Posts by Cassius

Quote from Pacatus

The niggling concern I would have with stopping there, though, is that without the kind of “fleshing out” in Don ’s post #21 (which I’ve also bookmarked), especially the part I quote below, your post #16 could almost have been written by an Aristippian Cyrenaic* (even with your opening point that “tranquility and ataraxia are fully contained within the word pleasure, but ‘pleasure’ is not fully contained within tranquility or ataraxia”). Unless I glossed over something in my reading (not enough coffee yet ) …

I think what you're observing there is the issue of how context affects the presentation of detailed issues. I perceive Eoghan's post as referring more to "non-specialists in 2023 who speak English who want to get started understanding what Epicurus stands for." In that context I would say you want to explain the differing aspects of "Pleasure" as fully as possible in understandable everyday English without use of foreign or very technical words.

The context where the people you are talking to are familiar with the controversies regarding kinetic and katastematic labels, and are wondering why there is so much discussion about those terms in some quarters, is different. For them, I think you want to then move to Don's passages and explain to them how "katastematic" and "kinetic" map pretty neatly onto "stimulating pleasures" and "other kinds of pleasure which don't necessarily result from stimulation."

Only the most advanced in reading are really going to be interested in the controversy as to whether these labels derive from Diogenes Laertius mapping later developments (such as Carneades) on top of Epicurus, or whether they derive from years of interactions with the Stoics, or whether Epicurus himself held those these labels to be extremely important.

What's clear from any perspective is that just as Epicurus was narrowing his definition of "Gods" to exclude supernatural implications, he was expanding his definition of "pleasure" to include not only "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll" but "pleasures of normal daily living which derive from the mind's appreciation of the normal healthy state as something that is desirable in itself." In both cases the majority of people are using these words in a significantly different way, so explanations are necessary to avoid both innocent misunderstandings and intentional misrepresentations. (I use scare quotes just to indicate that the formulations are tentative, not that I'm quoting anyone.)

VS29. For I would certainly prefer, as I study Nature, to announce frankly what is beneficial to all people, even if none agrees with me, rather than to compromise with common opinions, and thus reap the frequent praise of the many. [12]

Thinking out loud about some potential rhetoric that needs to be fine-tuned but here's the thought:

Q: What's the difference between Pop Modern Epicureanism and Classical Greco-Roman Epicureanism?

A: Pop Modern Epicureans accept Cicero's argument that absence of pain (ataraxia / tranquility) is something different and higher than Pleasure, while Classical Greco-Roman Epicureans laughed in Cicero's face at the very idea.

Quote

Cicero: "...[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'"Torquatus: "Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be." ...

Cicero: Still, granting that there is nothing better (that point I waive for the moment), surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?" Torquatus: "Absolutely the same, indeed the negation of pain is a very intense pleasure, the most intense pleasure possible." CIcero - "On Ends" Book 2:iii:9 and 2:iii:11 (Rackham)

Quote from Don

The recent in-depth discussions of "absence of pain = pleasure" have given me a new perspective on the katastematic/kinetic "debate." The health of the body and the tranquillity of the mind *is* katastematic pleasure. The "normal" functioning of freedom from pain in body and mind that has been discussed *is* katastematic pleasure. "Absence of pain" in the mind is literally ataraxia which Epicurus gives as an example of *a* katastematic pleasure.

Yes I think this is the way things are going, and I think we are essentially in total agreement. Expressing these things is tricky and that's where we can get better with practice. For example in Kalosyni's post above as to how to describe "mixed situations" I think we have to be careful and precise, and it relates back to the discussion we had recently about how to evaluate things that are going on simultaneously, like the separate pains and pleasures of Epicurus' last day.

Part of the weight that remains to be removed from the "absence of pain" terminology is how to flip back and forth easily between seeing that you don't have to expect every ounce of pleasure from life before you can experience any pleasure, but on the other hand it is proper and helpful to talk about exactly that -- the theoretical goal IS to expel every ounce of pain, at which you would have reached the limit of pleasure.

I think that's what can be confusing about the way Cicero's Torquatus is flipping so quickly from saying "the absence of pain is pleasure" to saying " the absence of pain is in fact the HIGHEST pleasure."

At least for me, I am not yet familiar enough with the dual implications to move from one to the other and back again without confusing the issue and thinking that, "Well if I can't hit the highest pleasure without expelling every ounce of pain, then there is a "kind of pleasure" that I'll never reach, because I am afraid I am never going to be 100% successful at expelling all pain."

Apparently there is something in my thought process (not sure what yet) that makes me think that "the perfect is the enemy of the good" and that there is a tension between 100% pleasure and 99% pleasure (another title of a recent thread). Somehow the theoretical goal of 100% pleasure seems an insult to 99% pleasure, and yet I think it would make no sense at all that somehow it takes a totally different set of tools and actions to achieve 100% pleasure rather than 99% pleasure.

The Buddhist/Stoic planted implication is that the only way to reach 100% pleasure is by being an ascetic, because only by denying yourself most of the ordinary pleasures of life will you never have any disappointment or letdown, and you're infinitely better off doing so rather than living a life of 99% normal pleasurable activities. All of that is because 100% is infinitely better and more to be chosen than 99%. And I think that makes no sense and it's no way it could have been Epicurus' position.

"Absence of pain" sounds to me (maybe conditioned by religion?) like an absolutist position, and yet Torquatus and apparently the ancient Epicureans are flipping right from "anything that is not painful is pleasurable" to "and to be totally without pain is the greatest pleasure."

I think seeing how "being totally without pain is the greatest pleasure" relates to "anything that is not pain is pleasure" remains to be the subject of a lot of discussion and essays and memes and explanations to make that more clear.

And that's what reminded me to repost the "Perspectives Chart" I started working on. It needs total reworking but this issue is what is driving that -- making clear how to get comfortable with flipping between constructions that say 'the absence of pain is pleasure, and indeed the greatest pleasure." That "indeed" reflects a perspective we have to learn.

Quote from Kalosyni

I wonder if the idea of "mixed" pleasure might need some further examination because it seems that there may be pleasures which are mixed with a tinge of mental uncertainty. There are times in life when you chose pleasures in which you are uncertain what the final result will be (mental pain or a minor problem may result but you are fairly confident that you won't end up physically wounded or dead).

OK someone correct me if I am wrong but care has to be taken here: "mixed" is exactly what a feeling *never* is: a feeling is either pleasure, or it is pain. It is never "both" or "neither" or "mixed."

"Mixed" is a word that describes results which have multiple feelings, in that Epicurus' feelings were mixed on his last day - he felt some pleasure and some pain -- but in different parts of his experience. His gladness of his feelings for his friends was not mixed - it "co-existed" in his experience with other experiences which were painful.

But at the feeling level, feelings are discrete, at the total experience level, multiple feelings co-exist to produce the full level of experience that we're talking about as 100%, such as 60% pleasurable feelings and 40% painful feelings.

Quote from Kalosyni

And thought that came to me regarding "pleasure is the absence of pain" is that this is simply a guide or a tool to find moderation...rather than arbitrarily deciding "I will only eat one heaping full plate of spaghetti" then if you use the phrase "pleasure is the absence of pain" to decide to stop eating when you aren't feeling hungry anymore.

"Moderation" is never the ultimate goal either, any more than calmness is the 'ultimate' goal. Moderation in eating is a tool to find pleasure. It's pleasure that is the ultimate goal and sometimes you're going to eat more than other times. So I'd say you never set out to "Find moderation," you set out to find pleasure, through which moderation is often (not always) an appropriate tool.

It's an interesting question as to what the A to Z analogy really means. Is "foundation" and "fulfillment" what is going on when we travel from "A to Z"? Is "Z" the "fulfillment" of "A"? (I suppose if you're looking at the full string, then the full string of letters might be seen that way). Or is the analogy really firmly focused on "First to last" which is more of a "time" analogy than a "fulfillment' analogy? (And although it's familiar to us from religion, it probably doesn't deserve that taint, because it's useful apart from religion - right?)

I say all that because I suppose the issue is ultimately "How was Epicurus using it?" When we say "beginning and end" the word "end" get's confusing with "goal." But if we say "first to last" then "last" doesn't have quite the same connotation of goal, it really just means "last," like from our first breath after birth to our last breath in dying.

I think Don's post 15 is very close to where it needs to be, but I sense there is still equivocation on the issue that the single word that expresses the ultimate goal in most sweeping terms is not "Tranquility" or "Ataraxia" but "Pleasure."

(And this post is not by any means targeted at Don. We're all doing this at times, me included. Eoghan has asked for proposed responses to explanations to outsiders, and that's what we're working on improving.)

Pleasure is the global term; tranquility and ataraxia are fully contained within the word pleasure, but "pleasure" is not fully contained within tranquility or ataraxia. There are pleasures which do not involve tranqulity or calmness or any other similar term. Are those other pleasures less "worthy" than calmness?

When tranquility and ataraxia are used in a way that conveys that they, and not pleasure, are the goal, then the other pleasures are deprecated, and the issue of their status remains muddy. Epicurus was extending the definition of the word Pleasure so that it would include all agreeable feelings, including feelings such as Don is describing and that many people don't ordinarily think of as "Pleasure." If we fail to follow his lead and use the umbrella term, then we're throwing away the main tool that gets us to the point of clarifying what pursuing "pleasure" really means and how it fits into "the nature of things."

The reason this is a continuing question, and the reason that Eoghan is posing it again, is that the orthodox view is that it is wrong to say that "Pleasure" is the goal. The orthodox gatekeepers of acceptability say we should be saying "Tranquility" or "Ataraxia" or some other "acceptable" word instead. And in most cases they are not saying it because they really believe in calmness -- they're saying it because they have another agenda, and they don't want *you* to see pleasure as a legitimate goal.

I don't think these questions will ever begin to clarify in peoples' minds unless the focus remains first, last, and always on "Pleasure." We should say to heck with the nay-sayers who think that the medicine is too bitter to drink. This issue has become as muddy as it is precisely because of this equivocation that we all are tempted to make -- We all know that the Stoics and the Buddhists and the Humanists and the Virtue-crowd are the majority, and we hear in their tone of voice the same condescension and bitterness that we hear in Cicero's abhorrence at the very idea of saying that "Pleasure" is the goal of life.

We should make a clean break with that equivocation and never back down from saying clearly that "Pleasure" is the goal of life. After that, we can then explain all the many facets of what "Pleasure" means for as long and as far as we'd like to go. But the battle is going to be won or lost on keeping it clear that it is Pleasure which is the banner under which we're traveling, and the banner's not ataraxia or aponia or tranquility or any other word than "Pleasure."

When you enter a discussion looking like you're apologizing for the word Pleasure, then you look afraid and you lose the argument before it's even started.

We're "Living for Pleasure," and we're not "Living For Ataraxia" or "Living for Tranquility" or anything else - unless, that is, that we're ready to admit that joy and gladness and what everyone admits to be under the definition of Pleasure are not a legitimate part of the goal of life. Every time we indicate that Ataraxia or Tranquility is more important than Pleasure we are repudiating the definition of pleasure that Epicurus was promoting. An apt analogy is Peter swearing to Jesus that he is a disciple and then immediately turning around and denying him three times before the cock crowed.

If we don't insist on continuing to use the word "Pleasure" as the description of the goal, then we're admitting that the Ciceros of the world have won. No one really believes that there is some special transcendental state constituting "ataraxia" or "tranquilty" which is outside of pleasure and is the real goal of life. The issue is whether we are going to defend the word "Pleasure," or whether we retreat under pressure to what we think is a respectable euphemism, and admit that Cicero has won.

Torquatus didn't retreat and we shouldn't either.

Pacatus if that makes sense to you I say go for it.

I think I am content to say in plain English that because there are no gods and absolute rules and no heaven and hell to calculate for, I am left to look to nature for guidance, and nature gives me only pleasure and pain. I want as much pleasure and as little pain as possible. In evaluating what is pleasure I include everything that is agreeable to me, and I find agreeable both active stimulation from the outside as well as my own "quieter" internal appreciation of healthy normal mental and bodily life.

We can embellish all that with lots of additional words but I see no reason to be concerned that the ancient Epicureans saw things in a much more complicated way than that. The commentators can fight over the details as long as they like but I won't let them worry me that I missing anything more sophisticated than what I just described, because at the end of my life I am unlikely to be any better off than Epicurus himself, offsetting pleasure against pain as best I can.

Pacatus I gather you are referring to those first two and yes!

Do I detect that that Lucretius looks a little like Nate?

In our meeting tonight Pacatus mentioned that the Greek might be chronos which might indicate a longer length of time than a moment? That's my paraphrase and I may have it wrong.

Tonight at 8pm, we will cover Vatican Saying 44 and 45.

Please join us. (Post here in this thread if you have never attended one of these sessions as we do have a vetting process for new participants.)

VS44. The wise man, when he has accommodated himself to straits, knows better how to give than to receive, so great is the treasure of self-sufficiency which he has discovered.

VS45. The study of nature does not make men productive of boasting or bragging, nor apt to display that culture which is the object of rivalry with the many, but high-spirited and self-sufficient, taking pride in the good things of their own minds and not of their circumstances.

So you're saying that the literal version is:

The time of the beginning of the greatest good [pleasure] and the time of its release are one. (?)

If one and the same thing is being referred to as to having the beginning and the end, then that begins to bend back around toward "the time of the beginning and the end of the greatest good is one" and you could could conceivably begin to see "the time" as a reference to a length of time.

And if you see "the time" as a length of time which demarcates the beginning and end of the greatest good / pleasure (when viewing pleasure as both stimulating and normal activities of life)? You'd potentially be back at Dewitt's suggestion that the focus of the statement is a reference to life - - as starting with birth and ending with death --- being the start and end of pleasure (the greatest good).

But to get there you'd have to see "time" as not "a moment in time" but a "length of time."

In English the wording could go either way. Can it go either way in Greek?

I see that the Epicurus.info version in its main page is different from its wiki version:

42) The time of the beginning of the greatest good [pleasure] and the time of its enjoyment are one.

Quote from Don

Problem is there's no "from evil" in the manuscript.

Don what did you conclude "should" be there at the end?

Edit: This is Don's post from earlier this month:

Post

RE: VS42 - Versions of Vatican Saying 42

I happened to tackle this exact saying here: RE: If Death Is Nothing To Us, Then Life Is Everything to Us

First, we return to the manuscript:

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/4260/

https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1950.pt.2/0255

Here's what I see in the manuscript itself:

Ὁ αὐτὸς χρόνος καὶ γενέσεως τοῦ μεγίστου ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ἀπολύσεως.

The pivotal last word is:

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/4261/

From what I see it's α'π^ολύσε(ως).

That last swoopy letter is a ligature substantiated in…

Don

November 8, 2023 at 10:49 PM

I don't see a translation in the article but there's a good photo of the wording. Something about who made it?

Edit:

Two mosaic inscriptions were also unearthed in the building as a result of salvage excavations. A mosaic with Latin script was located at the base of a rectangular building, while another mosaic with Greek script was found on the floor of another partially preserved walled building.

The Latin mosaic reads: “On the occasion of its 30th anniversary and with our prayers for it to reach its 40th anniversary. This building [Fabrica] was built under the leadership of his friend [Comes] Hyacinthos. You, O building, have now reached the most magnificent level.”

The Greek mosaic reads: “Enter in a healthy way” or “Enter if you are healthy.”

Raphael I saw your email to me asking about registration. Did you successfully get signed on? You should be able to post here now.

Great -- that "still at it" refers to the link being as recent as November 3, 2023!

Quote from Bryan

Metrodorus is quoted by Plutarch as "Τhis very thing is the good: Escaping from the bad -- because It is not possible for the Good to be placed anywhere, when neither What is painful nor What is distressing is any longer making way for it.

Wow that's another one that if I've read it before I don't recall it --- but isn't that making exactly the same point in another way!

I don't want to press to hard since we're not talking about the Greek wording exactly, but do I read that correctly to say that we should understand that "removing pain" is the same thing as pleasure because pleasure cannot exist where pain resides?

Is the implication that like two atoms, where only one atom can be in a place at a time, you have to move pain out of the way for pleasure to occupy the same spot?

Now in this case we'd also want to refer back to where Torquatus said that we don't admit that when one pleasure leaves that pain *necessarily* fills its space, because the norm would be that one pleasure can take the place of another ("variety").

So there's not necessarily going to be a pain at a particular location if we've ordered our lives successfully, but as to adding *more* pleasure to the total we're experiencing, we can't add any more pleasure once all pain is ejected.

Are you reading it that way Bryan?

I'll restate the same point Don made --- Joshua made some outstanding points in this episode that simply would not be possible to make without having dived into a lot of background reading. Joshua always brings an encyclopedic knowledge of general literature to the table, but in this case the cross-referencing of Books One and Two, and the reading far enough to find Aulus Gellius, are just things that aren't going to happen for the general reader no matter how well intentioned.

To repeat my "joke" I will say that this is why we pay Joshua so well for his input --- In this case I hope the payment in satisfaction from knowing how much his work is appreciated is good enough!

Quote from Eoghan Gardiner

Experientially I have discovered this to be true but I don't think I could explain it in a good way.

Interestingly I am not sure that I would agree that "absence of pain = pleasure" can be "discovered to be true experientally" -- at least not fully.

Everything we are doing here in this discussion is defining terms and attempting to attach words to feelings. The only way to be confident that "Absence of pain" equals "pleasure" is to assign in your mind the meanings of these terms and then hold them firmly. Cicero's objection that "absence of pain is not equal to pleasure" is a perfectly reasonable assertion to many people, and it isn't met fully by saying "your definition is erroneous." Who gets to set what the "right" definition is?

That's why I think this statement is hugely important: "The fact that the name of pleasure was not customarily applied to the normal or static state did not alter the fact that the name ought to be applied to it; nor that reason justified the application; nor that human beings would be the happier for so reasoning and believing."

The "ought" in that sentence then has to be explained, and it's going to ultimately be a matter of your ultimate views of the universe. If life is a privilege and a short-term gift to be treasured, then we will see it as a pleasure. If life is a prison and a burden and a torture by the gods, then we'll see life as a pain.

I suppose yes you can introspect and learn to see that life IS really a pleasure, but in the end I think you end up needing to add the philosophical viewpoint to reach the ultimate understanding. As Lucretius says (paraphrasing) it's not the light of day that opens our eyes to these things, but a scheme of philosophic contemplation.

Also:

PD12. A man cannot dispel his fear about the most important matters if he does not know what is the nature of the universe, but suspects the truth of some mythical story. So that, without natural science, it is not possible to attain our pleasures unalloyed.

PD19. Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure.

PD20. The flesh perceives the limits of pleasure as unlimited, and unlimited time is required to supply it. But the mind, having attained a reasoned understanding of the ultimate good of the flesh and its limits, and having dissipated the fears concerning the time to come, supplies us with the complete life, and we have no further need of infinite time; but neither does the mind shun pleasure, nor, when circumstances begin to bring about the departure from life, does it approach its end as though it fell short, in any way, of the best life.

PD21. He who has learned the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain due to want, and makes the whole of life complete, is easy to obtain, so that there is no need of actions which involve competition.