Posts by Cassius

As a categorical answer for philosophical debate, I agree with you. And as a statement of the *guide* of life I would agree even more. But as a practical and discrete definition of "greatest good" that an average person can apply, I don't think that the single word is sufficient to convey the full meaning that Epicurus would convey if he were here to explain it in greater detail. And I am not yet convinced that he would even attempt to do so, beyond providing the example that he then used to show the futility of the Peripatetics efforts.

Also, in discussion tonight on chapter 3 of A Few Days In Athens, Kevin brought up that it was the Stoics who postulated a single unified and unitary good - virtue - which is something that in his view even Aristotle did not do. (Kevin suggested that Aristotle spoke in terms of many goods in Nichomachean Ethics.)

That makes me more concerned than ever that the search for a "greatest good" might not be Epicurean at all, despite Torquatus' framework.

Then there is the question of whether pleasure is a "unity" such that pleasure can be considered singly in a way similar to the way the Stoics considered virtue to be a unity. And that would implicate the PD which refers to "if pleasure could be condensed.....". I am still not confident what that saying means at all, much less whether he is implying an affirmative or negative answer.

I think this question probably has an answer that we can eventually come to terms on, but I am now thinking that being confident would require more knowledge of what the earlier philospher had done with the issue of single versus multiple goods than I presently have myself.

When I combine the Lucretian reference to pleasure as a guide with what I see in the letter to Menoeceus, I see much more foundation for seeing pleasure as the GUIDE than I do for a specific "greatest good" analysis.

Cause frankly I am pretty sure I know what a "guide" is, but I am not at all sure I know what a "greatest good" is.

Thanks for this deep analysis!

I'll just leave the point as is at the moment, because I am not nearly as qualified as DeWitt or even Don to parse the Latin and Greek. I will repeat that I do see differences between "good" and "goal" and I can imagine all sorts of confusion arising from those distinctions. I am reminded of the phrase in Book Two of Lucretius - " ...GUIDE of life, divine pleasure." (ipsaque deducit dux vitae dia voluptas)

I am particularly not willing to say that I think DeWitt is definitely right, or definitely wrong, because it does appear to me that Epicurus was cautioning against walking around uselessly harping on the meaning of the good, and I see this as something that other philosophers are harping on rather than Epicurus. The danger to me only comes when we get fixated on the "greatest good" and presume that there is a single answer to that question that fits everyone. I am not sure that Epicurus accepted any real logical framework other than the observation that nature gives us only two signals by which to determine what to choose and what to avoid, and that is pleasure and pain. Torquatus himself seems to say that even in this same On Ends - only a few moments after he had framed the question in this very way.

Is DeWitt correct to say that pleasure and pain have meaning only to the living, so that without life pleasure and pain are of no consequence to us? Certainly I would say that the answer to that is "yes."

Does that make pleasure or life the "highest good?" I am afraid that I think that is a linguistic exercise that is fraught with many dangers. So at least for the moment I consider that to be a question that cannot readily be answered. And I remain uncertain that the question "What is the greatest good?" was a way in which Epicurus himself liked to frame his philosophy.

Quote from Don

I'll need to go and read DeWitt's "summum bonum fallacy" (Where is that again?),

I thought we already had it here somewhere, but apparently not. That has been remedied:

I had forgotten that DeWitt marshals in support of this argument his interpretation of VS42, so this article places that in issue too. I have always thought that DeWitt's argument on VS42 makes sense, so it will be interesting to get comments on that too.

File

Epicurus: The Summum Bonum Fallacy

The aim of this article is to show how the lack of a definite article in Latin obliterated the doctrine of Epicurus that life itself and not pleasure is the greatest good.

Cassius

February 13, 2022 at 4:00 PM

Oh I am not sure that this will survive the editing phase but I should also mentioned that at first I thought Joshua was saying something not entirely positive about a technique of Don's, but after I got myself oriented it was entirely positive, so I don't want Don to have a heart attack when he hears the reference

@smoothiekiwi once again succeeded in gaining multiple mentions in today's podcast. It's going to take some time to edit, and as usual we didn't make it too far in discussing the new topic (friendship) but there's a lot to cover and I think despite the twists and turns of the discussion that it will be useful to listen to and consider.

Quote from Nate

"And therefore the greatest good has been grasped by the person who has become wise and lived through a certain amount of time. Once his journey has achieved balance and consistency, it would be fitting to prolong it for an unlimited time, if such were possible; but should his life be limited, this will not be the deprivation of what has already been, but [sc. merely] a prevention of its continued presence." (Philodemus, On Death).

Wow this is a great applicable quote and one that I was not on top of -- but we need to cite it every time we talk about this subject. Thank you Nate!

Quote from Nate

A life devoid of pleasure is not Good. I would argue to De Witt that a thing is only Good when Pleasure is present.

We dealt with this again a little in today's Lucretius Podcast (109). I agree with your point in this quote. I think the best way to try to look at DeWitt's comment sympathetically is to consider whether the word "good" has multiple meanings (in the same way that "true" in "all sensations are true" can be interpreted on different levels. DeWitt's formulation definitely is something to treat carefully and not take on face value as being correct, especially until reading the detail of his full argument in his book and his article "The Summum Bonum Fallacy."

This material on friendship is going to take at least two and possibly three sessions to cover, and I wonder if we have had so many comments raised about our last session on skepticism that we need to go slow in starting this session and see if there are any mop-up issues on skepticism to cover first. If you're reading this before Episode 109 is recorded on 2/13, and you have more issues on skepticism you'd like to see addressed, go back to the thread for 108 and let us know those comments there.

Vatican Collection:

VS28 - We must not approve either those who are always ready for friendship, or those who hang back, but for friendship’s sake we must even run risks.

VS78. The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship; of these, the one is a mortal good, the other immortal.

Diogenes Laertius:

[122] They hold that faults are not all of equal gravity, that health is a blessing to some, but indifferent to others, that courage does not come by nature, but by a calculation of advantage. That friendship too has practical needs as its motive: one must indeed lay its foundations (for we sow the ground too for the sake of crops), but it is formed and maintained by means of community of life among those who have reached the fullness of pleasure.

PD27. Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship.

PD28

The same knowledge that makes one confident that nothing dreadful is eternal or long-lasting also recognizes, in the face of these limited evils, the security afforded by friendship. Note: The translation given is by Eugene O’Connor from “The Essential Epicurus.” Bailey's version is: “The same conviction which has given us confidence that there is nothing terrible that lasts forever, or even for long, has also seen the protection of friendship most fully completed in the limited evils of this life.”

Quote from smoothiekiwi

, but it still cannot replace real life friends.

You are absolutely right, we cannot ever forget that, and so we have to use this place as a start, not an endpoint, and move forward into organizing our local real worlds to find (or make from scratch!) Friends who are Epicureans or at least Epicurean-friendly.

This discussion (split from here: What do you mean from the "Golden Mean" of Aristotle? ) reminds me of two other recent things that have been in my mind:

(1) i was discussing with someone a new sort of 'self-help' book that the person was reading, which focuses on what I perceive to be psychological self-help techniques geared toward reaching goals. My comment was to ask whether that person had first identified their real goals, as is makes sense to me that is usually would be appropriate to clarify in one's mind what one's proper goal IS, before launching off into generic goal-achieving activity.

(2) I know I have probably spoken negatively in the past about articles which seem to say that we should not set pleasure or happiness as our goal, but rather something else, and look for pleasure and happiness as side affects rather than going after them directly. I still think negatively of that perspective BUT:

I have always realized that the word "happiness" and even "pleasure" to a degree are conceptual abstractions. The word 'happiness' almost definitely is so, and we find "happiness" being used in totally different ways by different people, so much so that it takes fairly elaborate definition-building to be clear what we're talking about.

"Pleasure" has some of the same issues, but it is a word that also more clearly denotes a "Feeling" - and i think that it is as a feeling that it takes its central role in Epicurean philosophy, as a part of the canon of truth by which we grapple with external reality.

But it's also obvious that "pleasure" is no different from "hedone" or other words in other languages - it too is a concept for which we have to do some mental processing to identify what we mean when we use it.

Epicurus was always clear that the feelings are TWO - pleasure and pain, and that we sometimes choose the pain in order to achieve more pleasure or avoid worse pain. But formulating it that way still requires you to identify in your mind what it pleasurable and what is painful to YOU, and if you don't think through the issues carefully you end up totally wasting your time - or in the words of Torquatus - "Surely no one recoils from or dislikes or avoids pleasure in itself because it is pleasure, but because great pains come upon those who do not know how to follow pleasure rationally."

Here we have to keep in mind that "rationallly" doesn't mean using the syllogistic abstract logic detached from reality that Epicurus criticizes, but does mean "sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit." (Letter to Menoeceus).

So we need to ask ourselves if we have really soberly reasoned through the details and searched out the motives and ways that we find pleasure and avoid pain in our own personal circumstances. If we have adopted faulty opinions from others, or from teachers, or culture, or religion, or whatever, have we banished those from our thoughts and clearly identified what is going to bring to us OUR greatest pleasure and OUR relief from pain?

I gather that this is probably related to what Smoothiekiwi was talking about earlier. It is totally non-Epicurean to simply and blindly pursue "pleasure" without regard to what the action we engage in ultimately brings to us, and without banishing into the pit the false opinions about the nature of the universe that lead us in the wrong direction.

VS46. Let us utterly drive from us our bad habits, as if they were evil men who have long done us great harm.

That's why it's not good to think of this philosophy as Pleasurism, or Hedonism.

This isn't either of those. This is EPICURUS.

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I think this is not one of DeWitts best explained positions, and I would agree with it only after caveats that "good" like a lot of other words has multiple meanings.

In this sense, I think his best line is to the effect that pleasure and pain have meaning only to the living, and that therefore being alive is a prerequisite to experiencing pleasure. That's in his explanation somewhere in a place you did not quote.

As he states in the part that you did quote, pleasure is the telos and DeWitt is distinguishing between that and "greatest good.". It seems to me he is stressing the proper differences between the words goal and guide as well.

Ultimately you should also read DeWitts article he entitled the summum bonum fallacy. He is to some extent calling into question, as does Epicurus in his criticism that DeWitt quotes about unsurpassable joy, of the issue of thinking that you are doing something worthwhile by focusing conceptually on defining "the greatest good.". Nature gives pleasure and pain as the feeling / basis for deciding what to choose and what to avoid. Nature does not implant in us a detailed reasoned definition of a "greatest good" nor do we create anything real - anything outside our own minds - by developing elaborate definitions of it.

There is an article called "The Epicurean Criticism of Socrates" by Riley in our files section here that you will want to read Smoothiekiwi. Let me know if you look and don't find it.

Thanks Don - I corrected - i don't think they were acting in good faith (at least the Platonists - don't know so much about Pyrrho)

Quote from smoothiekiwi

. I honestly dont know why you do that- it seems extremely boring to me to talk about stuff you already know-, but I'm glad that you do it.

It depends to a very great degree on who one is talking too, and whether they seem interested and in good faith and appreciative, and whether something is being accomplished by it. Those things (and probably similar that I forget) make all the difference!

"In Pyrrhonism aporia is intentionally induced as a means of producing ataraxia."

So they may allege (i don't know) but from what I am reading in the word what it induces is fear, uncertainty, doubt, and ultimately nihilism, and I gather that much the same was behind Epicurus' criticism of Socrates.

Especially since in the end the Platonists don't replace the doubt with answers, but with apocryphal methods of syllogistic logic to which they lay claim to be the experts and which is beyond the understanding of all except their initiates.

Initiating questioning is usually good, but I do not sense that the Platonists and Pyrrhonistz et al were acting in good faith.

And here's the major point on which I would like to see this discussion continue. I think we are always going to see a lot of "rotation" among active posters at a forum like this. People will come and go as their curiosity is struck and then satisfied.

I think the key to longer-term involvement, and what I want to encourage, is that basically everyone who comes here and decides that they agree with most of the basics should understand that it would be desirable (if they conclude Epicurus is right) to cultivate their own circles of friends with similar viewpoints in their local lives. That means that basically everyone should see that they aren't here just to absorb facts, or even to cultivate wisdom, but to then see that they need to apply the principles to improve their lives, and that means by cultivating their own local circles of Epicurean-friendly people. That can mean here on this forum, or on other online places, but also in their local nations, states, or communities. I think most of us would agree that we aren't really doing justice to Epicurus' ideas unless we see that it's important to implement them. And while we can be and hopefully will remain "online friends" we also need to look for similar relationships in the real world.

And so back to the original question in the post, I think it's important for us to be practical about where the boundaries really are on what we should expect to be able to discuss with people who aren't disposed to do a lot of technical research, and that probably includes most of us.

I put this graphic on the home page as a way of emphasizing a few key ideas that I think are at the every least among the "minimum":

But where the list is beyond that even I personally think is an open question.

At any rate I think this sets up the thread, in case any are interested in commenting on it.

I originally posted about this thread in a private discussion, but I'd like to move it here for discussion under "Community Standards." The topic is essentially something like this:

"To what extent should open Epicurean discussions devote themselves to extremely technical issues that only those most deeply interested in technical philosophy or psychology would likely be interested?"

This past week over at the Epicurean Friends facebook group - where most of the participants are much more generalist and less "advanced" in Epicurean studies than our group here - I approved for discussion the post from which I will quote here for discussion. I should also note that over there we have such a wide variety of readers that we "approve" posts before they go live. Here at EpicureanFriends, in contrast, we "vet" participants much more rigorously at the beginning, so once you get approved as a member and post a little about yourself we don't attempt to moderate posts before the go live.

I approved this post asking about "Direct Realism" even though I realized it was technical and even though I didn't recognize the poster. Unexpectedly, a number of people who also had never or rarely posted before got into a heated discussion about details of epistemology that I feel sure were lost on the great majority of readers. The discussion quickly turned into the type of philosophical debate I personally find distasteful, unuseful, and off-putting: a detailed comparison of how to fit Epicurus into categories set by competing modern theories with all sorts of technical jargon. I will quote a little below, but I want to stress that my post here is not a criticism of the participants (I intend to edit our their names here) but an occasion to discuss the larger issue of how to relate to people at Epicureanfriends and public forums:

Quote

I suspect that the question is quite legit but it's far deeper into modern comparisons than i find productive to go. I am not encouraging anyone to go read it but maybe the next time someone asks about "Direct Realism" we'll want this link available.

"Is Epicurus a Direct Realist?

Author: Bridger Ehli Abstract

In his Letter to Herodotus, Epicurus presents a controversial theory of perception according to which "all perceptions are true." In this paper, I argue that Epicurus' theory of perception should be interpreted as a version of direct realism. If this interpretation is correct, then Epicurus holds that typical human perceivers have direct perceptual awareness of mind-independent objects. In the first section, I present an interpretation of Epicurus' theory of perception. I interpret Epicurus as subscribing to the view according to which our perceptions always provide us with entirely accurate information about the world. In the second section, I provide an outline of a version of direct realism. The version of direct realism I present here is strongly indebted to the work of Michael Huemer. In the third section, using the framework developed in the second section, I argue that Epicurus should be interpreted as a direct realist."

"The question of direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, arises in the philosophy of perception and of mind and the debate over the nature of conscious experience; out of the metaphysical question of whether the world we see around us is the real world itself or merely an internal perceptual copy of that world generated by our conscious experience.

Naïve realism is known as direct realism when developed to counter indirect or representative realism, also known as epistemological dualism, the philosophical position that our conscious experience is not of the real world itself but of an internal representation,"

-Wikipedia

Cassius Response:

This seems like a very interesting question, but probably over the head of most of our "generalist" readers in this group. Chaz it would be very helpful if you would provide a layman's explanation of the question. It's also probably worth commenting on whether and why this represents the position held by Epicurus, because that's not obvious to me or I suspect to most of our readers here in this group who aren't professional philosophers. In the meantime, here is a reference to "Direct Realism" from the Stanford Philosophy encyclopaedia. I can't recommend that many group members will want to spend much time researching the issue, but if certain people have an opinion on it and want to post about it and explain the topic, that would be great.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/#Dir

Response One

I have to say -as a new member - (and not being a professional philosopher) this at least to me is almost the most exiting philosophical question raised in the group lately . Chaz Ajy I am not all covinced that Epicureus was a direct realist? Realist yes, but to my knowledge the only textual reference clearifying his position on illusions is the round/square tower. And that does allign him with direct realism, but more importantly it doesnt negate an indirect realism as it is a very specific example. Concerning hallusinations I guess a comment from him on visions of the Gods would have been clarifying.

Its an important question, the seperation between direct and indirect, as it positions epicurius against the idea of the hinterwelt that Friedrich Nietzsche so much was against. I have though a problem of seeing how anyone can argue for direct realism in an absolute sense as it seems to always reasonably be a question of degree. A direct realist wouød presumably also say that you have to be conscious to experience. As such I find Heideggers critique of the lack of acknowledgement of the immediacy of experience in western philosophy to be relevant. So even a direct realist seems to me to acknowledge that it is the consciousness that experiences and that thus the representation we experience is happening in the mind. Of course there is a difference in the level of immediacy between direct and indirect realism but it seems tonme due to the epistomological aspects that it is not such an absolute dichotomy as it is presented as. To my knowledge a definite seperation between these positions where not yet developed by the time of Epicurus, and thus if the dichotomy is false and a result of modern discussion (I mean that in absolute sense there is no definitive line between the positions due to the necessaty of consciousness, not that the ositiona of direct or indirect are false or irrelevant). My point being that if it impicitly is a point of degree it is not clear that it is even possible or constructive to be sure where Epicur stood. I myself would have to qualify my position of wether Im a direct or indirect realist based on the more exact definition of how involved "the mind" ( which diffuseness of term I find the main problem in positioning) have to be to be indirect. If the nervoussystem would be part of the physical structure of the mind then surely no direct realist would claim visual experiences that are not hallusinatuons are not produced by/in the mind. But to not digress, i simply wonder if there is a good reference tjat would further indicate what Epicureus thought about it, and wether it is actually possible to fit him into a definate group of thought on this matter?

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ANOTHER RESPONSE THREAD:

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I actually don’t see how such a thing is possible post-Kant.

Original Poster:

Kant? I must respectfully ask, are you aware that many very smart and respected philosophers have defended realism continuously since Kant? See G. E. Moore's in Defense of Common Sense, Wittgenstein's On Certainty, Colin McGinn's A Priori Argument for Realism, R. Hickerson an Indirect Defense of Direct Realism, the compilation work that shows many modern philosophers defend both types of realism: Recent Work on Naive Realism by James Genone, Michael Huemer's Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, and on and on.

In fact the most common view of philosophers in general is realism. "The PhilPapers Survey was a survey of professional philosophers and others on their philosophical views, carried out in November 2009. The Survey was taken by 3226 respondents, including 1803 philosophy faculty members and/or PhDs and 829 philosophy graduate students. External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism 2305 / 3226 (71.5%) Other 356 / 3226 (11.0%) Accept or lean toward: skepticism 310 / 3226 (9.6%) Accept or lean toward: idealism 255 / 3226 (7.9%)"

So, Kant did not sway the world forever to embrace idealism and reject realism, or make it, as you imply, impossible to defend realism, nothing of the sort.

It's also worth mentioning that Kant's idealism is nothing new. See Yogacara philosophy, Adi Shankar, and many, many others from the past two thousand years. You'll also find that they all had their fierce critics, and none successfully made realism untenable. See Chandrakirti's savage critique of Yogacara idealism for example, or Ramanuja on Shankara's idealism and so on. In fact, Kant himself was successfully refuted a mere four years after he wrote his Critique of Pure Reason some 300 years ago, so the very idea that he hasn't been refuted countless times since then, or that he somehow made realism impossible is quite remarkable. See Mendelssohn’s Refutation of Kant’s Critique of the Ontological Proof, Rogelio Rovira.

Original Poster:

Indeed, and if you read my response you will see that many of the referenced works are on direct (aka naive) realism (Huemer's book is on direct realism, though that's not clear from the title). Further, Kant was an idealist (though a minority dispute this, but this leads only to him being incoherent), and hence the line being between idealism and realism, generally, is reasonable.

EDIT: It is hard to include every post so I am leaving out some intermediate steps.

ORIGINAL POSTER:

I clearly entirely misjudged this group. I thought this was an Epicurean group, but it seems that no one actually supports the teachings of Epicurus at all, but rather are out to refute them. I didn't come here to argue for Epicurean philosophy against people on an Epicurean philosophy page. That just makes no sense at all. I wish you all good luck in finding the good life, and I caution against rejecting the very teachings meant to guide you there, on a forum dedicated to those exact teachings. Epicurus epistemology is very relevant to his goals and teachings and are not to be cast aside. So much is this position considered correct that E. E. Hughes penned a work in which she called the epistemology of Epicurus the very foundation of Epicurean thought. With that said, I'm going to walk away from this, and thank you all.

ANOTHER POSTER:

I consider myself a member of extended 'layman' group - on this forum.

Direct Realism, being a concept directly related to the perception, has been the subject I had been dwelling in since I got my conciousness developed...

The perception of the world, the world in which we live in, is the most important concept which the human beings experience. It's a base of our behavior.

The perception of the world is directly responsible for all our reactions. However, the perception, in a given point is a combination of information received by our senses, and their knowledge acquired about the subject - what affects how it is processed.

I we can imagine a situation in wwhich individuals see the same facts, and items in the world surrounding them, in acompletely different way. Everything depends on the information fed to them previously and their ability to process this information. So, the perception is the function of information received and information processed combined with the information which has been provided beforehand. There was a very interesting experiment involving newborn kittens. They were divided into two groups. One of them was placed in an environment where any visual elements were horizontal and the other was placed in the environment where all the visual elements were vertical. They were functioning in these separate environments for a while getting used to it, growing to know only this environment. At a certain point, all of them were placed in in the opposite environments. The ones which grew in the vertical world were placed in horizontal environment and vice versa. The resulting observation showed, that all the kittens appeared completely blind to the elements which were contrary to the ones which they grew up with. The 'horizontals' didn't see the vertical elements, and vice versa, the 'verticals' didn't see the horisontal elements. One may say that kittens are slightly different than humans, but are we, as mamals so different?. We have the same apparatus for reception and a similar one for compiling information - maybe a little bit more advanced. We can of course draw the analogy about peoples behavior - people who are associated with different political groups - but I'm not going to get into that subject at this point. So, let's get back to them basic examples. At he time of conquistadors when the indigenous people were presented with the mirrors, they had difficulty recognizing anything in the reflection. My point is: that the image World we treat as 'real' is the direct result of our 'perception'. But even in the most 'clinical' trial, the perception of one individual will differ (and may differ substantially) from the perception of another.

I hope I stayed on the subject.

END OF QUOTE

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There is more to the exchange but at present I won't take the time to post it.

The reason I am posting this now is, as stated above, to test my reaction to the question and to at least part of the debate against the reaction of others here on this forum.

It strikes me that this question was probably far too detailed for a general audience, and my initial attempt to bring it down to layman level was not at all successful.

My general reaction was that the entire thread was probably only marginally productive for those who posted in it, plus a complete turnoff for the majority of general readers.

Do you agree, or disagree? I this post had come into this forum, I would have moved it immediately to the epistemology forum, and I doubt it would have created much of a stir in our current user group. I think one of the benefits of this forum is that people can come here and search for information on obscure topics, and now they will find that we have something on "Direct Realism."

But on the other hand I can't imagine that a discussion like this is something that we should ever seek to have in a forum were we are talking to newer people, or to generalists, who are looking to apply Epicurus in a practical manner to their own lives.

Nor do I expect that anytime soon people in this group would be involved in going on an offensive in the academic world about who or who does not deserve to be descried as a "Direct Realist."