Posts by Cassius

I just posted this in another thread, but since it is directly applicable to this discussion I'll duplicate it. Max, would you disagree with this summary? (As we all know these engines like to tell us what we want to hear, so let's presume this has been talking to me and has picked up my biases. Even so, is it wrong?)

Pleasure (ἡδονή, hēdonē) is the term the Principal Doctrines are built around. It is named repeatedly and functions throughout as the explicit standard by which choice, avoidance, and the good life are judged. Happiness in the strict sense — εὐδαιμονία (eudaimonia) — does not appear as a noun anywhere in the text. Where the Doctrines gesture toward that idea, they use μακάριος / μακαριότης (“blessed” / “blessedness” — PD 1, PD 27), not eudaimonia.

Tranquility is a more complicated case than a simple presence/absence question. The abstract noun ἀταραξία does not appear as a headline term the way ἡδονή does. But a cognate of it is the organizing term of an entire doctrine: PD 17 — “The just person is the most undisturbed (ἀταρακτότατος), but the unjust person is full of the greatest disturbance (ταραχή).” That is not a passing phrase; the whole doctrine is built on that contrast. So it would be wrong to say the concept of undisturbedness never appears as a central term in the Doctrines — it is central to PD 17 specifically.

What is accurate is a claim about frequency and rank, not absence. Pleasure is named as the criterion of choice and avoidance in over a dozen doctrines (PD 3, 5, 8–10, 18–21, 25–26, 29–30, 40). Undisturbedness in this technical sense surfaces explicitly only once, in PD 17. And nowhere — including PD 17 — is it treated as a good in its own right or ranked above pleasure. In PD 17 it describes a consequence of justice, and justice is itself instrumental to living pleasantly (PD 5). Tranquility is never the measuring stick; pleasure remains that throughout.

For example:

• PD 3: “The limit of the magnitude of pleasures is the removal of all pain.”
• PD 5: “It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly… and impossible to live prudently, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly.”
• PD 17: “The just man is most free from trouble, the unjust most full of trouble.”
• PD 18: “The pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied.”
• PD 27: “Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship.”
• PD 29–30: classify desires by whether their non-fulfillment produces pain.

Aponia (ἀπονία, absence of bodily pain) follows the same pattern as undisturbedness: it is not put forward as an independent goal-term. Instead, the Doctrines repeatedly define the limit of pleasure as the removal of pain (PD 3), keeping pleasure — not the absence of pain by itself — as the operative standard.

Where later interpreters and many modern summaries treat ataraxia as Epicurus’s stated goal, the Doctrines give that reading a real but narrow foothold — PD 17 — rather than the broad support it’s often assumed to have. The dominant, explicit standard throughout the Principal Doctrines is pleasure. Tranquility appears, but only once, only in service of that standard, and never above it.

Quote from DaveT

However.... I think an absolute necessity to the teaching and learning process had to be frequent, (dare I say more than weekly) meetings for both the illiterate and illiterate to learn and adopt the lessons from the Garden(s) into daily life.

Had to be frequent, and I would say likely had to repeat and focus on key points rather than deliver (for example) a Lucretius-length monologue.

Here's my view:

I would agree with the direction you are coming from Pacatus and "happiness" is the term I prefer to use for the reasonable human goal.

I'd also say it appears that just as today, Epicurus' time was filled with religious speculation and terminology. Most people were familiar with looking to the life of "the gods" as an example of the best life possible. Epicurus wouldn't have believed that the gods "bless" anyone directly, but as a shorthand for the best life, which is presumed to be what the gods live, the term probably can be used without injecting too much supernaturalism.

Same problem with "eudaimonia," and it's good demon, but Epicurus used the term anyway. if you want to be understood at all sometimes you have to adapt the common vocabulary.

No problem Pacatus I think the main part of the thread to which your refer is winding down with the opposing positions clearly stated -

Your question may go on longer so I'll move to another area.

Quote from Max DuBoff

But indeed, it shouldn't be taken to mean that all pleasure is absence of pain, because it conflicts with 1.37: "For we don’t pursue only this pleasure which excites our nature itself by some pleasantness and is apprehended by the senses along with a certain pleasantness, but we regard as greatest that pleasure which is apprehended once all pain has been removed" (my translation).

Max, as you might expect, I will say that there's no conflict between these statemens of Torquatus at all.

Here's Torquatus in 1.37 (Reid translation): "we look upon the greatest pleasure as that which is enjoyed when all pain is removed. Now inasmuch as whenever we are released from pain, we rejoice in the mere emancipation and freedom from all annoyance, and everything whereat we rejoice is equivalent to pleasure... therefore the complete termed pleasure."

He isn't asserting two competing goods, including a higher one with a completeness requirement. He's applying a general principle that everything at which we rejoice is equivalent to pleasure, and this leads him to conclude that release from pain simply is pleasure.

That's the identical point made at 2.9-11 ("freedom from pain does not mean the same thing as pleasure" / "Clearly the same, and indeed the greatest"). It's not a rival claim to 2.9-11 — it's the same claim.

Then Torquatus removes any doubt in the very next sentence, 1.38: "Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension."

That's the whole point - incapable of increase is a "hitting a ceiling" quantity claim, not a claim about which pleasures are eligible to count toward blessedness.

The same highest state is explicitly said to still exhibit "diversities and differences." If kinetic pleasures were structurally locked out as composing blessedness the way your reading needs them to be, there'd be nothing left for that phrase to refer to. The variety has to be the sensory pleasure from earlier in 1.37 — now understood as filling the ceiling, not excluded from it.
This is exactly the point of PD18: "The pleasure in the flesh is not increased when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied." Same two points are made: quantity (has a limit) and content (keeps varying). There's no third perspective from which some pleasures count toward a blessed life but other can't.

So I don't think 1.37 conflicts with 2.9 at all. Once "greatest" is read correctly, both passages say the same thing. The conflict arises only if you import an absolutist premise and read "greatest" as "the only thing that qualifies" - - which the text doesn't say, and which 1.38 rules out in the very next line.

When Torquatus calls the pain-free state "the highest pleasure possible" in 1.38, he immediately says it can still "exhibit diversities and differences." What do you think that variety consists of, if not the sensory/kinetic pleasures your theory excludes from conferring blessedness?

All this comes in the context of:

Quote

[40] XII. Again, the truth that pleasure is the supreme good can be most easily apprehended from the following consideration. Let us imagine an individual in the enjoyment of pleasures great, numerous and constant, both mental and bodily, with no pain to thwart or threaten them; I ask what circumstances can we describe as more excellent than these or more desirable? A man whose circumstances are such must needs possess, as well as other things, a robust mind subject to no fear of death or pain, because death is apart from sensation, and pain when lasting is usually slight, when oppressive is of short duration, so that its temporariness reconciles us to its intensity, and its slightness to its continuance.

I agree with Don's post, and in addition specifically on the issue of whether Epicurus was understood in the ancient world to be a "value dualist," I would cite what I see as a very clear refutation of any idea that "absence of pain" is something different and better than pleasure:

Quote from On Ends Book Two, 9 :

Cicero: “…[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'”

Torquatus: “Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be.”

The vacation example is useful to discuss. You've told us that on your own reading that small ordinary statistically real risks taken for an "unnecessary" pleasure can't be justified. You admit that this troubles you, but that you can't find another way to read PD3/18/20-21 and Men.128/131.

I'd ask you to consider the possibility that this is the texts correcting themselves. When a sincere, careful interpretation produces a result even its author finds radical and troubling, that's usually evidence against one of his premises. We've already identified the likely origin of your problem - the completeness requirement that you've twice said you can't ground in Epicurus.

Epicurus taught people who drove no cars but rode roads and sailed seas that were, if anything, more dangerous than a modern highway, and nothing in the record suggests he told them not to travel to see a friend.

As to the deathbed letter - saying the pain "doesn't interfere with blessedness" because Epicurus reports being happy - that's a conclusion, not a test. This tells us the rule after the fact, but gives no way to predict a result before the fact. What would you have said in advance, not knowing the outcome, about whether that pain would interfere?

Is the position you're defending your account of what Epicurus's texts actually say, or is it your own preferred view? You say that Epicurus should have been something other than what he was.

People here on this thread need to understand clearly to what extent you yourself admit that your argument is not required by the texts themselves.

Quote from Max DuBoff

(Separately, I think Epicurus should've embraced value dualism rather than hedonism, arguing that the absence of pain and pleasure are both intrinsic goods; but my interpretation above stands even without this point.)

Max:

On the "interference" test: You've now said the rule isn't "always avoid pain," it's "avoid pain that interferes with enjoying katastematic pleasure." And that pain which doesn't interfere with katastematic pleasure because anticipation or recollection lets you manage it is fine to accept.

But what does "interfere" actually mean?

If "interferes" means displaces katastematic pleasure at that moment, since you agree that pleasure and pain are exhaustive and mutually exclusive — then I don't see that you are saying anything new. Every pain "interferes" with tranquility by definition, and that takes us back to giving up 17 units of pleasure to avoid 3 units of pain.

But if "interferes" means something like "disrupts" a settled state going forward, as a stomach ache from overeating does, then what you're describing is just prudence: weighing a pain against a pleasure with practical wisdom managing the accounting. That's not a rule that competes with "weigh total pleasure against total pain." That is weighing total pleasure against total pain, with prudence doing what Epicurus always said it does and it's the ordinary Epicurean calculus of pleasure and pain that anyone can understand.

So which is it? If it's the second, I don't think 'refer to tranquility' names a rule distinct from ordinary pleasure/pain calculus anymore — you've just brought back prudence in under a different name.

Now let's move to blessedness — I'll just say that I think your entire framework is wrong, and here is why. Epicurus' work must be taken as a whole and assembled logically without leaving out any of the key premises. Just like there are only bodies and space in the universe, there are only two feelings given by nature to decide what to choose and what to avoid. It is as inconceivable that we are going to end up with a goal other than the positive goal that nature gave us - pleasure - as it would be for anything in the universe to be supernatural, or consist of something other than bodies and space. But that's exactly what it appears to me the "Tranquility" argument does - it sets out a goal higher than and different from pleasure.

"Blessedness" or "Happiness" isn't a separate ingredient that only certain approved pleasures are allowed to contribute to. It's the character of a whole life, built from every pleasure in it — kinetic and katastematic together, held across memory, present experience, and anticipation. Nothing in the text requires sorting pleasures into a "counts" bin and a "doesn't count" bin before happiness can emerge from the mix. Friendship contributes to blessedness by being one of the richest sources of pleasure there is, whether that pleasure is 'active' (joy of company, conversation, shared meals, aid given and received) or 'stable' (confidence that comes from knowing help is there if you need it). There's no dilemma to resolve, because nothing forces friendship or any other active or stable pleasure to be only one or the other before it's allowed to count.

The dilemma only feels forced on you because it's built on the same premise you've already told me twice you can't ground in Epicurus — that a pleasure must be complete/perfect to confer blessedness. Based on that, you think the kinetic pleasures Epicurus talks so much about are structurally locked out from contributing to happiness. Drop that premise and the dilemma dissolves along with it.

Much of this goes back to the debate that others like Gosling & Taylor and Nikolsky have stated in much more detail. Your argument requires what I would say is unjustified emphasis of "stable" pleasures over the "active" pleasures that Epicurus indeed took note of, but for which his most devoted followers wrote and acted as if it was of no consequence, and for which there would be no real argument at all but for these passages such as PD3, PD18, PD20, and Menoeceus 128, which can all be given complete and consistent meaning without any such construction.

In my view this argument and many others are best settled by looking at the lives of the ancient Epicureans as they are recorded to have lived them. When I look at the life of Epicurus I see a man who devoted his life to campaigning as energetically as he could for what he saw was both the truth and a better way of life that rejects the claims of supernatural religion. He certainly knew that that path might well cost him a great deal of pain, and even his life, but he lived it anyway, and considered himself happy, even though the "tranquility" argument would have led him to take an entirely different course.

Your rule licenses risks taken to secure the tranquility of yourself or your friends already inside your circle. It doesn't explain why the Epicureans wrote and erected inscriptions and campaigned publicly, for strangers who owed them nothing and could offer them no security in return, against the most powerful religious and philosophical authorities of their day. That's not friendship-insurance. Those are choices made by men who had a clear idea of happiness that they thought was worth pursuing regardless of what it cost them.

Note: I posted this before seeing posts 84 and 85, but I'll comment on them as needed later.

Max,

The twentieth-meal example is very useful.

Let me restate it to make sure I have it right: given a choice between 10 units of pleasure/0 pain and 30 units of pleasure/3 pain, "refer your actions to the goal of nature as tranquility" tells you to take the first option — forfeiting 17 units of net pleasure - solely to avoid the 3 units of pain.

Is that a fair restatement of your own answer?

So you're saying that on your view, no amount of net pleasure gained can outweigh even a modest amount of pain accepted to get it. That's the "even a small amount of pain is too much to pay for a large amount of pleasure" position I've been thinking your view amounts to. Is that correct?

As to what that would mean, Epicurus wrote on his last day, in real physical agony, that the joy of memory and friendship that day outweighed (or arrayed against in the military metaphor) the pain in his body. This is a direct claim that a great pleasure was worth to him a very great pain, in full net balance. Regardless about what we think of whether he changed his calculation as the pain got worse (which would be entirely reasonable to do), Epicurus did not avoid or forfeit those pleasures in advance just because great pain was involved.

Your rule would have told Epicurus in advance never to have made the friendships at all, since every friendship carries the certainty of future grief — real pain — in exchange for something "merely additive" and therefore, on your account, not counting toward blessedness. Do you accept that consequence?

Second thing, maybe even more important. You've now stated at least twice that you don't know why Epicurus would be committed to the claim that a blessed life has to be complete or perfect in the Platonic sense. Everything you're saying after that , that additive pleasures can't confer blessedness, friendship is instrumental rather than itself a pleasure/good , seems built entirely on that starting point. If you can't explain that reasoning, why would we find it persuasive to overturn all the many statements commending Pleasure as the goal?

As to friendship, PD27 doesn't call friendship just a useful tool alongside the virtues — it calls it "far the greatest" of the things which "produce the blessedness of the complete life." If friendship is instrumental the way courage or prudence are instrumental, why does Epicurus single it out instead of listing it among them? I think Epicurus is telling us the pleasure of friendship is a major part of what a full life is made of, not that it's a mechanism that occasionally throws off some pleasant ("nice") side effects.

I don't think "tranquility as prime directive" survives contact with either the deathbed letter or PD27. I'd like to hear you take those two head-on., because that's what is of most benefit to the forum - providing understandable answers that are of practical use to the kind of normal people to whom Epicurus appealed in the ancient world. It can't have required a degree in philosophy to understand Epicurus in the ancient world, and it can't require that now.

As Cassius Longinus said himself to Cicero,

... For it is hard to convince men that “the good is to be chosen for its own sake”; but that pleasure and tranquillity of mind is acquired by virtue, justice, and the good is both true and demonstrable. Why, Epicurus himself, from whom all the Catiuses and Amafiniuses in the world, incompetent translators of terms as they are, derive their origin, lays it down that “to live a life of pleasure is impossible without living a life of virtue and justice.”

Why pleasure AND tranquility? Are you saying that as with the title to "Living For Pleasure," Cassius Longinus should have written "but that pleasure (and by that i mean tranquility) is acquired by virtue, justice, and the good is both true and demonstrable?"

Catius and Amafinius may not have been the smoothest of translators of images vs. spectres, but is it really likely they too missed something as basic as not understanding the right priority between pleasure and tranquility?

Quote from Max DuBoff

. So I think I'm on firm ground in saying that further pains don't contribute to blessedness, i.e., don't increase pleasure beyond its maximum (the maximum which is noted in PD 3)

Max I presume the underline "pains" I underlined there is a typo?

Whoever made those videos no doubt loves that surviving bust with the busted-out eyebrow that makes Epicurus look like a whimsical druggie -- and he/she/they probably love that portrayal every bit as much as I hate it But no matter how much it's disfigured it's still better looking than the look in this last video.

Note: I have just added the following to the first post in this thread:

I have been asked to explain why I would post a thread about "Worst" videos on Epicurus. The reason is that as this website has clearly stated on its masthead for over ten years, our purpose is to study and promote Epicurean philosophy. That includes defending Epicurus and calling out falsehoods when they occur and when it makes sense to do so. Youtube videos are very examples for discussion.

You will recall that our current front page describes the website mission in this way:

Quote

"EpicureanFriends.com is an internet community dedicated to the study and promotion of Classical Epicurean Philosophy. Just as Epicurus taught, our foundation is built on the study of Nature and reliance on the senses as sufficient for obtaining knowledge of the universe. Unlike Stoicism or Aristotelianism, which bear some superficial similarities, Epicurus affirmed that Nature has no mystical forces over it, so there is no supernatural basis for virtue or morality. Rather than virtue as an end it itselfa, Epicurus held that Nature calls all living things to pursue Happiness understood as a life of Pleasure as the goal of life. Therefore rather than "Ataraxia," "Tranquility," "Virtue," "Piety," "Minimalism," "Asceticism," or any other "Ism," we focus on what Epicurus actually taught, not on developing our own eclectic blends through freelancing, especially not with Buddhism, Stoicism and Humanism.

The videos that follow in this thread are simply awful - they are woefully incorrect and discredit Epicurus by associating him with ideas that are among the list in the box above. While it might be disturbing for some people here to watch these, it is in fact true that in overcoming obstacles, what doesn't kill us does make us stronger. The true teachings of Epicurus are hotly contested today, and we have to understand the opposing frameworks if we are to diagnose errors and correct them in our own minds.

Those who can go through these videos and immediately spot the Stoic, Buddhist, Ascetic, and Tranquilist presumptions are far ahead of the game in understanding what Epicurus is all about.

There are many other such videos and over time I'll probably add more, but we can also discuss any questions about these in this thread.

The old record-holder has been dethroned! The new recordholder for worst video is here:

Max, thank you for working through all of this so carefully.

On the question Would a tranquil person with no friends, no joys, no positive pleasures — just an undisturbed, empty mind — count as having achieved the blessed life in full?, you wrote:

Quote from Max DuBoff

4) As I understand Epicurus: Yes in theory, but this could never actually happen.

I don't think that the "in theory" gives us a clear answer as to what your position really is. You've just told us that your definition of blessedness, taken on its own terms, is fully satisfied by a life with no friends, no joy, no positive pleasure of any kind — nothing but an undisturbed absence of pain. The only thing keeping that from being your actual recommendation is a claim that it can't happen in practice, not a principled reason why it shouldn't count as the best possible life if it did. That's a strange place for a consistent theory of the good life to land. If your account of blessedness doesn't care whether the life it's describing contains anything anyone would actually want, in what sense is it still a theory of human flourishing rather than an edge case your chosen framework happens to generate?

On the textual basis for "some goods don't contribute to blessedness" — you cited PD20, Men. 128, and PD03. But don't those passages actually establish that once pain is removed, there is no further need to seek anything more. That's a claim about cessation of motivation. What your position would need to show is the stronger claim that additional pleasures, once had, don't count toward the blessedness already achieved. Those are two different claims. "I don't need to look for more" is not the same as "if more comes anyway, it doesn't add to my good."

On friendship, you said its contribution to blessedness runs through security against future fear. But doesn't that just relocate the problem rather than solve it? More security, and a richer stock of memories to draw on, would seem to be exactly as "additive" as more ice cream. Is there a natural limit to how much friendship or security is "enough," past which more of it stops contributing to blessedness, the way Epicurus treats natural and necessary desire as self-limiting? If there is such a limit for friendship, I'd like to hear what it is and where it comes from. If there isn't, then I don't see how friendship escapes the very rule you're using to exclude other additive pleasures from counting.

On what you would actually tell someone to do differently, I am looking for a concrete case where "refer your actions to the goal of nature as tranquility" and "weigh total pleasure against total pain" would recommend different choices. You answered by questioning whether katastematic and kinetic pleasure share a common scale at all. That doesn't answer the question I asked. Can you give me one actual choice where your priority rule and the ordinary whole-life pleasure-pain calculus come apart? If you can't produce one, I think that's itself telling us something: that this may be a dispute over which word gets to be called "the goal," and not a dispute that changes a single thing about how a person should actually live.

Last thing: you've now told me twice, in almost the same words, that you don't know why an additive pleasure can't be the foundation of a blessed life. That's not a side issue - it seems like the foundation of your priority for tranquility. Everything else in your position rests on it. It seems to me that since Epicurus says that he would not know what good is without a list of what is essentially additive pleasures, additive pleasures - normal sensory pleasures including joy and delight - are a very clear foundation for a "blessed life" or "eudaemonia" or "happiness" or whatever other word we want to use to describe the real goal that normal people are looking to hear about.

Thank you Max for all the detailed responses!

As to Emily Austin, here's footnote 8 from Chapter 4 of Living For Pleasure

Quote from Pacatus

You meant "not supernatural," yes?

Thank you! My typing is terrible

Also, I don't see any issues with the fact that "friendship" should not be given an absolute definition. This is just the same as "justice,"" which Epicurus holds to be contextual and ultimately rooted in the pleasures and pains of the people involved.

In the Epicurean universe all these things are relative to circumstance - to time, place, people, things ... and it makes no more sense to try to state an absolute definition of "friend" than of "justice" or "courage" or any other virtue. Given that there are no ideal forms, supernatural gods, or forces of fate, it couldn't be any other way. Like everything else in ethics our evaluations of it are going to derive from the specific pleasures and pains of the people involved.

I just learned about this via Google. I will see what else I can find out. Apparently there was something in late June that I wasn't aware of at all -

Dr. Yapijakis to Celebrate America's 250th Anniversary with Epicurean Philosophy Presentation - The National Herald

NEW YORK – As 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence, the Epicurean philosophy that influenced and inspired founding…

www.thenationalherald.com

Clicking the registration link gives this:

Second Session: " I too am an Epicurean " Thomas Jefferson - The pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence and Epicurean Philosophy

Date & Time

Jul 25, 2026 11:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Description

Thomas Jefferson and the Art of Happiness in Epicurean Philosophy You are cordially invited to celebrate the 250 th anniversary of American Independence in a two- session online event on Saturday, June 27 th , 2026 and Saturday, July 25 th , 2026. We commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the Epicurean Philosophy that inspired and influenced Thomas Jefferson. His enduring legacy honors the history and fundamental rights of Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness that shaped this nation since 1776. Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos and Christos Yapijakis – Co-Founders of the “Society of Epicurus” – Garden of Athens - will present to us the enormous influence of the ancient Greek civilization and Epicurean philosophy on Thomas Jefferson - one of the Founders of the United States of America, Author of the Declaration of Independence, and third President of the United States of America. Celebrate the 250th Anniversary of American Independence with HAWC in this first session online program on Epicurean Philosophy and its influence on Thomas Jefferson, the Author of the Declaration of Independence, with two outstanding speakers, Mr. Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos, and Dr. Christos Yapijakis - Co-Founders of the " Society of Epicuros" - Kepos of Athens. Celebrate the 250th Anniversary of American Independence in this second session online program on Epicurean Philosophy and its influence on Thomas Jefferson, the Author of the Declaration of Independence, with two outstanding speakers, Mr. Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos, and Dr. Christos Yapijakis - Co-Founders of the " Society of Epicuros" - Kepos of Athens. The Second session topic is: The pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence and Epicurean Philosophy " Second session: Saturday, July 25th, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Central Time ( 6:00 p.m. Greek Time ) " I too am an Epicurean by Christos Yapijakis

Quote from Don

I'd be careful with that phrasing. Empty desires are still "desirable." By pleasure he meant all that is pleasurable (yes, maybe that's a tautology), all that gives pleasure and not pain.

We're packing a lot into this conversaton already so I'll see about addressing that (whether empty desires are still pleasurable, even though they bring more pain in the end than pleasure) elsewhere rather than start a new line of citations, but your point is well taken. Every time we stray from focusing on "pleasure" there are new explanations required, and that is one of the major themes of this whole conversation.