Episode 298 - TD26 - Facts And Feelings In Epicurean Philosophy - Part 1"

Welcome to Episode 298 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we return to our series covering Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" from an Epicurean viewpoint.

After two weeks looking at Plutarch, today we are back in Part 3 of Cicero's book, addressing much the same issues within the framework of anger, pity, envy, and other strong emotions. This week we will be following up on last week's discussion about absence of pain as we move forward into Section XX, where Cicero continues to spell out dramatically the difference between the Epicurean goal of life and that of the other "more reputable" schools.

Next week we will incorporate this statement from Diogenes Laertius 32 as to the relationship between the feelings of pleasure and pain and Epicurus' view of what is true and real:

EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side Diogenes Laertius Ten

32

Moreover, they are out of the reach of any control; for one sensation cannot judge of another which resembles itself; for they have all an equal value. Nor can one judge of another which is different from itself; since their objects are not identical. In a word, one sensation cannot control another, since the effects of all of them influence us equally. Again, the reason cannot pronounce on the senses; for we have already said that all reasoning has the senses for its foundation. Reality and the evidence of sensation establish the certainty of the senses; for the impressions of sight and hearing are just as real, just as evident, as pain.

Episode 298 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Facts and Feelings In Epicurean Philosophy - Part 1"

Dave that's a great question and I'm not the best to answer it, but there's a lot written about this period in Cicero's life, when he was essentially in forced political retirement (due to opposing Julius Caesar) and in bad personal circumstances (his daughter dying in childbirth). He explains a lot of this himself in his various works as his motivation for wanting to engage in something to help get his mind off his problems, and I've seen it observed that this seems to make sense in that while he was certainly interested in philosophy previously, he hadn't written extensively before that period.

So, who was Cicero trying to convert to his Platonic belief that eternal virtues are the highest good? Was he succeeding in his goal? And is that the reason he kept at it, sensing that he was winning the game?

Remember that the form of Platonism Cicero saw himself a part of was arguably more skeptical than Plato's own form, so he may have seen himself not as arguing exactly what the highest good "is" as much as he was opposing the Epicurean (and Stoic) confidence that they themselves held the correct position. But yes he clearly sided more with the Stoics that virtue is the highest good. As for me I am not sure that he thought he was succeeding. He seems to have been very negative about the situation "Oh the times! Oh the morals!"  and he'd already seen many of his friends dead in the loss of Pompeii and the battle of Pharsalia. I'd say at this point he was trying to (1) console himself that he was right despite the bad turn of events, and (2) rally whoever among the Senatorial class was still around to listen to him.

And I'd say his effectiveness is the reason that his works were preserved by the Judeo-Christians, who saw in them justification for their political suppression of dissent.

Quote from DaveT

One foundation of good writing that I learned over time is that as a writer, you must know your audience. You shape your premise and your theme based on the audience who will read the work.

As Dewitt wrote, Cicero could not have misrepresented Epicurus so well if he had not understood Epicurus so thoroughly.

In my view, Cicero -- correctly -- identified that to describe "absence of pain" as pleasure is totally unsatisfactory and will never be acceptable to ordinary people who are not aware of the philosophical explanation that the person in "absence of pain" is not engaged in inactive nothingness, but is actually engaging in normal and pleasurable mental and physical activities unaccompanied by any pains.

I would equate this difficulty to the "the sun is the size it appears to be." That phrase appears laughably ridiculous unless attended with the explanation that the point is not to assert a particular size, but to assert that the size is in fact determined by the senses, rather than by abstract calculations which have not been grounded in reality.

To any audience of normally educated people, all you have to do is strip "absence of pain" of its explanation, and Epicurean philosophy becomes ridiculous. Cicero and Plutarch and Seneca and others did exactly that. They gave the Epicurean slogans detached from the Epicurean explanations in physics and canonics, and thereby they wrote the narrative that has prevailed ever since. And the worst part is that many of today's friends of Epicurus continue to do exactly the same thing, burying the philosophy deeper rather than doing anything to recover the explanation.

It is deadly to Epicurean philosophy to interpret "absence of pain" as inactivity.

Quote from Cassius

It is deadly to Epicurean philosophy to interpret "absence of pain" as inactivity.

Which in my mind means that if you're standing on a stage and you say "absence of pain is pleasure" or "absence of pain is the highest pleasure," then you're saying the equivalent of the sun is the size it appears to be, or "for gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision."

To a person of ordinary education and intelligence, none of those statements make sense on their face without explanation. Ordinary people will think you are being absurd. And if you aren't willing and don't proceed to immediately provide that explanation in very clear terms, then those ordinary people will conclude that you are a provocateur and laugh or pull you off the stage. And in general you'll deserve that treatment.

Of course if you intend to insult your audience, then saying those underlined statements without explanation will certainly do the trick. But in that case one day you're likely to find yourself drinking Hemlock with Socrates. And most people will think that you won't deserve a lot of sympathy.

So taking the modern position that the term "absence of pain" speaks for itself is absurd. Cicero saw that it doesn't speak for itself. Plutarch saw that it doesn't speak for itself. And the educated Greeks of Epicurus' time weren't stupid either, and they would have demanded and gotten an explanation from Epicurus. But I don't think they would have had to demand anything, because what they had, and what we don't have, was all of Epicurus' other works beyond the letter to Menoeceus, and from which Cicero and Plutarch are quoting. And these quotations combined with common sense point to the conclusion that when Epicurus was referring to "absence of pain," what he meant was that the reason you're not in pain is that you're completely engaged in mental and physical activities that are pleasurable.

Quote from Cicero - In Defense of Publius Sestius 10:23 (Perseus Link)

He added that these same men were quite right in saying that the wise do everything for their own interests; that no sane man should engage in public affairs; that nothing was preferable to a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures.

(nihil esse praestabilius otiosa vita, plena et conferta voluptatibus.)

Quote from DaveT

I think even poorly educated people who hear (rather than read) as well as anyone educated can understand that putting your feet up at the end of a rough day can diminish pain. It simply feels good, to chill. So, whether they think the good thoughts or just go blank, it doesn't seem ridiculous to me.

And of course I agree with that, and I would call that the activity of resting, or of relaxing. That is something that you do consciously to take a break from something else, like eating when you are hungry or drinking when you are thirsty. You aren't literally "closing your eyes and clearing your mind from any conscious thought" except in the case of sleep where you intend to do exactly that. The bottom line of my position is referring back to the common situation today where viewpoints and attitudes toward the world are corrupted and perverted, as Torquatus references when he explains that Epicurus looks to the young of all species before they are corrupted as his standard for proving nature's guidance. If your default manner of thinking is that gods control your life and that you are going to be punished or rewarded for your actions after death, then clearing your mind from conscious attention to other things is simply going to allow those erroneous thoughts to take over whatever attention is left.

As Lucretius says repeatedly in his poem, you can't just look at the rays of light and understand from just looking the implications of what you are seeing. You need a scheme of systematic understanding - Epicurean philosophy - to see that what the senses are bringing to you are not things to worry about but instead can be dealt with successfully to live a happy life. The most basic example after gods and death is pain, and that's why the attitude required in PD03 that pain is short if intense and manageable if long is important. Every aspect of epicurean philosophy requires action of the mind to attain it, not just "breathing" or "getting out of the way" or "clearing your mind" in order to appreciate it.

Quote from DaveT

Can you discuss specifics here? And individuals?

What negative impact do you think those “friends” have on any understanding of the Epicurean pursuit of happiness?

I'd like to organize examples further but many of them already exist in the subforum on absence of pain. Here's one example:

Thread

An Unfortunate Article Suggesting That Katastematic Pleasure is "Necessary" and Kinetic Pleasure is "Unnecessary"

I haven't had time to read this article by Yosef Liebersohn, and I am not sure if or when I will, but this abstract that came across my email just reminded me for the 500th time of this issue. I'll skip over the fact that the author suggests that kinetic and katastematic are "the most dominant terms in Epicurus' theory of the pleasures (despite the fact that this comes from Cicero and Diogenes Laertius and isn't a significant factor at all in Epicurus' or Lucretius' work, as explained by Boris…

Cassius

April 14, 2021 at 11:23 AM

https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/1785-pasted-from-clipboard-png/

And then there's wikipedia:

While Wikipedia is not a "friend" of Epicurus, the problem is all over the main entry on Epicurus, which I freely admit is amply justified by most modern writing:

Quote

Epicurus was a hedonist, meaning he taught that what is pleasurable is morally good and what is painful is morally evil. For his ethical system he redefined "pleasure" as the absence of suffering and taught that all humans should seek to attain the state of ataraxia, meaning "untroubledness", a state in which the person is completely free from all pain or suffering.^[1]

Epicureans had a very specific understanding of what the greatest pleasure was, and the focus of their ethics was on the avoidance of pain rather than seeking out pleasure.^[27] As evidence for this, Epicureans say that nature seems to command us to avoid pain, and they point out that all animals try to avoid pain as much as possible.^[28]

And this is just atrocious:

Quote

In order to do this an Epicurean had to control their desires, because desire itself was seen as painful. Not only will controlling one's desires bring about aponia, as one will rarely suffer from not being physically satisfied, but controlling one's desires will also help to bring about ataraxia because one will not be anxious about becoming discomforted since one would have so few desires anyway. The Epicureans divide desires into three classes: natural and necessary, natural but not necessary, and vain and empty:^[30]

for now one more example:

Quote

Epicurus makes an important distinction between necessary and unnecessary desires. Necessary desires are those which are necessary to produce happiness, such as desiring to get rid of bodily pain, or desiring a state of inner tranquility. He writes that “the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and once this is obtained the tempest of the soul is quelled.” Only when we are in pain do we feel the need to seek pleasure, a need which inevitably only produces greater pain. In order to get rid of this pain-pleasure-pain cycle, we need to cultivate a mindset in which there is no pain. Thus the aim is not the positive pursuit of pleasure, as it was for Aristippus. The aim is rather the attaining of a neutral state which is best described as “peace of mind” or even “emptiness,” to use a Buddhist expression. The Greek word Epicurus uses for this state is ataraxia, which literally means “freedom from worry.”