Episode 176 - "Epicurus And His Philosophy" Part 28 - Chapter 12 - The New Hedonism 05

    Quote from Godfrey

    he best way to discuss pleasure, pain and neutral is by leading with the sensations and feelings, not by leading with logic.

    Godfrey I agree that is the *best* way, and I think that is what Torquatus is reporting was insisted on by Epicurus himself in stating that no more proof is necessary or appropriate than pointing to animals and pleasure and snow and the like.


    But it's not the **only** and as Torquatus said it appears the later Epicureans (and I think Epicurus himself too) decided that for multiple reasons we cannot abandon the field of logic and philosophy itself to the pin-head Platonists. So if we are going to argue for pleasure on philosophic grounds, we have to have rigorous and bullet-proof logical statement of how all this fits together.


    Were Emily Austin to say "I think Epicurus was right -- look at what babies do! - I rest my case" and close her book and sit down for the rest of the semester, she would likely be in very hot water, and probably not satisfied with herself either.


    So I don't think there is really an tension here -- for those who will accept the direct physical example that you mentioned, that is all that is needed.


    But are those people really going to be secure in their confidence that they are correct if they pick up literally ANY book or article written by anyone whose last name is not DeWitt or Austin and read what they have to say about Epicurus?


    Unfortunately I am afraid the answer is clear and we have to BOTH attack on common-sense observation, and on on logical philosophic grounds, just like the ancient epicureans did.


    I was thinking just a minute ago something related to this; In Philebus, Plato has Philebus stab his argument in the heart by admiring that pleasure has no limit. In On Ends, Cicero cannot bring himself (probably on pain of an Epicurean uprising) to put words in Torquatus' mouth that undermine his own case. Torquatus never deviates from the Epicurean formula, and all of his statements are textbook Epicurean correctness. But what Cicero does NOT do is allow Torquatus to give a full explanation of Epicurus' reasoning that goes into detail about how Epicurus reached these conclusions.


    We can do that today, by mining Lucretius and the rest of the texts and interpolating between the lines what was really going on in Epicurus' argument.

    This is true, but I don't think that Epicurus' ideas became as widespread as they were in antiquity by way of logical arguments. Obviously there were logical arguments going on, but my speculation is that the commoner Epicureans that Cicero griped about would have understood the philosophy through direct experience. The practice of frank speech would have been one method to help to analyze direct experience. Logical arguments lose their pursuasiveness once one has a visceral understanding of a philosophy.


    The nurturing of nuanced observation of pleasures, pains and desires may once have been a group activity in the Garden, but now we're left to figure it out on our own. Perhaps there's a way to reintroduce a semi-structured version of this type of observation for our current situation. It might begin with a tightly focused exercise and advance from there. And such an exercise, or series of exercises, could be of interest to people who are looking for alternatives to the popular Stoic exercises.

    Quote from Godfrey

    It might begin with a tightly focused exercise and advance from there. And such an exercise, or series of exercises, could be of interest to people who are looking for alternatives to the popular Stoic exercises.

    I find this very interesting, and I agree that there is a significant segment to which this will appeal and we need to develop it.


    But in the end I don't see Lucretius or Diogenes of Oinoanda or whoever the original source of Torquatus' words was showing evidence that they themselves were primarily pursuing that kind of approach. I see where Cassius Longinus wrote that the philosophy of virtue is hard to understand, while the philosophy of pleasure is not, and that might be a hint of such an approach. And I definitely think that once you grasp the issues viscerally you see the big picture in emotional or even sensual terms every bit as strongly as Cicero would assert the glories of virtue. I guess where I end up is "different strokes for different folks" and that it looks to me that both Epicurus and the later Epicureans thought both approaches were important.


    And if we were to use Lucretius as a pattern, we should start always with the senses and observe that it is pleasure that drives the ships and the birds and the bees and everything else. But after we make that first observation we then appropriately spend six books and tens of thousands of words tracing down the logical path that follows from the first premise: that while pleasure rules life, the next step is not just to stand silent and observe, but then to use our minds and bodies to follow the observation that nothing comes from nothing, and then mentally and physically trace literally everything else out from there so that we too can successfully follow pleasure, just like the birds and the bees do without worrying about why. Our ships require both approaches to continue sailing, or else we are in danger of lbeing seduced to leave them in port with sails furled and oars out of the water, which is not what ships are for.

    Quote from Cassius

    But it's not the **only** and as Torquatus said it appears the later Epicureans (and I think Epicurus himself too) decided that for multiple reasons we cannot abandon the field of logic and philosophy itself to the pin-head Platonists. So if we are going to argue for pleasure on philosophic grounds, we have to have rigorous and bullet-proof logical statement of how all this fits together.

    You keep using the word "logic" and I think we have to narrow down our terms. As I understand it, Epicurus's opposition was to Socratic-style dialectic, διαλεκτικός, defined by LSJ as "dialectic, discussion by question and answer, invented by Zeno of Elea, Arist.Fr.65; philosophical method." He didn't want to walk around, endlessly debating what things meant. He wanted to point to nature and declare, "There! Right there! **That** is what we mean (or should mean) when we say X." In that sense, I think he was "dogmatic" in the sense of taking a stand, planting his flag, and torpedoes be damned.

    Now, he took those assertions and inferred larger points from them, but, as a starting point, he pointed to - what he saw as - the foundational meaning of words as phenomena existing in Nature and treated them as axioms as we might say. "An axiom is a proposition in mathematics and epistemology that is taken to be self-evident or is chosen as a starting point of a theory."

    Later Epicureans got cold feet and got intimidated by other schools and their fancy arguments. I think Epicurus stood his ground as to the self-evident nature of his assertions on what was meant by pleasure, and the gods for that matter.

    Quote from Cassius

    Were Emily Austin to say "I think Epicurus was right -- look at what babies do! - I rest my case" and close her book and sit down for the rest of the semester, she would likely be in very hot water, and probably not satisfied with herself either

    That strikes me as a reductio ad absurdum. Epicurus didn't stop at his assertion, but used it as a foundation upon which to build.

    Right to all. I am using "logic" loosely for dialectic or just generally these elaborate and abstract constructions that we get into as we go back and forth dealing with the assorted traps and diversions that people like Plato or Paul or Plotinus create.

    Regarding the difficult quote from Theophrastus that "The happy man cannot mount the scaffold to the wheel," I found this confession of a 19th century Parisian: "I demand to expiate it; — I accept the responsibility; — I wish to mount the scaffold." This indicates at least to me that 'mounting the scaffold' to be hanged connotes volition on the part of the condemned. Theophrastus might well be saying that it is impossible to willingly undergo torture, and Epicurus responds by saying that one might well undergo torture willingly to save a friend.


    Also relevant are these lines from Shakespeare's Richard II:


    “O, who can hold a fire in his hand

    By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?

    Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

    By bare imagination of a feast?

    Or wallow naked in December snow

    By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

    O, no! the apprehension of the good

    Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:

    Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more

    Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.”

    The oldest references to the wheel as an execution tool go back to late antiquity in Germany.

    I found no mentioning of execution or torture with the wheel by ancient Romans and Greeks.

    Therefore, Theophrastus most likely means something else with scaffold and wheel.

    The Loeb translation has a footnote referencing a Greek phrase: στρεβλοῦσθαι ἐπὶ τροχοῦ

    to stretch on the wheel or rack, to rack, torture

    "Ixion was expelled from Olympus and blasted with a thunderbolt. Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion was bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens,[18] but in later myth transferred to Tartarus.[19][20] Only when Orpheus played his lyre during his trip to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice did it stop for a while."

    M. Tullius Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, book 5, section 24


    in eo etiam putatur dicere in rotam— id est genus quoddam tormenti apud Graecos6—beatam vitam non escendere.7 non usquam8 id quidem dicit omnino, sed quae dicit, idem valent.


    6 id est ... Graecos del. Er. vix recte. τροχὸς ante hunc locum a Romanis non commemoratur. (in R his verbis linea subducta est, sed s. XVII/XVIII demum sec. Stroux) ge- nus R


    Greek Word Study Tool


    wheel of torture, Anacr.21.9; “ἐπὶ τοῦ τ. στρεβλοῦσθαι” Ar.Pl.875, Lys.846, D.29.40; “ἕλκεσθαι” Ar.Pax452; “ἐπὶ τὸν τ. ἀναβῆναι” Antipho 5.40; “ἀναβιβάζειν τινὰ ἐπὶ τὸν τ.” And.1.43; “ἐν τῷ τ. ἐνδεδεμένον” Plu.2.509c; τῷ τ. προσηλοῦν [᾽Ιξίονα] ib.19e, cf. Luc. DDeor.6.5.


    PS:

    Antiphon, On the murder of Herodes, section 40

    [40] Also let me point out to you that at the start, before being placed on the wheel, in fact, until extreme pressure was brought to bear, the man adhered to the truth and declared me innocent. It was only when on the wheel, and when driven to it, that he falsely incriminated me, in order to put an end to the torture.

    Antiphon (orator) - Wikipedia