From Tau Phi's collection of works of Metrodorus:
PHILODEMUS, On Anger, col. XLV [7]
In fact, Epicurus makes clear in his First Appellations both that the sage “will experience rage” and (will experience it) “in moderation,” and Metrodorus, if he says “the rage of the wise man” in its proper sense, shows also that he feels it “very briefly.”
Tau Phi I have a question here - is this "dehorting" a typo?
PLUTARCH, Against Colotes, 34, 1127 d [5]
If those who abolish laws, governments, and polices of men subvert
and destroy human life, and if Metrodorus and Epicurus do this, by
dehorting and withdrawing their friends from concerning themselves
in public affairs, by hating those who intermeddle in them, by reviling
the first most wise lawgivers, and by advising contempt of the laws
provided there is no fear and danger of the whip punishment.
The following quote from Tau Phi's recent collection of quotations by or about Metrodorus is relevant to this topic of whether all things that have a beginning must have an end. It's also relevant to DeWitt's point that for Epicurus the gods are not supernaturally immortal, but as they too are compounded of atoms and therefore void they must act to maintain their existence.
PHILODEMUS, On Piety, fr. 122 [17]
Metrodorus too finds a defence in saying in On Gods and further in On Change that that which has no share of the void endures, but that every compound is destructible.
The following quote from Tau Phi's recent collection of quotations by or about Metrodorus is relevant to this topic of whether all things that have a beginning must have an end. It's also relevant to DeWitt's point that for Epicurus the gods are not supernaturally immortal, but as they too are compounded of atoms and therefore void they must act to maintain their existence.
PHILODEMUS, On Piety, fr. 122 [17]
Metrodorus too finds a defence in saying in On Gods and further in On Change that that which has no share of the void endures, but that every compound is destructible.
From Tau Phi's recent collection on the works of Metrodorus I want to add this here under a list of quotes relevant to emergence.
It is pretty confusingly worded, or confusingly translated, or both, but it seems to me to be pretty clearly talking about a mixture of canonics (thinking to establish their own senses by destroying those of others) and emergence (seeing that one is affected by one quality and faculty of it, and another by another.)
PLUTARCH, Against Colotes, 5, 1109 c [5]
And as for these symmetries and proportions of the pores, or little passages in the organs of the senses, about which they talk so much, and those different mixtures of seeds, which, they say, being dispersed through all savors, odors, and colors, move the senses of different persons to perceive different qualities, do they not manifestly drive them to this, that things are no more of one nature than another? For to pacify those who think the sense is deceived and lies because they see contrary events and passions in such as use the same objects, and to solve this objection, they teach,—that when almost everything was confused and mixed up together, since it has been arranged by Nature that one thing shall fit another thing, it was not the contact or the apprehension of the same quality nor were all parts affected in the same way by what was influencing them. But those only coalesced with anything to which they had a characteristic, symmetrical in a corresponding proportion; so that they are in error so obstinately to insist that a thing is either good or bad, white or not white, thinking to establish their own senses by destroying those of others; whereas they ought neither to combat the senses,—because they all touch some quality, each one drawing from this confused mixture, as from a living and large fountain, what is suitable and convenient,—nor to pronounce of the whole, by touching only the parts, nor to think that all ought to be affected after one and the same manner by the same thing, seeing that one is affected by one quality and faculty of it, and another by another. Let us investigate who those men are which bring in this opinion that things are not more of one quality than another, if they are not those who affirm that every sensible object is a mixture, compounded of all sorts of qualities, like a mixture of new wine fermenting, and who confess that all their rules are lost and their faculty of judging quite gone, if they admit any sensible object that is pure and simple, and do not make each one thing to be many?
Here is one of the many useful quotes here that we need to be able to find very often. Lately it seems like every mention of Epicurus is accompanied by the assertion that he lived on bread and water (they like to throw in ....and a little cheese) when in truth nothing could be further from the truth or make less sense for Epicurus to have done. What does make sense, here as Seneca says, is that at intervals Epicurus would test his ability to remain happy while eating little, much as we might train through exercises of any sort to be at the top of our games in anything we do.
SENECA, Epist. ad Luc, 18, 9 [11]
Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe stated intervals, during which he satisfied his hunger in niggardly fashion; he wished to see whether he thereby fell short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount he fell short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort. At any rate, he makes such a statement in the well known letter written to Polyaenus in the archonship of Charinus. Indeed, he boasts that he himself lived on less than a penny, but that Metrodorus, whose progress was not yet so great, needed a whole penny.
Outstanding Tau Phi thank you! I'm setting this up in the files section now and will post the link below.
i want to know if Cassius finds this acceptable or in line with new policy.
I have no problem at all with anything that you wrote as being consistent with the policy. As you state in your last paragraph it is difficult and controversial to decide which pleasures are actially kinetic and katastematic in the first place. On the other hand evaluating the "duration" of a particular pleasure is relatively easy, and that's why I strongly encourge discussion of these issues to be in English.
But the key point is that whatever those two words meant to Epicurus, it's clear that he embraced both of them as part of a happy life, with "a life of happiness being a life of pleasure." The problem comes only when people start qualifying "a life of happiness is a life of pleasure" by modifying it to say "a life of happiness is a life of _______ pleasure" or worse yet - "a life of happines s is a life of tranqulity" or "a life of happines is a life of ataraxia" or any other formulation that implies that some concept other than pleasure is actually the supreme good. The worst aspect of the problem is when people become convinced that a particular activity or condition is "katastematic" and they elevate their interpretation of that particular activity or conditon to being what Epicurus "really meant" instead of the broader word pleasure.
Even the experts cannot agree among themselves exactly what function these words are performing, and even using English words to describe them as stable, restful, or enduring doesn't solve the problem. "Studying nature" as Epicurus emphasized as key to his own happiness seems very arguably to be a pleasure of action ("studying"), as are those pleasures that he arrayed against his pains in his last days.
It's true that all this may be more of a "rhetorical" point than anything else. The real objective of all of this is to emphasize the "promotion" and "teaching" function of Epicureanfriends. The policy is intended to make sure that the clarity of the objective being pleasure is not lost by substituting something else as the "supreme good." That was the original intent of the "Not NeoEpicurean But Epicurean" statement when we drafted it over ten years ago. We've included that statement somewhere on the front page and in every welcome point to every new member for as far back as I can remember, but it's clear that not everyone is reading it or taking it to heart. That's what the recent postings are intended to help fix.
But in sum William -- to repeat my response to your question -- what you've written seems fine to me.
Welcome to Episode 344 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
This week we are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue in Sections 11 and 12 of Book Two.
Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here: Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Episode 343 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "In The Search For Knowledge, Is 'Probable' Good Enough?"
Glad to have you!
All of them are - to the extent that I would not be surprised if it is finding articles I have written in the past. My current list is still a work in progress but you can find it here.
I have been doing similar research to try to track back this argument to where it was first popularized in the 20th Century, and so far a lot points back to Carlo Diano.
Once you start looking at older articles that OKeefe and Warren cite you begin to see a pattern of certain names that they quote specifically. This is a very interesting exercise and if you pursue it and find other names or relevant facts please let me know and I will update my document.
As to Diano -
Diano is an early source for this argument. In “Épicure: la philosophie du plaisir et la société des amis” [“Epicurus: The Philosophy of Pleasure and the Society of Friends”], Les Études philosophiques, n.s., 22, no. 2 (April-June 1967): 173-186, p. 182, Diano writes:
“Quand on peut le dire! Mais pour pouvoir le dire, pour entrer dans cette espèce de nirvana vécu les yeux grands ouverts, et se mettre hors du temps et vaincre la mort, il faut que l’âme soit libre de toute agitation et de tout désir, de toute jalousie, de tout ressentiment, sereine, en paix avec elle-même et avec le monde. Ainsi, même pour Epicure, on ne peut atteindre le souverain bien qu’à travers la pureté de sa vie et l’ascèse.”
“But to be able to say [I have lived], to enter into this kind of nirvana lived with wide-open eyes, and to place oneself outside time and conquer death, the soul must be free of all agitation and all desire, of all jealousy, of all resentment — serene, at peace with itself and with the world. Thus, even for Epicurus, one can attain the sovereign good only through purity of life and asceticism.”
This does not merely name ataraxia or katastematic pleasure in place of pleasure, but reaches for “nirvana” as the closest available analogy, and pairs the Epicurean summum bonum with “asceticism,” a word standing about as far from ordinary “pleasure” as it is possible to do.
Diano also published Epicuri Ethica (Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1946) — reviewed by Phillip De Lacy in Classical Philology 44, no. 2 (1949): 141. Peter Preuss’s account of it, p. 149, describes the same thesis in different technical terms: “Right after the second world war C. Diano in his influential work on Epicurus proposed an interpretation, based on Lucr. 4.627-9, of katastematic pleasure as the condition of the organism free from natural and necessary wants, and of kinetic pleasure as presupposing katastematic pleasure and consisting merely in the variation of it.”
Aristos tells us this:
I'm from Serbia, and I'm 30 years old. I'm a food technology engineer by profession, with a wide range of interests and hobbies related to cooking, beverages, metalworking, 3D printing, and many other pursuits.
I've been studying philosophy independently for almost ten years, primarily for my own personal development and understanding. During that time, I've devoted serious attention to many philosophers and philosophical traditions, hoping to find a coherent system that could offer convincing answers to some of the fundamental existential questions.
Epicureanism fascinates me for many reasons, especially when viewed from the perspective of more than two thousand years of intellectual history and the development of the Western philosophical tradition. What I find particularly remarkable is how many Epicurean ideas can be examined - and in many cases even supported through modern science, which serves as an important reference point for evaluating philosophical claims that ancient thinkers first proposed through observation and insight.
I'm interested in every discipline of Epicurean philosophy, partly because I already have some background in epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and related fields. My goal is to study Epicureanism as a complete philosophical system rather than as a form of popular psychology or a simple remedy for anxiety or identity struggles.
I'm looking forward to learning from the community and participating in thoughtful discussions.
Best regards,
Aristos
Good to hear from you Charles.
If we can't be clear in Epicurean philosophy about the centrality of pleasure, we don't need to be talking about Epicurean philosophy at all.
Might was well also forget the positions on gods and death - which not coincidentally is exactly what a lot of the videos in my "World's Worst Epicurus Videos" thread are doing.
Welcome Aristos
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This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. All posting here is subject to our Community Standards, Participation Levels, and Posting Policies -- please read that page; it explains our ground rules and will save everyone time and friction.
ALSO - AS OF JULY 16, 2026, the Forum has instituted a new editorial policy as to the advocacy of anything other than Pleasure as what Epicurus taught to be the supreme good. All prospective members must read this post before proceeding with an account at Epicureanfriends.coom:
With only a few notable exceptions, practically every modern account of Epicurean ethics repeats the same claim: Epicurus divided pleasure into two distinct kinds, ranked one above the other. Pleasure, like a house, cannot stand if it is divided against itself — and that is exactly the structure this traditional reading imposes on it. On this traditional view, kinetic pleasure covers everything…
Cassius
July 16, 2026 at 2:06 PM
If you have not done so already, please be sure you have read Torquatus' Presentation of Epicurean Ethics (also available in a more compact side-by-side format at EpicurusToday.com). That is the clearest, most complete statement of Epicurean ethics to survive from antiquity, and reading it early will save you -- and us -- a great deal of confusion. Most people arrive with a version of "Epicureanism" assembled from the Tetrapharmakon, the Letter to Menoeceus, or scattered quotations of questionable reliability -- and of the three, the Tetrapharmakon is the least reliable foundation of all. It is many times more compressed even than the Letter, and terse enough that it has been read in sharply different, sometimes incompatible ways by different interpreters; at best it serves as a reminder of Epicurus's four main topics for someone who already knows their content, not as a source of that content. The Letter to Menoeceus is a real summary, but it too is compressed and was written for students who already understood the foundations of Epicurean ethics. Torquatus is the best surviving example of how Epicurus's own well-educated students understood and presented that foundation themselves. It is the fastest and most reliable way to find out whether what you already believe about Epicurus matches what he and his school actually taught.
The moderators here are well aware that many fans of Epicurus hold sincerely-held views about what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with this forum's purpose. This forum exists specifically for people committed to classical Epicurean positions, not for reconciling those positions with modern "eclectic" reinterpretations that borrow Epicurus's name while rejecting his actual conclusions. Reading Torquatus first is the quickest way to see where that line falls, before investing time in posts that argue against the very foundations this forum exists to defend.
All of us here arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies. We don't demand of others what we weren't able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is different enough from most other philosophies that understanding how deep those differences run simply takes time. That's why we have participation levels that give new members room to learn, but it's also why we have standards that can mean arguments being limited, or participants removed, when the purpose of the community requires it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, isn't committed to unlimited free speech within its own meetings, and isn't organized around anything except the pursuit of truth and a happy life through pleasure as Epicurus explained it.
Please tell us a little about your background reading Epicurean texts, how you found this forum, and what particularly interests you -- that context helps us help you. Our Getting Started page also has ideas for using the site.
Beyond Torquatus, two books will do the most to deepen your understanding quickly. Norman DeWitt's Epicurus and His Philosophy is the single best book-length treatment available. DeWitt treats Epicurus as a coherent system rather than filtering him through later Stoic, Platonic, or modern secular assumptions. If you read one book beyond the ancient sources, make it this one.
Emily Austin's Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life is a clear, engaging modern introduction that many of our members have found a useful on-ramp. Read it, but read it alongside Torquatus and DeWitt rather than in their place, since like most modern treatments it makes no attempt to give the full picture that DeWitt provides.
From there, Epicurus's own surviving letters -- to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus -- and Lucretius's On The Nature of Things are also on the essential reading list. Our Recommended Reading page has a fuller list for when you're ready to go further. None of this is required before you participate, but the more of it you've read -- starting with Torquatus -- the more you'll get out of being here.
Welcome to the forum!
This thread is for discussion of the article:
Looks to me like the same person is generating these - and apparently isn't through yet -
I would be surprised to see a clear statement that any type of pleasure is “non-sensory”
There's a significant amount of variation involved and not everyone states this explicitly, but we can start with the effect that the contextless assertion that the goal is 'absence of pain' does not imply that what is left is any kind of sensation at all. That's why Cicero was charging Epicurus with being inconsistent, because "absence of...." does not in any respect require or imply the presence of any feeling of pleasure of any kind. To a fair and neutral observer, "absence of pain" implies feeling nothing unless you combine it with the knowledge that there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain. But explaining that there are only two feelings and absence of one implies the presence of the other is conspicuously absent from most presentations of this issue, because that leaves those who advocate absence of pain as higher than pleasure right back in the same spot of defending the word they don't like - pleasure.
So any position which leaves "absence of pain" undefined is implicitly calling absence of pain non-sensory. Here are some examples of how that plays out:
This issue is developed much more extensively by Gosling & Taylor in their chapter on Katatestematic and Kinetic pleasure. Many of the academic writers - including Emily Austin and Kelly Aronsen - refer back to this for their analysis. If you feel the pleasure then it is kinetic.
Gosling and Taylor of course agree with your comment, Bryan, that it would be impossible to conceive of Epicurus holding "that any type of pleasure is “non-sensory” – because that means the pleasure is not experienced at all – which is simply not possible." That is exactly why I am pushing this issue so hard, because this implication cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged.
So this issue is exactly the problem that comes from holding that katastematic pleasures are not sensory pleasure at all. The whole chapter which G&T devote to the issue goes through exactly this problem.
In my #67 post, where I stated "the katastemic pleasures one feels when deeply studying and grasping some deep Epicurean concept", I was describing this sensory psychological static pleasure (not the kinetic act of reading words) which we simultaneously receive when acquiring knowledge as I understood from VS-27.
According to your Emily Austin reference in your Substack post (Against Katastematic Supremacy) on this topic (See Chapter 4, note 8.), "katastematic pleasures are sensory pleasures that issue from confidence in one's ability to satisfy one's necessary desires and an awareness of one's healthy psychological functioning".
Both of these quotes are right on point. When Emily Austin takes the position that katastematic pleasures are sensory, she is stating the MINORITY position. The more widespread position that is being argued by many is that katastematic pleasure is not sensory at all. The real meaning of "static" to them is very unclear but the essence is that they are separating it from any feeling of pleasure. Enduring? sure. Long-lasting - sure. Established? sure -- but those words do not capture the "non-sensory" aspect that I think you will find in what Max Duboff wrote, and in many others before him, and that is the real issue.
They are saying that Epicurus held that we would not know the good but for sensory pleasure, but that the good itself is not sensory at all.
I know this is counterintuitive but the fault is in the position that Austin and Aronson and Gosling and Taylor and Nikolsky are pushing back against, and that is why they are pushing back.
I am working on a list of citations where people are arguing the tranquility / non-sensory posiiton that you (and Dave) have asked about and I will have more details for you soon.
"I want my life of pleasure to be stable and established."
Does a sentence like that serve as a bullet train to living on bread and water and denouncing pleasure? Or does it simply remind you that you want your "life of pleasure" -- the life that Diogenes of Oinoanda and Torquatus explictly state to be what Epicurus taught as the meaning of happiness -- to be complete and stable and enduring?
Why would anyone take that expression - with simple and unthreatening adjectives like "complete" and "enduring" -- and then conclude from it "what I want is not really pleasure at all!"?
They wouldn't - unless they have another agenda besides recognizing Pleasure to be the supreme good. While I don't think anyone here does that, I am completely sure that what has motivted comprimisers for hundreds of years - from Gassendi on down to today - is a desire to apologize for pleasure and make it acceptable to the religious and moralistic orthodoxy.
