As to Lucretius, I am finding zero reference to the natural and necessary categories. There are lots of ethical references in Lucretius to restraining desires, but I am not seeing the specific "natural and necessary" classification.
I find this even more surprising than its absence in Frances Wright, as I have presuming that it was at least mentioned somewhere.
Again, someone please correct me if I am overlooking it in Lucretius.
Thanks for those quotes Bryan!
Those lead me to ask: In this context does "convention" focus on "agreement between multiple people"? I could almost seeing these quotes referring to "the conclusions of reason" or even something indicated by prolepsis / anticipation, with the focus on the difference between "the reasoning process" and "the direct perceptions of the senses.'
So when we hear convention should we hear "determined by agreement among people" or "determined through reason" or some combination of both?
I am going to attempt to see what other citations I can find that might shed light on the relationship. I woke up this morning thinking that given how ethically-oriented it is, surely Frances Wright at least mentions the natural and necessary categories in "A Few Days In Athens." However to my surprise so far, I find no mention of these categories whatsoever, including in chapters 3, 7, and 10, which are some of the most closely on point about how to pursue pleasure.
By no means am I a fan of arguing that Frances Wright is an ultimate authority on Epicurus, and I think she gets some major issues wrong or at least off base (determinism; nature of the gods; importance of physics of the cosmos; the importance of "theory" in connection with observation through the senses).
But I'd say the strength of her book is the way she expresses many of the ethical premises, and I find it very interesting that she does not even mention, much less give an explanation, of the natural and necessary categories.
(I know there are many passages referencing how to pursue pleasures properly, but i don't see the three categories specifically. If I am missing their appearance somewhere, please someone correct me! It's actually much easier for me to believe that I am overlooking them than it is for me to believe that she omits treating them.)
This is a discussion that originated in the recent Zoom in which we were discussing the relationship between "hedonic calculus analysis" and "natural/necessary analysis." It's really a part of that discussion, but the question is of such significance that it deserves a thread of its own.
In that discussion, Bryan mentioned that he thought it was significant to observe that it is possible to be more specific as to what Epicurus and/or other Greeks meant when they were discussing whether a desire is "natural" or not. At least in my own mind I tend to have a hard time getting any specificity out of "natural" because I presume that the other position is "unnatural" or "not natural." If that's all we can say, that doesn't help much, as that simply uses the same term "natural" on both sides of the equation without bringing any explanation to the picture.
Bryan says that he believes it is clear from numbers of texts (I gathered included outside the Epicurean context) that what the Greeks were really saying is that they were contrasting "what is established by nature" with "what is established by CONVENTION." In other words, they were saying that the opposite of natural is not just "unnatural" but "conventional." This would lead us to focus on understanding the things to be avoided as unnatural as those which originate "by agreement with others" or "in consensus among human minds" or other descriptions that emphasize that the issue is a product of reasoning rather than being directly given to us by nature, such as through the five senses (and presumably the feelings and the anticipations as well).
I said to Bryan during the meeting that if this could be established through citations that it would probably be very helpful to our American/modern understanding to do so. For that reason I am posting this thread to set up a place to see if we can do that.
Thanks go to Bryan as the real impetus behind this conversation.
Yes we have two parallel sets of comments. I don't think Sedley is attaching blame. He seems to accept the Latin terminology as valid and a reasonable choice by Cicero.
The trouble is on our end because we read more onto the construction than a Roman would have.
As an aside here Joshua I think we are seeing in going through Tusculan Disputations how important it was to Cicero (and presumably the Stoics) to say that there is only a single good - virtue - and that nothing else is truly good. That allows them to argue that being virtuous is totally within our control and that means that having what is good is totally within our control.
In contrast Sedley argues that Epicurus was approaching ethics like he was approaching physics. This implies Epicurus thought it essential to first and foremost establish that there is a bright line separating good from bad in general, just like there's a sharp distinction between bodies and space. Once you establish a position that there are only two options, you can categorize everything within one of the two options and rule out the existence of anything else (endless "what-aboutism" leading to radical skepticism).
And Sedley observes that in both lines of argument, Epicurus follows up this "either/or" starting point by arguing that other philosophers are wrong in asserting the existence of anything of any nature that falls outside that "either one or the other" structure.
It's pretty easy to see that this has major advantages in defending the senses and opposing radical skepticism. Skeptics are going to reject the analysis anyway, but it gives those of us who accept the legitimacy of the division a very firm starting point for rejection of otherworldliness - leading to the confidence that Cicero dislikes but cites as an Epicurean trait.
How does he respond to Lucretius' use of Summum Bonum in the early lines of Book 6?
I dont recall that he mentions that. And in fact as I read it he's not really being critical of Cicero's choice to use "summum bonum." I gather what he's saying is that it makes perfect sense in Latin to do it the way Cicero did it.
The problem arises because in our English expectation anything translatable as "highest good" implies "the highest single good among many goods."
I gather Sedley is saying we should not infer that summum bonum is a statement as to one among many things. Rather Sedley is seeing it as a reference to "good" as a class, which is singular, without implying anything about how many particulars are in that class.
Let us take it, then, that summum bonum in Fin. 1.40–1 just represents ‘the good’. For an Epicurean, to call pleasure ‘the good’ is to label it, if not strictly as the only good thing, at least as the only underivatively good thing, that by courtesy of which other things are good—in other words, the ethical end (telos).
In our meeting last night we had specific disagreement on that.
I should be clear too that it's not like we had a "fight" or anything! This variation on the topic is something that I don't think has been discussed here before - at least in this way - so we're very much in the mode of exploring the possibilities rather than positions being set in stone.
I specifically disagree with that
Just to be clear, "that" refers to what?
By coincidence I was posting earlier about an article by David Sedley, in which he makes the point that fundamental Epicurean argument in favor of both atomism and the pleasure of ethics involves refuting claims that contradict the view that you are asserting.
I don't see how it's possible to provide a comprehensive refutation of adverse arguments unless you understand them, and understanding them involves at least some degree of studying them.
I can see that it's possible to carry studying the opposition so that you can "be the devil's advocate" too far, but I doubt that any balanced person would be in danger of making that mistake.
The statement by Frances Wright I recently cited from Chapter Nine of A Few Days In Athens also applies:
With regard to the sciences, if it be said, that they are neglected among us, I do not say that our master, though himself versed in them, as in all other branches of knowledge, greatly recommends them to our study but that they are not unknown, let Polyoenus be evidence.
“He, one of the most amiable men of our school, and one most highly favored by our master, you must have heard mentioned throughout Greece as a profound geometrician.”
“Yes,” replied Theon, “but I have also heard, that since entering the garden, he has ceased to respect his science.”
“I am not aware of that,” said Leontium, “though I believe he no longer devotes to it all his time, and all his faculties. Epicurus called him from his diagrams, to open to him the secrets of physics, and the beauties of ethics; to show him the springs of human action, and lead him to the study of the human mind. He taught him, that any single study, however useful and noble in itself, was yet unworthy the entire employ of a curious and powerful intellect; that the man who pursued one line of knowledge, to the exclusion of others, though he should follow it up to its very head, would never be either learned or wise; that he who pursues knowledge, should think no branch of it unworthy attention; least of all, should he confine it to those which are unconnected with the business, and add nothing to the pleasures of life; that further not our acquaintance with ourselves, nor our fellows; that tend not to enlarge the sphere of our affections, to multiply our ideas and sensations, nor extend the scope of our inquiries. On this ground, he blamed the devotion of Polyoenus to a science that leads to other truths than those of virtue, to other study than that of man.”
Also - You included Biblical and Quranic in your title -- I would include Talmudic in that list as well, and no doubt others too. We wouldn't want any of the usual suspects to feel left out! 
I would begin with natural or unnatural, and eliminate the unnatural desires.
I'm not sure if the labels of "natural, necessary, unnecessary, unnatural" are workable for me. I like to use more words to explore things, and here is an example:
Comparing what Godfrey wrote with what Kalosyni wrote, I expect most of us are going to agree on the benefits of both methods of analysis.
The differences appear to me to come out with Godfrey's "I would begin...." because the point of division seems to be mostly the question of where to start.
Do you start with hedonic calculus analysis, or do you start with natural and necessary analysis?
No doubt some will want to say that it doesn't matter but for someone who is new to the philosophy or who just wants to be intellectually rigorous, it will matter.
In fact, a major difference came out last night, in that one view is that if we can determine that a desire is neither natural nor necessary, then there is no reason to consider evaluating that action according to the hedonic calculus. That's because it is the point of view of some that we would NEVER under any circumstances pursue a desire that is neither natural nor necessary. In our meeting last night we had specific disagreement on that.
Thank you Cleveland Oakie for taking the time to write up that review and adding it here!
In researching other issues I came across this article by David Sedley: Inferential Foundations of Epicurean Ethics
While I have some issues with the first section, but that's only a brief summary of Epicurean ethics and not essential to the main point of the article. The main part thrust of the article is to examine how Epicurus constructed his argument that in ethics good and bad divides into pleasure and pain in much the same way that in physics everything int he universe divides into bodies and space.
Sedley agrees with DeWitt in pointing out that we need to be careful in interpreting Cicero as to "the highest good." Sedley writes: "The phrase summum bonum occurs literally hundreds of times in Cicero’s philosophical writings, yet it is by no means clear to me what Greek term it could represent. "
Here's the full section:
Quote
Now as far as the actual expression summum bonum is concerned, there is nothing new or surprising about finding it here. Pleasure was introduced at the outset, back in the Cradle Argument, as the summum bonum, and pain as the summum malum. The phrase summum bonum occurs literally hundreds of times in Cicero’s philosophical writings, yet it is by no means clear to me what Greek term it could represent. Expressions like ‘the ultimate good’ (to eschaton tōn agathōn) and ‘the primary good’ (to prōton agathon) are far too rare in Hellenistic philosophy to account for such frequent occurrence. My own guess is that summum bonum is in most cases simply Cicero’s rendition of ‘the good’ (to agathon). When one looks through the contexts in which it occurs, the overwhelming majority are ones in which the mere word bonum would, in the absence of a Latin definite article, have been ambiguous between ‘the good’ and ‘a good’. For instance in the Cradle Argument, where all animals rejoice in pleasure ‘as in the highest good’ (ut summo bono), a mere ‘as in the good’ (ut bono) would have been indistinguishable from ‘as in a good’.²⁸ The addition of summum before bonum neatly removes the ambiguity.
Let us take it, then, that summum bonum in Fin. 1.40–1 just represents ‘the good’. For an Epicurean, to call pleasure ‘the good’ is to label it, if not strictly as the only good thing, at least as the only underivatively good thing, that by courtesy of which other things are good—in other words, the ethical end (telos). But the present passage goes further than that. The thing labelled the summum bonum (and also, more elaborately, the highest (summum) or ultimate (ultimum) or extreme (extremum) of goods, which the Greeks call telos) is not pleasure tout court, but the pleasant life (iucunde vivere, or cum voluptate vivere), the very life amply filled out with a portrayal of the ideal Epicurean. To see what has happened, we need here a distinction between a primitive and a substantive account of the good or the telos. In Aristotle, for instance, the primitive account is simply eudaimonia, or perhaps ‘activity of the soul in accordance with virtue’, while the substantive account would be a detailed analysis of this as acted out in the civic life, the contemplative life, or both. What has happened in the course of Torquatus’ speech is not a shift in the meaning of summum bonum, but a shift from the primitive to the substantive specification of what it consists in. Is this legitimate? How can Torquatus assert that the Epicurean life is the best possible life, when he has not yet even dealt with the question whether virtue has a place in it; or with the relation of mental to bodily pleasure; or with the lessons of physics for dealing with fear of death and god; or with the function of friendship?
But regardless of that, the more pressing point is that we may well have been locked by the term "highest good" into thinking that Epicurus advocated for some particular pleasure as the goal and that there are a larger number of "inferior" pleasures that should be flatly avoided.
To me the more likely alternative is that Epicurus was, as Sedley states, looking first to establish what is good vs what is bad in blanket terms, in the same way he offset bodies vs space in blanket terms, and only thereafter is it significant to look at the implication of further details.
I unfortunately have to point out that Sedley disagrees with Gosling & Taylor's "Greeks on Pleasure" as to the katastematic/kinetic issue, and that means he would also disagree with Emily Austin's position in "Living for Pleasure" (Chapter 4 Note eight) where she wrote:
This is a non-specialist text, so I have chosen not to wade into the dispute about katastematic and kinetic pleasures in the body of the text. A specialist will recognize that I am adopting a view roughly in line with Gosling and Taylor (1982) and Arenson (2019). On my reading, katastematic pleasures are sensory pleasures that issue from confidence in one’s ability to satisfy one’s necessary desires and an awareness of one’s healthy psychological functioning; choice-worthy kinetic pleasures are the various pleasures consistent with maintaining healthy functioning, and those pleasures vary, but do not increase healthy psychological functioning. (emphasis added)
In fact in this section Sedley says flatly that "Katastematic pleasure is the absence of pain." I very much disagree with that and think it is far too overbroad, because it explicitly states that they are the same thing. Following the argument in the rest of Sedley's article, I would argue that Epicurus' analysis follows the pattern of contrasting bodies against space, and that he then sets off pleasure against pain. I would say that if Sedley wanted to discuss kinetic and katastematic pleasure within this article at all, he should have said:
"Pleasure is the absence of pain. Of the pleasures, Epicurus mentions two categories, kinetic and katestematic, the first of which requires stimulation, the other of which does not require stimulation..... He could then have proceeded to further discussion from there. That would have preserved the main point of the article, which is that just as in physics Epicurus establishes first and foremost that everything divides into bodies and space, in ethics Epicurus establishes first and foremost that everything divides into pleasure and pain.
We've discussed this article many times in the past, with mixed reviews, but we don't have a separate thread devoted to it. This will serve that purpose. The article itself can be found in our filebase here. The occasion for posting this thread today is in regard to one of the major premises of the work, that the "lack of a definite article" in Latin, and/or other factors, led Cicero to use "summum bonum" in ways that have proved to be misleading.
DeWitt starts off his article "The aim of this writing is to show how the lack of a definite article in Latin obliterated the doctrine of Epicurus that life itself and not pleasure is the greatest good. It will also be shown how the recovered doctrine serves to explain certain verses of Maecenas."
DeWitt packs a lot into that first sentence, and the question of whether we should conclude "life itself and not pleasure is the greatest good" is one that would have to examine what exactly is meant by "life itself" and "pleasure" and "greatest" and "good." No doubt anyone who examines each of those words closely will profit from the exercise. But that's not the point I'm going to examine in this post.
What I want to add into our discussion mix on this topic is that DeWitt is not alone in pointing out the difficulties in translating Greek to Latin and how to express "the" - implying highest or greatest or preeminent" vs. "a" - implying "one among many."
The same point was raised and discussed by David Sedley in his article "Inferential Foundations of Epicurean Ethics." In a sentence that will shock some:
"The phrase summum bonum occurs literally hundreds of times in Cicero’s philosophical writings, yet it is by no means clear to me what Greek term it could represent. "
Here's the full section from Sedley:
Now as far as the actual expression summum bonum is concerned, there is nothing new or surprising about finding it here. Pleasure was introduced at the outset, back in the Cradle Argument, as the summum bonum, and pain as the summum malum. The phrase summum bonum occurs literally hundreds of times in Cicero’s philosophical writings, yet it is by no means clear to me what Greek term it could represent. Expressions like ‘the ultimate good’ (to eschaton tōn agathōn) and ‘the primary good’ (to prōton agathon) are far too rare in Hellenistic philosophy to account for such frequent occurrence. My own guess is that summum bonum is in most cases simply Cicero’s rendition of ‘the good’ (to agathon). When one looks through the contexts in which it occurs, the overwhelming majority are ones in which the mere word bonum would, in the absence of a Latin definite article, have been ambiguous between ‘the good’ and ‘a good’. For instance in the Cradle Argument, where all animals rejoice in pleasure ‘as in the highest good’ (ut summo bono), a mere ‘as in the good’ (ut bono) would have been indistinguishable from ‘as in a good’.²⁸ The addition of summum before bonum neatly removes the ambiguity.
Let us take it, then, that summum bonum in Fin. 1.40–1 just represents ‘the good’. For an Epicurean, to call pleasure ‘the good’ is to label it, if not strictly as the only good thing, at least as the only underivatively good thing, that by courtesy of which other things are good—in other words, the ethical end (telos). But the present passage goes further than that. The thing labelled the summum bonum (and also, more elaborately, the highest (summum) or ultimate (ultimum) or extreme (extremum) of goods, which the Greeks call telos) is not pleasure tout court, but the pleasant life (iucunde vivere, or cum voluptate vivere), the very life amply filled out with a portrayal of the ideal Epicurean. To see what has happened, we need here a distinction between a primitive and a substantive account of the good or the telos. In Aristotle, for instance, the primitive account is simply eudaimonia, or perhaps ‘activity of the soul in accordance with virtue’, while the substantive account would be a detailed analysis of this as acted out in the civic life, the contemplative life, or both. What has happened in the course of Torquatus’ speech is not a shift in the meaning of summum bonum, but a shift from the primitive to the substantive specification of what it consists in. Is this legitimate? How can Torquatus assert that the Epicurean life is the best possible life, when he has not yet even dealt with the question whether virtue has a place in it; or with the relation of mental to bodily pleasure; or with the lessons of physics for dealing with fear of death and god; or with the function of friendship?
So to close this post I'm not sure that in "The Summum Bonum Fallacy" DeWitt adequately makes his case that we should consider "life" to be "the higest good." To me it's clear that DeWitt is right that Epicurus has vastly expanded the field of what the word "pleasure" covers, but the objection most of us have made in the past is that you need to say something like "all parts of life that are not painful" to adequately specify "the good." Maybe it's possible to collapse that into the dual choice of "life" vs "death," and line that up just like Epicurus lines up atoms vs void and pleasure vs pain.
But regardless of that, the more pressing point is that Sedley and DeWitt agree that there is a major issue involved when we interpret Epicurus through Cicero and potentially other Latin writers. We may well have been locked by the term "highest good" into thinking that Epicurus advocated for some particular pleasure as the goal and that there are a larger number of "inferior" pleasures that should be flatly avoided.
To me the more likely alternative is that Epicurus was, as Sedley states, looking first to establish what is good vs what is bad in blanket terms, in the same way he offset bodies vs space in blanket terms, and only thereafter is it significant to look at the implication of further details.
--------------------
Note: I unfortunately have to say that Sedley's article referenced above has seven sections. I think the last six sections are generally excellent. However the first section is intented to provide just a brief summary of Epicurean ethics and I find that part very unsatisfying. Sedley states in the first section that he disagrees (or at least he did disagree at the time he wrote this many years ago) with Gosling & Taylor's analysis of kinetic and katestematic pleasure. That means he would also disagree with Emily Austin position in "Living for Pleasure" (Chapter 4 Note 
where she wrote:
This is a non-specialist text, so I have chosen not to wade into the dispute about katastematic and kinetic pleasures in the body of the text. A specialist will recognize that I am adopting a view roughly in line with Gosling and Taylor (1982) and Arenson (2019). On my reading, katastematic pleasures are sensory pleasures that issue from confidence in one’s ability to satisfy one’s necessary desires and an awareness of one’s healthy psychological functioning; choice-worthy kinetic pleasures are the various pleasures consistent with maintaining healthy functioning, and those pleasures vary, but do not increase healthy psychological functioning. (emphasis added)
In fact in this section Sedley says flatly that "Katastematic pleasure is the absence of pain." I very much disagree with that and think it is far too overbroad, because it explicitly states that they are the same thing. Following the argument in the rest of Sedley's article, I would argue that Epicurus' analysis follows the pattern of contrasting bodies against space, and that he then sets off pleasure against pain. I would say that if Sedley wanted to discuss kinetic and katastematic pleasure within this article at all, he should have said:
"Pleasure is the absence of pain. Of the pleasures, Epicurus mentions two categories, kinetic and katestematic, the first of which requires stimulation, the other of which does not require stimulation..... He could then have proceeded to further discussion from there. That would have preserved the main point of the article, which is that just as in physics Epicurus establishes first and foremost that everything divides into bodies and space, in ethics Epicurus establishes first and foremost that everything divides into pleasure and pain.
-----
But the point of THIS thread is to set up discussion of the DeWitt article. I'll set up a separate thread for the Sedley article.
In tonight's Zoom we went at length into the question posed in the title to this thread, but I need to explain the background. First, it appears that there is a division of opinion about whether "Hedonic Calculus" analysis is more fundamental and primary, or whether "Natural and Necessary Desire" analysis is more fundamental and primary. In other words,
One reason this question arose is that in section 33 of Part V of Tusculan Disputations, Cicero discusses Epicurus' position on several ethical questions. Some of this review is plainly sarcasm, but much of it seems to be accurate. (And for purposes of this analysis let's refer to the LOEB/KING translation, which Bryan tells us is more accurate than the Yonge translation, as discused in another recent thread.)
Here's the section. I think most of us will agree that except for the snide remarks implying inconsistency by Epicurus, what's stated here is actually a pretty good summary of the Epicurean position. The point of this thread is not to attack Cicero's analysis but to raise another question.
Cicero goes first to the Natural and Necessary analysis and indicates its usefulness.
Then, in the sentence that begins "The whole teaching of Epicurus about pleasure is that pleasure is, he thinks, always to be wished....."
The reason for this post is in part because this section section is almost a stand-alone / restart-from-the-beginning statement of Epicurean ethics, and Cicero doesn't really explain the linkage between what he has just given in the "natural and necessary analysis" to this new "hedonic calculus" analysis.
It was suggested at the meeting that the reason for Cicero placing natural and necessary first here is that Cicero is wanting to emphasize a more "moral" view of Epicurean pleasure as part of Cicero's own plan of arguing in favor virtue. That may or may not be the reason, or may be a part of the reason, but the way Cicero presents the order of the argument here helps highlight a question that we've talked about many times before, and takes us back to the questions posed above:
There was significant dissent to that position in our meeting, with some observing that if that perspective were correct, then one is not really following Epicurus if they don't understand and apply the natural / necessary filter BEFORE worrying about hedonic calculus.
Please give us your thoughts!
On of the most on-point quotes on Eplcurean confidence. Cicero is intending it to be a slam, but coming from an Academic Skeptic like Cicero, anyone who takes a position on anything of sustance is a raving madman!
Hereupon Velleius began, in the confident manner (I need not say) that is customary with Epicureans, afraid of nothing so much as lest he should appear to have doubts about anything. One would have supposed he had just come down from the assembly of the gods in the intermundane spaces of Epicurus! “I am not going to expound to you doctrines that are mere baseless figments of the imagination, such as the artisan deity and world-builder of Plato's Timaeus, or that old hag of a fortuneteller the Pronoia (which, we may render ‘Providence’) of the Stoics; nor yet a world endowed with a mind and senses of its own, a spherical, rotatory god of burning fire; these are the marvels and monstrosities of philosophers who do not reason but dream.
Episode 317 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "The Epicurean System of Counterbalancing In the Pursuit of Pleasure"
I'm taking the title of today's episode from the fact that both Yonge and King translate "system of counterbalancing" as the best English version of the Latin in section 33:
Totumque hoc de voluptate sic ille praecipit, ut voluptatem ipsam per se, quia voluptas sit, semper optandam expetendamque putet, eademque ratione dolorem ob id ipsum, quia dolor sit, semper esse fugiendum ; itaque hac usurum compensatione sapientem, ut et voluptatem fugiat, si ea maiorem dolorem effectura sit, et dolorem suscipiat maiorem efficientem voluptatem, omniaque iucunda, quamquam sensu corporis iudicentur, ad animum referri tam en;
Thank you Bryan! King's version makes much more sense to me.
In this week's episode, part of what we discuss is the following section from XXXIII which was new to Joshua and me when we came across it. In tonight's 20th Zoom there was a general idea that this is likely referring to sex / romantic relations, but all ideas will be appreciated.
There are two things going on here: (1) is that there's a significant difference between the Yonge and Loeb translations of the sentence before the one we're referring to ("and seem rather for lessening the number of them" vs. "yet all the same look out for a plentiful supply of them," where Yonge and Loeb seem to be at odds, and
(2) the sentence that contrasts "birth position and rank" to beauty, age, and shape." (the Loeb version) on which point Yonge largely agrees, but the question is "what exactly are they talking about?
