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While we know that the position that there are only two feelings and we are experiencing either one or the other is the Epicurean position, for persuasiveness purposes we will still need to hammer the point that Kalosyni is wanting to raise: Can we experience something without an associated feeling?
It's clear we need to go back over this point. WHY is this position seemingly of such importance to Epicurus. I think there are probably several answers but we need to make them clear.
if 6 held that "Any non-painful feeling is a pleasure" it would be a deductive conclusion of 1 and 2.
Good point. Will change most every word "experience" to "feeling." That also will address the points in the remainder of your post I think.....
While I think in normal discussion the word "experience" equates to "feeling," there is no reason to introduce that ambiguity in this list of points. All that was previously stated as "experience" will now be changed to "feeling."
While we know that the position that there are only two feelings and we are experiencing either one or the other is the Epicurean position, for persuasiveness purposes we will still need to hammer the point that Kalosyni is wanting to raise: Can we experience something without an associated feeling?
Cicero says we can, Torquatus/Epicurus says we cannot. As far as I can tell, every single reference to the question in the core texts backs up Torquatus/Epicurus that this is the Epicurean position.
Now as to WHY that is the Epicurean position, that's a separate but highly important question. I would say it is because of Epicurus' philosophic conclusions about life (life is desirable, so life in the absence of pain is pleasurable) but there are probably other ways of reaching the same conclusion. It is a plus (but not determinative of the question) that modern clinical researchers seem to take the same position (a point which Don and Godfrey are all over.) See posts in this subforum and many others which are not linked there as of yet.
One additional point on this from the letter to Menoeceus: "And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality."
I have not previously interpreted it this way, but that underlined portion may be exactly the point: it is the right understanding that death is nothing to us that makes a mortal life enjoyable. It is thinking through these issues philosophically that makes us realize that even when we are not being stimulated, the simple and normal act of living is understood to be pleasurable. If we don't understand this, then we wander in indifference and doubt and question the value of life and we flirt with Stoicism or Nihilism or worse. If we do understand it, then the wise man can experience a constant predominance of pleasure over pain.
I wrote my post #3 in the middle of the night, and when I read Don's post #4 I was half asleep. I failed to really be clear about this part which I would steer away from:
A = pleasure (pleasurable sensation/positive affect)
B = pain (painful sensation/negative affect)
A1 = "Any experience of agreeable "stimulation"" (ie, kinetic pleasure)
A2 = "normal and healthy experience of life" (ie, katastematic pleasure)
I think the designation of A1 as kinetic and A2 as katastematic would not be helpful. Regardless of different readings of the texts, as I understand the situation the k/k terminology is not nearly as well establishable in the core Epicurus and Lucretius texts as is the discussion of the difference between "stimulation" vs "absence of pain / normal experience of life." The problems that result from this k/k classification include for example exactly the one Don mentions in his post, that the "kinetic/katastematic" distinction does not map directly onto the distinction between stimulation vs normal painfree life.
The summoning up and savoring of memories is mental, and though we don't think of that usually as an "action" experience, it does fall under the category of an action as I understand the authorities. Action is not merely physical change but also includes mental change, and so (again as I understand the authorities) stopping and starting to think about distinct memories is considered kinetic, as is any process that involves "change of state" rather than "static state." Diving into whether the pleasure involved is "changeable" or "static" introduces complexities that are not needed for the overall analysis of whether pleasure predominates over pain.
The big hurdle to get over and the reason for discussion is to understand what "absence of pain" means. Resolving the issue that we should seek the predominance of all types of pleasures over all types of pain resolves the biggest issues in controversy as to what the goal of life is. As I see it, the prime objective should be first is to identify and have confidence on the desired goal. Once we do that, then the question can turn to which individual pleasures to pursue under a particular circumstance. And that's going to be more of a practical fact-specific question than a theoretical issue.
Yes I would agree that this takes us to exactly the same place, if we insist on the accustomed viewpoint of looking at feelings of body and mind separately. That's why I included my note in number one that most people are going to look at them separately, but the issue of whether their activity is pleasure or pain is the same. When you separate those out and refer to them as AI/A2 and B1/B2 you're right we arrive at the same place:
HP = (A1 + A2) height/fullness of pleasure is just 100% pleasure
HP = C - (B1 + B2) height/fullness of pleasure is the totality of life without any pain of body or mind
And i agree that this is an added complexity that would arise due to ambiguities between the kinetic and katastematic terms:
But pain in the body B1 is the absence of pleasure in the body but neither A1 nor A2 map neatly onto mind and body since memories can be a kinetic pleasure.
.... problems which i would put aside by considering those questions to be of secondary down-the-road importance, if that. I would leave those problems to those who really want to pursue whether Epicurus himself was concerned with this distinction at all, and I would go with Lucretius' approach and leave that for another book.
The real fundamental help that going through these steps provides under either scenario is that it explains how the term "absence of pain" can be used in a completely clear way. Seen this way, "absence of pain" is tied tightly to pleasure and describes both the ultimate goal of life as well as the sweeping nature of everything that is considered pleasure. No "woo" or mystery or implication of asceticism or devaluing of life, but rather a clear reference that brings within it any experience in life which is not painful.
Please check my math and let me know if you see an error:
Pleasure Arithmetic and "Absence of Pain"
==================================
1. There are only two feelings of body or mind: those which are agreeable (pleasure) and those which are disagreeable (pain). Let's call pleasure "A" and pain "B." (It should not be necessary to say that we are including both "body' and "mind," since we are a single organism, but since many people seem to insist on thinking in those two terms, let's be clear that everything said here refers to both.)
2. If a person is alive and feeling anything, what he is feeling is either "A" pleasure or "B" pain.
3. "All" the feelings of life = "A" + "B." Let's call all the feelings of life "C." A + B = C
4. "All" the feelings of life means 100% of them. There is no logical way to increase "C" past the total of "A" + "B."
5. Any feeling of agreeable "stimulation" is a pleasure. Everyone admits this. Let's call this type of pleasure "A1".
6. Any non-painful feeling is a pleasure. Not everyone admits this, but this is the logical deduction of points 1 and 2. Let's call this type of pleasure "A2". This does not refer to "stimulation," but instead refers to the normal and healthy feeling of life when no pain or disease is present. Neither A1 nor A2 are intrinsically "better" than the other for all people at all times. Both are part of life and both require prudence and activity to sustain.
7. The most pleasure possible in life is when 100% of life ("C") is composed totally of pleasure, which means 100% A (pleasure, either A1 or A2 or both) and 0% B (pain). We can call this type of life "HP" (the "height of pleasure" or "the highest pleasure" or the "limit of pleasure").
8. If C = A + B (all feelings of life = the pleasurable feelings + the painful feelings) then A = C - B. This is another way of saying that the quantity of pleasurable feelings in life is the same as the quantity of feelings in life in which pain is absent. Any feeling of pleasure can therefore be referred to as a feeling of "absence of pain," and any feeling of pain can be referred to as a feeling of "absence of pleasure." This is not a complete description of a particular feeling, any more than the word "pleasure" is a complete description of ice cream or sex. From this perspective, "absence of pain" provides us a single term that describes any and all types of desirable experience, since "absence of pain" includes both A1 (any agreeable stimulation of body or mind + A2 (any non-painful normal experience of body or mind).
9. The most desirable life (which we called "HP" above) is completely pleasure (A1 + A2 with no amount of B), which means a life in which pain is absent. From this perspective, "absence of pain" provides us a single term that describes our goal for life.
10. "Absence of pain" can be used to refer to either "the goal of life" or "any and all types of desirable feelings." Just like the word "Pleasure," which can refer either to "the goal of life" or "any and all types of desirable feeling," the term "absence of pain" has two meanings, depending on which perspective is being discussed.
11. "Absence of pain" does not mean or imply "absence of feeling" or "absence of pleasure." Instead, "absence of pain" refers to any number of pleasurable feelings from a discrete single experience of pleasure all the way up to a total life which is full of pleasures unaccompanied by pains. Therefore when we say that the goal of life is absence of pain, we are not following the gross error of Hieronymous of Rhodes and others who say that the goal of life has nothing to do with pleasure, we are following Epicurus and saying that the goal of life has everything to do with pleasure.
EDIT NOTE: The first version of this post had "experience" in the place of what is now listed as "feeling." This change was made to tighten up the wording - see posts 8 and 9 in this thread below.
Ok - In listening again to Episode 195, I think we had a great conversation. However I think there is a lot more to say, so as we start 196 i expect to take us back over some of the same points, especially:
When we consider the Letter to Menoeceus TOGETHER with PDO3, I would say that we have to be firm both on both the overall organism level and as to individual feelings. We're not talking ONLY about the limit of quantity of pleasure being the absence of pain, but we are talking about any individual desirable feeling as being called by either of the names "pleasure" OR "absence of pain - in other words that the terms are interchangeable.
This latter point is more clear from the letter to Menoeceus: "By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.". This is not directed toward the limit of the quantity of pleasure, as in the first sentence of PD03, but to what is said in the second sentence.
Torquatus is hammering this point over and over, but we can't leave it ambiguous:
1 - The theoretical goal is 100% pleasure / 0% pain, because it's obvious nothing can be more complete than 100%. When looking at your whole life "in sum," the logical goal for your life as a whole is 100% pleasure / 0% pain. Of course we know it is canonical Epicurus that we sometimes choose pain when that leads to more pleasure or less overall pain, so the 100% / 0% goal is a "whole organism" perspective, and not an inflexible rule that says at every moment that your "prime directive" is to make sure you never experience a moment of pain. You look to all the consequences and you act accordingly.
AND -
2 - Every step along the way, in any discrete moment / part / feeling / experience of your life, what you are feeling / experiencing is registered as either pleasure or pain, and that there is no "neutral" or third or fourth or any other kind of experience that does not fall under pleasure or pain. If you are not feeling pain, what you are feeling is pleasure, full stop, end of need to look for any other high-level label. Any feeling that we find to be desirable is equally describing as "pleasure" or "absence of pain" at this high level of analysis.
We then to hammer home that analysis and then go back over why the example of Hieronymous of Rhodes illustastes this equivalence through the different positions that the two philosophers are taking.
If anyone has suggestions on ways to illustrate these points we will be glad to incorporate them into the upcoming podcast.
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I think your comment is on target - and I think that Frances Wright agreed with you and devoted a significant amount of her fictional reply of Epicurus to Zeno on the same point:
But, perhaps, though Zeno should allow this last effect of my philosophy to be probable, he will not approve it: his severe eye looks with scorn, not pity, on the follies and vices of the world. He would annihilate them, change them to their opposite virtues, or he would leave them to their full and natural sweep. ‘Be perfect, or be as you are. I allow of no degrees of virtue, so care not for the degrees of vice. Your ruin, if it must be, let it be in all its horrors, in all its vileness; let it attract no pity, no sympathy; let it be seen in all its naked deformity, and excite the full measure of its merited abhorrence and disgust.’ Thus says the sublime Zeno, who sees only man as he should be.
Thus says the mild Epicurus, who sees man as he is: — With all his weakness, all his errors, all his sins, still owning fellowship with him, still rejoicing in his welfare, and sighing over his misfortunes; I call from my gardens to the thoughtless, the headstrong, and the idle — ‘Where do ye wander, and what do ye seek? Is it pleasure? Behold it here. Is it ease? Enter and repose.’ Thus do I court them from the table of drunkenness and the bed of licentiousness: I gently awaken their sleeping faculties, and draw the veil from their understandings: — ‘My sons! do you seek pleasure? I seek her also. Let us make the search together. You have tried wine, you have tried love; you have sought amusement in reveling, and forgetfulness in indolence. You tell me you are disappointed: that your passions grew, even while you gratified them; your weariness increased even while you slept. Let us try again. Let us quiet our passions, not by gratifying, but subduing them; let us conquer our weariness, not by rest, but by exertion.’ Thus do I win their ears and their confidence. Step by step I lead them on. I lay open the mysteries of science; I expose the beauties of art; I call the graces and the muses to my aid; the song, the lyre, and the dance. Temperance presides at the repast; innocence at the festival; disgust is changed to satisfaction; listlessness to curiosity; brutality to elegance; lust gives place to love; Bacchanalian hilarity to friendship. Tell me not, Zeno, that the teacher is vicious who washes depravity from the youthful heart; who lays the storm of its passions, and turns all its sensibilities to good. I grant that I do not look to make men great, but to make men happy. To teach them, that in the discharge of their duties as sons, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens, lies their pleasure and their interest; — and when the sublime motives of Zeno shall cease to affect an enervated generation, the gentle persuasions of Epicurus shall still be heard and obeyed.
To sort of recap for a moment let me say this:
My major issue with the "absence of pain" analysis I see discussed by many modern commentators is that they either state or imply that there is some kind of "true pleasure" or "higher pleasure" that is the ultimate goal of life which is only experienced when every last drop of pain is eliminated. As a result they imply that the ordinary experience of pleasure in normal life as you get your life under control and gradually increase the predominance of pleasure in your experience from 50% to 75% to 90% to 99% ultimately is worthless, and that nothing is worth achieving until you cross that 100% pleasure / 0% pain threshold.
To coin a new term that no one has ever used before 
- that interpretation would make "the perfect the enemy of the good."
As I would say it now, PDO3 is making clear BOTH:
1 - That the theoretical goal is 100% pleasure / 0% pain, because it's obvious nothing can be more complete than 100%. When looking at your whole life "in sum," the logical goal for your life as a whole is 100% pleasure / 0% pain. Of course we know it is canonical Epicurus that we sometimes choose pain when that leads to more pleasure or less overall pain, so the 100% / 0% goal is a "whole organism" perspective, and not an inflexible rule that says at every moment that your "prime directive" is to make sure you never experience a moment of pain. You look to all the consequences and you act accordingly.
2 - That every step along the way, in any discrete moment / part / feeling / experience of your life, what you are feeling / experiencing is registered as either pleasure or pain, and that there is no "neutral" or third or fourth or any other kind of experience that does not fall under pleasure or pain. If you are not feeling pain, what you are feeling is pleasure, full stop, end of need to look for any other high-level label. Any feeling that we find to be desirable is equally describing as "pleasure" or "absence of pain" at this high level of analysis.
If those two points are accepted as clear, I think you eliminate most of the ill effects of all the "woo" that surrounds absence of pain, and you end up with a very practical and common sense framework that refutes all the ascetic or esoteric assertions that people who are averse to the word "pleasure" want to push. Accepting these two points as core Epicurus fleshes out what Epicurus is talking about in the letter to Menoeceus and makes clear he is not pointing in an ascetic direction, and that he has no intention of "writing out" the pleasures of "stimulation" from within the proper and full definition of pleasure, which includes both stimulation and all other activities of normal life which are not painful.
There's a lot further we can go in terms of practical advise and additional details, such as linking statements to the effect that life is desirable and that is a small man indeed who has many reasons for ending his life. We can then develop a similarly clear statement on the issue of being satisfied with what you have while at the same time wanting to continue living so long as you can expect a predominance of pleasure over pain.
But if points 1 and 2 above are not clear, I don't think it's productive to move further until we have confidence in those two.
Any thoughts?
Typo here Godfrey, or am I misreading the "desire, not desire"?
Another thought is that desire, not desire, is the reason to get out of bed. The desire to relieve a full bladder, to drink a cup of coffee, to accomplish such-and-such.
We are planning to interview Dr. Boeri in the next ten days for a special edition of the Lucretius Today podcast, and interview hopefully Dr. Aoiz in the Spring. If you have any comments or questions you would like us to incorporate in the interview, please comment in this thread. Here are our current thoughts for what the interview is going to cover:
How Apolitical Were The Epicureans? | Academia Page | List of his articles | ORCID | Best Bio Information at Guggenheim
Contents of the book: Theory and Practice In Epicurean Political Philosophy - Security, Justice, and Tranquility - Javier Aoiz and Marcelo Boeri
Today we welcome to our podcast Dr. Marcelo Boeri, who is a Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of the Andes in Santiago, Chile. Born in Buenos Aires, he received a B.A. degree from the University of Buenos Aires. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Salvador in Argentina in 1995, he was appointed an Associate and, later, an Independent Researcher (1996-2003) at CONICET. He was also for a time an Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Comahue (1997-98) and a Lecturer in Greek Philosophy (2000-01) at the University of Litoral (2000-01) before joining the faculty of the University of the Andes in 2003.
In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Mr. Boeri has conducted extensive research on ancient philosophies and philosophers both at his home institutions and as a visiting researcher at Georgetown University (1994-95) and at Brown University (2007), as well as a Junior Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies (1999-2000) and as a visiting researcher at that institution (2004).
His publication of more than fifty-five papers and critical reviews on Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, as well as his co-editorship of the philosophical journal Méthexis (since 2001) and of the International Plato Studies series (since 2007) have firmly established him as one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient philosophy. This reputation has garnered him invitations to lecturer from the University of Navarra, Spain (1999); Boston College (2003); the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile (2005, 2007); Trinity College, Dublin (2007); and the University of Rome Tor Vergata (2007); among others.
His impressive publication list includes “The Stoics on Bodies and Incorporeals” (Review of Metaphysics, 54 [2001], 723-52) and “Socrates, Aristotle, and the Stoics on the apparent and real good” (Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, vol. XX, ed. J. J. Cleary and G. Gurtler [Leiden: Brill, 2004]); he provided the introduction, analysis, and translation from Latin and Greek for Los estoicos antiguos. Sobre la virtud y la felicidad (Ed. U. de Chile, 2004); he contributed the article “The Presence of Socrates and Aristotle in the Stoic Account of akrasia” in Metaphysics, Soul and Ethics. Themes from the Work of Richard Sorabji (Oxford UP, 2005), which Ricardo Salles edited; and he wrote Apariencia y realidad en el pensamiento griego. Investigaciones sobre aspectos epistemológicos, éticos y de teoría de la acción de algunas teorís morales de la antigüedad (Buenos Aires: Ed. Colihue, 2007).
Among other things we want to talk about will be:
Tonight!
Tonight at 8pm, we will cover Vatican Saying 34 & 35. 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.)
VS34. It is not so much our friends' help that helps us, as it is the confidence of their help.
VS35. We must not spoil the enjoyment of the blessings we have by pining for those we have not, but rather reflect that these too are among the things desirable. [13]
Isn't Marcion the one who thought ONLY Paul was worth reading, or so I have that reversed and he was against Paul and preferred the others?
Yours actually adds new content. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with "and you should not want them to or try to make them." Is that commentary directed at those who elevate tranquility?
Not necessarily taking aim at tranquility at this point, just trying to focus on whether it might be important to get a better fix on "variety." Is "variety" in pleasure the reason we find it is desirable to get out of bed tomorrow? Or is the reason just that we didn't succeed in making "pure pleasure" today so that we try again tomorrow?
There's something going on that explains better why we both (1) don't need infinite time, and yet (2) find it desirable to live another day tomorrow. Yes "life is desirable" is a statement that we can refer to, but there's also some intellectual connection between why pure pleasure (should we attain it) cannot be improved, and yet we do want to live again tomorrow if there is more pleasure and pain that comes from it.
There needs to be a simple way to state the reason other than "Epicurus said life is desirable."
Here's two things I think are pretty simple once you get with the terminology issue:
(1) It's pretty simple to see that when you talk about the whole organism (and I think that probably includes time as a component, but maybe not) being "full" of pleasure / without any pain / experiencing pure pleasure" is a height which cannot be exceeded no matter how much additional time is added.
(2) And it's pretty easy to understand that if there are only two labels for feelings, then any particular feeling could be called either "pleasure" or "absence of pain" if it feels good, or "pain" or "absence of pleasure" if it feels bad.
I would think there must be an equally simple way of dealing with a question such as: "If your view of the goal is (1), and you reach it one day, why do you want to live another day?"
It's one thing to say that (1) is the "ideal" and we just do the best we can to approximate it every day, and not worry about it further. That may be the complete answer, and we think of (1) as something the gods can attain but we cannot, because what we can attain is a preponderance of pleasure over pain all the time.
But lots of people seem to ask what Epicurus says about "How long should you want to live?" combined with "Why not settle for the least active life you can so as to minimize pain?" and it would be desirable to answer that as clearly and concisely as possible.
Perhaps some of the Gosling and Taylor commentary about "living the sort of life specific to the being in question" helps in that direction. But whether it does or not it's a question you'll be asked as soon as you start taking questions from your local Epicurean Meetup Group so it's good to plan ahead.
I can't think of much that would more clearly violate our "no partisan politics" rule than a discussion on how to deal with the current situation in the Middle East and / or take sides between the warring parties.
On the other hand, we have discussed before the issues that are involved in dealing with religious friends. What brings this to mind is that I just received a call from a close friend who was fed up and angry with the constant stream of "See, the world is about to come to an end, the Temple is going to be rebuilt, and Jesus is coming back!" variety.
In times like this I think it is most valuable to have Epicurean friends with whom you can discuss issues rationally, and if you don't have them then you don't have an outlet to vent at the supreme folly of the analysis that is on all sides.
If anyone has advice, examples, or anecdotes that would be helpful at a time like this, let's use this thread to talk about it. We'll continue to enforce the "no politics" rule as in the past, but it would be strange if we didn't acknowledge at all what is going on in the world, and have some outlet for discussion of how to deal with hot-button religious analysis of issues that are very likely to affect us all whether we wish it to or not.
We won't be having any threads on who is right or who is wrong or how we got here or any of that. Those issues are best left elsewhere. But a continuing discussion of how to keep some degree of peace of mind when many of your friends are engaged in frenzied religion-based decision-making is in order.
We'll moderate this thread closely and I will apologize in advance if we make quick moderating decisions to remove or suspend a particular post while the moderators review it. It's very possible that if a moderator thinks a post goes too far they will "suspend" the post pending further moderation review. But I think we can have a profitable discussion on dealing with relatives or friends who go off the deep end in their actions or views, and how an Epicurean might respond.
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Underlining added by me:
18.3.17 - Once again, living a life free of disturbance is not just a matter of staying alive and not being disturbed, as with a person under heavy sedation, but living the sort of life specific to the being in question. Epicurus could concede to Plato that there are states of living things which are neither pleasant nor painful, as for instance, states of unconsciousness, but he would not concede to the subtlers of the Philebus that once the process of coming-to-be had finished the pleasure was over. Faced with the problem which it was suggested faced Plato after the Republic (cf. 6.8) Epicurus refused to make a choice. Granted we have a conscious living thing, then he seems to have thought, if it is living its specific form of life that life will be pleasant except to the extent that the proper balance is disturbed. In pleasures of restoration the condition of the organism is not entirely disrupted. To the extent that it approximates to proper balance there will be pleasure, (for to that extent some of the imbalance will have been removed and some balance restored), but the pleasure will be perfect only when the balance is. Having a physicalist view of the constitution of man he will be very inclined to some view of the good state as consisting in a physical balance of the organism, but he has no inclination to follow Plato or Aristotle in their views of the exquisite pleasure of philosophy. There is nothing special about the mind in this respect and indeed, un-Platonically, its main value is not in the divine glory of the intellect, nor its special pleasantness, but in its contribution to the general stability of the system. In some ways this has an Aristotelian ring: if one is living according to one’s nature then one is enjoying one’s life, and failure of enjoyment is a function of disrupted nature. But Epicurus’ physicalism makes him stick firmly by physical balance, and this in turn makes him less interested in individual activities and their enjoyments, which gets Aristotle embroiled with external goods (cf. 13.4.3-4), and more in a condition of the individual which ensures him balance independently of external circumstance.
Always good to bring in a comparison with the Cyreniacs (also Gosling & Taylor):
18.3.6. (iii) But this brings us to the third problem. For Epicurus should not be prepared to allow that one unmixed pleasure can be greater than another. The ‘greater than’ relation can only hold between pairs of pleasures at least one of which is mixed, it cannot hold between two unmixed ones. So this at least looks like a fairly blatant inconsistency.
18.3.7. The only hope here is to query the testimony of Diogenes, but it clearly will not do simply to dismiss it because it is awkward. Two things are, however, worth noting: first, although Diogenes (DL X.136, 137) sounds as though he is reporting an explicit set of disagreements with the Cyrenaics, he is probably only working out divergencies, and secondly, when the point at present under discussion is introduced the dispute is over whether physical or mental pains are worse; it is only after an explanation of why Epicurus thought mental ones were worse that Diogenes adds that for the same sort of reason he thought that mental pleasure were greater.
Now the Cyrenaics dismissed the idea of calculating the effects of actions and advocated pursuing the immediately available pleasure. So far as immediately available pleasures were concerned they considered bodily ones to be the greater, presumably judging degrees of pleasure on a scale of intensity. Since pleasure is the only good, and this does not mean pleasure maximization over a life, they are obviously going to think that bodily pains are worst and bodily pleasures best just because most painful and pleasurable respectively. One would not, however, expect Epicurus to settle the question of which were better in these terms (DL X.129-30). He would not deny, perhaps, that some bodily pains are very intense, and even more intense than any mental ones, but he thought that intense bodily pain was always short-lived and that therefore one should not make much fuss about it (PD 4; DL X.140). For, in such pain the body has only to cope with the present disorder, which is only of brief duration. The mind, by contrast, dwells on not only present evils but past and future ones as well, and so its pain endures as long as the memory and expectation of evil. These are also typically fertile of pain. The memory of past failure leads to fear of future ones in turn aggravated by memories of past ones. So the body’s limitation to its present condition in contrast to the mind’s wandering over past, present, and future would make one, on Epicurean grounds, consider the pains of the mind to be worse, and this is precisely the ground cited by Diogenes in X.137.
But this is, note, a ground for considering them worse, not in any ordinary sense as more painful. Epicurus’ disagreement with the Cyrenaics would be precisely on the point of equating what is more painful with what is worse. It is only after his reports of the Epicurean grounds for thinking mental pains to be worse that Diogenes comments that ‘so in this way he holds that the pleasures of the mind are also greater’. But ‘this way’ has given no grounds for supposing them greater in the sense of more intense, nor pleasanter in any sense found elsewhere in Epicurus. At most it gives grounds for supposing them more enduring and more productive of pleasure. It is simplest in fact, either to suppose that ‘greater’ does not mean ‘more pleasant’, or to suppose that this has slipped in because of carelessness on the part of Diogenes who was constructing a dispute in which Epicurus’ ‘opponents’ were using ‘greater’ as equivalent of ‘more pleasant’ and taking greater pleasures as ipso facto better. Either way Epicurus is not committed to saying that mental pleasures are pleasanter than bodily ones, though he will doubtless say that unmixed mental ones are pleasanter than mixed bodily ones. So the probability is that the basis of Diogenes’ report is quite consistent with Epicurus’ remarks elsewhere on degrees of pleasure.
