Posts by Cassius

I have never read the Belfast address and will try to do so today. It would be a lot easier for me personally if we had audio copies read by someone sympathetic - I wonder who that might be?

Failing that (and no doubt for good reason) we can always run some of these through one of the better text-to-speech engines, but that probably means have it in good "text" form from which an engine can translate.

I downloaded from Don's link several different formats. The PDF version is a series of images and this likely unusable. The Epub and txt versions are in decent shape, but will need editing to correct errors where the scanning and OCR failed.

I have done one run-through and uploaded a cleaner TXT version here: Tyndal - Address at Belfast

I also placed a copy here where collaborative editing can be done:

Tyndall - Address at Belfast - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

That's not efficient to have two copies, but I realize that for someone who knows what they are doing, having the TXT file for use in a Text editor is a lot easier than trying to edit online.

I will work with this today and find a way forward.

Already the version in the lexicon might be usable if someone calls up that page and has a "text reader" application on their telephone.

I have never read the Belfast address and will try to do so today. It would be a lot easier for me personally if we had audio copies read by someone sympathetic - I wonder who that might be?

Failing that (and no doubt for good reason) we can always run some of these through one of the better text-to-speech engines, but that probably means have it in good "text" form from which an engine can translate.

I downloaded from Don's link several different formats. The PDF version is a series of images and this likely unusable. The Epub and txt versions are in decent shape, but will need editing to correct errors where the scanning and OCR failed.

I have done one run-through and uploaded a cleaner TXT version here: Tyndal - Address at Belfast

I also placed a copy here where collaborative editing can be done:

Tyndall - Address at Belfast - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

That's not efficient to have two copies, but I realize that for someone who knows what they are doing, having the TXT file for use in a Text editor is a lot easier than trying to edit online.

I will work with this today and find a way forward.

Already the version in the lexicon might be usable if someone calls up that page and has a "text reader" application on their telephone.

I would particularly like to track down the Lucretius excepts from the prison diary as I have a number of friends with whom those would be very useful.

And I and I am sure others stand ready to give you constructive comment and suggestions as you do that.

You have been very polite and constructive so far and it is definitely within the scope of the forum to walk through the preliminary learning stages with people who have an open and constructive attitude.

I hope you will understand however that it's a practical concern arising from many years of experience (and reading about centuries of dispute before that) that as DeWitt says Epicurus is simultaneously one of the most loved but also most hated philosophers. Many sincere people decide to cast their lot with supernatural gods or virtue idealism, and once they make up their minds to do so their constant argument has to be dealt with for everyone's sake.

One of the most core aspects of this forum is that the world is full of people who want to selectively adopt some aspects of Epicurean philosophy (especially use if the phrase "absence of pain") and ignore or repudiate the rest.

We therefore set up the forum as a place where those of us who want to be sure we understand the full extent of the philosophy can collaborate among ourselves free from the constant roar of greedy Acheron harping from the Stoic - Academic community.

You'll know if and when the time for you to withdraw comes, and I doubt you are anywhere near that point yet.

In fact I am sure we have many lurkers who are committed to other views but do not "make trouble" because they profit from reading along. I have been pleasantly surprised that we have had far fewer problems than I originally expected we would have, largely I think because we do try to be clear in the welcome message, terms of service, posts, etc that we do have these limits. So please understand that the reminders of the limits are not by any means directed at you personally but are needed to maintain the ongoing continuity of the forum as others read them in the future.

Kalosyni I would turn your comment around and say that what you are saying about me is "too much of a black and white interpretation."

Yes I do think that some things about what Epicurus taught are indeed black and white (for example no life after death; no supernatural gods) but that others are in fact much more subtle (the role of pleasure and in fact the proper definition of pleasure.

I certainly agree with your categorization of friendship as among the top ways to invest one's time. That is exactly what Epicurus advised in PD 27.

I am sorry you feel that I am drawing lines between those with wealth and those without. Wealth is certainly only one circumstance that plays into how one makes one's choices, and wealth is certainly not an end in itself, any more than friendship itself is an end in itself ("Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life...")

I have enjoyed our discussions and hope you will continue to participate. Remember, however, that the forum does have a purpose and a goal beyond just discussing philosophy in general, and so I hope you'll consider that in your evaluation of what I and others post here. I do my very best to make clear from the beginning that the purpose of the forum is to explore Epicurean philosophy from the perspective of its founders, and only after that to offer variations from their original theme. There's a lot of conflict among people who spend their entire professional careers studying Epicurus as to what he meant in certain areas, and that means ultimately that it's necessary to take a position on which interpretations are within the sphere of reasonableness as to what the ancient Epicureans actually taught.

That's why even as I speak against what I see as the errors of Stoic philosophy, I respect those who take the time to determine and explain the original foundations of Stoicism before they create their own versions under the same label. To get to the bottom of these issues there's really no other way than "frank discussion" and calling things as we see them, even when the result can appear to some to be excessively "dogmatic." You'll recall from Diogenes Laertius that to the best we can these are attributes of what the wise man will do:

"One wise man is not wiser than another. He will be ready to make money, but only when he is in straits and by means of his philosophy. He will pay court to a king, if occasion demands. He will rejoice at another’s misfortunes, but only for his correction. And he will gather together a school, but never so as to become a popular leader. He will give lectures in public, but never unless asked; he will give definite teaching and not profess doubt. In his sleep he will be as he is awake, and on occasion he will even die for a friend."

Camotero even though this might be obvious, I think it would help the discussion if you would give a definition for romanticism, either in your own words as you have it in your mind, or in the form of a link to a definition.

Quote from Don

Yes, very important to point out. The only way I've found to get around that is to use the html editor and replace the name in the data-author field inside the woltlab element. Needles to say, it's a tad tedious.

Thanks, that helped me see how to figure it out. That first icon in the editor toolbar opens up the html code and there you can see and delete where the code is referencing the Author's name. Fixed.

The way the quote system works these look like quotes from Kalosyni but of course they are from the article. {Note - I edited the post and now these quotes just say "Quote"} Kalosyni has found a good article for displaying in condensed form many of what I consider to be the worst and most inaccurate takes on Epicurean philosophy.

For example I think each if the following assertions is factually untrue - and not even close to correct. These are the "neo stoic" views which make the version of Epicurean philosophy presented here - if it were true - not worth the paper it's written on:

Quote

Epicurus maintains that the duration of pleasures is more important than their intensity in achieving happiness.

I suspect he is mainly referring there to the section by Torquatus in "on Ends" which says that mental pleasures can be more significant than bodily pleasures because they can last longer, but he does not say that is necessarily so, nor does he say that duration is more important than intensity. There are passages that say the opposite, including the letter to Menoeceus where he specifically says we do not choose the longest, but the most pleasant.

Quote

Epicurus maintains that the active pleasures are important only insofar as they terminate the pain of unfulfilled desires. For Epicurus, the passive pleasures are more fundamental

That is the katestematic/kinetic assertion that is contained only one place in DIogenes Laertius, in a place that does not say that katestemtic is more important. The place to start reading on this is Boris Nikolsky 's article Epicurus on Pleasure.

Quote

Epicurus assures us that the calm and repose of the good life are within the reach of all

Overbroad. He specifically says that the study of nature is required and that not everyone is constitutionally disposed towards wisdom. But the implication here that the "good life" is easily within reach should not be taken to mean that you can do or be whatever you want and still attain a good life.

Quote

It is necessary that we keep our desires at a minimum, however

This is pure asceticism and would go even further even than do the Stoics to destroy human life -- if it were truly what he taught, but it is not. Every aspect of Epicurean philosophy is geared toward focusing on pleasure as the goal, not at "keeping our desires at a minimum" as a goal. VS63, which is rarely if ever quoted by people who make this quoted assertion, specifically says:

VS63. Frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess.

Were these quotes an accurate summary I would consider this philosophy to be worse than Stoicism - which would be quite a feat. I won't go into each of them here beyond what I wrote above, but we can take each in turn in greater detail if anyone would like. Probably the better place for most of those would however be in the forum Epicurean Philosophy vs. Stoicism

In regard to Sedley I too hold him in high regard. The main difference I see between Sedley and DeWitt is that Sedley writes to an academic audience and he doesn't make it his goal to write to average readers and to disabuse them of the ideas presented in the quoted-from article. That's what DeWitt does.

If not for DeWitt I myself might well have accepted the quoted-from "stoic lite" view of Epicurus, and none of us would be having this conversation here because I would have rejected Epicurus with great prejudice and this website would not be here.

None of these comments are aimed at Katosyni of course because what she has done in posting this is do us the favor of reminding us (as we need to be reminded constantly!) What is out there and what we are up against in trying to understand classical Epicurean philosophy.

So Kalosyni please ask specifically about any of these quoted sections you think may be accurate and we can go through the evidence against them.

Quote from Don

Okay, yes yes. I think we are understanding the word "rank" in two different senses. That's seems to be the crux of my issue. Not that rank doesn't have the two senses but we're let's say talking past each other. That's the issue with posting rather than talking! That could have been resolved in a back and forth in two minutes rather than multiple posts over a week.

I do not believe that this issue is limited by any means to communications in this thread. I really think that this issue in general ("how to communicate the subtleties and different contexts of words") is quite possibly one of the issues that we need to focus on more than anything else -- even in many cases more than we need to focus on some of the more difficult doctrines and passages.

For me, the problem we face here is best exemplified in how people (in general, casual readers) are taking the phrase "by pleasure we mean the absence of pain." Stoic-oriented commentators and self-help readers looking for mental health assistance are looking at that phrase as if it were a clinical prescription - almost like it's a drug like valium. They are thinking that "here is some counterintuitive psychological insight by a 2000-year old doctor, and all I have to do is start viewing pleasure as absence of pain - in other words, aiming for numbness - and my life will be great."

Obviously I think that is not at all what Epicurus intended. Viewing pleasure as absence of pain is in fact not "clinical" and in my view has to be explained first and foremost in a way that conveys that numbness is NOT the goal. That means going into detail about the foundational premises that allow Epicurus to reach this conclusion - foundational premises like "there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain." And that approach is the opposite of being clinical, and can't be done by simply pointing and saying "look there, that absence of pain is pleasure."

We run into this issue over and over in terms of words like "gods" and "pleasure" and "virtue" and I think the list could go on and on. Epicurus has very specific explanations of these words in mind, which frequently conflict with the explanations and definitions of these words that we carry with us today and presume he is talking about.

I'm suggesting that just as DeWitt thought it appropriate to start his book with a synoptic overview, and at the top of that overview put "be prepared to understand that Epicurus was at the same time among the most loved and hated of ancient philosophers" we need to do something similar.

I'm suggesting that as part of our introductory and outreach materials we find a way to emphasize to everyone at the start that before we can understand Epicurus we have to go back and make absolutely clear what his premises were and how those ended up in definitions of important words that carry implications that almost all of us have to take apart and put back together for us to understand what he meant.

Quote from Don

No, no, no. I thought we had agreed on this one. We choose by applying whether a specific pleasurable activity leads to a more pleasurable life. We don't need to consult a list or ranking or hierarchy. We should not "rank" pleasurable activities in the abstract. There is no absolute hierarchy for all time of pleasures even for the individual.

All we can say is right here, right now, this activity option before me would lead to a more pleasurable life, therefore, at this time, I will choose to engage in this. This activity which I desire to engage in in the future may be pleasurable in that future moment, but will in the end bring more pain into my life. Therefore, I reject it. I reject that anyone can sit down, go through a list of let's say 100 pleasures and rank them and adhere to that list for all time at every moment throughout their life. What is choice-worthy is contextual, dependent on circumstances, and what is choice-worthy now may not be when circumstances are similar in the future.

It is very interesting to me how when we spoke on the podcast we seemed to more easily agree that we were on the same page, but in putting the positions down in writing we seem to find agreement harder.

To me, you could have started out that passage as Yes Yes Yes rather than no no no because I see us in total agreement, especially when we identify that you are saying two different things here: "I reject (1) that anyone can sit down, go through a list of let's say 100 pleasures and rank them and (2) adhere to that list for all time at every moment throughout their life.

As to point 2 you are certainly correct correct - the ranking will change from day to day, hour to hour, decision to decision. But as to point 1 you certainly *can* rank the possible pleasures as you predict them as of any given moment, because that is how you make every decision, looking forward in time to what will happen to you if you make one choice or another.

Don you seem to be requiring that a "ranking" be made against an absolute outside standard. I too reject that, but i consider that my personal ordering of preferences as to which pleasures are greater "to me" to be a proper use of the word "ranking." There is no outside absolute all-time list that can tell us how much pleasure an activity will generate across the board and all the time -- that is why "Utilitarianism" as referenced in a nearby thread must fail. Epicurus was not a Utilitarian and i think would reject that for exactly the reason you are arguing.

Maybe you would prefer to use another word than "ranking" because you think all rankings require an outside standard, but that would again be a definitional choice on which to be clear and it's not my understanding that the word "ranking" and the "process of ranking' must require an absolute standard - it seems to me the word can be used properly referring only to our own individual standard that is in fact contextual, as you say, and changes even within us over time and circumstance.

Maybe I should reiterate on one important point: I completely agree with you Don that there is no absolute unchanging standard by which we can rank pleasures for all people and all time and place - or even with total confidence for we ourselves in the future. From moment to moment we do make that assessment, but that is why we reject "Utilitarianism" because as a political system it is impossible to come up with an absolute standard which applies to everyone at all times and all places.

That's why I totally agree with your comments to Kalosyni above that Epicurus was not a "Utilitarian" politically. That's an extremely important point that we've made here on the forum several times in the past and need to continue making every time that issue comes up. "Was Epicurus an Utilitarian?" is a very legitimate and natural question to ask, but it's very foundational that the answer is "No.'

It's kind of like explaining why Epicurus did not see himself as an atheist even though he rejected the existence of supernatural gods. He meant what he said and he said what he meant. He believed in "gods" but he rejected the definition of "gods" asserted by the establishment.

As you (Don) indicated above, the factors that K. listed Bentham as considering are in fact relevant considerations about pleasures to keep in mind in making practical decisions about actions to take. But those considerations do not cross the line into quantifiable absolutes that can (or should) be looked upon as allowing us to say "for all times and all places we will prioritize chocolate ice cream factories over vanilla ice cream factories." To do so would be as perverse as listening to Epicurus talk plainly about Epicurean gods but still at the same time insisting that he means them to be supernatural. He is making very plain statements about the nature of gods as non-supernatural and pleasure as a feeling which varies by context, and it is essential to absorb those lessons or we've learned nothing.

As a general and final observation for this post, it seems to me that we can with some ease point to certain experiences and with clarity call them "pleasures" or "pains," because in pointing we are pointing at particular people at particular times undergoing particular experiences. But when we sit back and speak or write "pleasure in general" or simply refer to "pleasure in the abstract" (and i do think that is a valid exercise) we are moving from a "pointing" exercise to a "definitional" exercise (inherently a "word game") and we have to be much more careful.

Quote from Godfrey

It's my understanding that for clarity of discussion Epicurus was very explicit, in Greek, of the meaning of "pleasure".

For the sake of readers who come by later in this thread (and because I am not entirely sure myself to what you refer) could you state what you refer to there of his being explicit in greek as to the meaning of "pleasure."

Quote from Godfrey

(I think I'm channeling Scalia, god forbid!)

(Godfrey thereby establishes himself as an "Originalist" or "Original Intent" Epicurean!)

All politics aside, that's pretty much what I mean with the "classical Epicurean" description in the "Not-NeoEpicurean" statement and the podcast introduction.

It's highly useful, and just intellectually honest, to try to first figure out what they believed originally before we consider our own freelancing additions, and always good to clearly mark those as freelancing

One interesting thing there is that Jefferson due to his Epicurean viewpoints probably was not himself an "original intent" kind of guy, except in the way that I think Epicurus would himself be today -- he'd separate the things that don't change (no supernatural gods, no life after death, no absolute virtue, key role of pleasure) but always insist that the way to implement them is contextual and therefore relative to time and place and many other circumstances.

So I guess even in Epicurean terms we freelance according to our circumstances based on the original intent understanding of the key and unchanging observations. (The wording of that could be improved!)

Quote from Godfrey

PD3 The limit of enjoyment is the removal of all pains. Wherever and for however long pleasure is present, there is neither bodily pain nor mental distress.

I think we are cross-posting so the flow of our comments may not quite work -- so sorry for that confusion!

The point i want to make by quoting PD3 is to reply to your comment about the second sentence, where you say "To me, the second sentence is adding specificity: if you have pleasure in your belly there is no pain in your belly. Same for your foot, and perhaps for your mind. So if all pains, throughout your body and mind, are removed, you've reached the limit of pleasure."

I think you are right as to the "add specificity" conclusion, which I interpret to mean as "the second sentence bolsters the conclusion of the first sentence by looking at the question from another angle."

But the reason I write this is to ask this: Whenever we say that "the feelings are two, pleasure and pain" and that they don't coexist at the same time, is that not significantly a conceptual assertion? What if someone asserted that Epicurus could have chosen to define the feelings as four (mental pleasure, mental pain, bodily pleasure, bodily pain)? And that a mental pleasure of appreciating an artwork can coexist in time (but not in "place") with a pain in my toe that i felt while I was looking at the artwork?

Would you say that such a person who used four categories was "wrong?"

Does Nature herself create a concept called "pleasure" by which we should understand ALL pleasures to be included? What would you say is the intersection between human nature and the words we use to describe it?

I definitely think that one of the undercurrents of our discussion here is this:

My comments are based on a presumption that Epicurus is going back and forth, as the occasion demands, using the word "pleasure" in both a high-level conceptual sense at times, but also at other times strictly as a feelings, with times when his usage almost is intersecting. So I think we have to be flexible in our application of the definition to the context.

I get the impression that some of the comments in this thread are arising from seeing "pleasure" strictly and always as a "feeling" without any conceptual overlay or usage at any time. So we may have disagreement on that point,

But the "multiple definitions according to context" approach (which is very similar to the way DeWitt explains "all sensations are true") may be the issue that we need to address more directly.

I would say that "all sensations are true" cannot be understood unless we step back and realize that "true" can mean both "absolutely true" but at other times mean "reported honestly."

Using the same approach, I would say that "pleasure' can (1) sometimes mean "a positive feeling'" but (2) at other times mean " a concept in which the goal of life is defined as positive feelings, in distinction from other goals such as piety or rationality or virtue,"

Quote from Godfrey

The pleasures are not identical, and that’s where so much confusion can be sown by devious minds

Yes, I agree Godfrey, but I would say that this is one of those areas where once we identify an absurdity (the assertion that all pleasures are identical in every respect) we immediately reject it as having possibly been Epicurus' position and we immediately go elsewhere looking for a proper understanding of his assertions. And I do think that we can find a logical explanation for what Epicurus seems to be saying if we compare what he is saying to Plato in Philebus on a conceptual level.

However I am not yet with you on the relationship of pleasure and desire.

Cassius, I'm suggesting that this is where the opponents won the war, in focusing on ranking pleasures instead of desires."

I do think that pleasures have to be ranked so that we can intelligently choose between them. I guess I would say much the same thing about "desires." Ranking "pleasures" seems to make more sense to me because that is the method by which I would rank my "desires'' if I even thought in terms of ranking desires. My desires flow directly from my evaluation of the possible pleasures and pain, so I am not sure I see the path forward you are suggesting.

Despite the different directions that some of these posts may have indicated, I think we can probably all agree that there is a distinct difference between the alternative guides of life offered by Epicurus vs the other Greeks.

The other Greeks were pointing to gods, or to "virtue," as absolutes which existed outside of the living human, either in heaven or in a realm of ideal forms or some other "external" place.

I think we would all agree that the "pleasure" to which Epicurus was pointing is not something that exists "in the air" in nature and does not exist apart from actual living beings, which to repeat what I wrote above, I think establishes that pleasure is an emergent property of those atoms and void which are so arranged and situated as to constitute living beings. So "pleasure" has no and can have no absolute existence in itself, it's going to be something ("a feeling" or "experience" or "affect" or whatever) that a living being experiences in the moment as part of its own existence, not something the living being pulls from somewhere else.

Anyone disagree or wish to tune that better?

Quote from Godfrey

I keep thinking that the only mechanism that Epicurus (not Cicero, the Cow) explicitly provided for ranking, prioritizing or choosing/avoiding was desires. He seems to me to keep saying that "pleasure is pleasure", a pathe. Why else would he repeatedly make the point that if all other things are equal (condensing/accumulation, duration, location in the body and so on) then pleasures would never differ from one another?

There's no doubt in my mind but that this is a very challenging passage.

In my mind, the first part of what you are referring to there " pleasure is pleasure" arises from the conjunction of the feeling and the definition - we have many different types of feelings which are knowable to us directly and without rationalization, but our decision to give them a single name ("pleasure") is a conceptual decision.

As for the hypothetical that if the pleasures could be condensed to fill the whole person then they would never differ from one another I better yield to Don since he is master of the hypotheticals!

However if I were to go ahead rather than wait for Don on PD09 (PD09. If every pleasure could be intensified so that it lasted, and influenced the whole organism or the most essential parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another.) --- I would say that the point most likely is again some conceptual point of contention (probably with Plato) because I believe that Epicurus would say that the individual experiences of pleasure cannot be so intensified, so that observation of the reverse proves something (perhaps indeed the connection of the experience of pleasure with the particular part of the mind or body. I base that in large part on the presumption that it would be a core premise of epicurus that pleasure does not exist "in the air" but is an emergent property of particular living beings.

As to PD09 I seem to remember DeWitt asserted something about that so his suggestion is probably worth going back and looking up.

Quote from Godfrey

He seems to me to keep saying that "pleasure is pleasure", a pathe.

My mind is still open on the issue of the meaning of desire in this context, but I think all of these questions turn on subtle issues of definitions, and in the end all feelings of pleasure have the common denominator of feeling pleasurable, but I do not believe that the feeling is identical except in that strict definitional (conceptual) sense. And that's where I think we have one of these intersections of the limits of conceptual reasoning from totally capturing every aspect of reality.

Quote from Don

Now, if saying the pursuit of philosophy is a "greater" pleasure than eating candy is your shorthand for that wordy paragraph, we're on the same page.

That is EXACTLY what I am saying!

All of this in my mind is purely a relative subjective decision made by the individual under the circumstances then and there existing, with the individual reserving the right at any moment to revise and extend or completely reverse his/her viewpoint on which pleasure will please him/her more extensively. And then the appropriate decision for that person is to pursue that decision with all the energy they can muster:-)

Quote from Don

s that your position is that some pleasures are "better"/"greater" than others: e g., Eating chocolate candies is "better" than eating coffee candies (for you). Pleasures can be "ranked."

I think our key here is that I am distinguishing "better" from "greater." I use "better" when I mean to refer to some kind of intrinsic "nobler" or "worthier," and I am not meaning to refer to that in terms of pleasure, so I don't call one pleasure "better" than another unless I am trying to be very clear that "better" is subjective and really means something else (more intense, longer lasting, or some other feeling.)

When referring to "greater" I think that is more clear. A "greater pleasure" is to me something that has those same attributes (more intense, longer lasting, or some other feeling).

I think in regard to that distinction we are really talking subtle preferences in words.

Quote from Don

My position is that ranking pleasures into a hierarchy is a pointless exercise. All things which give pleasure give pleasure, period, by definition.

I am pretty sure we do disagree here. Eating chocolate candy is a pleasure. Pursuing philosophy or some other hobby is a pleasure. I clearly and emphatically in my own life would rank the pleasure of pursuing philosophy or the hobby in a hiearchy such that I devote much more time and attention to it than to eating candy.

Maybe we again have a subtle word issue but I have no problem describing that process as "ranking pleasures in a hierarchy" and I would think that Epicurus is implicitly urging everyone to perform that same calculation process for themselves, just as he did in pursuing his philosophic campaign rather than lounging in the garden all day eating figs.