Posts by Cassius

Somehow I missed seeing this until now. Thanks Nate!

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KURIAI DOXAI, a Compilation of Translations by Nathan H. Bartman (2021)

This compilation contains 150 years worth of English translations of the "Key Doctrines" of Epicurus.

Eikadistes

May 3, 2024 at 11:14 PM

I would say that may be too broad. Can't we desire to feel pain in order to experience more pleasure later?

On the other hand, while we are feeling pain or pleasure we are feeling it without thinking why - we just feel it.

Is that not a difference?

Is not a desire somehow more "willed" while pleasure and pain are simply reactions?

That gets back to pathe right? A desire is not a pathe is it?

Godfrey for a long time I've observed that one of the approaches I like least is Nussbaum's "Therapy of Desire."

It seems to me there is definitely an issue in focusing on "desire" as opposed to "pleasure" but I don't have a handle on what the issue would be.

Do you agree with Don's: I'd offer that a "desire" is a mental concept sensing a need for some thing one does not currently have or for an experience one is not currently undergoing. One senses a lack or void that one feels needs to be filled. Whether one fills that sensed need is the crux of making choices and rejections. "

I am not sure whether it is clear to me that a desire is a "mental concept" or a feeling or what?

I think you can write down and define a desire much better than you can a pleasure, but I am not sure I see them as entirely separate things, especially in the way the words are commonly used.

At the moment I am just not sure about the implications of these words at all.

I see this related to "Choices and Avoidances" as well, which I gather is a title to one of Epicurus' works.

So OK we have at least two high-level questions:

(1) What is the relationship between desire and pleasure?

That needs to be pursued, but I am thinking that we are beginning to stray from the original question of

(2) What is the meaning of "Most pleasant"(?) [That was based on the comment in the post above to the effect that Don submits: "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."]

Quote from Godfrey

I still think that there are subtle but useful differences between desire and pleasure.

- Pleasure is a Feeling, a faculty, a criterion or measurement. Desire is not.

- To my limited understanding, pleasure and desire are neurologically/biochemically different.

- Pleasure is "The Goal", desire is not.

I agree with this, but probably more is needed to define what desire really is.

Are we talking a Nietzchean "will to power" -- some kind of basic urge of the will that would cause someone to look at something pleasureable that he or she might experience without any pain at all but would cause him to say "Nah, I don't think i will partake of that pleasure, I just don't want to."

Quote from Don

There is no consideration necessary of the duration, intensity, etc. of the specific *pleasure* itself of drinking wine. What will be the result of this desire if it is fulfilled? If not? The decision to pursue one's desire to experience the pleasure derived from drinking wine is completely contingent on personal factors and subjective feelings of what pain and pleasure will result from whether this desire is fulfilled or not.

See in that first sentence i would say that it is impossible and illogical to evaluate the result without considering each of the factors (duration intensity etc) that we are discussing. The result IS largely those resulting factors, is it not?

Quote from Godfrey

So, conversely, without understanding the categories of desires one can't make proper decisions regarding pleasure and pain.

I think we are communicating, because I think what you write there is pretty clear, but I am not sure we are agreeing

I have always looked at it pretty much from the reverse perspective, influenced by Rackham's translation of Torquatus:

45 Nothing could be more useful or more conducive to well-being than Epicurus's doctrine as to the different classes of the desires. One kind he classified as both natural and necessary, a second as natural without being necessary, and a third as neither natural nor necessary; the principle of classification being that the necessary desires are gratified with little trouble or expense; the natural desires also require but little, since nature's own p51 riches, which suffice to content her, are both easily procured and limited in amount; but for the imaginary10 desires no bound or limit can be discovered. 14 46 If then we observe that ignorance and error reduce the whole of life to confusion, while Wisdom alone is able to protect us from the onslaughts of appetite and the menaces of fear, teaching us to bear even the affronts of fortune with moderation, and showing us all the paths that lead to calmness and peace, why should we hesitate to avow that Wisdom is to be desired for the sake of the pleasures it brings and Folly to be avoided because of its injurious consequences?

To me, the "principle of the classification" is the key, and the principle does not derived from human-described categories, but from the nature of the activities involved. Breathing, for example, is absolutely natural and necessary through the nature of things, but not because we ourselves recognized it is as category. On the other hand things which are unnecessary and unnatural (absolute political power, maybe?) have no limit because we can always ask for more. Again, that's from the nature of the situation, not because we categorize it that way.

So from my point of view the understanding of the principle involved is not really an invitation to categorize intellectually, but just a recognition that the closer to absolutely natural you get, nature has made those easiest to obtain, while the opposite nature has made the hardest, with the recognition being that the hardest requires the most pain and the easiest requires the least pain.

But in the end, the whole exercise is nothing more than posing the same question: How much pain is my chosen pleasure going to cost me to obtain? And in that, you rank the intensity and satisfaction you get from your pleasure, and you rank the intensity and length of the pain it is going to cost you, and you make a totally personal and subjective decision based on your own unique circumstances.

The result (to me) is that you've performed a mental exercise that really does nothing but help you reflect on what you expect to be the pleasure and pain that you yourself expect to experience, and you decide to go forward or not on that basis.

That's really the way the spreadsheet we talked about was set up. You can perform the mental exercise of thinking about these things, but there's no way in the end to make the final decision except for you yourself to decide how much you value a particular pleasure, and how much you mind the particular pain you expect that to cost, and then you go ahead or not based on your own estimation of "is it worth it to me." And in the final analysis the dividing up into categories has pretty much zero to do with the final result. You keep those in minds and thumbnail aids to thinking, but they don't dictate anything in and of themselves, and more than the spreadsheet model dictates anything. There's no "necessity" in human action so there's no way to reduce these questions to across the board formulas that always apply. Even breathing you can give up for a few minutes if it's necessary to swim through a flooded corridor to get out of a sinking submarine. The rules of thumb are always rules of thumb and never absolute categories in themselves.

Maybe the bottom line is that the categories we are discussing are "useful" but not necessary and in fact don't add a lot if you just use common sense to evaluate the situation carefully. And if we ever move to the point where the categories become hard and fast rules in themselves, then we have moved into the same danger as when "virtue" seems to be an end in and of itself. And in fact some writers do seem to state or at least imply that Epicurus held that we should always and only pursue pleasures that are natural AND necessary, which I do not think he would say at all -- or at least - Epicurus certainly did not live that way himself, with his relatively wealthy living with multiple pieces of real estate, material goods, and even slaves. The same would go for Atticus especially, nor do I understand that the historical record reveals even a single Epicurean reputed for his or her truly ascetic living.

i interpret those terms to be equivalent to pleasure and pain, so I don't see a distinction, as they essentially in my understanding constitute the basis for any categories which we may choose to construct in our minds (which categories don't really "exist" except to the extent we choose to use them to describe our feelings).

I think we're possibly diverging in this conversation due to my intrerpreting this is another example of uses of "words" which have no meaning except as we define them, and our definitions never are able to create reality - the reality is only in our feelings and not in any categories or forms.

I honestly am not sure what you mean. Yes I can rank my desire in terms of intensity, but I would certainly say that I can rank the pleasure I get from steak as higher than the pleasure I get from hot dogs. I see both "desire" and "pleasure" to be terms that include many different instances, each of which is capable of being ranked in degrees of greater or lesser.

I would have thought that to be a totally non-controversial statement.

Are you using a definition of these terms differently than I am?

Quote from Don

We cannot rank pleasures.

Wait are you disagreeing with Godfrey's point too when he says "of course they're not"?

I definitely rank my pleasures -- steak is much more pleasant than hot dogs.

Quote from Godfrey

Of course they're not

Yes of course my feelings exactly, but if we extended the point that pleasures cannot be compared or ranked in any way at all, that would be the reduction to the absurd, so in my mind that proves that this cannot have been Epicurus' meaning.

Quote from Godfrey

This is off the top of my head, but if I'm not mistaken, the only mechanism that Epicurus gives for evaluating choices and avoidances is by categorizing desires.

Well there I would say that each reference goes in the direction of the purely practical: "What will happen to me if I make this choice?" So rather than "categorizing" which would be definitional logical analysis which might actually sound platonic, I would say he is emphasizing the reverse and say evaluate them pragmatically only by their results. And their results are not measured by categories but only by the resulting feeling. In that respect I see "natural and necessary" categories in that same way - strictly biological or feeling-driven, rather than by any intellectual categories.

VS71. "Every desire must be confronted by this question: What will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished, and what if it is not?"

Quote from Godfrey

This is getting interesting, digging into the weeds!

YES!!

The Unity of Pleasure discussion:

.... unfortunately DeWitt goes off into kinetic vs katastematic and doesn't really grapple with our point of whether all pleasures are the same, but:

All we really have from DeWitt then is the issue of all pleasures being "good" irrespective of their consequences.

So we still have to deal with the question: "Are all pleasures the same in all respects so that we should consider the choice of any pleasure to be equivalent to the choice of any other?"

Quote from Godfrey

So wouldn't all the talk of duration, intensity, absence of pain and so forth really be misleading? At least it seems so in terms of daily living. Analyzing one's desires would be far more useful and effective in determining how to live pleasurably. Continuous pleasure just means, at least in this line of reasoning, that one is living well by prudently choosing and fleeing from one's desires.

My initial reaction to splitting the discussion of desires and their results is to be wary of that, because just like virtue, what does it gain anything to talk about desires apart from the results of pursuing those desires? In the end there is nothing given by nature for the decision of what to choose and to avoid other than pleasure and pain. A science of desires separated from their consequences, would be no more helpful or useful than a science of virtue, apart from the results of pursuing those virtues.

Further and to the same point, since there is no "necessity" in human affairs, there is no more necessity as to the result of pursuing a particular desire "in general" than there is ability to predict by necessity that Hermarchus must be either alive or dead tomorrow. Certainly generalizations and predictions can be given, but absent a necessary connection between any desire and its result, we can't derive an ironclad rule, and the best we can do is make the generalization -- which is useful, but not really deeply philosophical, as it is largely dependent on context.

So rather than say that talk of duration, intensity, absence of pain and so forth might be misleading, I could see the argument as stronger that they are really all that is worth talking about, because they are the only ways of evaluating pleasures vs pains that make particular choices "good" or "bad" (in the sense of nothing good but pleasure; nothing bad but pain).

So one of the foundational issues here is whether "Are all pleasures the same in all respects so that we should consider the choice of any to be the equivalent of the choice of any other?"

I would say the answer to that is "No!" They share a certain attribute (we find them all pleasing) but not in the same degree, manner, intensity, duration, etc.

At least as for me, I definitely choose my pleasures according to those characteristics and I do not pursue all pleasures with the same intensity. Does anyone advocate that Epicurus held that we should?

Here we need to dive back into DeWitt's "Unity of Pleasure" chapter.

Quote from Don

By definition, all pleasures are "good."

That part I think we are all together on, at least here in this forum. There are no "worthy" or "unworthy" pleasures -- all pleasures are pleasing because that is how they affect us.

As to the distinction between desire and pleasure, what do you think of this from Torquatus - Reid uses the term "passions":

Quote from Cassius

[45] I ask what classication is either more protable or more suited to the life of happiness than that adopted by Epicurus? He affirmed that there is one class of passions which are both natural and needful; another class which are natural without being needful ; a third class which are neither natural nor needful; and such are the conditions of these passions that the needful class are satised without much trouble or expenditure ; nor is it much that the natural passions crave, since nature herself makes such wealth as will satisfy her both easy of access and moderate in amount; and it is not possible to discover any boundary or limit to false passions.

If Cicero got Torquatus right it appears we are talking cupiditatem but also desiderant:

And here is the line-by-line of Meneoceus from Epicurism.info:

Perseus has the Hicks version:

"We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless ; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. [128] He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquility of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid ; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look for anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained because of the absence of pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of pleasure. Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life."

Oh yes I consider that to be the same question too. I listed the factors that promoted the discussion but that's not to say there are not others factors too.

I am hopeful that everyone who is a regular participant will weigh in, but since I haven't seen them in a while I will tag Bryan and Elli to see if they have time to comment. Again, this section of the debate is about how to evaluate persistence or time of pleasure vs intensity or depth of pleasure, and starts around post 24 and those which just precede it: RE: An Epicurean Understanding of Pleasure

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).