Episode 295 - TD25 - Plutarch's Absurd Interpretation of Epicurean Absence of Pain

These are great questions! Let me go through them and give you what I think is the answer. Not everyone is going to agree with me, but I think what I am about to say is the clear implication of what Torquatus was explaining to Cicero:

I think we better start here:

Quote from Rolf

1) There is only pleasure and pain.

This is not so simple that we can stop without explanation, and failure to clarify it is a source of much problem. Yes, Epicurus says that nature gives us only pleasure and pain as feelings by which to know what to choose and what to avoid.

But you are asking a series of questions about "Pleasure" and "Pain" with capital "p's" -- You are asking about the concept of pleasure and the concept of pain. As a concept which serves as a stand-in for the "goal of life," "Pleasure" is a conceptual term which encompasses all possible experiences of pleasure, from the longest and most intense to the shortest and least intense. All pleasures are conceptually part of "Pleasure," but all pleasures are not by any means identical. The same thing goes for pain.

A large part of the problem in general discussions of Epicurus is that people are talking about "Pleasure" as the conceptual goal of life without making clear that the goal of a real person's real life is not a "concept," but a set of real experiences that cannot be described completely in the term "Pleasure" any more than a map constitutes every detail of an area of land that is being mapped.

And not separating those two contexts leads to most of your questions:

Quote from Rolf

3) Let’s say my hunger and thirst are satiated, my body is healthy, I have good friends, and I fear neither gods nor death.

4) This being the case, I am experiencing the absence of pain/fullness of pleasure, am I not?

The answer to (3) is "not necessarily." We are philosophers, and you have not stated in 3 that you are not suffering any pain. Torquatus' examples, including the comparison of the host pouring wine and the guest drinking in, are stated in the context that the example includes as a premise that they are otherwise without pain. Anyone who is "without pain" is therefore definitionally and conceptually at the height of pleasure, because you are speaking in broad definitional terms. Pure pleasure - 100% pleasure - cannot be made more pleasurable by removing impurities, because "pure" means without impurity, and 100% means a mathematical limit for any given subject.

So I would say that your conclusion in (4) is not properly established by (3). you have listed a number of pleasurable conditions, but you have not by so doing confirmed that your "jar is full" and that there is not more room for more pleasure in your life.

Quote from Rolf

Do you agree that the conditions listed in point 3 are all that is necessary to experience the absence of pain? If so, and if that is the limit of pleasure, why do you also press that these things are not enough, and that Epicurus also encourages these “active pleasures” like playing and dancing?

So the answer here is that I do not agree that the points listed in 3 are "all that is necessary to experience the absence of pain" in total. They could be if you also stated that the person was without pain, but unless someone is affirmatively stating that the person is "without pain" then you don't know.

This would apply to the Chrysippus hand challenge. We know that the hand was at the "height of pleasure" only because the hypothetical was that the hand was "in its normal condition" and not in pain. Could any particular hand get more pleasure from a warm massage rather than in its normal condition? I think the answer is clearly yes, but that doesn't mean that the point made by Torquatus is incorrect. "Pure" pleasure does not necessarily equate to "most intense," or "longest duration" or "largest part of the body affected." Torquatus did not say that the hand was experiencing any of those -- not the most intense please, nor the longest, or the most extensive. The debate about the hand was in terms of the "height," or as in PD03, the "limit of quantity." These are technical terms suitable for philosophical debate, but they don't tell you the difference between good heath and a good massage.

Quote from Rolf

If some pleasures are more pleasurable than others, wouldn’t that make my jar “more full”?

Per PD09, pleasures differ from each other in at least the qualities of intensity, duration, and part of the body affected. Some particular pleasures ARE more intense, or last longer, or involve different parts of the body, and only an idiot would deny that. But all pleasures are unified in being feelings that we find desirable, and thus one of them is not more conceptually "pleasure" than is another.

This is Pleasure with a capital "P" - conceptual pleasure - all of which carries the same definition of a desirable feeling. The concept never changes, even though the particulars can and do change.

Quote from Rolf

If some pleasures are more pleasurable than others, wouldn’t that make my jar “more full”? How does this fit together with absence of pain being the limit of pleasure? And if the jar can be full while containing different levels of pleasure, then what is it even measuring?

A jar which can contain only "Pleasure" and "Pain" cannot be defined as full containing different levels of "Pleasure," for reasons that are obvious - we are defining the possibilities and there are no options outside our hypothetical. But different jars of "Pleasure" can and certainly will contain very different mixtures of difference types of pleasurable experiences.

We all know this to be true, but what you're asking is the right question. How can different jars be other than the same if they all are full of "Pleasure?" And the answer is that pleasures are not "just" concepts. Pleasurable experiences are what is real, while "Pleasure" is a concept that philosophers use in debate. The same goes for "Happiness." The wise man can by "Happy" even which tortured on the wrack or in the throws of dying from kidney disease, because "happiness" is a concept we can define as an overall assessment of more reason for joy than for vexation, while "a feeling of happiness" is not what is generated by torture machines or kidney stones.

Quote from Rolf

I’m playing devil’s advocate a little here in order to understand the logic. Again, I agree with the conclusions. But I’m having trouble seeing how it all fits together. It feels almost a little contradictory.

Everyone ought to be asking these questions, because unless you demand consistency and clear answers, no one ever gets anywhere. And far too many people outside this forum are ignoring these issues and thinking that they can wink and smile and fool others - and themselves - into thinking that Buddhist nothingness / Stoic apathy really is super pleasurable.

And that's in my view why Epicurean philosophy has been stuck in the mud ever since the last of the ancient Epicureans passed away.

No one except a confirmed Buddhist or Stoic or Sadist really believes that "absence of pain" understood as 99% of the world understands it is really worth being a goal in life. But the majority of Epicureans have fled from the idea that "absence of pain" really means "pleasure" because that would not be respectable, or virtuous, and to say so would earn them the disapproving frowns of the intelligentsia.

In my view, you can either demand consistency and clarity, in which case you come around to seeing that these are definitional and philosophical issues. Once you accept that, "absence of pain" becomes nothing more than technical terminology for exactly the same thing expressed by the word "pleasure."

The reason you've chosen technical terminology like that is because you are philosopher, and you're dealing with technical objections from the Platonists and others who demand to know "the limit" of pleasure. Absence of pain is highly useful for answering that question - for identifying the theoretical limit.

But "absence of pain" in this context is conceptual, and this conceptual answer does not tell you whether to stop when you're not thirsty or hungry. You have to apply also the rest of the conceptual framework, in which you're previously identified that all pleasure is desirable, and that there would never be any reason whatsoever ---but one -- not to seek to obtain all the pleasure you can. And that single reason not to pursue a particular pleasure is that you evaluate that pursuing that pleasure would result - in the end - with bringing you more pain than pleasure.

I suppose I should address too the related question of how long you wish to live, or how much pleasure you wish to experience while you are alive. To me, the answer Epicurus points to is that "satisfaction" comes from realizing the limit that you are human and mortal and that nature allows you to live and pursue pleasure for only a certain period of time in good heath. You don't need to be king or the most famous person in the world to consider your jar of life to be full of pleasure. But if you have consciously avoided, through fear or otherwise, stepping up to experience the pleasures that are possible to you, then the reasonable and thoughtful person is going to naturally feel regret at passing over pleasure for no good reason. And "regret" is a pain.

Edit: As always, I'm not Epicurus and can't speak for him. These answers are just the best I can do today given my state of analysis and reading from all the various materials.

Quote from Rolf

Would you say then Cassius that “the absence of pain being the limit of pleasure” is not something I have to hold in my everyday mind as something practical? It’s more just something for use in philosophical reasoning and debate

I think that having a mental image of the most desirable state is highly practical and even essential and is similar to projecting this as a "godlike life." For that reason I would say that it needs to be held in mind In the same way Epicurus tells Herodotus to keep an outline in mind and to be able to flip back and forth from high level to detail at a moments notice.

And I would also say that the expansive definition of pleasure to include appreciation of all nonpainful life, particularly mental appreciation of the benefits of a true philosophy, is also a daily or even hourly thing.

This isn't just for times of debate.

Quote from Rolf

I think what I’m struggling with is that to me, absence of pain sounds like a state in which I’m perfectly content and don’t feel like I need anything more. At the same time, my practical evaluation of Epicurean ethics is that of prudence and hedonic calculus. In my head, these two ideas don’t quite seem to align. It doesn’t feel so clear.

And I think it sounds that way to most people, and that's why Cicero and Plutarch use it like a sledgehammer against Epicurus, because understanding it as "being satisfied with the bare minimum of life" is deadly and no healthy person in their right might is going to accept that. (Of course there are many people who are not healthy or in their right mind who *do* accept that version, and that just makes the problem worse.)

All of these issues are very much a test like "the size of the sun is as it appears to be." If you are satisfied then of course you don't want any more -- that's the definition of being satisfied. The real question is knowing the difference between "when" you should be satisified, and when you shouldn't.

All of us have this baggage from being raised Christian (or religious in some way) with a mixture of Buddhism and Stoicism thrown in to emphasize that wanting pleasure or anything more than you currently have is a character flaw. That's as much the problem as anything else. If you were born on a desert island with nothing but nature teaching you through observation of how all other life lives, you'd never have a moment for thinking that you shouldn't sing, dance, fly, embrace, etc, just like all the other animals do when they satisfy their thirst and hunger.

But Epicurean philosophy can be twisted into justifying just such an outcome, and in that respect the result is worse than Stoicism or religion - at least those (or most of them) promise a life in heaven as a reward for asceticism now. The "Absence of Pain" Epicureans don't even get that -- they get asceticism for the sake of whatever it brings in this life, which is nothing.

As humans we live through using our minds properly, and Epicurus is pointing the way to proper thinking. Plato et al are wrong to say that life is neutral or suffering with a few intervals of pleasure. The right attitude is that life is enjoyable and needs to be enjoyed, and so we set our minds to enjoying every aspect of it that can possibly be enjoyed in mind and body, and that can include anything and everything that isn't explicitly painful.

I'd say the most helpful way of looking at things is to focus on how short life is, and how when it's over it's over. If you really focus on what that means, what kind of a human being are you if you don't want to use your time the very best way possible? If "pleasure" is everything that is desirable and "pain" is what is undesirable, then the right philosophic attitude is to pursue as much "pleasure" as possible.

All of these words have specific meanings that can be extremely helpful, or if misunderstood, extremely harmful. But this is the importance of philosophy. No one said this was easy - if it was easy there'd be hundreds of Epicuruses instead of essentially only one.

Looking back over your questions I'll go back to the best example I know of. You only have some much time in life to experience what you're going to experience. It is helpful to visualize your total lifetime as a jar, which you must decide how to use. The jar by definitional choice can contain only (1) pleasure or (2) pain. No part of it is ever empty. The palns and pleasures it can contain are all possible mental and bodily pleasures.

It's up to you to decide whether to act to control what will be in that jar. If you identify pleasure widely and understand that it's not just mental and physical stimulation but all kinds of mental and physical health, then it becomes possible for most everyone to see that it is a practical goal to work toward filling that jar with pleasures. If you DON"T view pleasure that way, then it will seem like and be a fruitless task to fill the jar with pleasure, and you'll never find a way to do it no matter how hard you chase stimulation.

That's the paradigm everyone is faced with, but they don't have to accept it. They can choose to drift through life and take no concern for what is in their jar, and as a result they will never be satisfied and their time will be spent on things that end up being more painful than pleasurable.

So in general I'd say that this is the big picture. Once you've got the big picture it's up to you to apply it - simply reading it or acknowledging that it exists doesn't accomplish anything. Time is always ticking, and the time that passes without working to maximize pleasure never comes back.

To me this isn't dark or discouraging, it's highly motivational, and it doesn't encourage me to spend all my time looking back and "feeling satisfied," it leads to a proper balance of appreciating past, present, and future, and acting appropriately toward them all.

Quote from Rolf

I’m imagining someone laying down on a sun lounger, hands behind their head, saying “it doesn’t get better than this”.

I think that is *one* possible interpretation, certainly. But I'd push back on this example simply because it seems to be the default example that everyone jumps to suggest -- that the best experience in life is "taking it easy" and I don't think that is a healthy attitude. Aren't you in your 20's? At that age you have your whole life ahead of you, and would normally be making plans for what you want to "do" with your life, rather than the way you will "relax" during those times you are resting. I'm not trying to be too specific but I presume you know what I mean. "Resting" at the end of a journey is certainly a good thing, but so is the journey itself. Epicurean circles which perpetuate the notion that "rest" is the goal of life are playing right into the hands of CIcero and Plutarch and anyone else who for reasons of their own want to pigenohole Epicureans into a "wallflower" category.

Quote from Rolf

And this is why simply absence of thirst/hunger etc. isn’t enough to definitively say someone has reached the limit of pleasure. Am I on the right track?

That's the way I see it. Just like in Plutarch's examples it make no sense to eat or drink a little just to the point of getting rid of thirst and hunger, and then sit comatose until the desires for food and drink come back again. An Epicurean wouldn't live to eat (or drink) any more than to pursue any other "virtue" - the purpose of eating and drinking is to keep your body healthy so that you can then do more with it. Unless, that is, a particular person wants to admit, "Yes, I think the life of a cow would be lovely, and I'd be more than happy to graze in the fields all day staring at the ground."

Again, I am not knocking the pleasures of eating and drinking. I am knocking the idea that Epicurus held that these are more important to life than the other pleasures that we pursue after we eat and drink our fill. These "other pleasures" of mind and body are the real battleground in the argument.

Yes you "can" compete with gods for at last a time with only bread and water. But is that really the way you want to confine yourself to doing it?

Quote from Rolf

As for Chrysippus’ hand: How can it be said that the hand had reached the limit of pleasure if a hand massage would’ve been even more intensely pleasurable than the healthy resting state?

The answer is the contrast between "limit" and "intensity." Those are not the same thing. We're defining the limit of pleasure as 100% pleasure - pure pleasure - the state of experience when there is no pain mixed in. That observation tells you nothing about the duration, intensity, or parts of the body affected by the particular pleasures you are engaged in, and those are very different. Your question about the jar full of water and the jar full of chocolate milk is right on point. Both are pleasurable, but on occasion one of them can be much more pleasurable than the other. PDO3 refers to the limit of "quantity" of pleasure, not the limit of intensity, or duration, or part of the body affected. if you stretch the analogy beyond the point it was intended to make you cease making a valid point and start making a terrible one. All pleasures are pleasure, but all pleasures are not equally pleasurable. The very idea of stating a specific set of pleasures that should be the goal of every human being is an upside-down and perverse way of looking at the question, but that's exactly the way monotheists want to proceed in everything. They want to think that there is a central power, a divine god, that sets out "one way" that everyone should follow. And that's just hogwash. Nature and the feeling of pleasure are not so restrictive as to conform to and comply with Abrahamic theology.

Quote from Rolf

If you could take a look at this when you get a spare moment, it would be a big help!

The reason I haven't responded to that already is I am not sure how to pick out pieces of what you're written. If you'd like to ask specifics I could more easily address them. For the moment I'd say that any time there is an implication that one pleasure is absolutely "better" than another for everyone, you've got an abstraction that is going to bite you just like "virtue" bites the Stoics.

Quote from Rolf

One jar full of water, the other full of chocolate milk. Both jars are full of pleasure: Water is great, it quenches your thirst! But chocolate milk is sure a lot tastier

Yes, as above, I think that's an example that helps flesh out where the jar analogy stops being useful and starts being harmful, if and when it is presumed that everyone has the same jar and wants to fill it in the same way. That's just not correct and not a part of the philosophic issue.

Quote from Rolf

Another question: Would you say that absence of pain as the limit of pleasure is more of a theoretical goal? In the same way that the gods can be seen as mental ideal? Or is it something we’re expected to achieve on a day to day basis?

It is a theoretical goal but that is not to say it is a useless abstraction, as we've been discussing. A starting point here is that everyone wants the "best" life. But what is the meaning of "best?" Think about it for very long and if you're not a monotheist you'll realize there is no single best for everyone. But even then the question remains, what can you say about "best" other than that there is nothing better than best? Yes it's wordplay, but it's a logical question. There's can't be anything better than best. And if you're going to suggest that "pleasure" is the best life, then you've got to have an answer to the question of "what's the best life of pleasure? " And the answer to that question is that the best life of pleasure is one that is completely full of pleasure with no portion of that life being pain. I don't think we'd be discussing "absence of pain" at all were it not for this question and the need to construct a logical answer to it. And this is not speculation, it's spelled out by Plato in Philebus and in other places by other people, including clear statements to this effect by Seneca, and the references we've been discussing that Cicero has preserved through Torquatus that make no sense in any other way.

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I’m imagining someone laying down on a sun lounger, hands behind their head, saying “it doesn’t get better than this”.

To push back even harder on this point: All experiences of pleasure are real experiences of pleasure, but every time we say "for example" and imply that our example will impress another person as being a "highest good," we risk giving the impression that the person listening should immediately agree that this experience would be FOR THEM TOO the same kind of "absence of pain." No individual tree constitutes the forest, and singling out one example is always going to risk confusing the two levels that are being discussed. Forests exist. Trees exist. But the two are not the same, and a single maple tree is no more indicative of a forest than is a single pine or a single oak.

Many of us are so fed up with worthless abstractions that we think all abstractions are worthless, but that's not the case, and abstractions such as are involved in visualizing the best life are essential. We can't hope to reach a target without visualizing the target, but everyone's target is going to look different.

The "Dude's" lifestyle is no more or less necessarily indicative of the Epicurean concept of a best life than would be that of Julius Caesar. The concept of the best life is broad enough to include these two extremes and any number in between. Trying to tie down the best life into a single example isn't possible, and the idea that it might be possible can be very damaging, because trying to do so ignores the Epicurean viewpoint about the nature of the universe and the absence of absolute forms.

The Epicurean texts don't describe "the best life" in any but very general mental and bodily terms, culminating in the description of 100% pleasure 0% pain, which we ought to recognize is the best terminology that by definition can be achieved.

Quote from Don

My vision of the jar is oil and water. They don't mix.

Yes I agree that's a key part of it.

Great finds, Eikadistes! Right on point as to why we sometimes choose pain for the sake of pleasure, and pretty directly contrary to that statement of Horace we've discussed recently.

It's interesting to see even this stated so "backhandedly."

So that's Philodemus writing about Metrodorus in the context of "Property Management"..... There's got to be more to be derived from the overall context of these issues are being balanced. Clearly the more you have the more you have to worry about, and on the other extreme if you don't have enough you're clearly going to be confronting certain types of pains as a result. Presumably they were wrestling with the right way to express these issues just like we are.