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I post this almost as an aside rather than for the K/K reference: I am just not familiar enough with Plutarch but the name "Theon" jumps out. I guess this may well relate to the name Theon in "A Few Days In Athens...."
Last excerpt: As I read it, this is as close as Gosling & Taylor get to a clear conclusion:
While I think Gosling & Taylor are the gold standard on this question, they have a habit of writing in ways that require care. For example it appears that they write a long paragraph about views with which they disagree and expect the reader to understand that they disagree solely because they start the paragraph off with "Notoriously."
After a page they do get around to describing the kind of view that they "oppose," and their position becomes more clear because they have described the "notorious" view as "awkward," and in the end they become much more clear. But it takes dedicated reading to pull out their conclusion.
I need to dig into the full chapter that Gosling and Taylor devote to the K/K issue, but here is Nikolsky speaking in a way I think all of us are in agreement with:
First of all, #196 is really, really good. Well done Cassius, Joshua and Kalosyni. I smiled to myself several times during the podcast. The pleasure issues you're discussing and the points you're making are top-notch.
Thank you TauPhi. I have to apologize to Martin. He was there too, but he joined late and I was so wrapped up in the conversation that I did not notice so I did not call on him at the end.
It is maddening that the Principal Doctrines do not include in their top statements - or at all! - the simple positive statement that "pleasure is desirable."
I am sure there are more, but I can see two main possible explanations for this:
(1) Epicurus was treating his letter to Menoeceus, or some other document where he does say this, as a preliminary statement even more fundamental than the list contained in the Principal Doctrines.
(2) Epicurus was being "in your face" again (like "the sun it is the size it appears to be") and taking a rigorously logical position that it is not necessary to say what is not necessary to say. This *might* be what Torquatus is alluding to at line 30 of On Ends Book One:
[30] Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil, and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself prompts unbiased and unaffected decisions. So he says we need no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire, pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts.
Given our recent discussions, anyone want to suggest other possibilities?
[136] Epicurus differs from the Cyrenaics about pleasure. For they do not admit static pleasure, but only that which consists in motion. But Epicurus admits both kinds both in the soul and in the body, as he says in the work on Choice and Avoidance and in the book on The Ends of Life and in the first book On Lives and in the letter to his friends in Mytilene. Similarly, Diogenes in the 17th book of Miscellanies and Metrodorus in the Timocrates speak thus: ‘Pleasure can be thought of both as consisting in motion and as static.’ And Epicurus in the work on Choice speaks as follows: ‘Freedom from trouble in the mind and from pain in the body are static pleasures, but Joy and exultation are considered as active pleasures involving motion. '
When your mind is not being excited, but is operating at its normal speed and doing its normal things, is that something that can be well conveyed in English using the word "static"?
When your body is not being stimulated through massage or in any other ways that moves the senses from their standard state of good health and operation, can that condition be conveyed using the word word "static"?
Even more so, an untranslated Greek word does not convey what is sought to be conveyed. To be clear, the untranslated word has to immediately be explained, or else you are left with an impasse with the Ciceros of the world, and the normal reasonable man is going to agree with Cicero. Just as Cicero said, this is not a dark subject where use of technical language can be excused. This calls for clarity, and I feel sure that Epicurus gave the explanation with clarity, and that our problem arises because the clear and detailed explanation did not survive, not that he or his later heads of the school refused to give one.
To be fair, part of the problem may be that it *does* survive but we do not see it due to translation issues and our own prejudices. Statements like PD08 that no pleasure is a bad thing in itself may be intended to show in the negative that all pleasure is desirable, and that we are to treat these statements as logical axioms which allow of no exceptions and have to be carried to their logical extremes.
So whether we are talking about "defining katastematic" or just being clear in the first place, the challenge is the same - we need to convey what is being discussed in plain English. Healthy operation of body and healthy operation of mind are not *that* hard to designate clearly, and we need to find better ways to do so.
It isn't a full explanation to say "Absence of pain is pleasure, and that the greatest pleasure" which is basically all Cicero allows Torquatus to do in answer to Cicero's questioning.
I will admit that I am getting the idea that there is a deeper mystery here. How did it ever get to the point in 50BC that Cicero could make a colorable argument that the relationship between pleasure and absence of pain was not being explained satisfactorily even by the Epicureans themselves? It's almost as if (A) the Emperor Julian in celebrating the disappearance of the texts, and (B) Cicero saying that no one but Epicureans read the Epicurean texts (I think that was Cicero, wasn't it?), and (C) Cicero warning Torquatus not to argue that the Epicureans didn't enjoy literature, because Epicurus never argued that, and (D) Philodemus complaining about people who were oversimplifying ---- are all pointing us toward a problem that was developing in the decades between Epicurus and Cicero.
How could it get to the point where Cicero could make this argument that Epicurus was unclear and hope to be taken seriously? Was our problem of lack of transmission of texts already beginning then?
I think that's something else we need to explore.
It's the connotations of the words that cause us all the problems. "Rest" implies sitting around doing nothing. "Motion" implies physical movement, even though savoring memories, or anything that implies change, is also within the idea of motion. And while "kinetic" is going to evoke frenzy in English-speaking minds, "katastematic" is never going to evoke anything but "woo" or being "comatose" at best.
I can see why it is tempting to define things in the negative so as to give maximum latitude to the expression that anything done during the normal healthy state - whether it involves motion, rest, or whatever, that is not painful is pleasurable.
I want to point something else out that Joshua raised in the podcast that I think is extremely important. Joshua pointed out not one but two sections (if I recall correctly, in regard to (1) pleasure being one name that describes many pleasurable feelings, and (2) the meaning of "variety") where Cicero's analysis of pleasure seems to be tracking very closely to Plato's Philebus analysis.
I think we need to hold open the strong possibility that not only Torquatus/Cicero, but also Epicurus himself, were intentionally tracking Plato's anti-pleasure analysis.
And that's going to lead us back to the issue of "the limit of pleasure," which was raised as a huge issue in Philebus. I think we are going to find that the term "limit of pleasure" has a very precise reason for being such a central part of the analysis. As part of that, I think we will find that the "limit of pleasure" or "height of pleasure" is not a "DESTINATION" at all, but the "best" ongoing way of conducting the journey of life.
We have been raising but not satisfactorily answering (in my view, at least not fully) the question of why - if on a particular day we should reach 100% pleasure) we should want to live any longer. That's like asking why, if we climb to the top of Mount Everest, we should want to continue to live at all. No one but a Stoic or other warped personality would conclude that meeting a goal like that "once" is "good enough for a lifetime."
I think we're going to conclude that just like the predominance of pains over pleasures describes Epicurus' last day, defining the "limit of pleasure" as containing both "stimulative" forms and "non-stimulative" forms allows us to describe "the best life." But "the best life" is not a destination, but a journey, and just as pleasure was desirable all the way along, more pleasure so long as we can live another day it is also desirable.
The consolation involved in having a "limit of pleasure" is that it gives us a day to day goal to strive for, and it tells us that this is the "best we can do" just like we keep our cars tuned and cleaned so that they run at tip-top performance. The purpose of getting cars in tip-top condition is not so they can sit still and be looked at, but so that they can perform as cars are able to do at the top of their game.
So I think if we continue to compare our Epicurean texts to Philebus, as Joshua is doing, we're going to see that it is a mistake to think of the "end" or "goal" of life as a single destination at which we can arrive and then be satisfied and think to ourselves that "it's time to die."
And he who counsels the young man to live well, but the old man to make a good end, is foolish, not merely because of the desirability of life, but also because it is the same training which teaches to live well and to die well. Yet much worse still is the man who says it is good not to be born but ‘once born make haste to pass the gates of Death’.
As we discuss words like "normal" or "regular" to describe the pleasure of daily life even in the absence of stimulation, I think we should remember DeWitt's focus on "health" as a description of the normal regular non-painful condition (page numbers refer to DeWitts "Epicurus and his philosophy")
VS54. We must not pretend to study philosophy, but study it in reality, for it is not the appearance of health that we need, but real health.
I am not sure where this comes from in Horace, but on p 29 of the book: "For this ambitious program of expansion the school was prepared as any Greek school had ever been or ever would be. Not only was every convert obligated to become a missionary; he was also a colporteur who had available a pamphlet for every need. "Are you bloated with love of praise? There are infallible rites," wrote Horace, "which can restore your health if only you will read a pamphlet three times with open mind."
Also page 66: "Neither was he in debt to his teachers for his hedonism. None of them was a hedonist. He was in debt to Plato for suggestions concerning the classification of desires and the calculus of advantage in pleasure, but differed from both Plato and Aristippus in his definition of pleasure. To neither of these was continuous pleasure conceivable, because they recognized only peaks of pleasure separated either by intervals void of pleasure or by neutral states. In order to escape from these logical dead ends Epicurus worked his way to a novel division of pleasures into those that were basic and those that were decorative. The pleasure of being sane and in health is basic and can be enjoyed continually. All other pleasures are superfluous and decorative. For this doctrine, once more, he was in debt to no teacher.
- Letter to Menoeceus: 122] "Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul."
- page 148 in regard to time - "The line of reasoning may be sketched as follows: a human being is susceptible of sickness but sickness is not a permanent attribute. only a temporary condition, that is, an accident. Sickness in its turn may be long or short. but this quality of length or brevity is not a permanent attribute but an accident. Therefore it is an accident of an accident. Next. by analogy, since we associate time with states of health or sickness. the time of their duration is said to be long or short. Thus long and short become predicates of time while in reality they apply only to states of health or sickness. This amounts to saying that in the phrases "a long time" or "a short time" the adjectives are transferred epithets.
page 217 - He also had something new to say on the true relation of pleasure to pain. Some had believed them true opposites on the ground of universal pursuit and universal avoidance. Others had firmly denied this on the ground that some pleasures were good and some bad, while some denied that any pleasures were good. Neither were either laymen or philosophers agreed upon the nature of pain; Antisthenes and the Spartans classified it as good. Epicurus discovered a logical position for himself by positing an indissoluble connection between pleasure and health and between pain and disease. No one could then with
reason deny that pleasure was a true opposite to pain since it would mean denying that health was a true opposite to disease. Neither could men deny that health was a good and disease an evil. By the same token pleasure was bound to be a good and pain an evil.
page 223 - It follows from this that pleasure is not to be opposed to pain on the ground alone that all creatures pursue the one and avoid the other: the two are true opposites because they stand in the same relation as health which preserves and disease which destroys. It is for this reason that the one is good and the other is evil, Vatican Saying 37: "Human nature is vulnerable to evil, not to the good. because it is preserved by pleasures, destroyed by pains." This may be taken to mean that pleasure, as it were, is nutriment to the human being, as food is, and that human nature reaches out for it just as each living thing by some natural impulse seeks its appropriate food. It is no accident that the following statement of Aristotle is to be found in his discussion of pleasure: "And it may well be that in the lower animals there is some natural good, superior to their scale of existence, which reaches out for the kindred good." With this surmise Epicurus would have concurred: all creatures
seek pleasure as if food; they avoid pain as if poison.
Episode 196 of Lucretius Today is Now Available! We continue to cover fascinating material that is highly relevant to our conversations, so again I wanted to get this out as quickly as possible.
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)
I see I have collected the 'smooth motion" references here:
Diogenes Laertius Book II Aristippus
"He laid down as the end the smooth motion resulting in sensation."
Ironically enough "disturbance" is probably useful, but it can't be used in way that implies that the natural condition is immobile or unmoving or that any deviation from day-to-day smoothness is bad.
This sort of evokes the issue of whether Epicurus would agree that pleasure can be seen as "smooth motion" as I think Diogenes Laertius says of Aristippus. I am tempted to say that he would agree on that point, and that deviation from "smoothness" like on the oscilloscope or the EKG is the key attribute of pain. I believe we could enlist Lucretius to support that point.
That said, words like "normal" to refer to this state still rub me the wrong way, as if "exciting" pleasure is "abnormal."
Very good point! Normal might be one of the descriptive words that helps, but it isn't sufficient standing alone. "Natural" or similar is probably better. The names for both categories of pleasure need positive descriptors without associated negative baggage.
One more example, this time Torquatus using his own words in Book 1 line 56.
Rackham's "active sensation" does not seem as literal as Reid's "stirs the senses" - the operative word is again "moveat."
Non placet autem detracta voluptate aegritudinem statim consequi, nisi in voluptatis locum dolor forte successerit; at conta gaudere nosmet omittendis doloribus, etiamsi voluptas ea quae sensum moveat nulla successerit; eoque intellegi potest quanta voluptas sit non dolore.
Rackham:
But we do not agree that when pleasure is withdrawn uneasiness at once ensues, unless the pleasure happens to have been replaced by a pain; while on the other hand one is glad to lose a pain even though no active sensation of pleasure comes in its place: a fact that serves to show how great a pleasure is the mere absence of pain.
Reid:
We refuse to believe, however, that when pleasure is removed, grief instantly ensues, excepting when perchance pain has taken the place of the pleasure; but we think on the contrary that we experience joy on the passing away of pains, even though none of that kind of pleasure which stirs the senses has taken their place; and from this it may be understood how great a pleasure it is to be without pain.
I think analogies would help.
My first suggestion is an EKG, with the normal heartbeat (which is in motion) beating in a regular pattern. The two types of pleasure included by Epicurus under the word "pleasure" would be (1) the normal regular heartbeat (pictured) and also (2) an agreeable (pleasurable) stimulation in which the heartbeat is faster/stronger but still regular.
A disagreeable (painful) stimulation would be irregular or misshapen patterns.
This would be a picture that would be described as pleasurable since it is normal:
Cicero would assert that picture does not illustrate pleasure, and that it would not illustrate pleasure unless the pattern deviated to be faster/stronger than normal.
I presume that a seismograph or an oscilloscope could be used for similar analogies. As long as life goes 'humming along" normally we are in pleasure, but when the sound gets distorted for any reason, that is pain.
Also just a little further down, once again we have a form of "moveo," this time with 'hilarity" 
"Everyone uses the Greek word hedone and the Latin voluptas to mean an agreeable and exhilariting stimulation of the sense."
Omnes enim iucundum motum quo sensus hilaretur Graece hedone Latine voluptatem vocant."
Omnes enim iucundum motum quo sensus hilaretur Graece hedone Latine voluptatem
jucundus, jucunda -um, jucundior -or -us, jucundissimus -a -um pleasant/agreeable/delightful/pleasing; congenial
moveo, movere, movi, motus move, stir, agitate, affect, provoke, disturb
sentio, sentire, sensi, sensus perceive, feel, experience; think, realize, see, understand
hilaro, hilarare, hilaravi, hilaratus cheer, gladden; give cheerful appearance to
graecus, graeca, graecum Greek
hedus, hedi Mkid, young goat; two stars in constellation Auriga,"The Kid"
fero, ferre, tuli, latus bring, bear; tell/speak of; consider; carry off, win, receive, produce; get
voluptas, voluptatis Fpleasure, delight, enjoyment
vocant.
voco, vocare, vocavi, vocatuscall, summon; name; call upon
More as to wording:
Here's Reid's translation of Cicero in Section III:
Cicero:‘Nay, said I, ‘either Epicurus is ignorant or else all human beings who are to be found anywhere are ignorant what pleasure is.’
Torquatus:‘How so?’
Cicero: "Because all pronounce that thing to be pleasure, by the reception of which sense is excited and is pervaded by a certain agreeable feeling.’
Rackham translates that in Loeb as -
"Because the universal opinion is that pleasure is a sensation actively stimulating the percipient sense and diffusing over it a certain agreeable feeling."
Let me get the Latin --
"Quia voluptatem hanc esse sentiunt omnes quam sensus accipiens movetur et iucundiate quadam perfunditur."
voluptas, voluptatis F pleasure, delight, enjoyment
sentio, sentire, sensi, sensusperceive, feel, experience; think, realize, see, understand
accipio, accipere, accepi, acceptustake, grasp, receive, accept, undertake; admit, let in, hear, learn; obey
moveo, movere, movi, motusmove, stir, agitate, affect, provoke, disturb
iucunditate quadam perfunditur.
jucunditas, jucunditatis F charm, agreeableness, pleasing quality; pleasantness/amiability; favors
quidam, quaedam, quoddama certain thing
perfundo, perfundere, perfudi, perfususpour over/through, wet, flood, bathe; overspread, coat, overlay; imbue
Everybody understands that the pleasure of ice cream is different from listening to music, but they don't understand that pleasure includes both "exciting" pleasures and "all normal non-painful experiences of life."
In fact, I am not really sure that all of us here in this thread are agreed on this point. Does anyone not agree that Epicurus is including "all normal non-painful experiences of life" within "pleasure?"
If someone doesn't agree with this (now or even referring to future people who read this thread) we ought to get to the bottom of that.
While we could say "all normal non-painful feelings" instead of "all normal non-painful experiences of life," I would say that wider terminology is important because many are going to say that often they don't feel anything at all, and they are not referring to just when they are unconscious or asleep, they are trying to assert a "neutral" state. As I see it, it is the existence of a neutral state (that of non-feeling, or that of exactly balancing pleasure and pain to get "zero") that is the state being denied by Epicurus. I would say there is no "feeling" labelled "zero" nor is this likely to be a perfectly-matched "zero" sum of pleasures and pains. The latter might be possible, but still that would not be a third alternative beyond pleasure and pain.
For some reason this strikes me as relevant the conversation with Don on exciting vs non-exciting pleasures. Maybe "stir" is another word to add to the pot:
"The mind alone by itself has understanding for itself and rejoices for itself, when no single thing stirs either soul or body."
And the point Socrates is rejecting is exactly what Epicurus is doing in understanding that pleasure has many forms, all of them pleasurable:
But Pleasure I know to be manifold, and with her, as I was just now saying, we must begin, and consider what her nature is. She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one; and yet surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance,—that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these opposite pleasures are severally alike!
As we speculated in the podcast, is it possible that the "variation" references in Epicurus are pointing here to Socrates, and affirming that we need to understand that the "types of pleasure" in which pleasure comes includes not only many specific parts of the body and mind but also "exciting" and "normal/non-exciting"? Everybody understands that the pleasure of ice cream is different from listening to music, but they don't understand that pleasure includes both "exciting" pleasures and "all normal non-painful experiences of life."
Thanks Joshua. Here is Bailey same area Line 98 of Book 3:
Thus often the body, which is clear to see, is sick, when, all the same we feel pleasure in some other hidden part; and contrariwise it happens that the reverse often comes to be in turn, when one wretched in mind feels pleasure in all his body; in no other wise than if, when a sick man’s foot is painful, all the while, may be, his head is in no pain. Moreover, when the limbs are given up to soft sleep, and the heavy body lies slack and senseless, yet there is something else in us, which at that very time is stirred in many ways, and admits within itself all the motions of joy and baseless cares of heart.
