Posts by Cassius

PD03. The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful.

An analogy would be that this folding yardstick pictured below is the feeling of "pleasure," a tool by which we measure how long , or how desirable, something is. The "limit of pleasure" would be a reference to this tool, straightened out to its maximum extent, at which it measures the largest quantity of pleasure that is possible to measure. At that point, there is no more crookedness ("pain") left in the tool, the pain is totally gone.

This analogy helps us draw many important conclusions in intellectual debates, but tells us exactly nothing about what we are using the yardstick to measure. The tools of precision tell us nothing about the type or purpose of the wall we are building. What we are measuring is the way we spend our time while we are alive, and that is going to vary for each of us according to our individual circumstances.

We don't obsess over yardsticks, and we should not obsess over the "limits" of pleasure as a measurement. We simply use the yardstick of pleasure to construct the most pleasant life that is possible to us given our individual circumstances.

Extending further on Don's sentence and adopting some Dewitticisms wording:

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Pleasure is then the criteria (the yardstick, the canon) by which we determine if something is to be considered a good thing or a bad thing from a human perspective.

More broadly, the yardstick of desirability is feeling, of which there are two (pleasure and pain) so just as "pleasure" is one way to look at the yardstick, so is "pain."

The point we are making is that it is important to realize that the yardstick is not the same as the thing being measured. The tool of precision is not the same as the stone of the wall.

When viewed as a tool of precision, it is shockingly insufficient, and in fact naive, to consider "absence of pain" to be a full description of the best way of life or an ultimate experience in life.

And that would explain why PD3 refers to absence of pain as "the limit of quantity of pleasure" rather than the ultimate good or anything suggesting a particular experience.

PD3, and that whole "absence of pain" discussion, is geared toward the type of discussion we are having now, it's not a suggestion to perfect new methods of anesthesia.

Quote from Todd

But then IMO, it follows from there that you can't claim that the yardstick is also one of the things being measured (goods). Maybe that is just me being pedantic.

A close parallel with this, and I don't think this is a pedantic point :

Quote from Don

There are a limited number of candidates in answer to "What is The Good?" Other philosophies have different choices, but, to Epicureans, all other candidates are means to the end of pleasure.

I would probably say ".....but, to Epicureans, all other candidates are means to the end of pleasure mistaken, to say the least!

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XIII. Those who place the Chief Good in virtue alone are beguiled by the glamour of a name, and do not understand the true demands of nature. If they will consent to listen to Epicurus, they will be delivered from the grossest error.

Quote from Don

So, candidates for the telos/Chief Good were things like virtue, pleasure, wisdom. This is a select subset of traits or phenomena that could serve as the prime foundation for all choices and rejections. For a Stoic, virtue should be the foundation of this.

1 - And another candidate then and now would be "religion" or law of god.

2 - This is the point I come back to a lot when people express disappointment that there is not more "technique" or "therapy" preserved in Epicurean writing. It appears to me that the major concern of Epicurus and the key philosophical battle is not over "how to have a good time" but instead first establishing the foundation for all choice and avoidance in the first place. Both are important, but you never get to questions of how to pursue pleasure of you don't establish pleasure to be the goal in the first place. And that question was and still is the most controversial of them all.

The modern stoics want to totally gloss over and fudge that question, and we should make sure never to fall for the trap of sympathizing with them, because this is the key issue. Do you live for a "true world" beyond the senses, or for this one?

Quote from Godfrey

And there's a context in which it's important to parse good/a good/the good, but that's peripheral to a functional understanding of Epicurean philosophy. Is this the conclusion we're reaching?

I would agree with that, and would say it would be a good idea to state the context where it's appropriate: something like - "when we find ourselves in the company of ivory-tower intellectuals, or in those whom the ivory-tower intellectuals have corrupted into thinking that such debates are critical to happy living."

Unfortunately, given the world we live in and our educational and religious background, that happens a lot, so it's a necessary skill set for many of us.

Quote from Don

It always warms my heart when I read things like this. Makes me feel better for thinking Socrates was an annoying jerk. Not sure I would have voted to convict and condemn him, but his disregard for his wife and children are at the top of my list for holding the opinion that he was a jerk.

And thus we have an excellent example of how a person can be a prince of a guy and still say some very "sharp"
things about philosophical opponents!

Welcome Matthew !

Note: In order to minimize spam registrations, all new registrants must respond in this thread to this welcome message within 72 hours of its posting, or their account is subject to deletion. All that is required is a "Hello!" but of course we hope you will introduce yourself -- tell us a little about yourself and what prompted your interest in Epicureanism -- and/or post a question.

This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.

Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.

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.

Welcome to the forum!

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Welcome to Episode One Hundred Fifty-Four 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'll walk you through the ancient Epicurean texts, and we'll 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're 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 are going to begin Chapter Seven - The Canon, Reason, and Nature

• The Dethronement of Reason
• Ridicule
• Nature as the Norm
• Priority of Nature over Reason

Quote from Godfrey

How would this apply to good/a good/the good? I'm not enough of a linguist to answer that, so I'll ask the question because I think this needs to be dealt with.

As i see it that is the problem we are going to keep coming back to because "good" has multiple meanings. And that leads to "the highest good" having multiple meanings as well, and there's simply no way to untangle this without qualifiers attached to the word "good" to define which meaning we are referring to. This is very similar to what DeWitt points out in regard to "true" in "all sensations are true," and it can also be used to justify the conclusion that life is the greatest good (at least in terms of "good" thought of as an 'asset').

Good as a noun, good as an adjective. etc etc etc.

I don't have a lot of additional comment at the moment but I want to register that I largely agree with the direction that Todd is going. Loose talk about "the good" is a huge problem. People talk about "good" as if everyone knows and agrees with what they mean when clearly they do not. I recall a sentence in Frances Wright to the effect of Epicurus saying that there is no good but pleasure, no evil but pain, and although that forumulation might violate the construction that Todd is looking for (and i might remember the wording wrong), the thrust is probably the same point.

Episode 153 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we complete Chapter 6 and discussion of "The New Education." One thing I would like to point out about this episode is that we spent a significant amount of time near the end discussing the issue of "certainty" and "confidence." That's a perfect setup for next week's episode, where we will begin discussion on Chapter 7 on the Epicurean canon of truth.

Quote from Todd

After reading Torquatus (I will admit that I didn't get all the way through), I didn't get the impression that Cicero was cleverly misleading his readers. OTOH, maybe he was just very good at it!

You may not have seen this quote from a review written by Norman Dewitt:

Cicero's Presentation of Epicurean Ethics. New York, The Columbia University Press, 1938. Pp. 127. Columbia Diss.

This study is most commendable. It is clearly written and well printed, acutely reasoned and amply documented. The treatment confines itself to De Finibus I-II and is divided into two chapters: 1. Cicero's Presentation of Epicurean Philosophy in De Finibus I. 2. Cicero's Critique of Epicurean Philosophy, Presented in De Finibus I and II. Each chapter concludes with a summary, and the text of Epicurus himself is abundantly cited. The conclusion is that Cicero failed "to understand Epicureanism as a consistently unified philosophy (p. 81)," but is acquitted of having been "deliberately and intentionally unfair (p. 119)." It is only to this acquittal that I take exception. Every debater has the choice of arguing to reveal the truth in its entirety or of arguing to make points. The former method is adapted to the Supreme Court, the latter to a trial by jury. Cicero was a crafty old trial lawyer and he deliberately argued to make points, because he was pleading before a reading audience, which functions like a jury, and his shrewd legal mind had long discerned the vulnerability of Epicureanism before this style of attack. His attitude was that of William J. Bryan toward biological evolution, and his pleadings are comparable to a Scopes trial, but I do not believe he could have misrepresented the truth so successfully had he not understood it completely. In the Scopes trial, the crafty old lawyer was on the opposite side-Clarence Darrow.

NORMAN W. DEWITT. VICTORIA COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Quote from Todd

But this strikes me as a rather bland, (somewhat) non-controversial flavor of Epicureanism. I would like to be able to make stronger claims, and to do that, you have to be very clear on what words actually mean and how concepts relate. Again, this is possibly a personal failing of mine.

Certainly you're not the only one. And at least to some point, it surely isn't a failing. I do think there is a question however whether at some point the quest becomes counterproductive, and that's what Epicurus seems to have been warning against. I doubt that we've reached that point in this discussion, but it's good to keep in mind that at some point we might.

I only have time to start this topic, but this morning while driving I heard it asserted in a podcast that in Book One of Plato's Republic, Socrates had attacked the traditional Greek view (which was asserted to be doing good to your friends and doing harm to your enemies). Supposedly Socrates said that rather than doing harm to one's enemies one should try to "improve" them.

If true, I can easily imagine such a doctrine being considered to be a component of virtue, with a universalized conclusion that doing harm to ones enemies is always bad.

It seems to me that Epicurus' views on justice are much more realistic -- to neither do harm *nor be harmed* with the implication that there is no universal rule of benevolence to "improve" one's enemies. One should make friends of them if possible, not treat them as enemies if friendship is not possible, or when necessary have nothing to do with them.

PD39. The man who has best ordered the element of disquiet arising from external circumstances has made those things that he could akin to himself, and the rest at least not alien; but with all to which he could not do even this, he has refrained from mixing, and has expelled from his life all which it was of advantage to treat thus.

I would expect that there are probably articles out there which discuss this in detail which would be worth looking into. We regularly discuss the Justice doctrines without making a lot of progress, and if we could link Epicurus' views to specific Platonic or Aristotelian ideas to which they are responses, things would probably be much more clear.

Also, I had a "DUH" moment this morning about something that needs to be included in this thread.

Torquatus does not gve us *only* the "use your eyes and look at the young of all species before they are corrupted" argument.

He also gives us:

(2) A thought experiment (or perhaps an appeal to anticipations, or "conceivability"?) that is probably analogous to the use of the Javelin argument as to the size of the universe:

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XII. The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain; he will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement.

Suppose on the other hand a person crushed beneath the heaviest load of mental and of bodily anguish to which humanity is liable. Grant him no hope of ultimate relief in view also give him no pleasure either present or in prospect. Can one describe or imagine a more pitiable state? If then a life full of pain is the thing most to be avoided, it follows that to live in pain is the highest evil; and this position implies that a life of pleasure is the ultimate good. In fact the mind possesses nothing in itself upon which it can rest as final. Every fear, every sorrow can be traced back to pain; there is no other thing besides pain which is of its own nature capable of causing either anxiety or distress. Pleasure and pain moreover supply the motives of desire and of avoidance, and the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure. But that which is not itself a means to anything else, but to which all else is a means, is what the Greeks term the Telos, the highest, ultimate or final Good. It must therefore be admitted that the Chief Good is to live agreeably.

And (3) - a more practical "Why do we do anything that we do?" argument:

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XIII. Those who place the Chief Good in virtue alone are beguiled by the glamour of a name, and do not understand the true demands of nature. If they will consent to listen to Epicurus, they will be delivered from the grossest error. Your school dilates on the transcendent beauty of the virtues; but were they not productive of pleasure, who would deem them either praiseworthy or desirable? We esteem the art of medicine not for its interest as a science, but for its conduciveness to health; the art of navigation is commended for its practical and not its scientific value, because it conveys the rules for sailing a ship with success. So also Wisdom, which must be considered as the art of living, if it effected no result would not be desired; but as it is, it is desired, because it is the artificer that procures and produces pleasure.

I therefore wonder to what extent Torquatus is indeed giving us an example of each of the perspectives he mentions in the opening. And I also wonder to what extent Torquatus represents the "After 300 years of combatting Stoicism we've learned that you better understand the logic side of the argument or you'll get steamrolled" segment of the school, vs the extent to which Lucretius represents the more traditional "here's what you need to know and to hell with the other schools for now" perspective.

If that explains the difference between the two manners of presentation, there is no good reason to "fault" either one, and we need to be fluent in both so that they are both available to use for talking to different people in different circumstances.

And from that perspective Torquatus is not to be criticized entirely for playing the other side's game, but he's dealing with the reality that some people have been "corrupted" by opposing philosophies more than others, and they have to be walked back as it were from the precipice in steps. Others, on the other hand, who are not so far down the road of corruption through skepticism or idealism or supernatural religion can be approach more directly with the "this is the way things work" approach.

I "liked" Godfrey's post not to suggest that the discussion is counterproductive or should terminate, because surely there are lots of benefits to it, including the translation deep-dive. However I think he raises a point that should be considered, and another way of stating it is whether what we are currently engaged in violates the Plutarch fragment:

“That which produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about, prating meaninglessly about the good.” Epicurus, as cited in Usener Fragment U423

Does that fragment mean "anything that produces pleasure should be considered good" and you should not obsess over other implications of the word 'good'"?

Your current division concerns me in that "feeling" strikes me as a faculty, as a result of which I gather that it was included in the standard of truth along with the five senses and anticipations.

"The Good / End/ Telos" appears to me to designate a destination or a concept describing an overall assessment.

In the case of "goods" -those seem to me to be instrumentalities useful to attaining pleasure, such as friendship or virtue or hammers.

But as "faculty" akin to the five senses or anticipations, it seems to me that the feeling of pleasure (and likewise pain) is neither a destination or itself a simple instrumentality that we pick up and use as circumstances allow. It is a key component bestowed by nature that alone serves as the guide of life so long as we live. Now that may be not far from "goods" or "standard" as you are defining it, but it seems to me that it is so essential, while most everything else seems secondary in rank, that this function should not be left ambiguous.

Quote from Todd

There are 2 relevant concepts:

Pleasure (aka The Good, The End, Telos)
goods

If at all, where do you include the term "guide" in that division? Because I think Dia voluptas, dux vitae is sound basis for considering guide/leader as a key concept that may not clearly be included in either of those two, and meaning something more than lower-case good as one among many instrumentalities.

If I could think of a way I would bookmark this discussion under "cautions to think about when reading Torquatus.". Maybe all of us don't come to the same conclusion DeWitt does as to life rather than pleasure being the "highest good," but Torquatus himself labels his own view as not totally in accord with Epicurus, so we need to continue to question whether the way he sets up the dialogue (an inquiry into the highest good) is really the way Epicurus approached things at all. Maybe Dewitt started the ball rolling in questioning Torquatus but didn't go far enough.

I am getting more and more comfortable that it is Lucretius rather than Torquatus who is the more orthodox Epicurean, and I think we are better off looking to Lucretius' format (start with looking at what drives all of Nature) rather than launching off in a Platonic-style dialog on "what is the highest good" before answering all sorts of other questions first.

Starting the discussion in the middle of a complex semantic debate over the meaning of words seems to be very much what Epicurus' warned against.

Several good recent posts there, and I want to think more about what Todd is saying but I think he's got an interesting approach. We have talked regularly about it being more appropriate to talk about pleasure as the "Guide" rather than "the good" - along the lines of Lucretius' "Dia voluptus, dux vitae" / divine pleasure GUIDE of life. I think Todd may be sensing the same issue.

Quote from Todd

Pleasure isn't just a good. You can't even talk about goods until you have a standard to determine what is a good anyway.

Yes. Pleasure is more than anything else one of the two FEELINGS. A feeling has both aspects at least in the way we think of it, as both a guide and good in itself. If you abstract it too far into some "definition" of the good it looses its meaning.

I also want to memorialize a couple of thoughts on earlier posts, primarily, the issue Todd raised about whether pointing to babies is the most sound argument, and then Charles saying that we really need to be looking at this in terms of what is persuasive.

I continue to think that we should look at Lucretius' poem as not just "physics" but what we call it in the intro to the podcast, something like "the only surviving complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world." (Caveat - I still want to explore Emily Austin's suggestion that there was a final section of the original plague of athens story that is missing and would have made a great finale.)

Whether Torquatus has his statement about Epicurus refusing o look to elaborate logical argument or not, it does seem pretty clear that he preferred arguments that go directly to the senses in a "seeing is believing sense." The best and most persuasive argument is "Look at what is right there in front of you."

And if we look at Lucretius I think it is easy to see the "hymn to venus" as not some flight of poetic fancy, but exactly such a "look there" argument. Lucretius never gives an elaborate logical argument for pleasure as the guide of life. But he does start off at the very beginning of his poem with what is essentially a "Look there!" --

Quote from Lucretius - Brown Translation

MOTHER of Rome, Delight of Men and Gods, Sweet Venus; who with vital power does fill the sea bearing the ships, the fruitful Earth, all things beneath the rolling signs of Heaven; for it is by Thee that creatures of every kind conceive, rise into life, and view the Sun’s bright beams. Thee, Goddess, Thee the winds avoid; the clouds fly Thee and Thy approach. With various art the Earth, for Thee, affords her sweetest flowers; for Thee the sea’s rough waves put on their smiles, and the smooth sky shines with diffused light. For when the buxom Spring leads on the year, and genial gales of western winds blow fresh, unlocked from Winter’s cold, the airy birds first feel Thee, Goddess, and express thy power. Thy active flame strikes through their very souls. And then the savage beasts, with wanton play, frisk over the cheerful fields, and swim the rapid streams. So pleased with thy sweetness, so transported by thy soft charms, all living Nature strives, with sharp desire, to follow Thee, her Guide, where Thou art pleased to lead. In short, Thy power, inspiring every breast with tender love, drives every creature on with eager heat, in seas, in mountains, in swiftest floods, in leafy forests, and in verdant plains, to propagate their kind from age to age. [21] Since Thou, alone, doest govern Nature’s laws, and nothing, without Thee, can rise to light, without Thee nothing can look gay or lovely;

And I have one more thing to say about babies. Todd points out that it is questionable to look *only* at babies for data. We've also discussed that no could credibly suggest that we want to go back to an infantile state of existence in general, totally dependent on others and with very little ability to judge how to successfully avoid pain and pursue pleasure.

But there *is* one aspect of babies and the young of all species that I do think that Epicurus would have endorsed, and that is the absolute lack of doubt in the mind of infants that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the prime directive of nature. The "perversion" or "corruption" after that which is referenced in Torquatus is obviously not in *every respect*. As our minds mature we gain the ability to judge better and successfully pursue pleausure and avoid pain. But the way in which we often *do* get corrupted and perverted is that we are seduced by priests and supernatural religion and false philosophers who talk of "true worlds" beyond this one. We are infected by their poison and we lose our confidence in nature as providing the clear standard of feeling as the only way to ultimately base our decisions on as to what to choose and avoid.

So at the very least I do think that Epicurus would have compared the single-mindedness of new-born youth against the corruption that comes from religion and false philosophic influences that are primarily external and that turn us away from confidence that nature has provided pleasure and pain as our guides.