Posts by Cassius

GREAT Eoghan! Blogging for oneself is one of the best ways to get things to come together in your own mind, as you try to explain things to others.

Wow, thanks for the detailed discussion Eoghan. Here are some initial further questions I would raise:

A - Haven't we always been taught that nothing good comes easily? Why should the best part of life be easy to obtain? I see people around me suffering and dying in misery and pain all the time. They didn't find a happy life easy to obtain. Doesn't that show that Epicurus was wrong?

2. Things which people pursue in modern society such as excess wealth, power and others opinion have no limit, they can never be sated even for a short time on the contrast things provided by Nature can be gained easily and sated easily such as food, warmth and relaxation. Modern people have a wrong view on what makes them happy.

<<< Yes, as to those who are in fact pursuing excess wealth and other limitless goals. But what about the great numbers of people who in fact live humble lives, but who find themselves trampled into the dust by many factors, many of which are out of their control, regardless of their own attitudes? What about them? Doesn't their tragic situation invalidate Epicurean philosophy, or at least mean that it is worthless to them?

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B - Ok, we won't go to extremes like killing ourselves, After all, moderation in all things, right? But I hear you saying that the simplest life is the best. If I really want the best life, shouldn't I go ONLY for bread, water, and a cave to get out of the weather? That would be the purest application of Epicurus, wouldn't it?

4. Epicureans are ascetics, bread and water can easily be attained and are an easy pleasure to get (of course in modern times there are a lot more easily got foods) but this doesn't mean that we can't partake in other pleasures, in fact we definitely should but just remember that bread and water are always there, if other pleasures can't be got.

<<< according to dictionary.com, ascetic means: 1. a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons. 2. a person who leads an austerely simple life, especially one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or denies himself or herself material satisfaction. Is it really accurate to say that Epicureans are ascetic?

<<<<"this doesn't mean that we can't partake in other pleasures, in fact we definitely should..." You say "in fact we definitely should" partake in other pleasures. Why, if the simplest life is the best? How should we choose between a life of 70 years on bread and water with no pain, versus a life of 30 years with some pain on the mountaintop full of vivid sensual and mental pleasures? How do we incorporate the statements: " And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure" and "And even as men choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest"

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And as you indicate, question 6 still needs more explanation, but that one is the most difficult without pretty extensive explanation of the letter to Menoeceus. Nevertheless, most internet discussion of Epicurus makes this question the focus of the philosophy....

Why I see this question as important: It seems to me that this question is sort of a variation of that quote from DeWitt where the Platonist said "What, in a word, is to be said of a philosophy that begins by regarding pleasure as the only positive good and ends by emptying pleasure of all positive content?"

The twist here is "What, in a word, is to be said of a philosophy that begins by regarding pleasure as the only positive good, but ends by seeking the minimal amount of pleasure that is available without any exertion?"

If some pleasures are greater than others, then surely some pleasures are worth many multiples of the pain they require, and given the shortness of life should we not be pursuing those pleasures with all the vigor we can put into it?

And that is what I see as the deeper implication of your question, Pivot. If no pleasure is any more pleasing than any other, then the shortness of life is irrelevant, and it makes no difference whether we derive our pleasures while living in a cave staring at a candle, or on the summit of a mountain taking all the awesome beauties Nature has to offer.

To continue adding to thoughts here, it has been suggested to me by a friend that certainly the natural and necessary pleasures are not interchangeable. Each one has to be enjoyed to the maximum, assuming that this is possible.

I then responded to my friend: "Ok I certainly agree on interchangeability. But perhaps the greater question is: "What in Epicurean philosophy would tell us to enjoy wine (for example) when it is available without outweighing pain rather than stick to our water all the time?" Certainly parts of the letter to Menoeceus COULD be read to say that, but I do not believe that to be the meaning. And I presume you don't either - none of us do that. But we do not want to accept the implication that we are poor Epicureans in doing so. What Epicurean principle(s) are best used to override that implication, which is so popular today?

Pending your response Pivot, let me emphasize that I believe the key to unwrapping this excellent question is "pleasure does not exist in the air apart from things / experiences that we find pleasing." Pleasures do not exist "in the air" waiting for us to come across them and experience them. It seems to me that "pleasure" is the name we give to any number of experiences which our faculty of pleasure at any particular moment tells us is "pleasing" - meaning, our faculty of feeling tells us that this experience is desirable in and of itself.

And because experiences are innumerable in type, the only sense in which "perfect pleasure" exists is when our total experience of feeling, which generally contains some combination of pleasures and pains like jellybeans in a jar (distinct, but taking up place in the jar), contains only pleasurable jelly beans and no painful jelly beans. Now I think this definition of "perfect pleasure" can exist for at least short periods, but viewed in this way "perfect pleasure" is not a single jelly bean of some unusually potent type which can be snatched from the air or otherwise exist in human experience. Human experience is limited to vessels full of pleasures from which all pains have been (temporarily) eliminated.

And again, in my view, the real purpose of this discussion to Epicurus was to illustrate "the" goal, and to show a goal that met Platonic/other objections that pleasure could not be the goal because it can always be increased. When we take into account that a human life is like a vessel / jar, and that it has a definite limit in size which cannot be expanded, then we have a construction of "fullness of pleasure" which is serves as a conceptual framework to illustrate our goal for life.

I look forward to continuing this discussion because the issues are so important. Also, I hope we will get others to weigh in on this as soon as they can, as well.

Welcome to the forum and thank you for saying hello! And what an excellent first post- thank you!

Welcome to the forum! Very interesting questions. On first thought:

1. Pleasures differ, certainly in intensity and duration and probably in other ways as well. Also, pleasure does not exist in the air apart from things / experiences that we find pleasing, and certainly some things we find pleasing are more efficient at removing certain types of pain than others.

2. I would say that for a human complete freedom from pain IS unattainable, at least over any significant period of time. The part of your point beginning "because surely..." seems to me to be a false deduction from the meaning of "absence of pain," which I contend to be (even in concept) only a state of unadulterated combination of ordinary pleasure. However your question is excellent because it exposes an inherent conceptual fragility with the "absence of pain is a state other and higher than ordinary pleasure" construct.

But I say this is "only on first thought" and i will be very interested in your further comment. I consider my point 1 to be firm, my point 2 is less so at least in part because point 2 is more abstract.

We had an excellent discussion tonight so let's start planning for the next one. How does 5PM on Saturday May 19 look. I seem to recall that JAWS may be out of town, but otherwise let's consider that date - let me know what you think.

Thank you Daniel! I will follow this with interest.

A line I have always remembered from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" seems to apply here: "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value." I think most of us would observe this to be true in life; therefore Epicurus would have seen the same. Is it not obvious that some choices produce pleasures that are much greater than others? And that Epicurus would counsel that we should always choose the greater pleasures over the lesser (keeping in mind the consequences, and that what appears to be greater are in fact over the long term the greater) - Again - "And even as men choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest."

Probably in discussing (and refuting?) the idea that all pleasures are interchangeable, and that we should not care whether we spend our lives as a Hercules or a slacker, or as a lion or a worm (for example) this doctrine is relevant: "9. If every pleasure had been capable of accumulation, not only over time but also over the entire body or at least over the principal parts of our nature, then pleasures would never differ from one another."

That one has always struck me as particularly difficult, but it must also be particularly important to deserve to come so high in order of the doctrines.

All pleasure may be desirable, because it is pleasure, but does that observation mean that all pleasure is EQUALLY desirable? I don't think that is the correct conclusion. And this would not be because of some outside standard of virtue that some pleasures are more "noble" than others, but as simple as observing that some pleasures are more long-lasting, or intense, than others, under our individual circumstances.

(This comment came out ofthe thread discussing Hercules, but it deserves its own thread because of the importance of the question. DeWitt talks about the "fullness of pleasure" but that does not mean that all pleasure is interchangeable, does it?)

Here I think we need to consider PD9 "If every pleasure had been capable of accumulation, not only over time but also over the entire body or at least over the principal parts of our nature, then pleasures would never differ from one another."

I am continuing to think about this and how it relates to the "low achievement" mentality that some people seem to want to take as Epicurus' message. Certainly in my mind the work of Epicurus and Lucretius were not in any sense "easy" - they were monumental achievements that were pleasurable to a certain extent while undertaken, but also involved tremendous work. What about the effort someone like you (a referenced to HD) put into your book, for another example? It is a travesty to turn Epicurus into a promoter of "the easy life" when in fact it is the goal of pleasure as the reward of all sorts of effort that is the goal. Just like Xenophon records in this passage, if the example of Hercules shows great reward from great effort, as opposed to doing what he did explicitly for no reward other than "virtue" itself, then I don't see why ancient Epicureans would not have embraced Hercules as part of the Hellenistic mythology that they would have endorsed - as part of the public festivals Epicurus endorsed.

Anyway, the point being that it would be very helpful to purge from modern Epicurean discussion the idea that Epicurus was a slacker who preached that the rewards of "indolence" are exactly the same as the rewards of pleasures that require hard work to obtain. And this not only from the practical viewpoint that indolence rarely brings sustained successful living in this world, but from observing that the pleasures that come from climbing the mountain to see the view on top are not achievable any other way.

All pleasure may be desirable, because it is pleasure, but does that observation mean that all pleasure is EQUALLY desirable? I don't think that is the correct conclusion. And this would not be because of some outside standard of virtue that some pleasures are more "noble" than others, but as simple as observing that some pleasures are more long-lasting, or intense, than others, under our individual circumstances.

Welcome Daniel Van Orman ! When you get a chance please introduce yourself and let is know about your background in Epicurus. Thank you for joining us!

Also, I see from your first post that you are working on an Epicurean database. I am linking to that here so others will see it from this post.

Wow! I will look further into this asap - thanks for posting! So you are basically creating an SQL database for the Epicurean texts? What translations are you using?

I am pretty familiar with the nature of SQL databases but I usually see them associated with some kind of "Front End" to make them more usable. Do you have a goal for that?

Also, if I read your post correctly, you pretty much jumped directly into the technical details without explaining much about the background and goals of your project, and how it replaces other resources that might already be available. Can you sort of back up and give us the global view of what you are doing? Thanks very much!

In reference to MK's earlier comments on Hercules, I have posted that picture again of the "Choice of Hercules" with Pegasus waiting at the top of the steep and difficult path. Again, I don't know the full context of the legend, so maybe Pegasus represents "virtue," but in my experience most people think horses are fantastic animals to watch and ride and admire and in so doing their value is PLEASURE. And a winged horse that could fly? Ten times over! So if indeed what waits at the end of the difficult road is indeed some tremendous pleasure that is worth the long and difficult journey, then OF COURSE the Epicurean would choose the harder path over the shorter and direct but lukewarm easy path! And just as Torquatus remarked to Cicero, there's nothing wrong with seeing in the winning of great battles the reward in esteem and appreciation and joy that you will get from, and share with, your fellow-citizens after having fought to protect them.

From the words of Epicurus himself: "And even as men choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest."

The Choice of Hercules

A good post in the Facebook group raises this issue:

Herakles the Epicurean!

Herakles: Come over here and I will improve your education. You know how it is with life on this earth? I doubt it — how should you know? Just listen to me. Death's a debt all mortals must pay; there's not a person alive knows for certain if tomorrow morning will see him living or dead. As to how Fortune's plans will turn out, it's far from clear — no amount of teaching or experience can give you that knowledge. So heed my words and learn from me: be happy, drink, think each day your own as you live it and leave the rest to Luck. Give honour, too, to Kypris [1], kindest, sweetest of deities to mortals; she is a gracious goddess. As to everything else, pay it no attention, and do as I say, if you think I'm talking sense; I think I am. Let's have no more of this extravagant sadness...We're mortal men and ought to think mortal thoughts. Life for all you sour-faced enemies of pleasure, if you want my opinion, is not really life. It is a chapter of sorrows.

— Euripides, Alcestis, 774-802

[1] Aphrodite who loves to smile

Image of Herakles from the finds at Bolshaya Bliznitsa in Crimea.

Cassius: If we were trying to assess Hercules in general, presumably this part of the legend is relevant -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Choice_of_Hercules

Poster: I wouldn't make the claim that Herakles historically really was an Epicurean. He may never have been a historical person at all.

However, in Hellenic drama he is actually generally cast as something of an Epicurean. It seems to have very early on become part of his stage character.

This seemed to me the closest one comes to a proper exposition of this stance on life he tends to take in Athenian theatre.

Euripides is the most philosophical of dramatic poets. Aristotle's favourite. So I don't think it is accident. He is putting a defensible, even attractive way of living in Herakles' mouth. Even if he has had some wine and will go off in just a minute to wrestle with Death.

It sounds, after all, a lot like Epicureanism, even if not so systematically stated (context could hardly permit that).

Cassius:

MK that sounds reasonable to me. The following section from DeWitt mentions Hercules, and I agree that it would be logical that Epicureans would have considered your point as something to discuss as well - if only we had more texts!

"… Epicurus possessed another weapon capable of administering perhaps a meaner sting. He was able to quote a passage from the Phaeacian episode in the Odyssey which seemed to be a pronouncement of the hedonistic creed in the very terminology of the Platonic-Peripatetic schools. Not only the scholium on this passage but a bevy of other notices from antiquity inform us that upon this authority Epicurus based his espousal of pleasure as the end or telos. ...

The Phaeacian king is addressed and the speaker is Odysseus: “Verily this is a beautiful thing, to be listening to a bard such as this man is, with a voice like the gods. For to my mind, I say, no consummation (telos) is nearer perfection than when rejoicing (euphrosune) prevails among the whole people and the banqueters seated in order in the halls are listening to a bard, when the tables abound in bread and meats and the wine-bearer draws the sweet drink from the mixing bowl and pours it into the cups.”

The sting in this quotation is not single but multiple. To the populace, which was later incited against Epicurus, it was sacrilege, equivalent to quoting the Bible in certain circles in support of evolution. To the rival philosophers it must have been most disconcerting, not only because of the fortuitous sanction of the word telos to denote pleasure, but also because of the term euphrosune, which to Plato and Aristotle signified a pleasure superior to hedone and denoted the enjoyment of pure reason contemplating absolute truth. As an addition to the irritation it may be mentioned that Aristotle himself had quoted the passage to demonstrate the need of music in the best education. If Homer was to be an authority on this question, why not on that of the end or telos?

Also ..... The text of the Iliad, 24.525-526, reads: “This is the lot the gods have apportioned to miserable mortals, to live in sorrow, but no care have they themselves.” To the second of these lines is found a scholium: “From this Epicurus infers that the incorruptible and blissful being has neither cares nor worries, nor occasions them to others and for this reason is susceptible of neither anger nor gratitude.” These will be recognized as the words of the first of the Authorized Doctrines, and little doubt need exist that the alert and learned Epicurus quoted also the passages in which Homer speaks of the blessed gods as “living at ease,” nor that he read these to mean that the gods enjoyed freedom from toil or worry (aponia).

While appealing to Homer as an authority in his teaching concerning pleasure and the life and nature of the gods, Epicurus was able also to quote Sophocles in proof of a companion principle, that pain was to be classed as evil. To this end he cited, and possibly in Mytilene, the following couplet of the Trachiniae, which describes the agonies of Heracles perishing in the fateful shirt of Nessus: “Biting, screaming in pain, and all around his moans were echoed by Locria’s mountainous rocks and Euboea’s beetling headlands.” He may also have cited the humorous passage of Homer where the wounded god of war is described as “bellowing like nine thousand or ten thousand men when they raise the battle-cry, joining in the strife of battle.” If Ares himself, like Heracles, bellowed with pain when wounded, why should not the wise man moan and wail aloud when on the rack? Pain was manifestly evil just as pleasure was manifestly good."

Cassius:

-the heading to this thread says this is your first post in this group - thank you for a good one that not only raises an interesting topic but brings out a good argument for future use. There are few more important topics than that of contrasting the goal of life between (1) virtue of and for itself, or devotion to religion, as against (2) pleasure as the reward and goal of life. I am not very familiar at all with the details of the legends about Hercules, but if the reference in the painting of "the choice of Hercules" linked above that Hercules' "reward" for the steeper path is Pegasus, then that aspect of Hercules is especially useful for understanding the Epicurean path. The modern tendency to focus on "simplicity" can be misread to mean that we look for the easiest path - when of course it is often only by hard work and exertion that we are able to achieve and maintain many of the joys that we value most.

Is it a total coincidence, I wonder, that the most extensive Epicurean library we are aware of (presumably outside the Garden itself) was in a place called Herculaneum?

The following are excerpts from a Facebook thread. I am posting here for future reference. I have left out some passages that I didn't ask for permission to quote, but the full exchange can be found in the thread.

A Poster: You guys are no fun ? "The word 'hedonism' itself refers originally to a Greek school of thought, but despite its modern connotations the early Greek hedonists were actually not all that fun. You certainly wouldn't want to party with them. In the early Greek hedonists' view, most of the things - like sex, food, and wine - that are typically viewed as pleasurable by the "vulgar" (that is, you and me) are in fact causes of suffering in the long run. This is because they are by their very nature ephemeral and therefore never genuinely satisfying. The only way to truly maximize pleasure, in the Greek hedonists' view, was to stick to eternal, imperishable pleasures, like philosophical reflection, while keeping one's involvement in the physical world to a bare minimum."

--Edward Slingerland, Trying Not to Try

Cassius:

I TOTALLY disagree with that analysis. No harshness meant, as I see the smiley face, but while I grant you that is majority modern view, I totally disagree that that is proper Epicurean philosophy:

It is observed too that in his treatise On the Ethical End he [Epicurus] writes in these terms:
“I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, of sex, of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.”
– Diogenes Laertius, Book X

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations,III.18.41: Why do we shirk the question, Epicurus, and why do we not confess that we mean by pleasure what you habitually say it is, when you have thrown off all sense of shame? Are these your words or not? For instance, in that book which embraces all your teaching (for I shall now play the part of translator, so no one may think I am inventing) you say this: “For my part I find no meaning which I can attach to what is termed good, if I take away from it the pleasures obtained by taste, if I take away the pleasures which come from listening to music, if I take away too the charm derived by the eyes from the sight of figures in movement, or other pleasures by any of the senses in the whole man. Nor indeed is it possible to make such a statement as this – that it is joy of the mind which is alone to be reckoned as a good; for I understand by a mind in a state of joy, that it is so, when it has the hope of all the pleasures I have named – that is to say the hope that nature will be free to enjoy them without any blending of pain.” And this much he says in the words I have quoted, so that anyone you please may realize what Epicurus understands by pleasure."

Not posting that to change your or anyone else's mind, but this IS the Epicurean Philosophy group, not the neo-Stoic group, and I for one won't let it go unanswered.

- A Reference was made to Seneca stating a similar view, then:

Cassius: EVEN Seneca - you mean ESPECIALLY Seneca, since Seneca as a good Stoic polemicist was going to interpret whatever he could in a way consistent with his own philosophy. There is no hint that Atticus interpreted Epicurus in that way, or that Epicurus himself interpreted it that way in his number of slaves, or the possessions he accumulated and left to others at death, or indeed the exertion he put into launching a full-scale world philosophy. Stoicism and stoic-disposition would have us retreat into our shells and act as if we are worms in ways that Christians would applaud - Epicurus taught pleasure as the goal, and not in a paradoxical way, but in an INTELLIGENT way, which is the precise meaning of VS63 - 63. There is also a limit in simple living, and he who fails to understand this falls into an error as great as that of the man who gives way to extravagance.

We've been down these debate roads before, and gosh knows I may be the only one to speak up for this interpretation, but that isn't justification to allow the outlook to go unanswered in the Epicurean Philosophy group.

Were Slingerland correct, the Platonic criticism cited here would also be correct - that interpetation drains pleasure of all positive content. But it is wrong, for the reason cited by DeWitt:

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Then a cite was made to this from the letter to Menoeceus: Epicurus also said, "When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul. Of all this the d is prudence. For this reason prudence is a more precious thing even than the other virtues, for ad a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honor, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honor, and justice, which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them."

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Cassius: And I don't disagree with you ...c -- God only knows EVERYONE knows that passage if they know anything about Epicurus. But that is only PART of the picture, and I for one do not believe it is helpful to anyone to preach a doctrine of "Trying not to try" in this short and precious lifespan that we have - the only one in which we can experience any pleasure that we are going to get.

I have no clue what JW knows about this issue, or about what anyone else reading this thread knows. I only know that if we have one mission in the group it is to encourage people to make productive use of Epicurean philosophy in their lives. And again, Zeus himself may know of people in this group who are just overwhelming themselves with pleasurable pursuits to the point of creating too much pain for themselves, but my observation is that many of the people coming here are in absolutely OPPOSITE that position.

They are looking around at a world that appears insane, and where there is little sanity to be found, and they are looking for friends and encouragement to make something out of their lives. They don't need the discouragement of telling them that life is all in vain and that they need to content themselves with scraping out what meager happiness they can find out of fear of being overwhelmed by pain.

And at the VERY least, they need to know that that is not what Epicurus taught, and that if he were here he would point to a world of pleasure that is possible, not to asceticism.

Cassius: I have no clue who Slingerman is or what "Trying not to try" is about, other than a quick google that makes it appear that it is focused on eastern techniques of pursuing goals indirectly. That's fine so my comment is not really directed at the book but at the passage quoted. I see this "We’ve long been told that the way to achieve our goals is through careful reasoning and conscious effort. But recent research suggests that many aspects of a satisfying life, like happiness and spontaneity, are best pursued indirectly. " which strikes me as non or even anti-Epicurean, but I don't intend to start debating that book - just the recommendation to " stick to eternal, imperishable pleasures, like philosophical reflection, while keeping one's involvement in the physical world to a bare minimum." that is NOT Epicurean.

Cassius: "".... keeping one's involvement in the physical world to a bare minimum."" GOOD GRIEF! ;-)"

Respondent: Didn't Epicurus say Live Unknown and retreat to a Garden as to minimize persecution and unnecessary pain that comes with political involvement?

Cassius: Er... if you can find ANY context to the quote "live unknown" please let me know. I have looked for that for years and it seems to be quoted with no context whatsoever. Certainly Epicurus advised against certain types of "politics" just as he advised against certain types of romantic love and certain types of all sorts of things. But "political involvement" is a hugely broad term and Epicurus clearly taught self-defense, and living in communities of like-minded people and separating oneself from enemy aliens who cannot be friendly. it would be perverse to argue that he could preach those goals without acknowledging that they have to be implemented as a group activity.

Respondent (continuing in main thread): We are in full agreement about how "pleasure" is woefully misaligned and misunderstood. I think it's important to know that it's not what most people think it is: sensual indulgence off kinds, debauchery, etc. There is also the active pleasures that gobeyond tranquility of mind and freedom from pain in the body. It's a rich and robust doctrine when folks go beyond the misconception. In any case, Slingerland is right about one part of hedonism. His book isn't a treatise on hedonism. I'd suggest reading more than a quote and book title before you criticize it wholesale. Taoism has many affinities with Epicureanism.

Cassius: "No, sensual indulgence IS pleasurable, or else we would not find pleasure in it. The issue is the intelligent balance of long and short term consequences. Were debauchery not productive of pain IN THE LONG RUN, we would have no issue with it, which is the precise teaching of PD10 - 10. "If the things that produce the pleasures of profligate men really freed them from fears of the mind concerning celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, and the fear of pain; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires, we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they would then be filled with pleasures from every source and would never have pain of body or mind, which is what is bad." In fact we would rush to engage in it! "

Cassius: I agree the conversation is useful, but I need to press my point. Pleasure DOES include gluttony, debauchery, and overindulgence -- they ARE pleasurable while we are engaging in them. So we are not carving up pleasure and saying that some things are not REALLY pleasurable, which is what your terminology is saying to me. Debauchery (wild sex, whatever ) is pleasurable, it is only due to the CONSEQUENCES that we choose not to engage in them.

The point is important because pleasure is pleasure is pleasure - anything that "feels good" IS pleasurable, just as anything that "feels bad" is painful. The issue is in the consequences, which we have to evaluate so as to choose the long term net result, and not in applying a label - as if there is something INTRINSIC to the activity -- that causes that activity to change in nature.

And that is why at some times the very same activity is painful and other times it is pleasurable. Eating the first two pieces of cake is pleasurable, but the twentieth is (likely) painful.

Cassius: Er.... it is as HUGE issue. If Pleasure can be hacked up, then the knowledge of how to hack it becomes of critical importance. That is the Platonic argument - you MUST have "reason" (the science/knowledge of the hacking process) in order to know what is REAL pleasure and what is FALSE pleasure. That is their argument for the supremacy of "reason." But Epicurus said pleasure is a FEELING not subject to "reason". We know pleasure and pain without the need of reasoning about it. Now reason is extremely helpful in predicting the consequences in the future (based on past experience) but the issue comes down to WHERE does nature provide the guidance - and it is in the FEELING , which cannot be second-guessed by reason, to which we have to look as the only guide nature gave us. We're compressing a lot here, but it's a huge issue to keep in mind and thank you for discussing it!

Cassius: It is very difficult for me (not being a professional philosopher) to cite quickly the arguments in Philebus and elsewhere that make this point, but the issue expands this way as I read it: Once you acknowledge that "reason" is necessary to know "true" pleasure from "false" pleasure then you have to acknowledge that reason is more important than pleasure. And although it never sounded very persuasive to me, the argument quickly proceeds (by hacking) to the conclusion that if reason/wisdom is the really important thing, then you really don't need "pleasure" at all -- and that leads to the elimination of pleasure and directly to the conclusion that we must "stick to eternal, imperishable pleasures, like philosophical reflection, while keeping one's involvement in the physical world to a bare minimum" which is the phrase that set me off in the first place

Cassius: Of course we really haven't yet reached the more controversial aspect: Does "absence of pain" mean something DIFFERENT than "pleasure" as that word is ordinarily understood - as the "feeling" we all call pleasure?

The ascetic disposition that wants to hack "pleasure" into "true pleasure" and "false pleasure" and let reason be arbiter also wants to totally redefine "pleasure" into solely mental or static pleasure, while denying that bodily/stimulating pleasures are really pleasure at all. The questions tend to get mixed together, but I do think they are separate. We've at the end here been debating (1) whether activities that people think are pleasurable (debauchery) can be hacked into "real pleasure" and "false pleasure." The more intellectually aggressive (and prevailing) argument is to say (2) that there is a HIGHEST pleasure, which is different in kind and superior to the "lower" pleasures. This argument pleads that "absence of pain" may sound difficult-to-define and esoteric and counterintuitive, but that Epicurus taught that THIS "highest" pleasure is the goal toward which we all should aim, pushing aside the "lower" pleasures and focusing to the extent of our power on this "highest pleasure" which can be defined only as "absence of pain."

But the real battleground remains: (1) Is "pleasure" something that we feel? (in which case ALL pleasure of ALL types - mental and physical - is pleasurable and desirable, so long as we feel it to be so), or (2) Is "the highest pleasure" something that we don't "feel" at all (in which case we back into it by eliminating pain, such that at the moment the last ounce of pain is suppressed then - VIOLA! - we have reached this new highest state which has nothing to do with the mundane lower animal pleasures)! And don't be surprised - the only attempt at definition anyone really gives this "absence of pain" state sounds amazingly like "philosophical reflection, while keeping one's involvement in the physical world to a bare minimum."

The alternative that explains BOTH option (1) (ALL pleasurable feelings are pleasure and desirable), while also making it understandable why Epicurus talked about (2) "absence of pain" is to consider "absence of pain" as referenced in PD3 - as a measure of QUANTITY ONLY. Which is simply to say that when we have filled our experience with ordinary pleasures to the point where our experience is "full," there is no room left for pain - pain is "absent." Thus "absence of pain" is only a measure of quantity which states that we are full of ordinary pleasure, not a description of something different. "Absence of pain" in this perspective is nothing more than saying that our experience at that moment is of complete and pure sum of ordinary mental and physical pleasures.

See "ON ENDS" - "The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable?"

Cassius: The first part of this reference from Plutarch comes VERY close to explicitly stating the "quantity" argument I am making: Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 3, p. 1088C: **Epicurus has imposed a limit on pleasures that applies to all of them alike: the removal of all pain. For he believes that our nature adds to pleasure only up to the point where pain is abolished and does not allow it any further increase in magnitude (although the pleasure, when the state of painlessness is reached, admits of certain unessential variations). But to proceed to this point, accompanied by desire, is our stint of pleasure, and the journey is indeed short and quick. Hence it is that becoming aware of the poverty here they transfer their final good from the body, as from an unproductive piece of land, to the soul, persuaded that there they will find pastures and meadows lush with pleasure." (Cite comes from here: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…Td7fqXKUR4cpZDV

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