Posts by Cassius

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Here are several clips from a chapter of Gosling & Taylor's "The Greeks on Pleasure" which appear relevant.

First, this one may seem to be a little confusingly written, but the context here is that G&T are saying that they are opposing ALL of the views stated in the rest of paragraph, and not just the views stated in the second part of the first sentence. The second and following sentences are a continuation of the view that they oppose, not a statement of their own views. G&T are opposing all the views stated in this paragraph, as made clear by the final sentence, which states that they are going to provide four objections which "such views" have to meet.

They conclude in the end that the Katastematic /Kinetic distinction was not important to Epicurus, and that gave Nikolsky the idea for his article cited later in this post:

Here is a clip stating that Cicero's interpretation that there is an internal conflict is defective and can be explained away. Note that G&T say that Cicero's interpretation "is not supported by the extant writings of Epicurus" and "attributes views to him [Epicurus] which ought to be surprising."

And here is the most clear statement of the Gosling & Taylor conclusion: "what is important is to get a life of sensory pleasure untainted by pain." (a reflection of Cicero's "nothing was preferable to a life of tranquillity crammed full of pleasures" from Defense of Publius Cestius)

Here is the conclusion by Nikolsky that Epicurus is far from seeing pleasure in a neutral state, and that both Cicero and Diogenes Laertius were both forcing Epicurus into a mold of their own which was not justified by what Epicurus himself had written:

And here is Matthew Wenham reaching the same conclusion, that pleasure is an EXPERIENCE / sensation of pleasure, not some kind of "static" / "katastematic" state from which feeling is absence.

So to condense these last posts down into a concrete suggestion, I am suggesting that the article should probably contain a section something like:
Why does Epicurus talk about limits of pleasure and purity, what does he say about them, and what was his conclusion about how these matters affect our pursuit of pleasure as the goal of life?

We are today in much the same position as Epicurus in 300 BC. We know these arguments are being used against holding pursuit of pleasure as the goal of life, and not only in their original form. The original form of the argument is still being used, with this new addition: Epicurus' own statements seem to say that we should limit pleasure to the purest and least painful forms. If that interpretation is accepted, Epicurus himself seems to be laying the groundwork for living in a cave on bread and water.

If we don't address the arguments that we know are on their way, then we haven't equipped members of the Epicurean school to defeat them.

In both the quantity and purity issues I have collected the references that seemed to me to be most relevant at this page: https://newepicurean.com/foundations-2/…pleasure-model/

With these four graphics as an aid to focusing on the issue:

To these I would now add my draft net pleasure maximization worksheet - A Draft Epicurean Pleasure Maximization Worksheet

These graphics and these points don't do nearly enough to explain the issue in full, and I hope that the article Elayne is drafting will in the end bring all the different points together in a coherent whole.

And so that we can throw everything into the pot before we cook it --- in addition to the above on “limits,” you have the closely related issue of “purity.”

PD12. It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

Here is another excerpt from Philebus that I think explains why purity is an issue. If you take the following sentence, and instead of “whiteness” you read “pleasure,” you see some immediate implications for why Epicurus was concerned about the purity of pleasure, and why it is very important to discuss pleasure unmixed with any pain whatsoever.Take this sentence and try that:

SOCRATES:* True, Protarchus; and so the purest white, and not the greatest or largest in quantity, is to be deemed truest and most beautiful?

PROTARCHUS: Right.

To me you get almost a direct reflect of the first part of PD3 when you do that; “PD3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain.”

Here is more context to give you the background:

SOCRATES: And now, having fairly separated the pure pleasures and those which may be rightly termed impure, let us further add to our description of them, that the pleasures which are in excess have no measure, but that those which are not in excess have measure; the great, the excessive, whether more or less frequent, we shall be right in referring to the class of the infinite, and of the more and less, which pours through body and soul alike; and the others we shall refer to the class which has measure.

PROTARCHUS: Quite right, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Still there is something more to be considered about pleasures.

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: When you speak of purity and clearness, or of excess, abundance, greatness and sufficiency, in what relation do these terms stand to truth?

PROTARCHUS: Why do you ask, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Because, Protarchus, I should wish to test pleasure and knowledge in every possible way, in order that if there be a pure and impure element in either of them, I may present the pure element for judgment, and then they will be more easily judged of by you and by me and by all of us.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: Let us investigate all the pure kinds; first selecting for consideration a single instance.

PROTARCHUS: What instance shall we select?

SOCRATES: Suppose that we first of all take whiteness.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: How can there be purity in whiteness, and what purity? Is that purest which is greatest or most in quantity, or that which is most unadulterated and freest from any admixture of other colours?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly that which is most unadulterated.

SOCRATES: True, Protarchus; and so the purest white, and not the greatest or largest in quantity, is to be deemed truest and most beautiful?

PROTARCHUS: Right.

We can do the same substitution exercise with this example from Socrates: “How can there be purity in [pleasure/whiteness], and what purity? Is that purest which is greatest or most in quantity, or that which is most unadulterated and freest from any admixture of [pain/ other colours]?

Answer: “clearly, that which is most unadulterated.”

So the implication of the analogy is that the purest/highest pleasure is not that which is the greatest quantity, but that which is unadulterated with pain, just as the purest white is not the most quantity of white, but that which is not mixed with other colors.

Does that mean that because sleep, for example, is frequently something that gives us pleasure without any mixture of pain, we should consider sleep to be the highest pleasure and sleep as much as possible?

I don't think so. Once again, i think that Epicurus is dealing with "pure pleasure" in a way that shows how logical arguments that pleasure as a faculty cannot be the guide to the best life, not calling us to select only those simplest activities which produce only pleasure.

Speaking of the context of looking to numbers and geometry for the meaning of life, Cicero in On Ends does not seem very interested in that topic. Is it possible that Cicero was able to argue that Epicurus' discussion of limits of pleasure did not make sense because he knew that in the intervening 200 years the philosophical emphasis on geometry had dissipated? Or that the Romans were simply not impressed with the Platonic / Pythagorean fascination with the mystical significance of numbers and limits?

Certainly today the whole issue of "that which is best must be of a type which has a limit" is not something we hear much about.

However in Epicurus' day, issues of quantity and limits were considered crucial. We see that here from Philebus, where Socrates lays the trap of which ultimately defeats Protarchus, the advocate of pleasure as the goal. Here Socrates lays the foundation that things which can always be increased are "in the class of the infinite.". This later compels Protarchus to say that because pleasure can always be increased, it is in the class of things that can be better or lesser - and this means that Pleasure cannot be in the class of things that can be " best.":

SOCRATES: Then, says the argument, there is never any end of them, and being endless they must also be infinite.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, that is exceedingly true.

SOCRATES: Yes, my dear Protarchus, and your answer reminds me that such an expression as ‘exceedingly,’ which you have just uttered, and also the term ‘gently,’ have the same significance as more or less; for whenever they occur they do not allow of the existence of quantity—they are always introducing degrees into actions, instituting a comparison of a more or a less excessive or a more or a less gentle, and at each creation of more or less, quantity disappears. For, as I was just now saying, if quantity and measure did not disappear, but were allowed to intrude in the sphere of more and less and the other comparatives, these last would be driven out of their own domain. When definite quantity is once admitted, there can be no longer a ‘hotter’ or a ‘colder’ (for these are always progressing, and are never in one stay); but definite quantity is at rest, and has ceased to progress. Which proves that comparatives, such as the hotter and the colder, are to be ranked in the class of the infinite.

It doesn't seem reasonable to us that some logical argument by Plato would be as worrisome an error as supernatural gods or suffering after death, but then, we are not living in Athens in 300 BC devoting our life to teaching philosophy, surrounded by a den of logicians who held that the meaning of life can be expressed in numbers and geometry and calculated limits.

Sometimes the most important thing we can do is to forge ahead and force discussions on topics that the masses have been taught to fear, or to reject. Sometimes diplomacy doesn't work, and attacking those errors head on is the only way to free ourselves "from the prison of public education and politics."

Maybe that is why Epicurus chose this "confrontational" method of presentation. It certainly seems to me today that the way forward will not come from discussing food and wine and music and dance, but will come only through direct confrontation with errors that are held very dearly by "the public" - errors that people are often afraid to discuss.

That "fear to discuss" is the real prison of public education and politics.

As we continue to discuss and refine this, I think it is very important to incorporate an explanation for why Epicurus is so concerned about "limits." Such an explanation needs to consider what is going on n PD 19 - 21.

PD 18 The pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied: and the limit as regards pleasure in the mind is begotten by the reasoned understanding of these very pleasures and of the emotions akin to them, which used to cause the greatest fear to the mind.

PD 19 Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures by reason the limits of pleasure.

PD 20 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.

PD 21 He who has learned the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain due to want and makes the whole of life complete is easy to obtain, so that there is no need of actions which involve competition.

Unless we have a theory of the importance of "limits" that does not require the conclusion that the simplest life is the best, that is the direction that these sayings seem to lead.

And this drives me back to thinking that:

(1) the most clear way of expressing this issue is as a conflict between "maximum net pleasure vs. minimum net pain."

(2) the explanation that unwinds the problem is that the limit idea is itself limited to stating a *theoretical* limit of quantity alone. The "limit" theory is itself limited to its context, which is the realm of logic, and it was developed solely to refute the logical argument of Plato et al. that the highest good must be something that cannot be exceeded. It serves the secondary benefit of giving us a logical argument to reconcile us with death by helping us see that living forever would only be repetitive, not give us access to any better pleasure than we already have had the chan e to experience.

But the limits argument is subject to exactly the limitation that Elayne sees in the spreadsheet model - feeling cannot be *adequately* expressed in quantitative terms. It can be useful to think of it in those terms in limited situations, such as refuting Plato or planning your daily calendar, but a theory can never replace or completely capture the experience of living.

Also: Considering PD3 and 4 in this way highlights them as targeted logical arguments - targeted at specific errors - just like PD 1 is targeted at supernatural religion and PD2 is targeted at fears of death. None of these are positive statements of what type of pleasure to pursue, all of them concern obstacles to seeing pleasure as the goal of life.

The default forum theme is set to ColorPlay Blue, which is a "dark" theme. Some people prefer a lighter theme, and at the bottom of each page in the footer there is a "change style" link that lets you select others. Each of the "Nexus" themes is lighter and should work well.

Unfortunately it appears that links in the Announcement box can be hard to see on some color variations. If that presents an issue for you, choose the "Nexus Gray" theme and those should be very readable in that color variation.

If others have tips and/or suggestions for fine-tuning of the forum, please post in this thread.

Sounds good to me. As an aside I don't know that there are specific virtues that are distinctly Epicurean, although it is probably fair to say that there are some virtues that Epicurus stressed more than other in the surviving records.

(1) As to the spreadsheet graphic, I want to hear what Martin has to say and I will still want to get more feedback from others. I fully agree with the problem of reducing feelings to numbers, but I think that there is a subset of people who won't cringe but who will find the exercise useful. But I could be wrong I am not sure whether there is a better way to approach it than to test it more widely. As for Elayne's objection I know where she is coming from and I appreciate it. However with other people I suspect that the hot button I am going to hit is not "how dare you reduce feelings to numbers!" but rather "how dare you suggest that minimizing pain is not the goal!" That second group is my intended target.

(2) As to the alternate wording, I do think your suggestions are helpful. However I am also thinking that (maybe in the same way as with the spreadsheet?) we are bombing different targets. I think that "neutral state" is probably not what most people are wondering about. Definitely some do worry about that, and I think "neutral state" is important for discussing the logical problem of whether there is a third feeling besides pleasure and pain. But I think most people are not thinking "Pleasure, pain, and neutral" - they are thinking that Epicurus taught "pleasure, pain, and 'a higher pleasure he called ataraxia." They aren't fascinate by it because it is neutral, they are fascinated by it because they think that he was describing some kind of "higher" pain. On this point I don't generally like to discuss untranslated greek words because I think that obscures the issue, but in this context maybe we should talk about "ataraxia" because that is part of the Okeefe game. Not only imply that it something higher than pleasure, but always give it the fancy Greek name to imply that they have some kind of esoteric knowledge that no one else has.

Elli: Given what you just wrote how do you explain to someone that the letter to Menoeceus seems to say " when.. we mantain ...pleasure... we do not mean.... but freedom from pain the the body and trouble in the mind"

"When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality, as is supposed by some who are either ignorant or disagree with us or do not understand, but freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind."

I have attached to the original post in this thread an xls / Libreoffice Calc version of the spreadsheet which should be usable in any spreadsheet software. I prepared it in the free Libreoffice format so that it would be accessible to the most people. I will see about uploading this back to Google docs as well.

This should be the same document, in Google Sheets - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…dit?usp=sharing

Quote from elli

But they are like that stupid fox of Aesop that when she saw sweet grapes, as she could not reach them, she named them as bitter. Bitter are their endless definitions.

Excellent!!!

In this context I think this is another reason why the "limit of pleasure" should be taken as a logical / rhetorical device as a way of conceptualizing the goal and sparring on logic grounds and even as a matter of reconciling us with death -- but it is not in itself a positive prescription for what to do with our own time in our own circumstances.

Just in the same way that the first PDs serve that same purpose. Having confidence that gods do not direct and and that death is nothing does not tell us POSITIVELY what to do --- they are tremendously valuable antidotes to poisonous error, but they don't tell us to eat ice cream or dance or listen to music or build a rocket ship to Mars.

I strongly think that is how we should see PD3/4 as well. They are anitidotes to poison but they make no attempt to tell us how to spend our time from moment to moment. That is the role of pleasure itself in our own circumstances - we follow the feeling of pleasure, not logical abstractions about gods, death, and "limits."


Hence Epicurus refuses to admit any necessity for argument or discussion to prove that pleasure is desirable and pain to be avoided. These facts, be thinks, are perceived by the senses, as that fire is hot, snow white, honey sweet, none of which things need be proved by elaborate argument: it is enough merely to draw attention to them. (For there is a difference, he holds, between formal syllogistic proof of a thing and a mere notice or reminder: the former is the method for discovering abstruse and recondite truths, the latter for indicating facts that are obvious and evident.) Strip mankind of sensation, and nothing remains; it follows that Nature herself is the judge of that which is in accordance with or contrary to nature. What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, beside pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance?


And to get overly concerned about the logical arguments is also probably a sign of falling into the trap of the dialecticians, as indicated by the text that immediately followed. This was not an improvement on Epicurus but a weakening in the doctrine:

some members of our school however would refine upon this doctrine; these say that it is not enough for the judgment of good and evil to rest with the senses; the facts that pleasure is in and for itself desirable and pain in and for itself to be avoided can also be grasped by the intellect and the reason. Accordingly they declare that the perception that the one is to be sought after and the other avoided is a notion naturally implanted in our minds. Others again, with whom I agree, observing that a great many philosophers do advance a vast array of reasons to prove why pleasure should not be counted as a good nor pain as an evil, consider that we had better not be too confident of our case; in their view it requires elaborate and reasoned argument, and abstruse theoretical discussion of the nature of pleasure and pain.

And that is Just as i think it ended up being a weakening of the doctrine to accept an expansion of the criteria from three to four. Logical abstractions (which I think is what "perceptions of mental presentations" are) must be strictly kept in their subordinate place with their limitations firmly in view! :

Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth; the Epicureans generally make perceptions of mental presentations to be also standards. His own statements are also to be found in the Summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Principal Doctrines.

It may be necessary at times to focus on logical argument - and we may be in a situation that we at times have to fight on that field - but if we put logical argument in the central place of our efforts we are falling for the trap of the enemy.


It makes no difference that our logical arguments are "correct" if we see our friends and families and eventually ourselves wiped out in real life by our "enemies."

Quote from Elayne

the idea that a person who has deep enjoyment of a smaller variety and number of experiences and thereby achieves continual pleasure as often as anyone can is somehow having a less full cup or smaller cup than someone who enjoys a great many experiences.

Certainly as they would perceive it their cup appears full to them, and that is what matters to them. And any additional pleasure that they would receive from engaging in a wider variety of pleasures would be, as you say, more of the same.

And yet another day of pleasure is always desirable, just as any pleasure is always desirable. I think what we are dealing with here is:

PD20. The flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of the future, procures a complete and perfect life, and we have no longer any need of unlimited time. Nevertheless the mind does not shun pleasure, and even when circumstances make death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life.

Quote from Elayne

I don't see the cup as representing numbers of experiences but the organism's feeling capacity.

On this specific part - this is where I worry that it is important to stress BOTH that the vessel provides the limits of the capacity (meets the logic test of having a limit), but that what is contained within the vessel are many different "real" experiences (ie pleasure means pleasure and not emotionlessness). I therefore prefer to try to hit hard that the contents are food, music, dance etc -- real understandable feelings -- rather than ambiguous terms like "absence of pain." Again, the issue is more who we are talking to, and what meaning they are predisposed to hear in the term "absence of pain." For the present contexts I am thinking that 90% of the people observing our discussion will immediately think to themselves "What does he mean?" when they hear the term "absence of pain."

And not to be to harsh on "modern" students, apparently Cicero himself thought it was very effective to suggest that "absence of pain" is a worrisome term. And he was apparently right to think that, given how persuasive his argument that "absence of pain as the highest pleasure makes no sense" has proven to be. When competent Epicureans were around to explain they were probably confident of their terminology, but without them around to defend it, the argument has become devastatingly effective. Epicurean philosophy has been mutated into form of Stoicism.

Quote from Elayne

I will throw out there, though, that although pleasure is felt at all normal times as a response to a specific experience (as is pain), I think the activity itself is not the pleasure or the pain.

Yes I agree that is an important distinction. The pleasure is the total contextual experience as the same activity can generate pleasure or pain in different contexts.

Quote from Elayne

On absence of pain/fullness of pleasure, I am baffled by your answer-- it seems like you are disagreeing with the synonymous aspect, although you say you aren't, and I can't get a grasp on your train of thought.

I "think" our issue here is this - I am constantly switching contexts between Epicurus making the statement "maximum pleasure is absence of pain" to a student in Athens vs. the same statement being made at a philosophy department class in the world of 2019.

I am thinking that because the Athenian student would have had full access to Epicurus' views and an understanding that "there are only two feelings" and that Epicurus was campaigning in favor of pleasure as ordinarily understood, the Athenian student would never be confused. The Athenian student would know that "we would never know the good without ..." the normal pleasures of action, so he would never consider divorcing the term "pleasure" from "normal active pleasures.

I do not believe that the statement "maximum pleasure is absence of pain" has the same contextual meaning to a 2019 philosophy student. Due to many different factors, 2019 students will most frequently infer that "absence of pain" is a reference to some kind of esoteric/mysterious state intended to mean something similar to nirvana or sensory deprivation or just simple stoic emotionlessness. As a result, I think someone today who says "the highest pleasure is the absence of pain" is probably intending his hearer to understand something very dissimilar, or even the opposite, of what Menoeceus (or any other Athenian of Epicurus' age) would understand.

I see this is very similar to "death is nothing to us." These words in 2019 in English imply flippancy; imply almost a nihilistic message that "LIFE is not important to us." I don't think that the same message would have been heard by an Epicurean Athenian of 200 BC. I think the message was "being dead is a state of nothingness - being dead is being reduced to nothing" due to the absence of sensation. Rather than a message of flippancy I think it is conveying that we have no concerns after we are dead because there is no sensation that would drive a concern. And one of the most important results of "death is nothing to us" properly understand is something very close to "life is everything to us." As I remember DeWitt saying somewhere, pain and pleasure "have meaning only to the living."

Does that explanation help bridge our issue, or make my viewpoint more confusing?

Quote from Elayne

On the size of the cup... I guess this is just me seeing the metaphor differently. I don't see the cup as representing numbers of experiences but the organism's feeling capacity. I don't think it helps to imagine people's cups of different sizes, if the cup represents feelings.

On this issue I am attempting to consider a concern that will present itself to many people to the effect that "it isn't fair" that everyone doesn't have the same size vessel of pleasure. I think this will manifest itself in many ways but maybe most obviously in comparing the life of a person who dies in childhood vs one who dies at 90 years old. Are not the feelings experienced by the 90 year old in some way larger in quantity than those of the child?

I am also concerned about the question I raised as to how we would know that the choice of living in the cave would not produce "the best life" for a human being. The minimalists will argue that by keeping the total experiences small in number, there are fewer pains, and if the pains go to zero we should acknowledge (given our formula) that this is the best life possible. Such a person might be from a background where he or she never thinks about coming out of the cave.

I do see issues in thinking about the vessel being changeable in size, so I want to think about that more, but I suspect I am going to think it best to deal with that issue as a limitation in the model, and a contextual issue, because the "person living in a cave on bread and water" is so dominant a theme in Epicurean academic commentary that I think we almost immediately have to deal with that situation using the vessel analogy in some way. And it might be useful to relate the "size of the vessel" to the part of life that is within our agency / "free will" to influence.

I agree with the vast majority of the article. Here are my initial comments which I will try to organize according to Elayne's sections. I have included reference to Elayne's sections in the underlined headings. Then my comments on each section follow, in italics.

1. The feelings are only two, pleasure and pain—there is no true third state such as neutral, except after death.
   1. Agreed, although after death is probably not a third state, it is non-existence.
2. The cup analogy is not to be taken literally.
   1. Agreed
3. At any given moment we could see a single lifelong movie of this cup.
   1. Agreed
      
4. Only two feelings / no neutral state
   1. Yes there are only two feelings, and there are no neutral feelings. But this does not mean that there is a feeling about everything that comes to our attention. Something can come to our attention without eliciting any responsive "feeling" whatsoever. Feelings serve as the only guide which Nature gave us to determine what to choose and what to avoid, but that does not mean that Nature gave us an indicator to choose or avoid in response to every experience that comes our way.
   2. What is the significance of Epicurus stressing that there are only two feelings?
      1. To start, Epicurus probably considered that there is no such thing as "pleasure" in the abstract. In reality, there are only individual exeriences perceived by individual living things as pleasurable. The concept of "pleasure" is a model which suffers from the same difficiences which are discussed later in this article as a hazard of model-making.
      2. Why articulate "pleasure" as a concept as the goal without constantly listing individual pleasures? Probably because of the logical necessity to be able to talk about the issue, and symbolize pleasures in a single word, and
      3. to divide feeling up into the two conceps of pleasure and pain, so as to deal with the logical arguments (such as presented by Plato in Philebus) that if there were neutral or mixed feelings, it would be necessary for there to be an arbiter to which we would have to look to separate out and rank the choices by some standard other than pleasure or pain. If we admit there is such a need for such an arbiter, then we are impelled toward the conclusion that knowledge of this arbiter is something more important than either pleasure or pain, and this would remove pleasure from is role as the highest good.
5. Because there is no neutral, removing all pain in life is only possible with maximal pleasure.
   1. Once it is accepted (IF it is accepted) that there are only two feelings, then this becomes true by definition. Whether someone understands the implications of this definition, however, is entirely different.
   2. I agree with Elayne that positing "neutrality" as a goal is contrary to experience; I would also say it is absurd.
   3. However the point which we will need to deal is that the majority of commentators read Epicurus as implying (or stating explicitly) that this condition of "absence of pain" is (meaning is equivalent too) "the highest pleasure." The presumption which is planted is that somehow "absence of pain" results in a state of exaltation which is higher and/or more intense and/or more valuable in some way than any normal pleasures of music, food, friends, sex, dance, or any other standard mental or bodily pleasure that one can name. No one can advance any explanation of this pleasure that normal people find satisfactory, but that does not stop them from doing it. The result is Stoicism on steroids.
6. The extent of pleasure can be maximized by making sure to attend to all parts of one’s body, including the brain.
   1. I think this section is well stated and at least at this time I have nothing to add.
7. Happiness is itself a pleasurable feeling, most easily described as the condition of a person who has maximized pleasure in all areas of life.
   1. I would say that happiness if a word that we use to describe a mental experience of pleasures predominating over pains. I do not think I would say that happiness requires maximized pleasures in all areas of life. I think Epicurus described himself as happy on the last day of his life, even though he was suffering excruciating physical pain. From this perspective "happiness" is a concept rather than a particular pleasurable experience or set of pleasurable experience. I would be cautious about considering "happiness" to be an experience which is separate from some combination of otherwise ordinary mental pleasurable feeling/experiences. The further "happiness" is detached from specific pleasurable feelings, the easier it is to slip in to the definition other alleged requirements, such as wisdom or virtue or money or whatever, which other philosophers assert is required to constitute a happy man.
   2. As to variation, I believe Epicurus was not saying that variation is not desirable. Living another to experience more pleasures may simply be variation, but it is desirable in and of itself. I believe the references to variation are again an artefact of responding to Platonic logical objections. Epicurus was probably responding to the argument that pleasure cannot be "the good" because it allegedly has no limit by responding that pleasure does have a limit, when the allegorical vessel is full. This provides a counterargument to the logical argument of Plato, but it does not in itself diminish the desirability of variation.
   3. By not commenting on other aspects of this section I am not implying that I disagree with them; in general I agree with everything I read that I am not specifically commenting on.
8. The capacity for pain is a valuable warning system and should not be disabled except in unusual conditions, but the experience of pain is to be avoided unless it is chosen for the sake of greater pleasure/ lesser pain over the lifespan.
   1. I totally agree with this section.
9. Humans have many shared responses of pain or pleasure to specific experiences, and they also have individual variations.
   1. I totally agree
10. The standard of pleasure in one’s life must be one’s own subjective feelings, not a generic advice.
    1. I totally agree, even though I think Elayne thinks I disagree here. I will try to explain that in connection with my "Epicurean Worksheet." The major point comes down in my mind to the issue of turning feelings into abstract numbers. I agree that that is impossible. However I think that conditioning in the modern world has led most people to think that it is valid to rank feelings on some kind of "objective" or "absolute" scale. They have bought into this ranking system, even if they do not appreciate the implications of it. I think that this is a problem similar to the Platonic attacks on pleasure. Epicuris likely thought they were ridiculous, but he was surrounded by philosophy students in Athens who had heard the arguments and likely presumed them to be correct. I believe that is why he came up with the "limits of pleasure" argument in he first place, to show how the Platonic attacks could be defeated on logical grounds. Likewise I think is is necessary for some people to hear a response to attacks on feelings that defends feelings on at least somewhat "logical" terms, even though feelings cannot be reduced to logical representations (numbers). The goal of the Epicurean worksheet (which it may well not reach) is to illustrate the logical absurdity which would occur if "minimal pain" were actually adopted as the explicit goal of life.)
11. There are many pitfalls to avoid if one desires a happy, pleasure-filled life, such as a false belief in a neutral state, practices which attempt to disable the normal capacity to feel pleasure and pain, and failure to consider the long-term pains and pleasures resulting from actions.
    1. The part I would comment on again here is the "neutrality" part. It now occurs to me that Elayne may have more experience with eastern viewpoints than I do, and that she may be right to consider that some people really do aim at neutrality, a viewpoint I find so absurd as to not take it seriously. She may be right to aim more fire at neutrality. My difference in emphasis is that I do not believe the "conventional academic epicureans" are aiming at neutrality. I believe they are aiming at asceticism / pain / obedience / regimentation as a control mechanism over other people who, for whatever reason, they deem need to be controlled.
12. In discussing pain and pleasure, Epicureans stick to real life situations, not hypothetical philosophical puzzles.
    1. I agree with all of this!
13. "Ok, that's the last of it. The differences between my perspective and Cassius, as I understand it, are:"
    1. "Cassius does not think absence of pain in a living person is synonymous with fullness of pleasure. IMO this would require a third state, neutral, which I do not believe actually exists."
       1. I do not consider this to be an accurate statement of my position. From my viewpoint, my position is ""absence of pain" as a term is not ***sufficient*** to describe any condition worthy of being called "fullness of pleasure. In my viewpoint, this terminology has been intentionally adopted by opponents of pleasure to imply that pleasure, or fullness of pleasure, is not an "experience." It is my view that "absence of pain" was used by Epicurus as a reference to quantity, and under the system of having only two feelings, the presence of one is by definition the absence of the other. So from the perspective of quantity, yes absence of pain is sufficient to equate to fullness of pleasure. But quantity is only one aspect of the experience of pleasure, and a full definition would require much more detail to describe the full experience. Added to that is the observation that I think Elayne makes here too, that it is essentially impossible to describe a feeling via concepts / words. We can make the effort and attempt it, but no map of the real world is the equivalent of the real world itself.
    2. Cassius proposes that the cup itself can be enlarged to admit more pleasures. I would take the position I understand meant by Epicurus saying that once the cup is full, it only admits variations.
       1. I believe the cup analogy was developed to illustrate the limit of pleasure, which is itself a logical device intended to explain how pleasure can have a limit. That limit is that the human experience, at any one moment, or over a lifetime, can have only a limited quantity of experiences.
       2. As referenced above I believe that Epicurus held variation to be desirable in itself, because that is just another word for additional pleasure. The point in this context is not that more pleasure is not desirable, but that our human makeup only allows us to experience so much of it, and no more, within our living experience.
       3. As to the question of whether the cup can be enlarged, that is a reference my interpretation of the argument by Okeefe and others that the real goal of Epicurus was moderate asceticism, and my argument that if we indeed set the focus of life as "minimizing pain" then the logical course to achieve that would be (1) suicide, and (2) failing suicide, living in a cave as a hermit on bread and water. What I am saying about a variable size cup is that we as humans do have some control over the figurative "size of the vessel" of our lives. We can commit suicide at age 20, which results in a figuratively smaller vessel than someone who lives to age 40. We can choose to live in a dark cave on bread and water staring into a flame, and in my view that does result in a figuratively smaller vessel of experiences than that of a vessel representing the life of a world adventurer of the same age. It is probably also valid to consider that the size of the allegorical vessel differs based on the mental and physical capacities or disabilities of the person involved. The word "human" is an abstraction - there are only individual living people. There is no allegorical "human vessel" which is the same for all individuals. This is another limitation of the use of conceptual analogies which we have to keep in mind. In discussing an allegorical "vessel of life" that vessel is not going to be of the same type for evey individual, and I think it is useful also to consider that the vessel of our total experiences can enlarge or diminish based on our life choices. Once again, I think the limit of pleasure argument and the limit of pleasure issue was introduced for the limited purpose of dealing with pesky academic logical traps, and was never intended (nor could it serve) as a completely accurate summary of all aspects of pleasure. The full vessel analogy supplies us with a logical response to those who argue that the highest goal of life must have a defined "limit." The vessel analogy does not even begin to communicate the nature of the individual pleasurable and painful experiences which it must contain in order to be useful.