Is All Desire Painful? How Would Epicurus Answer?

Yep, I think we are going to have to disagree; however, let me try to win you over to the dark side... or at least try to fully explain my position.

Quote from Cassius

I of course agree with your view of please and pain and feelings. I just also believe that the same words can also be used as concepts to denote the full spectrum of pleasurable feelings (same with pain), and I think that Epicurus is using it both ways in different contexts as needed.

From my perspective, pleasure (hedone) and pain (various words: lype, algos) refer to the *feelings* we experience. However, I also agree with you that the words "denote the full spectrum of pleasurable feelings (same with pain)." As I read the texts, I understand Epicurus et al. to be saying that ALL our feelings - ALL of the ways that we experience what happens to us (the literal meaning of pathe) - fall into either being pleasure or pain. All we feel can be categorized into one or the other those overarching categories. So, I agree that he's "using it both ways in different contexts," but our feeling is the constant referent.

Diogenes Laertius: They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined.

I believe Epicurus and the ancient Epicureans were firmly rooted in physical reality. When you say "concepts" I hear "Platonic ideals that exist outside the physical world." And the word that he uses is consistent for pleasure - hedone - although different words for pain are sometimes used to juxtapose against pleasure.

Quote from Cassius

For example i think references to "limit of pleasure" are conceptual. Of course we can prove our concept is accurate by looking to the feelings, and that's why it all makes sense. But the "limit of quantity of pleasure" does not in my mind describe a "particular feeling."

I agree that the "limit of pleasure" doesn't describe a "particular feeling." Instead, it refers to an animate being feeling only pleasurable sensations. Which, as finite, animate, mortal beings we can never achieve. It's a goal to move toward. That's why we choose and reject desires. To move closer to the limit of pleasure even if it is an unattainable goals for us mortal beings. Just because it's unattainable, it still is a worthy goal even if pleasures can be added and subtracted to our experience.

As it says:

Diogenes Laertius: Two sorts of happiness (eudaimonia) can be conceived, the one the highest possible*, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented, the other admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures (hedone).

Eudaimonia falls under pleasure. *"The highest possible" to me reads like "the limit of pleasure." We live as mortal beings and experience pleasure that can be augmented by adding and subtracting pleasures (pleasurable feelings).

Quote from TauPhi

Canonical pleasure is a feeling but "feeling pleasure" is something completely different and these two are not interchangeable.

I touched on this in my reply to Cassius but I felt a desire to respond directly to your post as well.

I disagree. As I mentioned above, from my reading, the Epicureans were firmly rooted in the physical world. Epicurus hit on using pleasure as a criteria of truth specifically because it was a visceral feeling which does "arise in every animate being."

Diogenes Laertius10.31..34: Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings (pathe) are the standards of truth ... They affirm that there are two states of feeling (pathe), pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined.

Grief, sadness, joy, and all the emotions or feelings fall either under pleasure or pain.

I'm not a huge fan of Brene Brown, but her recent Atlas of the Heart set out to classify our emotions:

https://brenebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Atlas-Resources_02_List-of-Emotions_FeaturedCover.png

In looking over her chart, I think every one of those emotions or experiences can be classified as either pain or pleasure (or painful or pleasurable if you like). That's what Diogenes is referring to when he says of the Epicureans "there are two states of feeling (pathe), pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being."

I'm still not sure desire is a feeling: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-a…on-and-a-desire

The subtitle of that article gets at something that's been tickling my brain: "Emotion and desire are intimately related, but which one comes first? " I would substitute "feeling" for "emotion" for out purposes, but it'll do. I also like "some desires are purely physiological or biological, although even these, whether or not they be satisfied, give rise to emotions." (my emphasis added) . I still think we can have feelings about a desire but I don't think that I think that desire itself is a feeling.

In looking at Brene Brown's list, I keep thinking: We can have a desire for longing. We can wish for contentment. We can want to have our grief taken away. We can want ice cream. We can lust for sex. We can't just desire/wish/want/lust. We have to desire desire/wish/want/lust for something. There has to be an object, internal or external, of our desire/wish/aspiration/want. I think this is why I'm reluctant to assign the word "feeling" to desire. Now, we can pile feelings on top of desire if we don't get what we want (or if we do get what we want).

Quote from TauPhi

He knew that when reasoning is involved people are prone to make mistakes in their judgements. Types of desires is a neat tool to increase our chances to reason well and to make choices that minimise pain and maximise pleasure.

I like the way you worded this. I'm not sure how I can fit it into what I wrote above, BUT I wanted to acknowledge that I like the way you worded this AND to say I agree with your idea.

Thanks for the reply.

My first reaction to your post is that whether it's concepts or preconcepts in translation, the word there in 33 is prolepsis, so we're back to the discussion of what the canonic faculty of what prolepsis is.

Quote from Cassius

it is also valid and important to abstract into the single word "pleasure" all possible examples of pleasurable feelings so that we can discuss pleasure conceptually and understand that it is "Pleasure" and not divine will or ideal forms that constitutes the highest good.

See, that's where I'm not understanding where our disagreement lies. I agree that the single word pleasure encompasses all possible pleasurable feelings.

The words of Epicurus in his work On Choice are : "Peace of mind and freedom from pain are pleasures which imply a state of rest ; joy and delight are seen to consist in motion and activity."

Right there, as an example, is Epicurus including ataraxia, aponia, joy, and delight under the heading of pleasure.

Quote from Cassius

that it is "Pleasure" ... that constitutes the highest good.

We can capitalize the word to make it appear more "conceptual" but they couldn't do that in the ancient world. It was all capital letters when Epicurus was writing. But he also explicitly says:

U67. I do not think I could conceive of the good (τἀγαθὸν tagathon) without the joys of taste, of sex, of hearing, and without the pleasing motions caused by the sight of bodies and forms.

The word there is tagathon "the highest good." Here's including all those physical pleasurable feelings/activities within the definition of the supreme good.

The last point for now from me is that preconceptions (prolepsis) is a distinct leg of the canon apart from the feelings of pleasure and pain. I agree we have to have words to describe the myriad pleasurable and painful feelings, and words have to have a referent in the physical or mental world. For me, when it comes to naming feelings, we feel the feeling then try to name it. That's one reason the are so many shades and intensities of pleasure and pain. Similarly but distinctly, we sense a pattern in the world through the proleptic faculty and call it justice or a cow or a tower.

This is a conversation that would work better as an actual conversation, but I remain engaged in the discussion.

I'm hesitant to say that Epicurus would hold that Desires are either wholly painful or wholly pleasurable. Desires have to exist in a sort of neutral Natural sense almost entirely biological. Most of the basic Natural and necessary desires are driven by biological instinct, to satisfy hunger and thirst, shelter from the elements and a community of friendship to shelter from the human predicament.

It seems that on a surface level saying that all Desires are painful might lead one to the ascetic side of Epicureanism. To my understanding there are only two states one can exist in, pleasure or pain, if all Desires are in fact painful, the removal of those Desires would increase one's pleasure more than actually satisfying those Desires. You never have that desire you never have that pain. Because as we all know satisfying a desire would lead to more desires (more pain) unless one educates themselves (where the calculus enters). If all Desires are pleasurable, would it at all make sense to have that desire delayed as long as possible, since desire is wholly pleasurable? Because satisfying a pleasurable desire would remove that pleasurable desire and briefly increase pain until a new pleasurable desire is found? (Playing devil's advocate with these questions)