Posts by Cassius

Peter I understand that there are Greek Epicureans who have been much more successful than elsewhere in having live seminars and meetings. Have you had the opportunity to associate with any of that and do you have any thoughts on their efforts?

Quote from Don

We should enjoy both mental and physical pleasure, but we can just access the mental ones with more confidence

Yep I would say that Epicurus' final days would be an example of that.

I am thinking to myself what implications flow from that observation.

One of the primary ones would be that this allows the "continuous pleasure" position in which we always have access to mental pleasures. This doesn't mean that the mental pleasures are necessarily better, but if we can be confident that we always have the ability to find pleasure in life, then we can be confident that life is worth living, and that in itself is a very important character trait and provides resistance against nihilism.

Quote from Godfrey

An existing text that we do have is PD09. I'm currently interpreting it as defining the three components of pleasure as intensity, duration and location. The more I think on it, the more useful these seem to be for working with maximizing one’s pleasure. And if I'm interpreting PD09 correctly, which is open to debate, then to my mind it has more relevance than the texts dealing with k/k, as it is directly attributed to Epicurus.

Your analysis of PD09 seems on target to me. I think most of the time that people pick up this subject the first places they intuitively go are (1) time /duration, (2) intensity, and (3) part of the body or mind being affected (location). It's hard for me to think of what additional classifications would deserve the same level in the hierarchy as those three. They apply to every kind of experience I can imagine, and all the other ways you can categorize pleasure seem to fit within those.

Quote from Godfrey

opponents such as Cicero and his ilk have cynically sent us off on a wild goose chase!)

And my current favorite explanation for that is that everyone in a competition knows the strategy of "divide and conquer." Suggesting that some "pleasures" are abstractly better than others creates a competition between the advocates of pleasure. Maybe someone needs to play the game against the other side and suggest that the virtue of courage is MUCH better than the virtue of wisdom, or piety to the gods is MUCH better than virtue. But then again those games have always been played too, and most everyone is as confused as ever even though 2000 years have gone by.

Welcome to Episode 194 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

This week we continue our discussion of Books One and Two of Cicero's On Ends, which are largely devoted to Epicurean Philosophy. "On Ends" contains important criticisms of Epicurus that have set the tone for standard analysis of his philosophy for the last 2000 years. Going through this book gives us the opportunity to review those attacks, take them apart, and respond to them as an ancient Epicurean might have done, and much more fully than Cicero allowed Torquatus, his Epicurean spokesman, to do.

This week we continue in Book One, and we will be starting with section XIX. Follow along with us here: Cicero's On Ends - Complete Reid Edition

We are using the Reid edition, so check any typos or other questions against the original PDF which can be found here.

As we proceed we will keep track of Cicero's arguments and outline them here:

Cicero's Objections to Epicurean Philosophy

Episode 193 of Lucretius Today is Now Available:

Peter what you wrote about de facto atheism gives your thoughts on part of the question, but maybe does not address whether you think Epicurus was serious about life elsewhere in the universe and whether he was serious that there are (or that we should think there are) blessed and imperishable beings who should (for our own benefit at the very least) be thought of as examples of the best way to live. It's interesting how people take different positions on that. What are your thoughts on that aspect?

Quote from Godfrey

What I'm thinking is that looking at feelings in terms of the particular components of intensity, duration and location gives us a practical set of tools. Katastematic/kinetic is just a way of talking about the tool of duration. This line of reasoning was prompted by the texts, but I haven't yet gone back through the existing texts (studiously excluding Cicero) to see how fully it's supported.

I generally agree with this perspective. Specific pleasures obviously differ from one another in their unique qualities, and intensity, duration, and location are practical ways of distinguishing them for purposes of discussion.

It makes sense also to focus on what Epicurus and Lucretius and Diogenes Laertius and any other self-proclaimed advocates wrote. However I would not exclude Cicero for too long, because when he records an advocate of Epicurus (Torquatus or Velleius, I am not sure if there are any others) speaking, I think a lot of stock can be put in those words. I can't cite an example at the moment but it seems I have read that commentators think that Cicero had before him texts from the various schools when he was writing, and it seems to me that the extended presentations by Torquatus and Velleius deserve a lot of consideration.

Quote from Godfrey

I'm leaning toward the idea that katastematic/kinetic is really just a description of durability. Breadth is important, but not katastematic or kinetic. Breadth would be something like "does this thing bring me both physical and mental pleasure? Does it affect one part of my body, or is it a more widely distributed feeling? Does it give me mental satisfaction in one way or in a variety of ways?"

I'm not sure I follow what you are saying here. I see why you are saying that breadth is important but why is "duration" not important?

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It would be best to take the remainder of any discussion of specific politics to private conversation so that we don't have to start talking about our no-politics rule. That having been said, you've put your finger Peter on the reason for our rule on the subject. It's all a very complicated subject, but one aspect of it that I think is clear is that our community project is better off keeping clear of the subject and leaving it entirely to our participants' private lives. Anyone smart enough to be attracted to Epicurus is going to opinionated on lots of topics, including politics. The calculation that we have made here, and that has served us well, is that we can accomplish more and get more out of our work if we focus on what unifies us and stay away from subjects that others can do as a group much better than we can.

We're hoping to interview soon a professor who has written that the ancient Epicureans weren't nearly as non-political as they are now regarded to be, but no matter where one comes down on that issue I am confident that we here at the EpicureanFriends.com forum are always going to work to stay together on the core work even at the expense of conducing interesting political discussions elsewhere.

Lots of great questions and i am sure that you will get some interesting responses. I don't think anyone has had any success in forming an intentionally-Epicurean community in modern times, but it's a topic that is frequently talked about, and I agree with you that it is doable. Now that we have the internet to bring together people who would not normally have been able to find each other in the past, things like this become more possible.

Probably you would need a "leader" to ultimately make decisions on most of the issues you raise, but over time I would think that groups who share similar viewpoints would be able to pull something together. It's a big hurdle though -- as you will see here, even where we make a strong effort to keep things within defined boundaries there are many different opinions as to what is essential and what is not. I expect that there's no substitute for time and effort and it will not be soon, but it will be possible, for a critical mass of people who see things similarly to make plans on closer association. All the issues you raised have to be addressed first, and there will be lots of differing opinions on most of them.

Welcome! I think you will find our group to be both modest and courteous. I'm not sure those are the generally regarded as the two most distinguishing aspects of Epicurean philosophy, but we'll be very courteous and modest as we talk about the absence of supernatural gods, the end of life at death, the role of pleasure as guide to life rather than virtue or idealism or piety, and the primacy of nature over logical abstractions!

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In that regard we have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

1. "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
2. The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.
3. "On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
4. "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
5. The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."
6. Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
7. Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
8. The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
9. A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
10. Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
11. Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
12. "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

Welcome to the forum!

Quote from Godfrey

For any pleasure to be real and, further, to be evaluated, it needs to be felt. In order for me to evaluate pleasures, they need to be (or have been) located in my body and/or mind. Furthermore, ranking "universal pleasures" is meaningless, as these are nothing but concepts which aren't actually felt by anyone. And the feelings that these concepts refer to can be experienced differently by everyone.

Quote from Godfrey

There needs to be a feeling, which occurs with a particular intensity, at and for a particular time, and at a particular location in my body and/or mind.

I think both of those positions make a lot of sense. We can make generalized statements about how most people experience feelings but in the end if you don't experience them yourself you can't understand them.

I would bolster that by one of my favorite quotes:

Quote from Jackson Barwis, Dialogue on Innate Principles

When we are told that benevolence is pleasing; that malevolence is painful; we are not convinced of these truths by reasoning, nor by forming them into propositions: but by an appeal to the innate internal affections of our souls: and if on such an appeal, we could not feel within the sentiment of benevolence, and the peculiar pleasure attending it; and that of malevolence and its concomitant pain, not all the reasoning in the world could ever make us sensible of them, or enable us to understand their nature.

Godfrey:

I think that you and DeWitt are saying something very similar, with this from the paragraphs just before the one I quoted above:

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I bet if we looked hard enough we could find evidence that Cicero spoke in terms of the military strategy of "divide and conquer." I can't find anything immediately but we know this about Cicero's military career:

Besides his activity in ameliorating the hard pecuniary situation of the province, Cicero was also creditably active in the military sphere. Early in his governorship he received information that prince Pacorus, son of Orodes II the king of the Parthians, had crossed the Euphrates, and was ravaging the Syrian countryside and had even besieged Cassius (the interim Roman commander in Syria) in Antioch.^[100] Cicero eventually marched with two understrength legions and a large contingent of auxiliary cavalry to Cassius's relief. Pacorus and his army had already given up on besieging Antioch and were heading south through Syria, ravaging the countryside again. Cassius and his legions followed them, harrying them wherever they went, eventually ambushing and defeating them near Antigonea.^[101]

Another large troop of Parthian horsemen was defeated by Cicero's cavalry who happened to run into them while scouting ahead of the main army. Cicero next defeated some robbers who were based on Mount Amanus and was hailed as imperator by his troops. Afterwards he led his army against the independent Cilician mountain tribes, besieging their fortress of Pindenissum. It took him 47 days to reduce the place, which fell in December.^[102] On 30 July 50 BC Cicero left the province^[103] to his brother Quintus, who had accompanied him on his governorship as his legate.^[104] On his way back to Rome he stopped in Rhodes and then went to Athens, where he caught up with his old friend Titus Pomponius Atticus and met men of great learning.^[105]

FYI and FWIW, when I wrote my long post 16 I had not seen Godfrey's 15 - we crossposted.

I would say that in looking for a definition of katastematic this would be a very good time for anyone who has not read it to re-read what Boris Nikolsky has to say, including:

"Besides all these problems and contradictions there is yet another, quite remarkable fact. As it happens, most sources make no mention whatever of any differentiation between kinetic and static pleasures but rather convey Epicurus' doctrine in such a way as to suggest that pleasure was to him a unified and unambiguous concept. This group comprises sources that are rightly considered to be the most reliable: these are texts by Epicurus himself, as well as by Lucretius and Plutarch. On the other side, besides Cicero, only Diogenes Laertius and Athenaeus mention two kinds of pleasure."

Gosling and Taylor make the same points in much more detail, but Nikolsky states it concisely and traces the issue of how this came to be a question in the first place. The full article is available wherever Nikolsky is clickable here at the forum, or directly here.

So my current view is I think we have some separate things going on here:

1 - It is critically important to extent the label of pleasure to the normal non-painful state of being alive and doing and thinking whatever is not painful. And "whatever is not painful" includes every kind of mental or bodily pleasure you can name, whether kinetic or katestematic or any Greek word starting with "k" you prefer to use.

2 - It is critically important for the mind to go through the process of understanding how life in the absence of pain is pleasurable, and how the gods and death and the prospect of pain do not prevent us from leading happy lives.

3 - Once 1 and 2 are established, then people can choose among "kinetic / active" or "resting / static / katestematic" pleasures as fits their personal situations and as various activities and pursuits are available to them. But they need to understand that contrary to those who argue that katestematic pleasures are the ultimate goal, there is no "authentic" or "higher" or "noble" or "worthy" ranking that makes one pleasure intrinsically and for all people at all times "better" than another. No such ranking exists that tells everyone to target "katestematic" pleasure as the ultimate goal of life. If you play with definitions and divide up "Pleasure" into types, and pit one type against the other as better for everyone at all times, then you create a war among pleasures and you imply that god or idealism or virtue or geometry or numerology is needed to tell you which is the "best." And we all know what happens to a house divided against itself.

At this point I would frame a sea / pleasure analogy this way:

The sea cannot feel, but for purposes of considering pleasure the sea can be considered just like Chrysippus' hand. As with the many things that a hand can be doing, the sea can be doing all sorts of things. It can be standing largely in one place, it can have tides, it can have currents, it can have eddies, it can have flows, it can be briny, it can be fresh, it can be hot, it can be cold, it can be full of life or less full, it can be cloudy or it can be clear, and on its surface it can be placid or it can be driven by the wind into waves of greater or lesser extent. Each and every one of those conditions can be considered to be pleasurable, because the sea is doing what seas do naturally without experiencing pain. It is convenient and useful for us to label "doing what a living thing does naturally and without pain" to be "experiencing pleasure." None of those conditions of pleasure for the sea are intrinsically or morally superior to any other, because all are a part of what seas normally do without experiencing pain. The fact that some conditions involve more motion or change than others has no relevance to our labeling those conditions as pleasurable for the sea, any more than whether we are waving our hand or holding it still stops us from considering all nonpainful activities of the hand to be pleasurable, just as Torquatus assumes in his hand illustration. Chryssipus wanted people to think that the hand is not experiencing pleasure unless it is being actively stimulated from the outside. Torquatus correctly explains that this criticism is effective against the Cyreniacs, but not against Epicurus, because Epicurus identifies the normal state of life as pleasurable regardless of whether outside stimulation is present.

For purposes of bringing pain into the picture we could say that it is not normal and natural for the sea to be polluted with a dump of industrial waste, and it is not normal and natural for a hand to be burned. If we collapse all the possible ways the sea can feel pain into "being polluted" and collapse all the ways that a hand can feel pain into "being burned," then we can say that unless the sea is pained by being polluted the sea is in a state of pleasure. The logical deduction that follows is that if the sea is experiencing no pollution whatsoever, then it is in the greatest state of pleasure that it can experience, which is the limit or height of pleasure for the sea. Likewise unless the hand is being burned it is in a state of pleasure, and if it is experiencing no burning at all it is at its height or limit of pleasure. This is exactly the explanation that Torquatus gives to Cicero, but which Cicero proceeds to ignore as if Torquatus had said nothing. Cicero may have ignored this explanation, but we can give him credit for including it, because by doing so he gives us a very valuable illustration as to how Epicurus actually considered pleasure to be viewed as the absence of pain. Pleasure is viewed as the absence of pain because all pain-free mental and bodily activity of life - everything we experience which is not painful - is best and accurately viewed as pleasurable.

It causes no harm for us to personally favor either surfing the waves or floating on a calm surface, so long as we recognize that both experiences are pleasurable in their own ways and have their own benefits. What does cause harm is to suggest that, as a general rule for everyone, one type of pleasure is more worthy or noble or meaningful than the other, or that only one type of pleasure is authentic, or that one type of pleasure is desirable only so we can experience another. Pitting one pleasure against another causes us to lose sight that the true importance of the analogy is to affirm that all nonpainful experiences of existence for a living being should be considered pleasurable. Once we identify that all experience in the absence of pain is pleasurable we are free to choose from the banquet, and if we do so wisely we will choose not those pleasures that are the most numerous or those that last the longest, but those we feel to be "most pleasant." ("And just as with food he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant.")

Cicero pits the bodily pleasures against the mental pleasures and thereby convinces everyone to take their eye off Epicurus' key insight. When you split the mind and body, and pit "calm" versus "intense" pleasures, and consider all the various types of pleasure to be at war with each other, you forget the big picture, and you're forced back into thinking that god or virtue or logic or idealism has to be consulted to determine which pleasures to pursue. The big picture is that in an eternity of nothingness, all of the nonpainful experiences of life should be prized as pleasurable. You yourself choose which to pursue, and you should pursue them energetically and prudently and without procrastination unless and until you confront pain that is truly unbearable and without relief. Further, you can be confident that even in the face of unbearable and unrelievable pain you will not be without resources, because you then have the option taking the situation in your own hands and exiting the theatre.

This may not be how most people normally think, but that does not change the fact that people would be better off if they did think this way, and that there is no logical reason why they should not think this way. [1]

I would say appreciation for this insight shows how so many smart people could legitimately consider Epicurus to be "godlike" and "master builder of human happiness" - even a figurative "savior." Epicurus identifies a clear and straightforward path to cleanse the jar of life. Considering all of life unpolluted by pain to be pleasurable is an attitude that removes the corruption, seals the cracks, and allows us to fill life with pleasure. The result is identification of the best possible life in a way that is understandable, achievable, and compelling to most everyone who is not corrupted or manipulated by false religions and philosophies.

----------------

[1]

Quote from "Epicurus And His Philosophy" page 240 - Norman DeWitt (emphasis added)

"The extension of the name of pleasure to this normal state of being was the major innovation of the new hedonism. It was in the negative form, freedom from pain of body and distress of mind, that it drew the most persistent and vigorous condemnation from adversaries. The contention was that the application of the name of pleasure to this state was unjustified on the ground that two different things were thereby being denominated by one name. Cicero made a great to-do over this argument, but it is really superficial and captious. 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."

Quote from Godfrey

When you look at it like this, which is how it should be looked at, I suppose the first concern is to prove that there's no neutral state. This can be done in at least two ways:

Is it clear why it is important that there should be no neutral state? Maybe this is one of those areas where philosophy is "necessary" to happiness. Maybe it's necessary to reflect on things in order to be confident that there isn't a neutral state. Thinking that there is a neutral state might on its face seem harmless, but anyone who doesn't reflect and doesn't identify life in the absence of pain to be pleasurable (as many non-reflective people fail to do), is trapped with a three-category labeling system in which the relationship beetween the three is undefined.

Is there any harm in such a three category system?

I can identify at least one:

If you think all of life is a mix of pleasure, pain, and neutral, then what is the "limit of pleasure?" Plato asked about that limit in Philebus, and I think a good argument can be made that failing to identify a limit of pleasure was the turning point in Philebus that eventually led the proponent of pleasure giving up his argument. The problem is that if you have three categories, you can't say that the limit of pleasure is the absence of pain, because you haven't dealt with the "neutral" experiences. If there are three categories then saying "absence of pain" does not tell you whether what is left is pleasure or neutrality, and as Cicero said to Torquatus there are lots of times that lots of people would say they are in neither pleasure nor pain.

If you're looking for a force of nature to compete with gods or ideal forms as your ultimate end, the argument is that it's got to have that "superlative" quality which cannot be improved by adding anything to it. Otherwise if you could add to it then it can be made better and you haven't reached the top of the mountain.

When you identify all of life's experiences as either painful or pleasurable, and you identify life as a sum from which all painful experiences have been removed, then you have logically identified an end that cannot be made better. A life that is completely free of pain is by definition completely pleasurable, and nothing can make it better - even more pleasure - because the sum you have identified is complete.

A completely wise person is the summit of wisdom, and a completely pleasurable life is the summit of pleasure.

Diogenes Laertius says Epicurus said "One wise man is not wiser than another." I think that helps us illuminate the issue too. Apparently in terms of "wisdom" there are sense in which "wisdom" can be judged to be the same across people even though they have had totally different experiences (and thus knowledge of different experiences) in life.

Maybe Epicurus is saying that this comparison as to wisdom is the same as that for pleasure. Any and all men who are "without pain" are being judged to be in the same condition of maximum pleasure, even though those those men are experiencing totally different mixtures of mental and bodily pleasures based on their individual circumstances. In saying that men who are pain-free are at the height of pleasure, we are saying nothing at all about what those men are actually doing in their bodies or mind, just that their conditions cannot be improved.

And that would be the way Epicurus would defend saying that a wise man in 2023 Athens is no wiser than a wise man in 200 BC Athens, even though their life experiences and practical knowledge is completely different from one another.

These comparisons make perfect sense and are valid, but they do require thought and the capability to figure the problem out.

Quote from Cassius

Torquatus laughed. Come, that is a good joke," he said, "that the author of the doctrine that pleasure is the End of things desirable, the final and ultimate Good, should actually not know what manner of thing pleasure itself is!" "Well," [Cicero] replied, either Epicurus does not know what pleasure is, or the rest of mankind all the world over do not."

It is interesting to think about why Cicero could even take this position that Epicurus is unclear as to the meaning of pleasure, and the related accusation that Epicurus did not adhere to standard attitudes toward "definitions," and still remain credible.

Usually someone is concerned enough about their credibility that they don't make claims that are ridiculous on their face, so Cicero must have thought there was a reason that he could get away with accusing Epicurus of being imprecise.

Presumably most of what Epicurus wrote that would have clarified this is lost. It seems that mainly what we have left is the discussion in Menoeceus, which seems to presume that we know what pleasure is. Taking that position is consistent with Torquatus' statement that there is no need for logical definition or proof that pleasure is desirable. [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.]

The references in Menoeceus to pleasure being "the end" do not explicitly tell us what pleasure is, especially given that Epicurus says that we sometimes avoid certain pleasures in favor of pains. The presumption seems to be as is stated in PD3, that "Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once."

To give Cicero his due, it's a powerful argument to say that someone is using a word in a way very different from the standard definition. I think we have good material in Torquatus from which to construct a proper answer in more detail than Cicero allowed Torquatus to present, and I think that any proper response to Cicero really has to focus on this issue.