Comparing The Pleasure of A Great Physicist Making A Discovery To The Pleasure of A Lion Eating A Lamb

Thank you for restating that Raphael - that avoids a lot of ambiguity.

Thanks for that post Raphael!

My first comment is to think about how someone outside our Epicurean analysis community might react to reading that.

I can imagine an outsider saying: "You mean to tell me he needs to write an essay to explain that the pleasure of artwork is different from the pleasure of eating, and that the pleasures of a great physicist have more impact on wider human affairs than a lion eating lamb? What's up with those guys that they have to write walls of text to say what everyone already understands?"

That's of course not to be critical of the post, but to say that there are issues going on behind the fact that we are having this discussion that need to be made front and center.

My outsider might say to me: "Is someone arguing that here is no difference between creating art or exploring physics and eating a steak? is someone arguing that a lion eating a lamb has the same impact on world affairs as a discovery in nuclear fusion? No one i know thinks that way, certainly Epicurus doesn't either, does he?"

And I would say to my outsider that therein hangs the tale. Epicurus doesn't say that the pleasures of eating and the pleasures of art and discovery are the same, or that one doesn't have more impact on world affairs or produce a greater impact on us individually.

And my outsider would say, "Then what is the problem?"

We had a very good followup discussion on this in today's zoom meeting.

Clearly people are coming at this from different angles, all of which are legitimate. The reaction of some, however, was "I thought this problem was settled," or to the effect that they did not understand why the question exists.

That was the intent of my followup to Raphael's post. In addition to the on-the-surface question of whether pleasures differ from one another, and in what contexts (if any) it is good Epicureanism to consider that some pleasures are different, better, or more valuable than others, I see a very practical application of this question being as follows:

Cicero, Plutarch, and many critics, including some "friends," say that Epicurean philosophy leads to the conclusion that the best life for everyone is the equivalent of "playing pushpins" - with pushpins being understood to mean any very simple, very unambitious, very safe, past-time. Is this a correct conclusion? If not, why not? {I trust it is clear that my own answer is a very firm "NO", but just in case lurkers read this in isolation I want the record to be clear.}

And while "Epicurus didn't do that" may be part of the answer, the full answer needs to be clear, concise, persuasive, and compelling, both philosophically and practically.

We'll return to this next Sunday and can continue in the meantime here on the forum.

Dave:

Definitely in the end for each of us what matters is knowing the right answer. But there's a lot of trash to cut through for most of us before getting to that, and to a significant extent - going all the way back to Lucretius and go Epicurus himself, the task of gaining new like-minded friends means "creating" them by lifting the trash away that accumulates around all of us.

I was relistening to our Emily Austin interview yesterday and she made the point: there is no better way to understand something than to teach it.

And teaching it requires us to cut through the fog that surrounded it in common culture.

Thank you for that post Raphael! You're covering several things and I expect there will be lots of reactions to different parts.

I am inclined to want to focus on what I think is a position we share, which is that Epicurean philosophy does not in fact mean that a life of push-pin is as well spent as a life of enthusiastic pursuit of nuclear research and invention. It's because I believe that as well that I campaign against empty use terms such as "absence of pain" which can either be very profound and essential, or a straight road to decadence and disaster, depending on how (and if) one defines them.

But I think I will start with this one:

Quote from Raphael Raul

However, Epicureans maintain that all is subjective, as I was made aware of during our discussion, and objective valuations cannot be made. What Epicureans hold is in contradiction to what Epicurus actually did, which was to attempt to arrive at ideas that he developed through objective reasoning.

.. because I think you are exactly right to judge Epicureans and the Epicureans according to the active and engaged lives that they lived, and not according to the head-in-the-sand isolationism which is held up today as the Epicurean ideal.

But the real heart of the question is the role of pleasure vs reason as the guide. I gather you're concerned that it is a problem to hold reason to be a "tool" for happiness, rather than a guide toward happiness. I think the answer to that concern is found in pursuing the same line of thinking that leads you to conclude that a life of pushpins is unacceptable to you.

The ultimate issue is that "reason" alone cannot give you the answer to the question of what you "should" do without first calculating the reasonable course in relation to a goal. And only pleasure and pain can ultimately determine whether a goal is worth pursuing. No amount of reasoning can deliver the positive emotional response that you are looking for in what you are considering to be worthy goals. Only the feeling of pleasure and pain can sort out those questions in the ultimate sense. Yes we must employ reason so we can project the results of our actions based on experience, but no amount of calculation can tell us whether our goals are worth pursuing or not.

That's what I think you are hearing in those who, like Lucretius, are calling "divine pleasure the guide of life." As a guide pleasure does not reject the use of reason or friendship or virtue or any other tool toward reaching the goal, but a perspective that places "nature" firmly in the driver's seat as to what to pursue and what to avoid has to acknowledge that by nature there is only pleasure and pain as feelings of guidance.

There's of course a lot more to say and I am sure others will say it better, but I think your reaction that you see a problem is much more to be appreciated than a reaction that some might have to the effect that "i'm ok with pushpins as long as I never suffer a moment of pain!" That attitude is NOT Epicurean.

Quote from Raphael Raul

I hold that reason is the tool that guides the Pleasure that we are experiencing, not the other way around. For example, pleasures come, while eating or drinking, let's say, and while one eats and drinks, one may desire to eat and drink past a reasonable limit. Thus, a reasonable person employs "reason" to decide, "No, I will stop eating and drinking now, because if I continue, I will get drunk and have indigestion later. So yes, we feel Pleasure, and those pleasures can be good or bad if we do not use reason to decide how far or how much Pleasure we should have.

The question of the proper order of priority is why according to Diogenes Laertius Epicurus held that:

"Logic they reject as misleading. For they say it is sufficient for physicists to be guided by what things say of themselves. Thus in The Canon Epicurus says that the tests of truth are the sensations and concepts and the feelings.... Nor is there anything which can refute the sensations. For a similar sensation cannot refute a similar because it is equivalent in validity, nor a dissimilar a dissimilar, for the objects of which they are the criteria are not the same; nor again can reason, for all reason is dependent upon sensations; .... And seeing and hearing are as much facts as feeling pain.

In your examples, the only factor that makes reason useful is that the feeling of pleasure and pain consistently report certain conditions as desirable and others as undesirable. It is not possible through formula and logical assertions alone to conclude that apple pie is good or bad. One piece is frequently good; ten pieces in a row are frequently bad. It is the fact of the result producing pain that we store in memory and retrieve to conclude through reasoning that we should stop after eating one piece. Reasoning is the mechanism through which we predict the future, but it was the original feelings that were gathered by memory and reason that led us to assert the rule of thumb as to how much to eat. And even that rule of thumb remains dependent on circumstances. Five pieces of apple pie in a row would ordinarily create pain, but if you have been starving in a desert for weeks. even more than five pieces may still be enjoyable. Reason is certainly a valuable tool, but circumstances change, and in order of priority pleasure and pain of actual people in actual life take precedence. In Jefferson's phrase, "the earth belongs to the living."

Quote from Raphael Raul

However, the main argument concerns the almost total subject view that all members held at last Sunday's discussion. The idea that all is subjective and that there is no objectivity possible in making societal valuations.

The goal of establishing the validity and necessity of "objectivity" is exactly what Epicurean canonics is all about, and no one establishes and defends objectivity better than Epicurus. The question is finding a true and real basis for objectivity, one which does not require made-up gods or standards of certainty that are logically impossible to achieve. What you are looking for in rejecting total subjectivism is exactly what Epicurus is doing.

It is Plato and the Stoics (including Cicero in our current discussions) who are the relativists and subjectivists. They assert groundless speculation about eternal virtues and forms as the real truth, but in fact their standards of truth do not exist. There are no eternal standards of right and wrong or laws that apply to all people at all places at all times.

This is where Epicurus saw that it is impossible to live successfully without a proper standard of what is true and real. Although there are no eternal forms or virtues, nature does exist with regularity that is predictable, and that regularity is how we deduce that there are some things that are regularly and even eternally the same in the nature of the atoms and the void. It is Epicurus who properly establishes that some things that are eternal and reliable do exist, and from that eternal nature we observe that nature has given us the feelings of pleasure and pain. We can use reasoning to help us understand the validity of following pleasure and avoiding pain, but in reality nature tells us directly through feeling, and we cannot override what nature gives us. Pleasure and pain are just as real to us as seeing of hearing or touching, no matter how we may try to reason ourselves into believing otherwise.

So Epicurus is not being inconsistent in (1) placing the guidance of nature through pleasure and pain above reason, while at the same time (2) saying that the wise man is going to conduct all his affairs throughout his life using reason. The two go hand in hand, but it is not reason that allows us to experience pleasure and avoid pain, but pleasure and pain which instruct reason on how to employ itself.