Posts by Cassius

Quote from Don

Hmmm... The general rule I see in play here is "Overindulgence leads to pain

While it is true that overindulgence does generally provide pain, I would see that as an uncontroversial point and therefore unlikely to be the reason for its inclusion , and especially for its inclusion in the manner it is written.

This exchange may seem pedantic but I think there is a lot more going on here than just the two of us talking shop so I think it's very useful!

My motivations are directed at what I perceived is a problem that I link to Martha Nussbaum's "Therapy of Desire." I think it helps to consider whether Epicurus was primarily a clinician or a revolutionary philosopher. In the end he is both, but the modern worlds excess emphasis on the clinical aspect has in my view led to under-appreciation of the revolutionary implications of the philosophy.

"Everyone" accepts that overindulgence leads to pain, but "pleasure is the highest good" and "even the pleasures that some deplore are acceptable if they bring happiness to the person we think deplorqble" are words that wars get fought over.

Quote from Don

BUT - if one thinks they're going to be the exception to the general rule, they're usually disappointed.

I think you and I and probably all of us in this discussion are going to reach the same conclusions 99 out of 100 or maybe 100 out of 100 times.

But since one of our goals here is to be as clear as possible for ourselves and for others who are reading, we need to be clear: What really is the "general rule" that we are discussing?

As I see it, the most important general rule is that pleasure is desirable because it is pleasure. That's a flat assertion with no exceptions whatsoever.

Some pleasures are not sometimes undesirable or painful -- that never is the case, and thus there are no exceptions.

We shift the terminology when we talk about choice and avoidance. Many things - most things? - all things? can be either choiceworthy or non-choiceworthy depending on the circumstances. And we're probably in complete agreement about the probabilities of what is likely to bring more pain than pleasure.

Where Cicero and the majority of the rest of the world try to attack Epicurus is in conflating all these issues together and therefore asserting that "pleasure" is not the best term for the ultimate good. If we agree to that, then we invite in all sorts of logical problems that ultimately make it untenable to maintain that "pleasure" is the ultimate good or ultimate goal.

So I think there's very good reason for being an absolutist and a literalist on Epicurus' statements about pleasure. And that's why I am also very comfortable with "in-your-face" interpretations of PD10 and other aggressive assertions (pleasure IS the absence of pain; the sun IS the size it appears to be; all sensations ARE true; death IS nothing to us, gods ARE living beings blessed and imperishable; the virtues (including wisdom, justice, friendship, and the rest) ARE nothing more than tools for pleasure; etc.). That kind of assertiveness is necessary to get the point across because most people don't think that way, and with them you have to "philosophize with a hammer!"

(Credit goes to someone in the last Wednesday Zoom for bringing up that Nietzsche hammer allusion...)

It is unfortunate that we have to choose only one responsive Icon, because I wanted to use both the like and the smile face. Limited to only one choice, I chose the like!

As usual I think we are in almost total agreement, with the only possible exception being:

Quote from Don

I think it has to be number two since Epicurus includes all activities that bring pleasure as defined as good.

You mean there is doubt in your mind about that?

Smiling aside I do have something additional to contribute that this gives me the opportunity to say.

I focused several comments on the use of "hypothetical" constructs, but that may not be the primary issue that's going on (not between our two interpretations, but something that's causing widespread issues).

Rather than the issue being use of hypotheticals, maybe the word is the issue of the literalism that Epicurus seems to me to be using. (Mostly option one of the following definition.)

Quote

literalism [ lit-er-uh-liz-uhm ] noun

1. adherence to the exact letter or the literal sense, as in translation or interpretation:

   to interpret the law with uncompromising literalism.

2. a peculiarity of expression resulting from this:

   The work is studded with these obtuse literalisms.

3. exact representation or portrayal, without idealization, as in art or literature:

   a literalism more appropriate to journalism than to the novel.

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For example when he says things like "by pleasure we mean the absence of pain" or "death is nothing to us" or "The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once."

I think he means those statements to be taken absolutely literary, and not in any way metaphorically or allegorically or in any way that would undercut the takeaway that he means what he says and says what he means.

He's literally defining pleasure as absence of pain, which means pain is absence of pleasure, and the two options are to be taken as literally the same, at the very least for the purpose of logical analysis.

Joshua's been regularly suggesting that the statement about believing gods to be living beings blessed and imperishable is meant to be "definitional" about a god, and I think he's right, meaning that we should take Epicurus literally at his word. We can interpolate the implications of the statement all day, but the beginning of the analysis is that we should take him to be speaking very precisely.

That may be a better way of getting at the way PD10 and many other statements are worded. It's reasonable to take them as hypotheticals and think through the implications to come to practical applications, but at the same time they are intended to be taken literally. It's the literalness that gives them their clarity and logical order, and allows you to judge exactly what is consistent and inconsistent with them.

Yes, literally, Epicurus seems clearly to me to be affirming as an absolute that yes, all pleasures are desirable, because they feel pleasurable, but at the same time, and without violating that first phrase, not all pleasures are to be chosen, because choosing them will frequently bring more pain than pleasure when all consequences are considered.

It's literally true at one and the same time that all pleasures are pleasing, yet not all pleasures are to be chosen, because -- considering all consequences -- the pain that generally follows will outweigh the pleasure.

BUT - and this is a big point - the reason it's not proper to go further and say that choosing them will DEFINITELY bring more pain than pleasure is that there is no force of determinism in the universe that guarantees that result. Generally, even an overwhelming number of times, the result is predictable, but it's not always predictable, because there is no force of necessity which requires it to be so. When Epicurus wouldn't even admit it to be necessary that Metrodorus will necessarily be alive or dead tomorrow, he's not going to admit it to be necessary that any particular choice will necessarily lead to a precise result in terms of net pleasure or pain.

Quote from Don

Nevertheless, if you indulge in "sex, drugs, and rock and roll"; Epicurus is going to be there afterwards shaking his head, giving you some frank speech, but no doubt welcoming you back to the garden if you want to sincerely learn about the "limits of our pains (of either mind or body) and desires" and to "study nature."

Perhaps you equate "indulge" with "over-indulge," or perhaps that's a typo, but I would think that sentence definitely needs to read "OVER indulge" to be clear. That's because I am pretty sure we agree that "sex, drugs, and rocknroll" are definitely desirable pleasures, and completely proper ones, when not "overindulged in" - which means essentially "to excess." Correct?

Quote from Don

Epicureanism has always been to me a philosophy of personal responsibility (tempered with an understanding of chance and circumstance). It's the outcomes of the choices that are made, NOT (necessarily) the pleasures experienced in and of themselves.

I completely agree with the emphasis on personal responsibility, unless you mean that wording to indicate that personal responsibility is more important than pleasure itself. I don't think you mean that, but in the context of the discussion I could see someone casually reading the post thinking that is what you mean. We live for pleasure, and personal responsibility is essential to ensure that we do not overindulge and end up with too much pain, but personal responsibility itself is just a "virtue" and therefore a "tool" for living pleasurably, and it is living pleasurably ("pleasure") that is the goal.

The difference in our readings continues to be (I think) that you and I have a different view of the usefulness and meaning of hypotheticals. In itself that difference is not a bad thing, but it needs to be understood by people browsing through the threads. I would say you're more suspicious of the problem of the stating accurate premises to include in using hypotheticals than I am, and so you sometimes take the intent of the hypothetical somewhat differently. I am willing to embrace that problem and believe that the challenges in stating the premises are what helps the point of the hypothetical to sink in. Regardless of that, however, in the end, I think we arrive mostly at the same place.

As for me in my current thinking, I am generally in agreement with most of post 20, but I would still say that the following excerpt from it ("unfulfilled desires are/cause pain") is overbroad.

Quote from Matteng

- Yes unfulfilled desires are/causes pain

I would be closer to agreeing that "unfulfillable" desires are or cause pain, but I suspect that too would be too overbroad. You might desire to recover from late-stage disease, and that desire would be pleasurable for you as long as you maintain it, even though it might be impossible to achieve. Heck - this even goes for Epicurus' statement in the letter to Menoeceus that it would be better to believe the myths of the gods than to give in to determinism. In that statement he couldn't be saying that the gods would in fact reward the worshiper, and he probably means that the thought of getting the reward would at least be pleasurable for so long as you could maintain the fiction.

Closer yet might be "intoxicating desires" are or cause pain, but even then for the duration of the intoxication that can often be pleasurable (or so I am told!).

Maybe there's no way around the conclusion that only rigorous way to state this is that "painful desires" are in fact the only desires properly labeled as painful.

But that's the question before the house.

Lucretius Today Episode 257 is now available:

"There Is No Necessity To Live Under the Control of Necessity"

In last week's part 1 of the discussion of necessity (to be posted on 12/6) we devoted most of the discussion to the cultural background of the question and why it remains significant.

We also addressed what is generally thought of as Epicurus' first response to determinism, involving the swerve as discussed in Lucretius Book 2.

This week we will turn to additional - and arguably more important - issues that Epicurus raised against determinism.

Our material for the episode will consist largely in David Sedley's article "Epicurus' Rejection of Determinism" combined with Norman DeWitt's Chapter on "The New Hedonism."

There's a limit as to how many rabbits we can chase in regard to other pro-determinist arguments, but if anyone has something specific that we should consider addressing in this episode, please let us know in this thread.

"A philosophy which values life, rather than seeks to extinguish it, will seek to intelligently pursue pleasure,"

---- writing that helps me focus on the time issue. I don't think you can value "life" without implying that you also value "the continuation of life over time." Since we only have "the now" and we don't have total control over the future, it seems to me that there is inherently going to be a "desire for time" element in valuing life that is not eliminated by saying "I'm satisfied with what I have already experienced. "

There's got to be a way to articulate a philosophically proper perspective in which you are both (1) satisfied that you have lived well so far, but you also (2) possess a desire for the continuance of that life without that desire for continuance being construed as pain or anything that is negative.

I think we've talked about in the past as well that the issue of "variation" in the sense of unlimited time producing no "greater" pleasure, but only variation, does not imply that variation itself is not valuable or desirable. All of us know by experience that variation IS valuable and desirable. So it's not that variation over time isn't desirable, because it is. The point has to be more the philosophical one that variation cannot make "pure pleasure" (in the sense of total absence of pain) "more pure," and variation cannot make "total absence of pain" more "total."

"Life as most everyone lives it is unsatisfactory, filled with misery, pain, unfulfilled desire, etc."

Thanks for that - yes I want to be accurate - and I think your description of the Buddhist position makes it worse from an Epicurean perspective than what i described. They do not offer a positive view of pleasure as the remedy to that problem, but essentially nothingness - the death of desire.

So don't let me go too easy on it!

The remedy to misery, pain, and unfulfilled desire is NOT to end desire, nor to minimize desire, nor to define desire out of existence, or to wish ourselves out of existence. A philosophy which values life, rather than seeks to extinguish it, will seek to intelligently pursue pleasure, which specifically includes those desires for the pleasures of the senses that these other philosophies focus their time on condemning.

I do agree that we don't want to turn this into an expose on Buddhism (we've gone through most of that already) but there's a reason why anyone who seeks to suppress desire and pleaure is relevant, and the issues have to be confronted head-on.

The Discussions focused on Buddhism are here:

Epicurus vs. Buddha and the Buddhists

Including particularly this thread:

Post

RE: 2022 Epicurus vs Buddhism Compare and Contrast Thread

Of the ancient Indian philosophies of Ājīvika, Ajñana, Buddhism, Chārvāka, Jainism, Mīmāṁsā, Nyāya, Samkhya, Vaisheshika, Vedanta, and Yoga, we'll find the closest companion to Epicureanism in Chārvāka. Early Buddhism is most closely related to the Indian school of Ajñana, from which Pyrrhonism developed, so, in general, I don't think that comparisons between early Buddhism and Epicurean philosophy are helpful. They are dissimilar and historically unrelated.

In terms of physics, Epicureanism…

Eikadistes

January 27, 2022 at 10:02 PM

Still working on this week's podcast but should have it out shortly.

In the meantime, I think we failed to include (so far) this citation to Virgil which is highly appropriate to a discussion of Epicurus' attitude toward "fate" --

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari

Happy is he who is able to know the causes of things,

And who has trampled beneath his feet all fear,

Inexorable fate, and the din of the devouring underworld

-Publius Vergilius Maro

Thank you for the kind words GnothiSeauton and hope you find it useful!

I suspect there is another analogy to pursue here too:'

The Religionist/ Virtue-ethics / anti-hedonists crowd has an inherent antipathy to pleasure. A major tactic that they use is to narrow the definition of pleasure to focus only the sensual pleasures, which they find easiest to disparage, and so they make arguments that imply that the term "pleasure" consists only of "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll" which they believe are easily caricatured as leading to disastrous results.

The Buddhists (who are really part of the first crowd but who are more honest about their antipathy to pleasure) do the same thing with desire. Unlike the Stoics and western religions which aren't so willing to come right out and preach "life is suffering," the Buddhist team isn't satisfied with attacking pleasure, they want to attack life itself in the form of the desire to remain living. So they narrow the definition of desire so as to focus only on the desires that are most intoxicating and in many cases impossible, and that allows them to disparage *all* desire and make arguments that imply that the term "desire" consists only of those desires that frequently lead to disastrous results.

So I think that the key to resolution of this seeming paradox is to take a wider view of desire, just like Epicurus takes a wider view of pleasure, and to resist the manipulation of definitions of important terms so that a philosophy based on the desire to pursue pleasure and avoid pain becomes impossible.

This is a very interesting discussion. I can't think of a lot more to add at the moment as I type this other than to emphasize that we need to explore it a lot further.

Perhaps too this is a place for discussion of the implication of some of what the Epicureans had to say about divinity. Even if (or especially if!) gods are considered to be thought constructs, what do our expectations of the life of a god tell us about what we should extrapolate to be the best life for ourselves. Would gods have no desires, or simply no "unmeetable" desires, or no lusts that intoxicate them, or what?

I am concerned that we may be mixing our monotheistic modern Judeo-Christian views of omnipotence into thinking that Epicurus would have thought that gods have no desires because they can magically create anything they want. I doubt that is something that Epicurus would have thought, so I think we need to be sure to steer clear of any implication that gos are supernaturally "above" things like desire.

So the germ of a thought here is that perhaps "desire" as a general category is something that is part and parcel of even our best extrapolation of the best life. If so, "desire" as a general category of human activity would by no means be inherently painful either in practice or in theory.

It is certainly tempting to take the position that if you have "desire" then that means you are "lacking" something, and that therefore all "lack" is felt as pain. However the implications of that position seem so far-reachingly negative (or are they?) as to be irreconcilable with Epicurus' approach that continuing to be alive is a fundamentally desirable thing.

But it's a position that we want to argue more confidently than our current discussion seems to allow. And I am not sure there is anything more important in Epicurean theory for us to address than the implications of this question. It wraps up a LOT of issues in a single package.

From the Torquatus section of Book One of On Ends:

(4) But we do not agree that when pleasure is withdrawn uneasiness at once ensues, unless the pleasure happens to have been replaced by a pain: while on the other hand one is glad to lose a pain even though no active sensation of pleasure comes in its place: a fact that serves to show how great a pleasure is the mere absence of pain.

(5) But just as we are elated by the anticipation of good things, so we are delighted by their recollection. Fools are tormented by the memory of former evils; wise men have the delight of renewing in grateful remembrance the blessings of the past. We have the power both to obliterate our misfortunes in an almost perpetual forgetfulness and to summon up pleasant and agreeable memories of our successes. But when we fix our mental vision closely on the events of the past, then sorrow or gladness ensues according as these were evil or good.

----

Being elated by the anticipation of something seems to me to be part and parcel of "desiring" it.

Quote from Joshua

What I am suggesting is that 'desire' is a word that we use to describe one particular kind of pain, just as 'headache' is a word used to describe another particular kind of pain.

Yep, I would definitely agree that it can be used that way.

But can it not ALSO be used in a way that is entirely positive and pleasurable, in which the pleasure of anticipation and preparation for the experience are every bit as enjoyable as the experience itself?

I think it can be used both ways. Where I see the Buddhists (or similar viewpoints) at fault is that they presume that the word desire can only be used to describe suffering, because at a very fundamental level they view life as inherently suffering.

Epicurus seems to me to be the opposite. Epicurus views life as inherently pleasurable, and it only ceases to be pleasurable when some specific pain intervenes.

I think Post 8 is the right direction, parsing the exact meaning of the word "desire" and examining the context in which the desire occurs. As with everything else, it's not like there's some ideal form labelled "desire" floating out there in the atmosphere somewhere with a "good" or "bad" label attached to it.

In fact I would ask this:

Is there anything that is ALWAYS Pleasurable except PLEASURE? I would say no.

Is there anything that is ALWAYS painful except PAIN? Again I would say no.

At this very high level it seems to me like *everything* else, including desire, is going to be contextual, and needs to be seen as a tool for achieving pleasure or avoiding pain.

And if that is the case then as Kalosyni says, any particular desire, and in fact desire in general, must be seen as something that has to be judged in context.

And that would also lead to the conclusion that too little desire can be every bit as bad a thing as too much desire.

And that's something that I strongly think is the case, and strongly think is a widespread problem with common modern discussion of Epicurean philosophy.

The tone of many generalist articles on Epicurus on the internet too often rings of suppression of desire that has more akin to Buddhism or Stoicism. It seems to me that what Epicurus taught was to look to what a particular desire brings, rather than viewing desire itself as bad or painful.

Quote from Don

didn't articulate any definitive response

Well I think this and most all other questions get resolved something like this:

1 - Because there are no supernatural forces or absolute forms to tell us otherwise, we've chosen to use the word "pleasure" as the ultimate term to describe all that is desirable in life, including all forms of desirable experience, mental or physical or any other adverb or adjective anyone would like to apply as a qualifier. The single word "Pleasure" includes them all.

2 - We should desire to continue to live so long was we can reasonably expect that the pleasurable experiences in our life will outweigh the experiences that are non-pleasurable (which means painful). This "calculation" is a totally subjective judgment in our own minds. We can make general statements about the way most people tend to think (most people tend to like vanilla ice cream) but no one has supernatural or absolute "moral" authority to make decisions for any other adult.

3 - You can argue about children and other edge cases but we're talking about adult responsible people in this analysis. That's why it is also important to acknowledge that from the Epicurean perspective all actions are not deterministic, and that it is proper for us to praise some things and blame others. You also have to consider the rules of society here, and what is illegal and legal, but no one should confuse the standard of "what society says is ok" with a standard of "right vs. wrong."

4 - Hard questions exist, such as cases where (1) we might choose not to intervene to save their lives, but if we did so we wouldn't forgive ourselves and thereafter suffer overriding mental pain, or (2) we face incurable highly painful disease or even pain from old age, or (3) any similar extreme situation where the outcomes are beyond our control, and the only option we have to stay alive would entail mental or physical torture that we don't think we could endure.

4 - In my view it seems pretty clear that the only way to make decision in cases such as listed in (3) is for we ourselves to make our best estimate of all of the consequences that each choice entails. Then we ourselves have to decide whether any future pleasures (of any kind) we might experience would be worth the expected pains (of any kind) that would come from our choice of action. There are no supernatural gods, no future reward or punishment, and no absolute rules which tell us what to decide - we have to make that decision ourselves.

I think that's the general rule Epicurus is setting out, and that's why alarm bells start going off in my mind whenever I hear anyone emphasize "tranquility" or "simple pleasures" --- or emphasize the reverse, "excitement" or "luxuries" -- that would override the general rule.

The general rule has to be clear or else there's no way to avoid confusion when we actually have to make these kinds of decisions.

Never heard of Artemus Ward - thank you - interesting story! Challenging time to have specialized in comedy!

As an aside I think it's a useful technique for learning Epicurean philosophy to offset against each other two or more reliable citations that on the surface seem to conflict with each other, and then explain how they can be reconciled.

Lots of issues can be addressed that way.

Good points Don. And I think this begins the trip toward asking "under what circumstances -if any - do mental or emotional concerns (pains) outweigh what some would focus on the "simple pleasures that are almost always available to us."?

That's the challenge to articulate, I think, because while the wise man will (almost?) always have more reason for joy than for vacation, we will also sometimes die for a friend.

Reconciling those perspectives is doable I think but requires articulation as I think the question bothers significant numbers of people.