word -- which to me constitutes at most an "adverb" (such as "I am living serenely") -- without explicitly stating that the act of "living" in such a way entails all sorts of physical activities that are the true heart of what is going on.

I will eventually get this book so I can see how my concerns compare to Guyau's explanation of the topic. Perhaps many years ago my concern would be out of place, and it would go without saying that the praise of absence of pain was not intended to elevate a state of mind to a self-contained objective. Paraphrasing a Platonist who DeWitt cites in his book, I don't think Epicurus expected that naming "pleasure" the guide of life could ever be interpreted as a call for the draining of all active physical and mental pleasures from life .

But I definitely think in today's intellectual mix this cannot be left unexplained, and I would like to see where Guyau fits into this.

Quote from Cassius

don't think Epicurus expected that naming "pleasure" the guide of life could ever be interpreted as a call for the draining of all active physical and mental pleasures from life .

Quote from Epicurus

67. I do not think I could conceive of the good without the joys of taste, of sex, of hearing, and without the pleasing motions caused by the sight of bodies and forms.

I continue to soapbox that all pleasures are included in Epicurus's definition of pleasure/hedone; however, he also taught that we can have more confidence in pleasure that arises from within ourselves (tranquility, memory, anticipation, etc.) than that which arises from outside ourselves (sex, food, music, dance, etc.) . That which arises from within are always at hand.

Quote from Pacatus

* I do not see hedone/aponia/ataraxia as instrumental virtues aiming at eudaimonia – as if that were some other value-in-itself. I rather see a eudaimonic life as constitutive of the most pleasurable/pleasant life I can put together. Eudaimonia is not separable from hedone.

Some thoughts perculating in response. The sensations of hedone/aponia/ataraxia result due to choices, and our choices are limited by the options we can imagine, and those choices are limited by the options which are realistically available to us. My niece has five children that she home-schools, and I seriously doubt that tranquility and serenity will be available to her (except in very brief moments) till they grow up and move out of the house (three boys and two girls). And yet, since hedone is additive (not subtractive) then I say that hedone (both of mind and of body) could be a direct path to happiness for her. If she thinks she needs aponia and ataraxia to be happy then she will wait a long time.

I maintain that ataraxia is a sort of mindset. The metaphor is sailing on calm seas. It affects how we approach other choices. To me, ataraxia is the eye in the hurricane. We can have a tranquil mind in the midst of chaos. It's "katastematic" because it is a state of being arising from within. As opposed to the pleasure or pain that comes from activities.

I fully agree that parenting can be chaotic, but we have the choice to deal with it calmly (at least internally) or with anger or impatience. And sometimes we will be angry but we need to know if it does, does it come from a place of correcting behavior of children or protection of them or from some other place?

Quote from Godfrey

Once one has children, keeping one's calm becomes a natural and necessary desire. When looked at in this way, it bumps it up in the list of priorities to be dealt with.

What's Epicurean for "Amen!"

Quote from Godfrey

he interprets Epicurus one way, but understands Epicureanism another way

Can you summarize his view of the difference?

Quote from Cassius

but I continue to think there is something missing when someone seems to be seeking to wrap up in a single word

Especially in a translation. But I do recall Luther's "solas": sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura -- grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.

Epicurean version: sola hedone, sola aponia, sola ataraxia.   Don: apologies for mixing Latin and Greek.

monon hedone, monon aponia, monon ataraxia?

Quote from Pacatus

I like what the translator says about Guyau taking an evolutionary view of any philosophical system – while recognizing the importance of trying to identify the associated germinal ideas at the foundation. I would add: a dialectical-evolutionary approach, taking into account multiple perspectives (a kind of dialectical perspectivism).

I wanted to add to my comment about Guyau’s evolutionary approach …

Here’s what I mean by “dialectical perspectivism”* (which is not the simple thesis-antithesis-synthesis):

There is no “view from nowhere – or from everywhere” (the so-called “God’s-eye view”): there are only multiple perspectives. A metaphor –

First you look through this window into the room; then another window, etc. Maybe you get in through an open door. Even if you get to stand in the center of the room, your view as you turn around changes. No one of those views is the sole “right one.” But false perspectives (e.g. manipulated with mirrors, in this visual metaphor) are possible.

My perspectivism is more that of the Spanish existential philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset than of Nietzsche – but the idea is that the best we can really do is to allow ourselves as many perspectives as possible, sort through them, form the best picture for ourselves (which will itself be a personal, existential perspective), and be willing to change our “view” as new views come to fore for us.

In terms of Epicurus and the evolution of Epicureanism, I think we need to approach it the same way, as we each personalize our application. And always read critically, every source. I might find a given viewpoint or quote personally helpful: but that doesn’t mean it is some definitive summation – just a helpful perspective. (I don’t know yet how Guyau presents his evolutionary analysis; have to keep reading … 😊 )

++++++++++++

* The method is how I recall one writer describing Marx’s dialectical approach in Capital: analyzing from such conceptual viewpoints as use-value, labour-value, exchange-vale and value.