Welcome to Episode 175 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.
We are now in the process of a series of podcasts intended to provide a general overview of Epicurean philosophy based on the organizational structure employed by Norman DeWitt in his book "Epicurus and His Philosophy."
This week we continue our discussion of Chapter 12, entitled "The New Hedonism."
- The True Nature of Pleasure
- Pleasure, he declares, is cognate and connate with us, and by this he means not only that the inter- connection between life and pleasure manifests itself simultaneously with birth and by actions that precede the capacity to choose and understand; he means also that pleasure is of one nature with normal life, an ingredient or component of it. and not an appendage that may be attached and detached; it is a normal accompaniment of life in the same sense that pain and disease are abnormal.
- The Dualistic Good
- The Natural Ceilings Of Pleasure
- Pleasure Not Increased By Immortality
- The Fullness of Pleasure
- The Unity of Pleasure
- The Root of All Good
- Pleasure Can Be Continuous
- Continuous Pain Impossible
- The Relation of Pleasure To Virtue
Here's the excerpt from Cicero talking about Hegesias that is linked above from Wikipedia:
XXXIV. I am not without hopes myself that such may be our fate. But admit what they assert—that the soul does not continue to exist after death.
A. Should it be so, I see that we are then deprived of the hopes of a happier life.
45M. But what is there of evil in that opinion? For let the soul perish as the body: is there any pain, or indeed any feeling at all, in the body after death? No one, indeed asserts that; though Epicurus charges Democritus with saying so; but the disciples of Democritus deny it. No sense, therefore, remains in the soul; for the soul is nowhere. Where, then, is the evil? for there is nothing but these two things. Is it because the mere separation of the soul and body cannot be effected without pain? But even should that be granted, how small a pain must that be! Yet I think that it is false, and that it is very often unaccompanied by any sensation at all, and sometimes even attended with pleasure; but certainly the whole must be very trifling, whatever it is, for it is instantaneous. What makes us uneasy, or rather gives us pain, is the leaving all the good things of life. But just consider if I might not more properly say, leaving the evils of life; only there is no reason for my now occupying myself in bewailing the life of man, and yet I might, with very good reason. But what occasion is there, when what I am laboring to prove is that no one is miserable after death, to make life more miserable by lamenting over it? I have done that in the book which I wrote, in order to comfort myself as well as I could. If, then, our inquiry is after truth, death withdraws us from evil, not from good. This subject is indeed so copiously handled by Hegesias, the Cyrenaic philosopher, that he is said to have been forbidden by Ptolemy from delivering his lectures in the schools, because some who heard him made away with themselves. There is, too, an epigram of Callimachus20 on Cleombrotus of Ambracia, who, without any misfortune having befallen him, as he says, threw himself from a wall into the sea, after he had read a book of Plato’s. The book I mentioned of that Hegesias is called Ἀποκαρτερτερῶν, or “A Man who 46starves himself,” in which a man is represented as killing himself by starvation, till he is prevented by his friends, in reply to whom he reckons up all the miseries of human life. I might do the same, though not so fully as he, who thinks it not worth any man’s while to live. I pass over others. Was it even worth my while to live, for, had I died before I was deprived of the comforts of my own family, and of the honors which I received for my public services, would not death have taken me from the evils of life rather than from its blessings?
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XXXV. Mention, therefore, some one, who never knew distress; who never received any blow from fortune. The great Metellus had four distinguished sons; but Priam had fifty, seventeen of whom were born to him by his lawful wife. Fortune had the same power over both, though she exercised it but on one; for Metellus was laid on his funeral pile by a great company of sons and daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters; but Priam fell by the hand of an enemy, after having fled to the altar, and having seen himself deprived of all his numerous progeny. Had he died before the death of his sons and the ruin of his kingdom,
With all his mighty wealth elate,
Under rich canopies of state;
would he then have been taken from good or from evil? It would indeed, at that time, have appeared that he was being taken away from good; yet surely it would have turned out advantageous for him; nor should we have had these mournful verses,
Lo! these all perish’d in one flaming pile;
The foe old Priam did of life beguile,
And with his blood, thy altar, Jove, defile.
As if anything better could have happened to him at that time than to lose his life in that manner; but yet, if it had befallen him sooner, it would have prevented all those consequences; but even as it was, it released him from any further sense of them. The case of our friend Pompey21 47was something better: once, when he had been very ill at Naples, the Neapolitans, on his recovery, put crowns on their heads, as did those of Puteoli; the people flocked from the country to congratulate him—it is a Grecian custom, and a foolish one; still it is a sign of good fortune. But the question is, had he died, would he have been taken from good, or from evil? Certainly from evil. He would not have been engaged in a war with his father-in-law;22 he would not have taken up arms before he was prepared; he would not have left his own house, nor fled from Italy; he would not, after the loss of his army, have fallen unarmed into the hands of slaves, and been put to death by them; his children would not have been destroyed; nor would his whole fortune have come into the possession of the conquerors. Did not he, then, who, if he had died at that time, would have died in all his glory, owe all the great and terrible misfortunes into which he subsequently fell to the prolongation of his life at that time?
XXXVI. These calamities are avoided by death, for even though they should never happen, there is a possibility that they may; but it never occurs to a man that such a disaster may befall him himself. Every one hopes to be as happy as Metellus: as if the number of the happy exceeded that of the miserable; or as if there were any certainty in human affairs; or, again, as if there were more rational foundation for hope than fear. But should we grant them even this, that men are by death deprived of good things; would it follow that the dead are therefore in need of the good things of life, and are miserable on that account? Certainly they must necessarily say so. Can he who does not exist be in need of anything? To be in need of has a melancholy sound, because it in effect amounts to this—he had, but he has not; he regrets, he looks back upon, he wants. Such are, I suppose, the distresses 48of one who is in need of. Is he deprived of eyes? to be blind is misery. Is he destitute of children? not to have them is misery. These considerations apply to the living, but the dead are neither in need of the blessings of life, nor of life itself. But when I am speaking of the dead, I am speaking of those who have no existence. But would any one say of us, who do exist, that we want horns or wings? Certainly not. Should it be asked, why not? the answer would be, that not to have what neither custom nor nature has fitted you for would not imply a want of them, even though you were sensible that you had them not. This argument should be pressed over and over again, after that point has once been established, which, if souls are mortal, there can be no dispute about—I mean, that the destruction of them by death is so entire as to remove even the least suspicion of any sense remaining. When, therefore, this point is once well grounded and established, we must correctly define what the term to want means; that there may be no mistake in the word. To want, then, signifies this: to be without that which you would be glad to have; for inclination for a thing is implied in the word want, excepting when we use the word in an entirely different sense, as we do when we say that a fever is wanting to any one. For it admits of a different interpretation, when you are without a certain thing, and are sensible that you are without it, but yet can easily dispense with having it. “To want,” then, is an expression which you cannot apply to the dead; nor is the mere fact of wanting something necessarily lamentable. The proper expression ought to be, “that they want a good,” and that is an evil.
But a living man does not want a good, unless he is distressed without it; and yet, we can easily understand how any man alive can be without a kingdom. But this cannot be predicated of you with any accuracy: it might have been asserted of Tarquin, when he was driven from his kingdom. But when such an expression is used respecting the dead, it is absolutely unintelligible. For to want implies to be sensible; but the dead are insensible: therefore, the dead can be in no want.
Great replies so far. Another practical factor that should be obvious is the time context. We regularly give people who are dying powerful pain killers, knowing that they are not likely to be around long enough to experience the long term side effects. In fact I would say it would be monstrous NOT to use chemicals to deaden pain out of some concern for "virtue" or that drugs are wrong in and of themselves.
So the situation being evaluated has to consider the full context.
First, thanks for letting us know that you enjoy the podcast. One of the reasons we have pushed forward with it even after we finished the first run-through of Lucretius is that I think it helps to hear real live people who approach the philosophy similarly rather than just reading pages in a book or letters on a screen.
Glad to have you reading and listening and please join the conversations wherever you feel appropriate.
Just to help start the discussion, this is a great question, and gets into the "objective vs subjective" discussion that Emily Austin raises in Chapter 3 of her book.
It also raises issues of how "sound mind in a sound body" and our discussions of pleasure as including healthy functioning of the organism (the "hand" argument from Torquatus) are relevant.
And not at all the least, it raises PD10
PD10. If the things that produce the pleasures of profligates could dispel the fears of the mind about the phenomena of the sky, and death, and its pains, and also teach the limits of desires (and of pains), we should never have cause to blame them: for they would be filling themselves full, with pleasures from every source, and never have pain of body or mind, which is the evil of life.
In a similar vein as what Nate just posted that the Christians would have held the Epicureans in particularly low regard there is this from Alexander the Oracle Monger, where again the other schools were willing to collaborate with the revealed religionists, but the Epicureans were not:
The prosperity of the oracle is perhaps not so wonderful, when one learns what sensible, intelligent questions were in fashion with its votaries. Well, it was war to the knife between him and Epicurus, and no wonder. What fitter enemy for a charlatan who patronized miracles and hated truth, than the thinker who had grasped the nature of things and was in solitary possession of that truth? As for the Platonists, Stoics, Pythagoreans, they were his good friends; he had no quarrel with them. But the unmitigated Epicurus, as he used to call him, could not but be hateful to him, treating all such pretensions as absurd and puerile.
ok great, so I promise I will go away and do some reading but could anyone briefly summarize.....
We are glad to do that in virtually every case so don't worry that you are be asked to go away and read the manual 
Would that be accurate? Do you know why he believed in any gods at all? I am an atheist btw
Yes that statement is accurate with a caveat as to "the gods." Epicurus' working definition of "gods" does not include being supernatural, being omniscient, being omipresent, being omnipotent, or most any of the other attributes that monotheism has taught us to believe.
It's better to say that Epicurus held that "gods" exist, by which he means beings which are deathless and who live in perfect happiness without pain, in the "intermundia" -- the space between the "worlds" - which has no contact with us here on earth.
As to why he believes in this type of god at all, the best reference for that is in Cicero's "On the nature of the gods." The answer seems tied to anticipations / prolepsis, but the sources are not clear. Per the same text there is probably also linkage to the fact that Epicurus believed that life exists throughout the universe, and that it is "equitably distributed," and that nature never makes only a single thing of a kind. When you add those things together with believing that the universe is infinitely old and infinitely wide (boundless), then you have the implication that Epicurus believed that we can reason our way to believing that there are living beings throughout the universe, some of whom have reached this state of deathlessness and perfect happiness.
Lots more we can add but this is a start!
But pleasure, as a feeling, is limited to the point where there is no pain, when the body is satiated. Full satisfaction is the limit of pleasure.
Yep and that observation neatly meets the objection that pleasure has no limit or no end, and that for practical purposes (the limited life of humans) the human goal of pleasurable living CAN"T infinitely be made better. At some point every day and in your life you're full -- or as Joshua added in the podcast, you meet your final limit - death.
But it's also important that our calling this out amounts to engaging in "argument through logic" which to me is entirely separate from the argument from practical observation of nature. This is an argument that is essential to defeat Plato and Seneca, but unfortunately, if you separate out the "argument through logic" and don't explain the context, you're left fixated on a "limit" as if that is the only issue involved, when most assuredly there are many other and more important issues that don't end up being confusing in isolation.
If we talk about pigs and babies and real living things, it's much harder to think in terms of their day to day practical goal being well defined by discussing "limits." The logic argument is invaluable in its context, but can't be taken as the ultimate reasoning. I think Epicurus engaged in it, and we have to also, because we are faced with the necessity of fighting on logical terms if we want to communicate with people who are interested in ideas, but that doesn't mean that the whole exercise isn't hazardous for both sides. It's easy to omit important points and end up looking bad when taken out of context.
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.
Also:
conflating (on purpose) pleasure and desire. The *desire* for pleasure is infinite
It may well help us to distinguish pleasure and desire like that, but I don't think it would help Plato or Seneca for the reason you mentioned -- they are conflating things *on purpose* because they want to defend their own "god" (virtue, wisdom, etc) as the ultimate end. If you were to point out to them the distinction between pleasure and desire they would just shift off in another direction with another similar argument, maybe reminding you that cows have similar limits, but are you a cow?
There's ultimately no satisfying these people because they have made up their minds and they are not going to change. But we can help a lot of other people - open-minded people - by explaining these issues, so they don't end up confused and lost like Philebus was at the end of that dialogue.
TAΓAϴON seems to have a similar application, in that the word popularly connotes a perfect, transcendental principle, but also literally refers to that objects that create pleasurable feelings, or pleasure itself.
Yep. And how do you fight against thousands of years of false premises in the meaning of "gods" or "good" or "the end" or any of such terms -- it's very frustrating but a conversation that has to be held.
Episode 174 of the podcast is now available!
Νο. No, no, no.
Once again as I see it we have a perspective issue, in which I placed "greatest good" in scare quotes in extension of the way that Godrey and I are discussing it as an ideal form, while you also rightfully bring back the point that there is another perspective in human feeling where it is essential and vital that we do consider it to be real.
My view is that *both* observations have to be made (the "greatest good" does not exist as an ideal form but does exist as a feeling which is our guide), and we have to be flexible enough to keep both in mind at the same time. Only then can we both understand where Plato and friends go wrong, while at the same time understand where Epicurus gets it right.
If we don't understand that *both* perspectives are important for us to understand then I don't think we ever get on top of these issues with enough confidence to deal with the Platonic arguments that undercut Philebus and the whole attack against "pleasure" as the greatest good. From the ideal perspective we have to see that Platonically the "greatest good" doesn't exist any more than does a line with no width, but from the real world perspective it does exist in our focusing of our mind on an intelligible guide.
I would like to think that we could dispense with this argument and simply talk about pleasure in "realistic" terms, but we don't live in such a world and given the way it has developed for 2000 years we - at least we in our lifetimes - in all likelihood never will.
I think most of us here will find this largely positive review to be something we can mostly agree with, while at the same time it will help us to dive further into the differences between Rand and Aristotle and Epicurus.
The reviewer wishes that LFP had gone further into these differences, which is a perspective I can share without calling it a criticism. The thing I like about LFP is that it goes as far as it does in presenting a positive view of Epicurus that active and healthy people can embrace. When the reviewer talks about JFK's speech on the reasons for going to the moon, he doesn't so much point out a flaw in the book or in Epicurus but in the current orthodox understanding that Epicurus would hesitate to go himself if he had the chance.
The main failure I would point out in turn as to the review is that the writer does not acknowledge that Rand placed "selfishness" and "reason" at the heart of her philosophy, rather than the feeling of pleasure and the rejection of logical rationalism. But to explore that would open too many wounds for most Objectivists, who have a long way to go before they begin to realize that their own sin of rationalism - which many of them admit - is built in to Rand's' neo-Stoic and neo-Platonic worship of "reason" rather than the feeling of pleasure as the ultimate standard of a proper way to live.
Rather than continue my own comments I'll just post the link and we can discuss further to the extent people are interested.
Godfrey this excerpt from DeWitt is not exactly the same point, but I think closely related:
Note: This kind of reference to Italians and Ionians always confuses me. I am not sure whether I am misreading DeWitt's labels here or he is talking colloquially, or what, because according to Laertius Epicurus is listed with the Italians and Plato with the Ionians. Then again Aristotle is an Ionian and he disagreed a lot with Plato. But those labels aren't really relevant to the current discussion.
Yes I think that's the point.
And it may also be exactly the same point as with the "greatest good" which exists only in Platonic ideal status.
Many of our conversations may boil down to exactly that point, and maybe that's exactly why Epicurus recommended against walking around obsessing over the meaning of "good."
It is pretty mind-boggling to think that so much controversy might in reality be so simple to unravel.
Looks to me too like this section of the following article is interesting, however I am not comfortable with the "better" part in the title or the "modest satisfaction." near the end.
Sounds to me this is parallel to where Diogenes Laertius says Epicurus valued *both* pleasures of rest and of action, and I would think the better approach is just to be aware of the differences and how the choice between one vs the other is contextual and requires prudence. Slow mental pleasures might not be what you want when you're resting on a railroad track and a train is approaching, while at other times the roller coaster ride really isn't a good idea when the ride isn't being well maintained and the chance of accident is high. And as to the "modest satisfaction' it's better just to realize that pleasure comes in many packages both mental and physical.
But thinking about these three bullet points makes sense.
Satisfaction is better than exhilaration.
We've been conditioned to think that the right combination of actions will achieve a flash of exhilaration. When we happen upon the perfect marketing strategy, we expect a rush of joy. When we discover the best business for us to start, we're flooded with an electric sensation of excitement.
This thrill-seeking mentality is yet another symptom of the good killing the perfect. It's important to understand that the perfect-being-the-enemy-of-the-good can skew aspects of our daily lives, like those listed above. But the concept can impose even more damage, skewing our expectations even as it cripples our actions. So, try the following moves:
- Rather than expecting aha moments, prepare yourself for gradual improvement.
- Rather than risking sudden leaps in ability, skill, or progress, expect marginal improvement over periods of time.
- Rather than waiting for a rush of exhilaration, expect modest satisfaction over time.
It's good to condition ourselves for success. We can do this by preparing for it, visioning it, pursuing it, seeking it and wanting it. But we can't expect our success to explode like the finale in a Fourth of July fireworks display.
Instead, success is more likely to be gradual. It may feel good, but it won't necessarily feel perfect. Success arrives as a sense of satisfaction, not a sudden thrill.
Supportive of the main point:
chief among them is the view that there is no meaning or purpose behind suffering
Great point
Even from the Nietzschean "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" perspective, there darn well better be a goal of "making us stronger" for engaging in any suffering or else I want no part of it! 
Certainly standing alone the idea of fixating on suffering is awful. I haven't really absorbed or am ready to endorse N's view of "pity" as being such a bad thing, but I think he has a point there too which could eventually be made more clear. In my case I concretize the issue by thinking about how easy it would be for me to sit around thinking constantly about people in nursing homes or animals in animal shelters or in factory farms. But I can usually catch myself by realizing that if I did nothing but continue to think about those issues there would be no time for anything else in life, much less the possibility of finding time to help at least a few of them where possible.
I guess we need a specific thread on "perfect as the enemy of the good" so here it is, starting with Wikipedia citing Voltaire:
This is a thread specifically devoted to "perfect as the enemy of the good." Seems to me this has a lot of application in Epicurean decisionmaking, although this thread stems from the discussion of Hegesias the Death Persuader. Some apparently assert that the perfect "is" the enemy of the good, but others react that we cannot allow this to be accepted. While the two things may not be the same, having the imperfect is superior to taking positions or actions that never allow us to obtain the perfect. Absence of pain may be desirable in the abstract, but for humans the only way to achieve total freedom from pain is death, and the dead can experience neither pleasure nor pain, so obsessing on total absence of pain is self-defeating for humans. That's why I think it is unfair to Epicurus to interpret him as doing so, and that when he "seems" to do so he is engaged in philosophical debate about competing philosophic definitions, not stating that we should forgo the pleasures of life in order to make sure we never experience pain.
This is the current 5/18/23 content of the Wikipedia page:
Perfect is the enemy of good is an aphorism which means insistence on perfection often prevents implementation of good improvements. The Pareto principle or 80–20 rule explains this numerically. For example, it commonly takes 20% of the full time to complete 80% of a task while to complete the last 20% of a task takes 80% of the effort.[1] Achieving absolute perfection may be impossible and so, as increasing effort results in diminishing returns, further activity becomes increasingly inefficient.
Origin[edit]
In the English-speaking world the aphorism is commonly attributed to Voltaire, who quoted an Italian proverb in his Questions sur l'Encyclopédie [fr] in 1770: "Il meglio è l'inimico del bene".[2] It subsequently appeared in his moral poem, La Bégueule, which starts[3]
Dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.
(In his writings, a wise Italian
says that the best is the enemy of the good)
Previously, around 1726, in his Pensées, Montesquieu wrote "Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien" (The best is the mortal enemy of the good).[4]
Antecedents[edit]
Aristotle and other classical philosophers propounded the principle of the golden mean which counsels against extremism in general.[5]
Its sense in English literature can be traced back to Shakespeare,[6] In his tragedy, King Lear (1606), the Duke of Albany warns of "striving to better, oft we mar what's well" and in Sonnet 103:
To mar the subject that before was well?
Variations[edit]
The 1893 Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources lists a similar proverb, which it claims is of Chinese provenance: "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one."
More recent applications include Robert Watson-Watt propounding a "cult of the imperfect", which he stated as "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes";[7] economist George Stigler's assertion that "If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport";[8][9] and, in
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