Posts by Cassius

Yes, this is an area where everyone especially me would profit from wider participation and comment. Just like with the extensive discussion in Tusculun Disputations, I know personally I do not have a command of all the relevant material, and I could quite easily be missing something significant in some text I have only scanned, or not read at all -- or even in something like Sedley's "Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom" which I still haven't read!

I am not fluent in Tusculun Disputations but it appears I am going to have to go through it again. Trying to do so quickly now, this may be the point DeWitt is describing the need to show that the good man is 'always' happy:

further down ....

and even further down, where Epicurus is still under attack:

And here Cicero argues that the wise man must have his chief good 'in his power':

Then we come to this line that is very useful in arguing that Epicurus did not hold "freedom from pain" to be the highest good. That was Hieronymous, not Epicurus:

One more:

First of all, I do certainly agree that pleasures being continuous is an important aspect. We want pleasure to be as as maximized as possible throughout our lives, and we can attain that through the mind's understanding that pain is short if intense and manageable if long, and offset pain with recollection of good memories and in many other ways. The ideal, of course, would be to include no prospect of interruption by death, but that's only possible as far as we know to the gods (though we get very close through the understanding that unlimited time provides no "greater" pleasure than limited time). I would say "very close" rather than "the same" because the pleasure of a god differs in "time" from our own pleasure.

So continuity is a very important aspect of the goal, but what I am saying is that continuity / persistence alone cannot necessarily trump intensity / quality of pleasure. The "most pleasant" isn't measured only in how long it lasts, but in how much depth of pleasure experience. The pleasure I get from breathing is not a pleasure i would choose over the pleasure of saving my wife or child from a fire. If I remember to come back here I will add in that quote from Usener about "this is the meaning of the greatest good, if we think about it rather than go walking around endlessly debating it."

But the real point I want to add to this thread now is that there was a need for Epicurus to focus on continuity of pleasure for another reason: one again, to be able to prevail over Plato's arguments that pleasure cannot be the greatest good. Here again I am following DeWitt's analysis which i think is sound (this section continues further, but this first part is the heart of it):

But in the end i see no reason for concluding that "length of time over life" necessarily overrides all other considerations in deciding which pleasures to choose, and i see many reasons for taking the opposite position (that we choose what we deem to be the "most pleasant" - not which lasts the longest).

Cleveland you will find DeWitt's book to be significantly different in nature. It has been a while since I read Haris' book, but i recall it to be more focused on practical advice, much along the lines you quote.

DeWitt's book is more of an encyclopedic treatment of the history and theory of Epicurean philosophy. It will give you the foundation on which the philosophy is built and explain the many details that are very unfamiliar to most of us as we approach the philosophy for the first time. I recall that Haris does go over the outlines, but i think you will find that Dewitt really puts Epicurus in context with a general philosophical framework.

As we tell everybody please let us know if you have comments or questions as you read it. We have a whole section of the forum here devoted to discussing it chapter by chapter. You may find some things already there that will help you, but it's of great help to us if you make new comments or ask new questions as you read through it, so be sure to do that if you're at all inclined to.

Also: The issues we are discussing now also relate back to the "Net Pleasure Maximization Worksheet" that I put together a couple of years ago. I don't think Don was around then but maybe if he had been I would have taken it further, but I received a lot of argument "against" it on just these grounds: that pleasure can't be quantified scientifically by time or intensity or anything else.

I still think that going through the exercise of thinking about categories can be helpful, and I think that what Don and others are saying right now about "persistence" is an example of thinking about one such category. But in the end, the categories are like all "forms" -- they fall short in capturing the fullness of the experience of the feelings involved. Even all the annotations at the bottom weren't sufficient caveats to translate the full effect into reality:

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A Draft Epicurean Pleasure Maximization Worksheet

Feelings cannot be reduced to numbers, and there are important limitations in the use of a "worksheet" as an aid in evaluating choices and avoidances. However it may be helpful to some people to visualize an illustration of the weighing process that some term the "hedonic calculus." Here is a draft example for your consideration and comment. Scores included here are of course fictional and for example only. A version of the spreadsheet in xlsx format is attached for downloading.

…

Cassius

July 11, 2019 at 10:25 PM

I have to include a picture because I thought it was neat looking

Note: Ok after checking back in the thread I do not see that Don participated so I am not sure if Don was here for this or not. In fact I don't see much discussion in the thread. I think the "debate" against it that I recall took place in non-public channels.

Note 2: Looks like Don was not here, but Godfrey probably was, although mostly in "lurk" mode Maybe if Don had been here we would all be spreadsheeting now!

Note 3: The problem is those numbers may be useful for ballparking feelings at the current moment, but there's no reliable way to really come up with them other than pulling them "out of the air." So in the end the totals are largely meaningless. The exercise itself might be a useful way to "get in touch with your feelings" and to rank different choices against each other, but that's probably about it.

Quote from Don

How would you interpret "the most pleasant"?

First, I am going to attempt at least for a while not to "like" too many posts here in this thread, as sometimes the "likes" tend to mean taking sides when "sides" is a bad thing to do. Who knows whether any of us at this point have the "right" interpretation? (We can come back to likes later, though, cause they do help with things over time, for those who are "persistent" in following arguments.)

I guess further I need to be sure what we mean by "right" interpretation, which I'll define for my use as "what Epicurus intended" (not necessarily what I myself might think.)

Second, I think that my starting point as above is that in the Epicurean universe there can be no single definition of the right answer here. This is why I try to emphasize "pleasure as a feeling" and that's the big implication of it being a feeling -- feelings are largely subjective and at least highly difficult (and probably impossible) to quantify in any objectively-measurable terms. "Time" is a pretty easy measure, and I personally think "intensity" is another good term, and I think I recall in some of the recent psychology material that you (Don) and Godfrey have posted another term ("affect"?). But even more than that I think that there are probably lots of other aspects that can be described and I don't think we can or should try to pin down pleasure to a limited set of categories.

That's also what I mean much of the time when I set off Pleasure or Feeling against the Platonic Ideals or the Religious "revelation" -- I see "pleasure" as a sweeping term that includes all "positive" feelings/sensations from any sense or mental activity, and in that status as "the positive feeling," I think the big philosophical war is between Idealism v. Divine Revelation vs Feeling (or Pleasure). (I am considering Idealism as essentially non-theistic in that list, even though I know Plato's version was essentially theistic if you drill down far enough - that's why idealism and revelation get along so well to fight Epicurus.)

So with all that as background I interpret "most pleasant" as a feeling that we generate (or receive) within ourselves as the most valuable to us "in total." I do think that it is reasonable to look at time (duration and persistence) as an important element, but equally or more important is "intensity" (maybe "depth" is a better word?). For example that is why I think Epicurus said that it is at times appropriate to die for a friend. The depth of pain that you would suffer from knowing that a friend died who you could have saved could be (or I could see it being) so deep and intense that no amount of time would be sufficient to make like worth living after that, so you go ahead and sacrifice your life as the proper hedonic calculus of how to proceed in such an awful situation.

I know I keep talking about pleasure being subjective and up to the individual to evaluate, and I think that's an unsatisfying way of expressing it because it's an attempt to address the problem through "logic" and "definitions."

Probably the better approach would be to point to particular feelings of love and affection you have, such as for a spouse or a child (or whatever) that we all can identify with. Then you can point and say those are examples which allow us to understand the feelings involved so that we can unwind the question. All of us are probably familiar with the examples of how lovers talk about if they only had "one more day" with their departed love one they would sacrifice everything, or one more day to spend with a departed parent or child. I think those are examples of deep and intense emotion and are probably the hard cases that help establish the point.

Some pleasures are so intense and so deep and so important to us that no lesser pleasures, no matter the duration or persistence, can stack up to them in our own estimation, and if asked to choose between them we would unhesitatingly choose the deep/intense over the longer more persistent duration.

Quote from Don

I interpret that "the most pleasant" with the idea of pleasure *over a period of time.* The *length* of time is not the focus; it's the *persistence* of pleasure over the time in question.

Oh my! I don't for a moment dispute your right and proper position in interpreting it that way for yourself. I agree that Epicurus would want you to do that if you believe it best for you! But I would not calculate it that way myself, and I suspect we would have a strong division of opinion on that if we took a poll. I would consider "intensity" or other "qualities" as at least as important as duration in time (persistence).

While "truth" is not decided by polling, and it doesn't matter how many here agree or disagree, I would like for some of our core people to weigh in on this because theirs are the opinions I respect, and I think we could all learn a lot by discussing this.

Quote from Don

I've interpreted the Cyrenaic position to be "always pleasure in the moment" grab it now. Whereas Epicurus's philosophy was to make choices that would provide sustainable pleasure and the prospect that it would persist.

I agree (at least largely) with that statement of the Cyreniac position, but I don't think I would say the second sentence is accurate. Yes clearly "sustainability" (meaning the time element) is a factor to consider, but there's definitely no way to say flatly across the board that time is ALWAYS the deciding factor or even the MOST IMPORTANT factor. That's clear from the letter to Menoeceus:

"And just as with food he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant."

So how does one rank the "most pleasant"? I think the first and most important aspect of the answer to that is that there's no universal single answer. The "most pleasant" by nature (by the Epicurean physics and understanding of the cosmos) is up to the individual given his or her own tastes and circumstances and preferences. Certainly I would think most people are going to consider the time element, but what about the person who wants to say "damn the torpedoes full speed ahead" and wants to climb to the top of a mountain to be there to see for a moment, even if he knows he'll never make it back down. Can such a person be said to be "wrong"? By what standard? I think Epicurus would say that that's between you and Nature to decide, with you making the call under all your individual circumstances.

Quote from Philia

If one assumes that short-term pleasures provide the same benefits as long-term pleasures,

Yes you "could" assume that, but why would you? By definition the short-term pleasure is different from the long-term pleasure in terms of time, so they are not identical.

Please don't sense that I am disagreeing, I am simply at this point trying to understand your reasoning.

Epicurus may have said that "PD19. Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure." but that is by no means the same as saying that time is an irrelevant factor. Epicurus strongly discourages suicide, and it seems clear (to me at least) that Epicurus is saying that life is desirable, so we should continue to desire to live so long as we can gain more pleasure than pain from living on. The issue I think we are discussing is what does "more" mean, because I would argue that "more" does not equate to "length of time" at all. There are many other issues, intensity being only one, and variations in types of pleasures that only the individual can just to be "worth' the pain required to attain it.

But let's stay with that passage I quoted above. I don't think Don would assume that "short-term benefits provide the SAME benefits as long-term pleasure" either, correct Don? So I am not sure where you are thinking the assumption you are naming should come from.

This comes to mind because of reading this clip from Wikipedia on Chrysippus:

The word "passion" and "passionately" probably have to us today negative connotations that hurt this as a summary. But to the extent that "pathe" is the Greek work that probably best summarizes the element of the Canon of Truth that we generally summarize as "pleasure and pain," and to the extent that Laertius says that Epicurus held that the wise man feels his emotions more deeply than the unwise, there's a large element of applicability.

Maybe the graphic serves best as a talking point in a discussion of ethics or epistemology, especially helpful in distinguishing Epicurus from the Stoics, but regardless I thought it worth committing a thread to it.

In looking up Chrysippus this afternoon I see that there is material on Wikipedia relevant to this discussion:

This below is not immediately relevant, but a good reminder for anyone who isn't aware of it and how it plays into Chryssipus' thinking:

Unfortunately this section of DeWitt does not seek to explain the "witticism" -- but does include some gratifying slams at Chrysippus and ultimately labels logicians like him as "intellectual eunuchs"

Maybe we can find some articles discussing this, because the statue or something like still exists, correct?

Quote from Philia

but if the underlying assumption is that short-term physical pleasures are equally as important as long-term mental pleasures

Yes that is the tricky part and I do not think that Epicurus would say that that can be presumed. Most generally, I think he would say that that decision has to be made individually by each person and according to life circumstances, and that it will prove to be applicable to some people but not to others (so therefore not a "general" rule). Plus, to be clear, I am not limiting the circumstances to "material well-being." People rank their pleasures in radically different ways, and two children born in the same house to a life of luxury, or to a life of poverty, could easily reach different conclusions on how they choose to spend their time to generate the most pleasure for themselves.

But I think it's pretty clear that Epicurus did not reach such a conclusion in his own case (he devoted his life to philosophical study and indeed controversy).

So the very first piece of evidence in unraveling Epicurean doctrine (how Epicurus lived his own life) would not be consistent with applying that premise across-the-board to everyone.

Quote from Cassius

who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense

Quote from Cassius

Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too condent about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.

I can almost see Epicurus gasping "OMG!!! " if he could know that some in his own school were arguing that. Though I doubt he would have restrained his response to an expression of exasperation. Someone(s) would have had a lot of explaining to do to Epicurus as to how they managed to fall so far from the prototype. For anyone who didn't get the message after he explained it to them in person, we'd probably have some good texts on excommunication if he could have lived to write about that kind of thing.

At this moment I think I would try to link this to the discussion with Philia as an example of trying to "measure pleasure by reason" and coming to a "reasoned understanding of pleasure" in order to dig out why the illustration seems (again, to me) so unsatisfying.

Part of the problem may be that this is an argument from Chrysippus, who has a Stoic was an arch-proponent of logic over

feeling, trying to make a ham-handed logic-based point about pleasure (which he detests as a feeling that distracts from virtue).

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RE: An Epicurean Understanding of Pleasure

1 - yes please let us know if you come up with variations/improvements of the jelly bean jar analogy. I am sure there are much better ones!

2

[…]

Absolutely I agree with that, and I think most people at first glance see it that way too. That's "instinctively" the right approach, IMO. In fact I fluctuate on how much I really accept the opposite view myself. In my (admittedly small) mind, the only reason that the "subtractive" model "works" mentally is because you know that there are only two…

Cassius

October 5, 2021 at 1:20 PM

It's probably a significant part of the issue that pleasure (as a feeling) can never really be captured by a "logic" argument.

And of course in discussing THAT issue, this from "Torquatus" shouldn't be far from our minds as a huge red flag about the attempt to bridge logic and feeling, as Epicurus himself apparently warned against it:

[31] There are however some of our own school, who want to state these principles with greater refinement, and who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense, but that thought and reasoning also enable us to understand both that pleasure in itself is matter for desire and that pain is in itself matter for aversion. So they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred conception leading us to feel that the one thing is t for us to seek, the other to reject. Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too condent about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.

Quote from JJElbert

Of course the shift of the soul from the members or the breast to the brain simply shifts the problem. Does the brain feel the lack of the Supreme good?

Unfortunately I agree with that comment. I think in order to really understand the argument there's something about "feeling the lack" that connects "the supreme good" in a way that doesn't seem obvious (at least to me).

More to the point, I think I can come up with an elaborate explanation of it (see above) but since we are going to be talking about this to people who are new to Epicurus and philosophy in general, we need a clear and direct way of explaining what is going on here.

Just a note to Godfrey - sorry you couldn't find that Wenham article. The forum software has lots of powerful features that I don't really know how to use. But I note the search function doesn't always cover every section of the software - maybe that happened here.

In this case I have tried to highlight the nikolsky and wenham and some other core texts by marking them as "featured" which makes them show up on the home page (if you scroll down far enough) as so:

The other article on the K/K issue that sticks out as supporting the same conclusion is the chapter from Gosling and Taylor, which is here: Gosling & Taylor - On Katastematic and Kinetic Pleasure

Nikolsky tells us that is what spurred him to write his article.

Great answers. Only I can think of to add is to ask Marco:. Did you have something else in mind when you asked if there are two types of pleasure? Or was your entire question focused on time (long and short)?

1 - yes please let us know if you come up with variations/improvements of the jelly bean jar analogy. I am sure there are much better ones!

2

Quote from Philia

It is more appealing to me to see pleasure as additive, and that is probably a heuristic.

Absolutely I agree with that, and I think most people at first glance see it that way too. That's "instinctively" the right approach, IMO. In fact I fluctuate on how much I really accept the opposite view myself. In my (admittedly small) mind, the only reason that the "subtractive" model "works" mentally is because you know that there are only two categories of feelings in the Epicurean model - pleasure and pain. I think instinctively that people suspect there is a "neutral" state in which you're feeling neither one.

I can reconcile that in two ways:

(1) There is pleasure simply in being alive (if you allow yourself to recognize it) and most all people can at least take pleasure in good memories, regardless of their current circumstances. I think that's a valid observation and I don't discount its importance. However:

(2) You can view the issue as a "truism" that flows logically from having defined pleasure and pain as the only two feelings, because then all feelings are either one or the other. I see that as a more "intellectual" approach, however, which is more suited to philosophical debate than it is to immediate analysis for someone in a bad situation. But here too I see that as a valid approach and particularly important in debating the arguments against pleasure put forth by Plato in Philebus. The formula is in my mind what creates, and is the only justification for, the "absence of pain is the highest pleasure" formula. Feeling that you are totally without pain then means, by definition, that you are full of pleasure(s). But to me that is "measuring pleasure by reason" - a kind of formula has to be grasped "by those capable of figuring the problem out." I see that as an issue of measuring pleasure by reason, such as PD19. "Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures, by reason, the limits of pleasure."

Also PD20. The flesh perceives the limits of pleasure as unlimited, and unlimited time is required to supply it. But the mind, having attained a reasoned understanding of the ultimate good of the flesh and its limits, and having dissipated the fears concerning the time to come, supplies us with the complete life, and we have no further need of infinite time; but neither does the mind shun pleasure, nor, when circumstances begin to bring about the departure from life, does it approach its end as though it fell short, in any way, of the best life.

OK Don, Philia's question has been very helpful to me here. In the future (if I can remember!) I am going to refer to the (for me) emotionally unsatisfying phrase "absence of pain = the greatest pleasure" as "measuring pleasure by reason" and "a reasoned understanding of the ultimate good." That will probably help highlight the perspective from which that formulation makes the most sense. What do you think of that?

(In fact I am going to bookmark Philia's "It is more appealing to me to see pleasure as additive" as the trigger for me seeing the "measuring pleasure by reason" formula, and a linkage to PD19 and PD20, that I should be embarrassed not to have seen as a boy!