would even go so far as to posit that him laying down his life in a manner befitting a Roman may even have given him pleasure in the end.
That's exactly what I think, and that is an example how different people take pleasure in different thinks and the "subjectivity" of things - at least within rather wide limits.
I will say that it seems to be that G. Cassius Longinus committed suicide because he was a Roman, first and foremost, not because he was an Epicurean.
I just realized an appropriate comment to this given our recent discussions:. There are not really any Ideal forms or essences of "Epicureans," only individual people who claim to more or less apply Epicurean views in their lives - and no matter how many doctrines we add or subtract from a person there is no essence or ideal form of an Epicurean for us to justify our labelling, or any moment when an Epicurean ceases to be an Epicurean due to a loss of sufficient Epicurean elements.
We have to always keep this in mind - our definitions and our calculations do not create reality or reflect knowledge from another "true world", our words just help us to describe our particular circumstances.
I never thought we were far apart on this and after further discussion I feel sure of it. If someone thinks there is a major difference in approach or that we have left something unresolved they should ask about it. Every situation is different, and for example Cassius Longinus had different considerations than we have today. I think we all agree there is no one size fits all rule, and I think we have covered the basic principles pretty well.
But couldnt the same approach be applied to Gods? I don't see or touch pleasure, in the same way I don't see or touch Gods. Yet, I feel it. Who is to say that someone doesn't feel God, ergo she is as right as I am?
Who is to say? That answer I think would be just like any other question, and only you can answer it by evaluating the evidence that is available to you and making the best decision that is possible to you.
If someone tells me that they have direct evidence of God then I tell them I am from Missouri and I ask them to "show me." If they can't, then I place their claim in the category of many other claims that are made without evidence that I can verify or have good reason to accept, and which I therefore reject.
That's something I think Epicurus was trying to be clear about: There ultimately is no "final arbiter" of right and wrong. There is no center of the universe to stand in and say that this perspective alone is the "right" perspective. There is no divine god or anyone else who knows everything and can say "this alone" is right. There is no realm of forms or essences -- no "true world" outside of our own to which to look to as authority. This is not reason for despair but reason to saddle up and get back on the horse and ride life as aggressively as you can to manage all the evidence and all the decisions available to you.
What this implies is that I am designed in a way that this balance is a natural state for me. In a simple example, if I am about to die, have only 3 minutes left and have an option for a great pleasure at the cost of great pain (possibly life) of another, it would be consistent with the Epicurean pleasure/pain calculus to forego the pleasure, because in those minutes the knowledge of harm to another would cause us pain. Why? Because we are built that way and we don't need virtue, belief in afterlife punishment or diety to act that way.
I think I am agreeing with your example, but only because ultimately it comes down to "you have to determine yourself what is the most pleasurable course for you given all your mental and physical reactions." When you say "because we are built that way" I sense that you are wanting to look for an absolute answer that says for everyone that "altruism" or "the interests of others" are always to be chosen over "selfishness" or "your own interests." I don't think the facts or Epicurus lead in that direction and I would urge people away from that conclusion, or any other conclusion that implies that there is a "universal good" other than the fact that living beings have faculties of pleasure and pain.
And to carry that last point to a conclusion, I don't think Epicurus was a Benthamite and suggested that pleasure is out there floating in the air and that we should try to maximize "pleasure in general" or "the pleasure of everyone" no matter who is feeling it.
I think Epicurus is clear that each individual has to make that decision for themselves and decide what pleasure and pain is relevant to them. We can choose to be "Mother Theresa" and say that the pleasure of everyone in the world, or any stranger, is every bit as important to god (and to me) as the pleasure of my own spouse and children. Or we can choose to be much more limited and say that in the end the pleasure of our families and friends and ourselves is paramount. But either way, neither god nor platonic forms nor essences nor absolute justice nor anything else exists to justify the conclusion that one "must" or even "should" be selected one over the other. In the end most people seem to end up looking to what nature puts in them - which I gather to be stronger feelings for that which is close and less strong feelings for that which is distant.
Ok I think perhaps our difference in perspective comes down to some of the same issues we have discussed in the past about hypotheticals --- I am willing to entertain them as thought exercises, and some people are less willing to engage in that.
It is easy for me to imagine hypothetical circumstances in which continuing to live would result in overwhelming pain with virtually no offsetting pleasure whatsoever. (The situation of Cassius and Brutus after Philippi being one example. So I would ask - "Do you think Epicurus would say that Cassius made a poor decision in committing suicide rather than handing himself over to Antony's men?")
That's only one example and maybe not even the best. The main issue is that I don't see a bright line saying "hang in there to the very last moment" that would apply to everyone in all situations. I see a theme in Epicurean philosophy of taking charge of things and managing every aspect of your life - and death - as aggressively as possible. How we do that would I think be a personal decision totally context-dependent, and not reducible to a formal test other than where we seem to be ending up, which is something like "never consider suicide lightly and always consider it to be a last resort but know that death is available to you as a relief from pain if in fact you judge the situation makes it the best choice."
Also to close this post it looks to me like much of the reason for the debate at the time was that the Stoics (and others?) seem to have taken a cavalier attitude toward suicide. And of course why not, if you think death is the doorway to paradise? Clearly Epicurus opposed that view, and I would follow Epicurus' original and fundamental position is that death is unconsciousness for eternity, and something that we generally want to postpone as long as possible. However just as in the letter to Menoeceus we don't choose the longest life but the most pleasant, we consider the management of our final moments to be part of the calculus to consider in living the "most pleasant" life.
Also I think this is one area where later Epicureans went wrong in deviating from Epicurus. They should have stuck to Epicurrus' original insight and contention that logical word games are not the proper test of truth.
Or, at the very least, if they decided to engage in those logical word games they should have been rigorously clear that those word games were just that - word games with strictly limited usefulness.
And in fact perhaps they did make that distinction, but in relaying them through later years the limitations and qualifications were dropped from the discussion by later carriers who did not appreciate the importance of those limitations. Given Cicero's hostility to Epicurus he might well have been an example of someone who would cherrypick from the discussions to leave the logical debates while deleting the limitations in which they were framed. In Cicero's case it seems that he at least preserved that Epicurus had objected to logical proofs in this area, but he had to add in his own editorial commentary that he himself (speaking through Torquatus) agreed with the need for logical proofs.
Also so as to be clear for others reading, what it seems Epicurus would reject is this question in itself -
If I require my nephew to accept that "pleasure is the valid natural goal in life", I would need to provide a falsifiability test: is there a hypothetical argument that if proven correct, my statement would be false?
As best I can determine Epicurus would say that you indeed "would not need" to provide any abstract logical proof at all, because logical proof tests are not the tests of human reality. The tests applicable to human reality are the perceptions we receive from the sensations, anticipations, and feelings, which we accept as the basis for all our reasoning. All validation tests are judged using those, not using "logical" word proofs. Words are tools just like virtue or hammers are tools, and they are very useful but limited, and they are not truth in themselves.
Just in case anyone is not aware of this section of Diogenes Laertius, this too would be relevant to the central question, which is lesser role that Epicurus gave to the use of abstract / dialectical logic in the determination of truth:
Logic they reject as misleading. For they say it is sufficient for physicists to be guided by what things say of themselves. Thus in The Canon Epicurus says that the tests of truth are the sensations and concepts [preconceptions / anticipations] and the feelings; the Epicureans add to these the intuitive apprehensions of the mind. And this he says himself too in the summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Principal Doctrines. For, he says, all sensation is irrational and does not admit of memory; for it is not set in motion by itself, nor when it is set in motion by something else, can it add to it or take from it. Nor is there anything which can refute the sensations. For a similar sensation cannot refute a similar because it is equivalent in validity, nor a dissimilar a dissimilar, for the objects of which they are the criteria are not the same; nor again can reason, for all reason is dependent upon sensations; nor can one sensation refute another, for we attend to them all alike. Again, the fact of apperception confirms the truth of the sensations. And seeing and hearing are as much facts as feeling pain. From this it follows that as regards the imperceptible we must draw inferences from phenomena. For all thoughts have their origin in sensations by means of coincidence and analogy and similarity and combination, reasoning too contributing something.
More cites: (Which I will now list here in one post and add to if i find more):
Good to hear from you waterholic and this is a very interesting question that it would be good to see if others have suggestions. But first, it seems to me that if you are looking for an abstract syllogistic / logical proof that pleasure is the goal of life, Torquatus would tell you that while some Epicureans (including Torquatus himself) might accept that as a proper approach, that Epicurus himself did not:
Epicurus places this standard in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good, while pain is the supreme evil; and he founds his proof of this on the following considerations.
[30] Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil, and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself prompts unbiased and unaffected decisions. So he says we need no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire, pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?
[31] There are however some of our own school, who want to state these principles with greater refinement, and who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense, but that thought and reasoning also enable us to understand both that pleasure in itself is matter for desire and that pain is in itself matter for aversion. So they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred conception leading us to feel that the one thing is t for us to seek, the other to reject. Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too condent about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.
My view would be that Epicurus rather than Torquatus was right, and that we need to keep in mind strict limitations on what we can hope to accomplish by abstract logic. Any proofs that we are going to find convincing are going to be direct appeals to evidence that we ourselves can feel (rather than identify abstractly apart from feeling).
I see the Epicurus wiki says this, with which i agree:
Epicurus saw very few cases in which suicide might be justified.
Unlike the Stoics, who famously advocated suicide in a great number of cases, where "the wise man could no longer live according to his principles", Epicurus and his followers took a more humanly acceptable view of the matter: recognizing that humans are normally inclined to want to go on living because of the pleasures of life, and correlating this with the axiomatic value of pleasure, Epicurus insisted that suicide is foolhardy, or at the very least: that it be considered as a measure of very last resort.
The fourth tenet of the Four-Part Cure alludes precisely to this: what is painful, is easy to endure. In illness, we hope to regain our health; even when the illness is chronic and painful, the pain grows dull with habituation, and we learn to cherish the pleasures left us, despite the pain; finally, when pain reaches an unbearable maximum, death cannot be far behind it -- and death means the cessation of the senses, and thus of both pleasure and pain.
Epicurus' view on suicide is both humane and practical: it does not entirely disallow suicide (as does Christianity, and other religious faiths), nor does it offer it too readily, either as escapism or as an article in some code of honor (as have done several militarist cultures).
Looks like there's an article here but I can't get to it: https://www.suicideinfo.ca/resource/siecno-20030345/
As usual I don't think we are far apart. Suicide (or acts leading to your own death in any circumstances) is a final option that would never be chosen except in extreme circumstances. However I am still persuaded that extreme circumstances do exist that would warrant it, and if in fact Epicurus knew that that day would be his last, and he thought his pain was outweighable by the pleasure available to him, I would still put that in the first category of endurable pain. It is when you face the possibility of lengthy pain you deem to be unendurable, such as having failed to save the life of a friend, or perhaps facing a lengthy torture, rather than instant death, that I would see "exiting the play when it has ceased to please us" as a viable option.
And in support of that spirit I would enlist "spitting contempt on life and on those who cling to it" as the same spirit of taking charge of your death just as you take charge of your life:
VS47. I have anticipated thee, Fortune, and I have closed off every one of your devious entrances. And we will not give ourselves up as captives, to thee or to any other circumstance; but when it is time for us to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who cling to it maundering, we will leave from life singing aloud a glorious triumph-song on how nicely we lived.
This is certainly an interesting question, especially in regard to Epicurus' own death. It has never been clear to me from the texts whether Epicurus knew that his condition was irreversible and terminal, or whether he had hope of recovery, which I think would make all the difference in a situation like his.
We might have crossposted, but just so i am clear, you are taking the position that suicide is never warranted for an Epicurean?
So that while you might choose to die 'for a friend" you would never choose to die "for yourself"?
As Camotero posted I can see that quote about the man of being of little account who has many reasons for ending his life going in that direction, but i am still not inclined to read it that far as applying in all and every situation.
Ok I see what you are saying, but I see that as coming very close to a "mind over reality" situation. If what you are facing is intolerable but you are still alive, why not do for yourself what you would do for your dog or a cat and put yourself out of your misery? I would say that if you are judging your net pleasure during pain to be worth the pain then what you are facing is indeed the first situation, where the pain is endurable, but that does not foreclose circumstances wherein the pain is indeed so intense that you rationally wish to relieve yourself from it even through death.
Do you not think that such situations exist? Or do you think that .even in such extreme circumstances we have the mental power to suppress our pain? The quotes about even the wise man crying out under torture might be relevant here.
It also might be interesting to seek out some commentaries on this to see if there are perhaps (as often) well known positions by earlier philosophers on this point.
Thank you for the reply. That gets you a warm welcome - at least for the time being - even if you are a committed Stoic!
Let us know if we can be of help in your reading.
Thanks to Joshua for pointing out to me that my "joke" probably was more confusing than anything else, despite the smiley face .
So to clarify, "no, i do not know that Warjuning is a Stoic, or anything else about him or her. " I was just making a general joke to the effect that even people who in the past consider themselves to be Stoic but who approach Epicurus with an open mind are welcome to participate with us in the forum here under the ground rules of our posting policy. I know we have lots of visitors here from different cultures for whom joking can be easily misunderstood, so I will try to be more careful about that, and I appreciate people calling things to our attention anytime something can be misinterpreted.
I am going to tag Elli on this thread as I know she is interested in this topic.
Due to a recent post by ResponsiblyFree I was looking recently at a podcast that came to my attention through him and Martin, and I came across the video podcast linked below. As usual I want us to stay as far away as possible from divisive modern politics, but I think the key issue of this video is the "True World" aspect in which Nietzsche charges Plato and Christianity with a negative view of human life which leads ultimately to nihilsm. I am hoping we can focus on that and stay safely away from some of the specific modern applications that would likely to be "too hot to handle" without igniting modern partisanship. I labeled the thread topic "May or May Not" but I would say myself that most of the core points here being attributed to Nietzche probably reflect what I think Epicurus would say as well about both Plato and Christianity. With that as the core issue, rather than trying to pass judgment on the whole confusing scope of Nietzsche himself, I would be interested in any comments:
We might also want to comment on whether this format for a philosophical presentation makes sense for us to employ for Epicurus.
Another caveat is that I know nothing about who "Julian Young" is so I want to explicitly distance myself from implying that I know anything about him or what he stands for.
How is that for a new title? Once we get settled down we can remove the administrative posts
