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Several recent emails from a reader have reminded me that physics /science is an important part of Epicurean philosophy. Epicurus did not just presume that "living pleasurably" should be the goal of life, he went back to the basics to establish that the universe operates by natural (non-supernatural) means, and that pleasure is therefore the faculty given us by nature to serve as the basis for our choices. He then emphasized, in his letter to Herodotus and to Pythocles, how important it is to understand scientific basics so that we have confidence in these conclusions.
The ending of the letter to Pythocles is a good place to nail this down:

All this, Pythocles, you should keep in mind; for then you will escape a long way from myth, and you will be able to view in their connection the instances which are similar to these. But above all give yourself up to the study of first principles and of infinity and of kindred subjects, and further of the standards and of the feelings and of the end for which we choose between them. For to study these subjects together will easily enable you to understand the causes of the particular phenomena. And those who have not fully accepted this, in proportion as they have not done so, will be ill acquainted with these very subjects, nor have they secured the end for which they ought to be studied.

What brings this to mind are several emails from a reader (A. Singh) who tells me of his interest in astronomy, and forwarded to me several papers that he had produced on areas of interest to him. I have linked those three papers below, and also copied here a number of links to Youtube videos with demonstrations of electrical and magnetic effects which support them:

Stellar Metamorphasis * Demystifying Black Holes * Nuclear Fusion Processes In Stars

Supporting video:

Can Crushing Via Electricity
Electrical Pinch Effect
Induction Heating - A Quick Demonstration
These Hearts Are On Fire
Pinch Effect Interaction

Thanks very much to Mr. Singh for these papers and the permission to link to them.

On the same topic, I should remind everyone that Alexander Rios has a separate Facebook page "Epicurean Touchpoints" where he focuses on links of interest to science topics relevant to Epicurean philosophy. I encourage everyone to "like" that page to be sure to get Alexander's posts in case they are not cross-posted to the main Epicurean philosophy group.

Thanks again for this important reminder that not only do we wish to live pleasurably, as much as anything else we need to have confidence that living pleasurably is our appropriate goal in life, and the key to that investigation is the study of Nature.

Let's close with this reminder from Lucretius Book 1 (Munro translation):

Wherefore we must well grasp the principle of things above, the principle by which the courses of the sun and moon go on, the force by which every thing on earth proceeds, but above all we must find out by keen reason what the soul and the nature of the mind consist of, and what thing it is-which meets us when awake and frightens our minds, if we are under the influence of disease; meets and frightens us too when we are buried in sleep; so that we seem to ‘see and hear speaking to us face to face them who are dead, whose bones earth holds in its embrace. ... This terror then and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and the law of nature; the warp of whose design we shall begin with this first principle, nothing is ever gotten out of nothing by divine power.

Cassius Amicus

September 13 at 12:46am
"Flattery." Akin to "cookery." That's what we're doing, according to Socrates/Plato. We've touched on Philebus before, but the name "Callicles" from "Gorgias" is going to start appearing here regularly. Here is one source from which we can link as we discss a text which it is likely every ancient Epicurean had to be prepared to respond - Plato's attack on pleasure as the good: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gorgias
There are many arguments against pleasure here which deserve to be laid out one by one, and Callicles' errors in giving in to Socrates dissected and refuted.
Just one excerpt of ***many*** that we need t examine, all of which set up arguments to which Epicurus had to respond and which provide context to Epicurean texts which are otherwise obscure:
"Socrates Then pleasure, like everything else, is to be sought for the sake of that which is good, and not that which is good for the sake of pleasure?
Callicles To be sure.
Socrates But can every man choose what pleasures are good and what are evil, or must he have art or knowledge of them in detail?
Callicles He must have art.
Socrates Let me now remind you of what I was saying to Gorgias and Polus; I was saying, as you will not have forgotten, that there were some processes which aim only at pleasure, and know nothing of a better and worse, and there are other processes which know good and evil. And I considered that cookery, which I do not call an art, but only an experience, was of the former class, which is concerned with pleasure, and that the art of medicine was of the class which is concerned with the good........."

Cassius Amicus

September 13 at 10:51am
Here's a relatively minor point, but I think this illustrates how we can gain context for otherwise obscure Epicurean sayings by looking back at earlier arguments to which the Epicureans were likely responding. One such issue is whether it is best to present arguments in question/answer form or by extended narrative. Here's Vatican saying 26 for the Epicurean side:
"26. One must presume that long and short arguments contribute to the same end."
Taken by itself this doesn't have much meaning, til we see that Cicero touches on the same issue in "On Ends":
TORQUATUS: "Very well then," said he, "this is what I will do, I will expound a single topic, and that the most important. Natural Philosophy we will postpone; though I will undertake to prove to you both your swerve of the atoms and size of the sun, and also that very many errors of Democritus were criticized and corrected by Epicurus. But on the present occasion I will speak about pleasure; not that I have anything original to contribute, yet I am confident that what I say will command even your acceptance."
CICERO: "Be assured," I said, "that I shall not be obstinate, but will gladly own myself convinced if you can prove your case to my satisfaction."
TORQUATUS: "I shall do so," he rejoined, "provided you are as fair-minded as you promise. But I prefer to employ continuous discourse rather than question and answer."
CICERO: "As you please," said I. So he began.
And here it is traceable back to Plato in Gorgias (where it's mentioned several times):
"SOCRATES: And will you continue to ask and answer questions, Gorgias, as we are at present doing, and reserve for another occasion the longer mode of speech which Polus was attempting? Will you keep your promise, and answer shortly the questions which are asked of you?
GORGIAS: Some answers, Socrates, are of necessity longer; but I will do my best to make them as short as possible; for a part of my profession is that I can be as short as any one.
SOCRATES: That is what is wanted, Gorgias; exhibit the shorter method now, and the longer one at some other time."
It's possible that VS 26 is not a reference to dialectic, but it seems to me it probably is. Regardless, it is interesting to think about why Socrates so preferred the dialectic method, and why the Epicureans preferred the "continuous discourse" method.

Sarcasm alert! Cicero's commentary on the Stoics' terminology of some things as "preferred":
"As I understand, [the Stoics] will accuse the ancients of certain grave errors in other matters, which that ardent seeker after truth [Zeno] found himself quite unable to tolerate. What, [Zeno] asked, could have been more insufferably foolish and perverse than to take good health, freedom from all pain, or soundness of eyesight and of the other senses, and class them as goods, instead of saying that there was nothing whatever to choose between these things and their opposites? According to [Zeno], all these things which the ancients called good, were not good, but 'preferred'; and so also with bodily excellences, it was foolish of the ancients to call them 'desirable for their own sakes'; they were not 'desirable' but 'worth taking'; and in short, speaking generally, a life bountifully supplied with all the other things in accordance with nature, in addition to virtue, was not 'more desirable,' but only 'more worth taking' than a life of virtue and virtue alone; and although virtue of itself can render life as happy as it is possible for it to be, yet there are some things that Wise Men lack at the very moment of supreme happiness; and accordingly they do their best to protect themselves from pain, disease and infirmity."
What acuteness of intellect! What a satisfactory reason for the creation of a new philosophy!"
Cicero, On Ends, Book 4

Cassius Amicus

September 14 at 6:18pm

A key difference that separates Epicurean philosophy from Stoicism and other Greek philosophies is the identification of pleasure as the goal of life. Too many people abstract this word pleasure to the ambiguous word "happiness," which allows them to presume that all philosophies have the same goal. It is essential to see that this is not so. Here is Cicero revealing that the Stoics choose to ignore the body, and to elevate the "intellect" to all that matters. In so doing the Stoics conclude that the happy life entails nothing but "morality of life," and all joy in life, and all other emotion, is swept away in an impossible dream:

Cicero: "Now then let us call upon your [Stoic] leaders, or better upon yourself [Cato] (for who is more qualified to speak for your school?) to explain this: how in the world do you contrive, starting from the same first principles, to reach the conclusion that the Chief Good is morality of life? — for that is equivalent to your 'life in agreement with virtue' or 'life in harmony with nature.' By what means or at what point did you suddenly discard the body, and all those things which are in accordance with nature but out of our control, and lastly duty itself?

My question then is, how comes it that so many things that Nature strongly recommends have been suddenly abandoned by Wisdom? Even if we were not seeking the Chief Good of man but of some living creature that consisted solely of a mind (let us allow ourselves to imagine such a creature, in order to facilitate our discovery of the truth), even so that mind would not accept this End of yours. For such a being would ask for health and freedom from pain, and would also desire its own preservation, and set up as its End to live according to nature, which means, as I said, to possess either all or most and the most important of the things which are in accordance with nature.
In fact you may construct a living creature of any sort you like, but even if it be devoid of a body like our imaginary being, nevertheless its mind will be bound to possess certain attributes analogous to those of the body, and consequently it will be impossible to set up for it an end of Goods on any other lines than those which I have laid down. Chrysippus, on the other hand, in his survey of the different species of living things states that in some the body is the principal part, in others the mind, while there are some that are equally endowed in respect of either; and then he proceeds to discuss what constitutes the ultimate good proper to each species.
Man he so classified as to make the mind the principal part in him; and yet he so defined man's End as to make it appear, not that he is principally mind, but that he consists of nothing else. But the only case in which it would be correct to place the Chief Good in virtue alone is if there existed a creature consisting solely of pure intellect, with the further proviso that this intellect possessed nothing of its own that was in accordance with nature, as bodily health is. But it is impossible even to imagine a self-consistent picture of what such a creature would be like."

Cicero, On Ends, Book 4

Cassius Amicus
September 14 at 6:05pm

In Stoicism there are many dangerous parallels to Christianity and other monotheistic religions, one of which is the condemnation of all who have not achieved perfection or salvation as they define it. In the following excerpt we see Cicero condemning this core doctrine of Stoicism by addressing Cato, the arch-Stoic:
"But proceed further; for we now come to the doctrine, of which you [Cato] gave such a masterly summary, that all men's folly, injustice and other vices are alike and all sins are equal; and that those who by nature and training have made considerable progress towards virtue, unless they have actually attained to it, are utterly miserable, and there is nothing whatever to choose between their existence and that of the wickedest of mankind, so that the great and famous Plato, supposing he was not a Wise Man, lived a no better and no happier life than any unprincipled scoundrel.
And this, if you please, is your revised and corrected version of the old philosophy, a version that could not possibly be produced in public life, in the law-courts, in the senate! For who could tolerate such a way of speaking in one who claimed to be an authority on wise and moral conduct? Who would allow him to alter the names of things, and while really holding the same opinions as everyone else, to impose different names on things to which he attaches the same meanings as other people, just altering the terms while leaving the ideas themselves untouched? Could an advocate wind up his defense of a client by declaring that exile and confiscation of property are not evils? that they are 'to be rejected,' but not 'to be shunned'? that it is not a judge's duty to show mercy? Or supposing him to be addressing a meeting of the people; Hannibal is at the gates and has flung a javelin over the city walls; could he say that captivity, enslavement, death, loss of country are no evils? Could the senate, decreeing a triumph to Africanus, use the formula, 'whereas by reason of his valour,' or 'good fortune,' if no one but the Wise Man can truly be said to possess either valour or good fortune?
What sort of philosophy then is this, which speaks the ordinary language in public, but in its treatises employs an idiom of its own? and that though the doctrines which the Stoics express in their own peculiar terms contain no actual novelty the ideas remain the same, though clothed in another dress. Why, what difference does it make whether you call wealth, power, health 'goods,' or 'things preferred,' when he who calls them goods assigns no more value to them than you who style exactly the same things 'preferred'?
This is why so eminent and high-minded an authority as Panaetius, a worthy member of the famous circle of Scipio and Laelius, in his epistle to Quintus Tubero on the endurance of pain, has nowhere made what ought to have been his most effective point, if it could be shown to be true, namely that pain is not an evil; instead he defines its nature and properties, estimates the degree of its divergence from nature, and lastly prescribes the method by which it is to be endured.
So that by his vote, seeing that he was a Stoic, your terminological fatuities seem to me to stand condemned."

Cassius Amicus
September 17 at 8:47pm

In one of the nearby threads there is an ongoing discussion of "absence of pain." Thanks to Eric Sherman I was recently rereading Cicero's On Ends, and there is a passage there that those interested in this topic ought to know about. In this criticism of Epicurus by Cicero I think we can see that there is more going on than what meets the eye when people pull out a line that is translated as "By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul" and elevate it to imply that the ordinary definition of pleasure has been eradicated. Had this been true, Cicero could not have written the following (note particularly **as he in fact does**):

Cicero: "Had Epicurus cleared up the meaning of pleasure, he would not have fallen into such confusion. Either he would have upheld pleasure in the same sense as Aristippus, that is, an agreeable and delightful excitation of the sense, which is what even dumb cattle, if they could speak, would call pleasure; or, if he preferred to use an idiom of his own, instead of speaking the language of the Danaans one and all, men of Mycenae, Scions of Athens, and the rest of the Greeks invoked in these anapaests, he might have confined the name of pleasure to this state of freedom from pain, and despised pleasure as Aristippus understands it; or else, if he approved of both sorts of pleasure, as in fact he does, then he ought to combine together pleasure and absence of pain, and profess two ultimate Goods. Many distinguished philosophers have as a matter of fact thus interpreted the ultimate good as composite. For instance, Aristotle combined the exercise of virtue with well-being lasting throughout a complete lifetime; Callipho united pleasure with moral worth; Diodorus to moral worth added freedom from pain. Epicurus would have followed their example, had he coupled the view we are now discussing, which as it is belongs to Hieronymus, with the old doctrine of Aristippus. For there is a real difference of opinion between them, and accordingly each sets up his own separate End; and as both speak unimpeachable Greek, Aristippus, who calls pleasure the Chief Good, does not count absence of pain as pleasure, while Hieronymus, who makes the Chief Good absence of pain, never employs the name pleasure to denote this negation of pain, and in fact does not reckon pleasure among things desirable at all."
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Whether or not you agree with my "full cup" argument as presented on mynewepicurean.com page, it is clear from this passage that Cicero understood Epicurus to have embraced pleasure as ordinarily understood by all men, including Aristippus. It's a very important point also to see that Epicurus had rejected the position of Hieronymus, who according to Cicero had in fact erected "absence of pain" as the goal and specifically rejected ordinary pleasure in so doing. This passage shows that Epicurus would have been fully aware of this different arguments, and he clearly rejected the archtypical "absence of pain" argument, or Cicero would have explained how Epicurus and Hieronymus were the same.
So while we have to make an educated guess at the truth, in the absence of Epicurus' own words explaining this, whatever theory we follow cannot eject "ordinary pleasure" from the good / end of life, or else we end up embracing Hieronymus, who Epicurus rejected.
Personally, I think the key to unlocking this is to realize that Epicurus was dealing with an existing battlefield of ideas that included not only Hieronymus and Aristippus but Plato and others who employed the "limits" argument to argue that pleasure could not be the goal of life as it (in their view) has no limit. In order to meet this argument, Epicurus had to show that pleasure *does* have a limit, so he pointed out that the pleasures of life cannot be increased beyond our capacity to experience them, and our capacity to experience more pleasure is gone when we fill our experience with pleasure and succeed in ejecting all pain from our experience. There's nothing extraordinary about this state of pure pleasure that results - no new or unusual type of pleasure is involved - but being able to identify this theoretical state as possible essential for meeting the Platonic argument that the highest good must have a limit. {Note: In Epicurean theory this state is not only possible, but actual -- at least for "gods." One way of stating our goal in life is that we work toward the goal of becoming "gods among men."}
It seems to me that is why the "absence of pain" passage is there, and this also explains the similar reference that we have no need of [further] pleasure when all pain has been eliminated.
But I readily confess that the letter to Menoecus can appear to us to be confusing. But I also suggest that the letter as written was *not* confusing to Menoeceus, because any student of Epicurus in 300 BC would have been fully familiar with the existing anti-pleasure majority position. Any educated Epicurean reading the letter would instantly have understood it as a complete refutation of the anti-pleasure/pain position, and an explanation of why the other philosophers were wrong. Our disability is that we no longer have the instant recognition of the anti-pleasure arguments. But that is something that those of us in this group and elsewhere who support Epicurean philosophy can work to remedy.
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8Elli Pensa, Haris Dimitriadis and 6 others
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Eric Sherman "The pleasure we pursue is not that kind alone which directly affects our physical being with a delightful feeling,—a positively agreeable perception of the senses; on the contrary, the greatest pleasure according to us is that which is experienced as a result of the complete removal of pain. When we are released from pain, the mere sensation of complete emancipation and relief from uneasiness is in itself a source of gratification. But everything that causes gratification is a pleasure (just as everything that causes annoyance is a pain). Therefore the complete removal of pain has correctly been termed a pleasure. For example, when hunger and thirst are banished by food and drink, the mere fact of getting rid of uneasiness brings a resultant pleasure in its train. So generally, the removal of pain causes pleasure to take its place. Epicurus consequently maintained that there is no such thing as a neutral state of feeling intermediate between pleasure and pain; for the state supposed by some thinkers to be neutral, being characterized as it is by entire absence of pain, is itself, he held, a pleasure, and, what is more, a pleasure of the highest order. A man who is conscious of his condition at all must necessarily feel either pleasure or pain. But complete absence of pain Epicurus considers to be the limit and highest point of pleasure; beyond this point pleasure may vary in kind, but it cannot vary in intensity or degree."

-Torquatus
"}" data-testid="ufi_comment_like_link" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/permalink/1088875581161401/#" role="button" title="Like this comment">Like · Reply · September 17 at 9:02pm

Cassius Amicus Yes, that's the passage in issue. No doubt it was written by Epicurus for an important purpose, but that purpose could not reasonably have been to upend and invert everything else he had previously taught about pleasure. Just like a contract in a court of law, or interpretation of a statute, if there is a way to harmonize the totality to give effect to every provision of what is written, that is the way to the preferred conclusion - at least as long as we think that the writer was a consistent thinker!
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Cassius Amicus And that is exactly what Cicero, lawyer that he is, refuses to do - which is the technique of a lawyer seeking victory over his opponent, not someone who is trying to harmonize words that may seem to conflict, but do not in fact conflict when read in a certain way.
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Eric Sherman So are you arguing that the pleasure in which Epicurus promoted was something more or different than absence of emotional and physical pain? If so how is pleasure different and why is it important and can you show me textual evidence please.
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Ekshesh Bekele Pleasure is not the abscence of pain. However, absence of pain is the highest limit of pleasure.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · September 17 at 9:31pm

Ekshesh Bekele In my understanding of Epicurus
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Eric Sherman I'm sorry that just doesn't make sense to me.
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Eric Sherman I'd also like to point out that pleasure as I understand Epicurus is predominantly absence of EMOTIONAL Pain. It's apparent that tetrapharmakon is about easing all forms of anxiety-gods, death, sustenance and pain
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Ekshesh Bekele I meant that there are different forms of pleasure. To say pleasure is the absence of pain would mean there aren't other forms of pleasure that aren't the absence of pain, which would be false. The distinguishing characteristic of pleasure as an absence of pain is that it doesn't get better than that.
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Cassius Amicus I agree with this statement largely, but the "it" in "it doesn't get any better than that" still leaves a little wiggle room for ambiguity."
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Eric Sherman Right, but I'd like to see where Epicurus defines it as such
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Eric Sherman I think I have far weightier evidence
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Ekshesh Bekele 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 revelry, not sexual lust, 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 tumults take possession of the soul.
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Ekshesh Bekele " By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul."
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Eric Sherman Yes and even more that it is sober reasoning that BANISHES beliefs that cause anxiety !
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Eric Sherman What are those false beliefs? Superstitions, religion, Malevolent and intervening gods, that life and basic goods are hard to procure and that pain is difficult to bear.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · September 17 at 9:56pm · Edited

Cassius Amicus I think this is well stated Ekshesh Bekele: "I meant that there are different forms of pleasure. To say pleasure is the absence of pain would mean there aren't other forms of pleasure that aren't the absence of pain, which would be false." Even in philosophy classes the "replenishment theory is acknowledged to be incomplete. Were we in pain from not smelling a rose before we smelled the rose? Was that smelling not a substantive pleasure? Yes, removal of pain is pleasurable, and provides space for pleasure as we ordinarily understand all its mental and physical variations, to fill in. But just like matter and void are opposites with real properties of their own, pleasure has a real existence with real positive properties, and these are not described by saying "absence of pain" any more than matter is sufficiently described as "absence of void."

Also, Eric, while mental pleasures and pains are held to be more intense than physical ones, I think there is no reason to think that Epicurus was focused on one at the expense of the other
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Cassius Amicus Eric what is a positive description of what you think is being described as "absence of pain." in this case, simply saying "that's pleasure" would be thought by most people (in my view) to be playing a word game, so what positive substantive definition would you give of that experience?
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Eric Sherman I'm not disagreeing that pleasure is varied and positive. I'm just arguing that Epicurus defined it as an absence of emotional pain. I'd like to see textual evidence that Epicurus meant something more than what he said
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Ilkka Vuoristo Menoeceus 131:
"By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul."
Both the body and mind need to be pain-free for there to be a total lack of pain. If either one is in pain, the absence isn't complete.
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Elli Pensa Cassius, Ilkka, Hiram and friends, Epicurus is so clear to understand what he is saying and means in Menoeceus 131 : <<When we say that pleasure is the goal of life we mean ..."AND TO NOT" [=in greek he uses the word "μήτε" ] ACHING THE BODY “AND ΤΟ ΝΟ...See MoreSee Translation
Unlike · Reply · 1 · September 18 at 1:52am · Edited

Elli Pensa Yes, Epicurus tried to give a description what is "pleasure", because it is well known this word , as the goal of life, WAS, IS AND WILL BE misinterpreted and misunderstood TOTALLY. I am sorry but we realize Epicurus was forced to describe the BIG PIC...See More

Unlike · Reply · 1 · September 18 at 2:33am · Edited

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Ekshesh Bekele I believe part of the reason absence of pain was very important for Epicurus was that it set the limit to the good we called "pleasure." If pleasure was just some positive thing, then adding more pleasure would always be possible, but by saying pleasure is the absence of pain it is implied that the limit exists. And during that time the great good was expected to have some limit.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · September 17 at 10:07pm

Cassius Amicus “It is observed too that in his treatise On the Ethical End he 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
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Eric Sherman That's fine. I find that acceptable. We can say that Epicurus defined pleasure as an absence of emotional and physical pain and additive and positive experiences mitigated by hedonic calculus
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Cassius Amicus Well Eric here I think Ekshesh is focusing on a distinction that is very important. "Absence of ..." is not a susbstantive description of anything - it is a "limit" of something, but it is not a description of anything. So I cannot say that i agree that pleasure IS an "absence of pain" in any respect but in that of "measurement." Measurement of quantity or quality is of course significant, but it is far from a complete description of the thing being measured.
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Cassius Amicus So in the end if someone is going to suggest that "pleasure" means something that we all experience ordinarily through our mind and senses, and that all of us recognize, then I would really like to know how that experience is to be defined. Because any description I can think of about a mental or physical state , even "wellbeing" is something I would say, well OK that is what everyone understands by pleasure and you are saying nothing new. It's only if someone could describe something totally out of the ordinary that we can't all immediately understand through experience that I would say would be cause for acknowledging that something unusual is being discussed.
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Cassius Amicus And what really is at stake here, as I think many of us realize, is that stoicism and other philosophies are accused (rightly or wrongly) of seeking to suppress all emotion. And Epicurus is said to specifically have stated that the wise man feels emotion MORE deeply than others, not less, which is not tranqiility in the stoic sense..
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Eric Sherman The experience is defined by tranquility
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Eric Sherman And I acquiesce that there are additive pleasures
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Eric Sherman You would be in gross error to not understand that much of Epicurus is helping mankind be freed from anxieties
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Cassius Amicus Oh I completely agree with that! I do agree that banishing anxiety is one of the huge aspects of the philosophy which is made necessary by many reasons, not the least of which is false religion and other philosophies. We are totally agreed there!
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Eric Sherman Cassius Amicus tranquility is the absence of mental pain
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Eric Sherman If we agree there id be happy
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Eric Sherman I just feel that both Stoics and Epicureans seem to dismiss or minimize this to detriment
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Cassius Amicus Eric Sherman I am not so sure of that Why do you believe it is so? Cannot an ocean be both powerful and calm at the same time?
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Eric Sherman You're not sure that Epicurus has anxieties in mind in much of what he addresses???
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Cassius Amicus While we are discussing let me emphasize that I do consider calmness to be desirable! I am just not sure of all of the implications when people use the word tranqility, as that sounds too much like getting hit with a tranquilizer dart for me!
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Eric Sherman No no I understand your concern...
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Eric Sherman Epicurus again in his tetrapharmakon **IS** addressing anxieties and is aiming at peace of mind/tranquility/ataraxia
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Cassius Amicus Yes I agree that relief from anxiety is a key goal, but I worry that relief from anxiety should never be read to be a complete statement of the goal, because I do believe life requires exertion to attain pleasure in the short time we are alive
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Eric Sherman Fair enough. I believe my reformulation in an earlier point entails both our concerns
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Cassius Amicus Also while we are discussing this I need to emphasize that I acknowledge that there are many people in many situations for whom unloading mental anxieties is such an immense task that it seems like all that is needed, and I greatly sympathize and understand that - been there myself.
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Cassius Amicus Without necessarily tagging anyone as the problem (well ok, I will tag many religions, but just not call any philosopher's names) I just always want to be aware of the ongoing campaign against pleasure as something that is dirty and disreputable and against gods will. That is a huge issue that will not go away as long as we live, unfortunately.....
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Ekshesh Bekele I have 1 question thought. If the limit of pleasure is the absence of pain. If we have two people x and y. and both expereince no physical pain nor trouble of the soul, but y indulges in sex, listens to pleasurable music, eats tasty food, is it a folly to claim Y's life is more pleasurable than x's?
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Ilkka Vuoristo The absolute absence of pain cannot be more pain-free with additional pleasures. At that point the pleasures only vary. For example, person x will also eat food, and if it's nutritious it will be tasty.
Menoeceus 130: "Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the pain of want has been removed,[...]"

The goal of life is Happiness (painlessness), not ever increasing mountains of indulgent pleasures. Epicurus defined happiness as the lack of pain most likely because he saw that other hedonists were in fact _over_doing some pleasures. It's very easy to over-eat, for example, which will lead to obesity and metabolic syndrome (pain, in other words).
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Ekshesh Bekele Happiness is a tricky word here though. One could experience much pain and still claim to have lived a happy life, according to the Stoics at least. Would that be a happy life for Epicurus?
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Hiram Crespo Ekshesh Bekele, Epicurus was not a masochist. He was no Mother Theresa or John Paul II, who self-flaggelated because they thought pain was good. If Epicurus was unfairly attacked physically, he would have raised grievances and made real-world efforts to stop himself (and probably others) from unfairly suffering unnecessary physical attacks in the future.
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Ilkka Vuoristo In Epicurean Philosophy happiness is defined as painlessness in the body (aponia) and in the mind (ataraxia). So no "much pain" is not a state of happiness.
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Ekshesh Bekele I just wanted to make a distinction between happiness and pleasure. I bleieve pleasure involves direct experience by the senses and the mind more so than happiness does.
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Hiram Crespo Ekshesh Bekele here, under the "Ethics" section, you will see that we have been philosophizing about the distinctions between pleasure and happiness for more than 2,500 years, with many diverging opinionshttps://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…P@@@h=IAQHraXMi

Cyrenaic Reasonings I: Aristippus the Older and Aristippus the…
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Cassius Amicus A good question and this gets to the purity arguments. An experience of pure pleasure once pure can only be varied, but is not variation desirable when it is possible without pain? I think the answer here is related to how we would judge living 10 days as a "god among men" vs living 100 days. Given the choice I think it is clear that we would prefer to live 100 days, but the reason is not necessarily that the 100 days was "more pleasurable" in EVERY respect. The reason for the preference has to be carefully considered.
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Cassius Amicus This is an excellent question Ekshesh Bekele and I can't "remember that we have discussed it recently. I think I will tag some of our other regulars like Hiram Crespo and AH and Ilkka Vuoristo andElli Pensa to be sure they see this on and have a chance to comment if they like. "I have 1 question though. If the limit of pleasure is the absence of pain. If we have two people x and y. and both experience no physical pain nor trouble of the soul, but y indulges in sex, listens to pleasurable music, eats tasty food, is it a folly to claim Y's life is more pleasurable than x's?"
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Ronald Warrick OK, if a neutral state is the absence of both pain and pleasure, and Epicurus denies the possibility of such a state, then the mere absence of pain is not sufficient for pleasure. There must be actual positive pleasure. But it is also true that pleasure must follow from removal of pain, because, again, there is no neutral state. I think this becomes clear when we look at how we actually go about removing pain - by eating, by drinking, having sex, etc., positive pleasures all.
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Ilkka Vuoristo Menoeceus 128.
"He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all o...See More
Unlike · Reply · 3 · September 18 at 12:48am

Ronald Warrick I guess what we are both saying is that absence of pain and presence of pleasure are not a dichotomy. They go hand in hand. So to say that one or the other or both are THE goal is rather unnecessary. They are just two ways of describing the same phenomenon.
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AH Another way to understand this, "limit of pleasure is the absence of pain" bit is to get back to particle physics.
Analogy....See More
Unlike · Reply · 3 · September 18 at 6:05pm · Edited

Elli Pensa AH my friend, you left me astonished and speechless !

Can we assume that "the surface area" is our body and soul ?...See More
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AH Almost. Not exactly right. Lucretius spells it out correctly. I have to travel now. Will be back in five or six hours...
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AH The sensors are connected to the nervous system (the soul). The soul consists of the nerves and the brain (the mind). The sensors transmits images that are "true to proportion", and the brain receives those, interprets those, and adds biases (opinions) that have been naturally selected and/or learned and/or mis-learned.
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Cassius Amicus AH I agree that there is a good analogy here between pleasure/pain and the space relationship between bodies and void. However I suppose there are limits to the analogy in the same way that we see the trouble with saying that pleasure "is" the absence of pain - we are looking at pleasure and pain, and bodies and void, in only one respect, which I think is "quantity." Of course pleasure and pain and bodies and void (at least bodies) have many other qualities besides "quantity." Is that not the real problem we are running into, that "X is absence of Y" is in one respect only (quantity)? And that the stumbling block is that people are not recognizing that we are talking only in one respect, and not even attempting to give a full overview of the topic?

When we say the word "orange" in the context of describing the fruit, we know what we are talking about because we know the orange-colored fruit that grows on trees. But if we did not know what that fruit was, the word "orange" would tell us about it only in respect to its color, and leave us totally in the dark as to its other qualities.

That's what we seem to be doing here. Epicurus is concerned about quantity and quality because the existing philosophical discussion about the goal of life requires that discussion (the goal is thought to be something that cannot be increased or purified). And the "X is absence of Y" or "we only need X when Y is present" is terminology that derives from that quantity/quality context, presuming that we understand that the pleasures and pains involved are real and have many other attributes BESIDES their quantity and quality.
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AH I have to travel now. I will come back in about five hours.
In short I took a quantitative experiment/observe approach because Epicurus told us that was the method he used.

"Nature requires that we resolve all these matters by measuring and reasoning..."
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Daniel Bachmann Thank you Cassius Amicus I only read the inital text you wrote and it is exactly what I believe too, that pleasure cannot just be confined to the absence of pain. I read the letter to Menoeceus many times and if I read the document as a whole, broadly costrued, without focussing on narrow literal interpretation of individual sentences I arrive at the same conclusions. If anybody is in doubt, just think about the welcome sign above the school which cleary states that here our greatest good is pleasure otherwise it would say the absence of pain is our greatest good.
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Eric Sherman 'Absence of pain' entails an absence of anxiety and if epicureans don't understand that most of Epicurus', Lucretius' and Lucians' attempts are exactly to free man of his anxieties then I fear that much here is of little value. Yes, active pleasures are also much of Epicureanism. I'm harping on this issue because it is so much of Epicurean that to not understand it is to not understand much of Epicurus' program
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Hiram Crespo I think part of the issue is that (in my view) philosophy requires certain training, and part of the idea is that we should TRAIN OUR MINDS to be in pleasant abiding when not experiencing active pleasures. A non Epicurean will most easily experience these as neutral states, but there is an art of living, a regimen, that we apply to being aware of katastematic pleasure. This includes the practice of gratitude and (controversially) may have included religious techniques in antiquity, because E said that through piety we can train ourselves to constantly experience "unalloyed, effortless pleasure"..
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Eric Sherman Why free man from death, religion, superstitions, and false beliefs --primarily what Epicurus, Lucretius and Lucian spend countless pages doing if it were not to free man of anxiety?
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Cassius Amicus And we would not have that either I don't understand why you think we cannot have both! ??
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Eric Sherman That 'mental training' in my view is to apply wisdom and sober reasoning to the things that cause man terror. Take Lucretius, what is his aim? To provide a natural account of phenomena that man is prone to supernaturalize which causes terror, angst, fear, control, etc.

Sober reasoning is not for itself. It is to provide mankind freedom from fear. Is that not pleasurable? It is.
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Elli Pensahttps://www.facebook.com/groups/EpicureanPhilosophy/permalink/1089386984443594/

‎Elli Pensa‎ to Epicurean PhilosophySeptember 18 at 2:23pm ·
So, send us some offering for the care of our SACRED BODY, on your own behalf and that of the children. (Epicurus)
===========================================
4: The Despisers of the Body - Thus spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche
To the despisers of the body I speak my word. I wish them neither to learn afresh, nor teach anew, but only to bid farewell to their own bodies, -- and thus become silent.
"Body am I, and soul" -- so says the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened one, the knowing one, says: "Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something about the body."
The body is a great wisdom, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.
An instrument of your body is also your small wisdom, my brother, which you call "mind"-- a little instrument and toy of your great wisdom.
"I," you say, and are proud of that word. But the greater thing -- in which you are unwilling to believe -- is your body with its great wisdom; that does not say "I," but does "I."
What the sense feels, what the mind knows, never has its end in itself. But sense and mind would rather persuade you that they are the end of all things: so vain are they.
Instruments and toys are sense and mind: behind them there is still the Self. The Self seeks with the eyes of the senses, it listens also with the ears of the mind.
Always the Self listens and seeks; it compares, masters, conquers, and destroys. It rules, and is also the mind's ruler.
Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage -- it is called Self; it dwells in your body, it is your body.
There is more wisdom in your body than in your best wisdom. And who then knows why your body needs precisely your best wisdom?
Your Self laughs at your mind, and its bold leaps. "What are these leaps and flights of thought to me?" it says to itself. "A detour to my end. I hold the puppet-strings of the mind, and am the prompter of its notions."
The Self says to the mind: "Feel pain!" Then the mind suffers, and thinks how it may put an end to its suffering -- and that is why it is made to think.
The Self says to the mind: "Feel pleasure!" Then the mind is pleased, and thinks how it may be pleased again -- and that is why it is made to think.
I want to speak to the despisers of the body. Their contempt is caused by their respect. What is it that created respect and contempt and worth and will?
The creating Self created for itself respect and contempt, it created for itself pleasure and pain. The creative body created the mind as a hand for its will.
Even in your folly and contempt you each serve your Self, you despisers of the body. I tell you, your very Self wants to die, and turns away from life.
No longer can your Self do that which it desires most: -- create beyond itself. That is what it desires most; that is its fervent wish.
But it is now too late to do so: -- so your Self wishes to perish, you despisers of the body.
To perish -- so wishes your Self; and therefore you have become despisers of the body. For you can no longer create beyond yourselves.
And that is why you are angry with life and the earth. An unconscious envy is in the sidelong glance of your contempt.
I do not go your way, you despisers of the body! You are no bridges to the Overman!
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Elli Pensa Sober reasoning IS NOT A SITUATION TO EMPTY THE CUP OF PLEASURES!
Sober reasoning HAS FEELINGS too !
First the body feels and then the mind decides what the heck the body has felt....See More
Unlike · Reply · 2 · September 18 at 2:48pm

Ronald Warrick I believe it is well established that an anxious mind senses pain more intensely, to the point where a tranquil mind can tolerate much pain, as Epicurus did in his last days.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · September 18 at 3:05pm · Edited

Elli Pensa Ronald hi ! Please, do you agree with the above argument that there is any possibility to empty the cup of pleasures (feelings) ? Give me the meaning of the words "anxious mind" in accordance to this VS 33 "The flesh cries out to be saved from hunger, thirst, and cold. For if a man possess this safety and hope to possess it, he might rival even Zeus in bliss". I think also that in accordance to the algorithm of the desires by Epicurus the mind won't be so anxious for living.
You said, and I agree with you that "an anxious mind senses pain more intensely, to the point where a tranquil mind can tolerate much pain, as Epicurus did in his last days". But it is well established too that Epicurus tolerate much pain since he remembered the PLEASURABLE moments of the discussions that had had with his friends.

Our issue was to empty that cup, if I am not mistaken.

Cassius Amicus
September 20 at 11:11pm

Once again on PD3: "3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together."
It seems to me that the second sentence in particular, and in fact PD3 as a whole, are generally considered to be hard to understand. That is probably a factor in why there is a temptation to abbreviate it as "what's good is easy to get" which may be true but seems off from the point in issue.

But consider whether this excerpt from Gorgias may explain the point in issue:

SOCRATES: There is pleasure in drinking?
CALLICLES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: When you are thirsty?
SOCRATES: And in pain?
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Do you see the inference:—that pleasure and pain are simultaneous, when you say that being thirsty, you drink? For are they not simultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part, whether of the soul or the body?—which of them is affected cannot be supposed to be of any consequence: Is not this true?
CALLICLES: It is.
SOCRATES: You said also, that no man could have good and evil fortune at the same time?
CALLICLES: Yes, I did.
SOCRATES: But you admitted, that when in pain a man might also have pleasure?
CALLICLES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then pleasure is not the same as good fortune, or pain the same as evil fortune, and therefore the good is not the same as the pleasant....

Referring back to PD3, does not "when such pleasure is present...there is no pain...." explicitly answer Socrates objection by pointing out when the vessel is full of pleasure, and all pain has been ejected, pleasure and pain are at that point NOT simultaneous?

And does this not explain and constitute an explicit statement that the highest good is to have the vessel totally filled with pleasure and completely emptied of pain, because at that point the experience is totally pure and unadulterated, which is a requirement for anything to be considered the highest good?
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Cassius Amicus I suppose one can be VERY thirsty, and drink a little, still want a lot more. Socrates will use that to say that the person is both thirsty and feeling relief at the same time, and that because he has set up a series of definitions that says good and bad cannot coexist as a mixture, the pleasure of drinking (and pleasure itself) cannot be "the good."' So the issue of how to respond to these dialectal games is unfortunately important.

Cassius Amicus

September 22 at 9:17am
Someone (I think Theo Kouk; pardon if I am incorrect) recently criticized Socrates/Plato for asserting that wisdom and pleasure could be separated from one another. Here is the way that argument was presented in Philebus, which also shows why Plato wanted to do it:
SOCRATES: Now let us part off the life of pleasure from the life of wisdom, and pass them in review.
PROTARCHUS: How do you mean?
SOCRATES: Let there be no wisdom in the life of pleasure, nor any pleasure in the life of wisdom, for if either of them is the chief good, it cannot be supposed to want anything, but if either is shown to want anything, then it cannot really be the chief good.
PROTARCHUS: Impossible.
If you grant Plato the presumption that something such as "wisdom" can exist apart from pleasure, then you have already lost the argument. That's because Plato is asserting that wisdom exists "on its own" or "in the air" or however you want to say it, Th Epicurean answer should be "full stop" at that point without letting the argument go further. The burden is on Plato to prove the nonexistent, and it is ridiculous to grant him that "wisdom" has a separate existence at the beginning. Because if we look at nature and observe that the only faculty of choice given to all animals is pleasure and pain, then you have eliminated any kind of abstraction such as "wisdom" as a third goal.
And so once we see the necessity of not stipulating that any abstract goal exists separate from pleasure, does that not further explain PD5? "It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life."
"Wisdom" and "honor" and "justice" do not exist on their own, apart from pleasure. They do not happen to mystically be united with pleasure by some outside force, which is what the "Stoicizers" want to argue. When we remember that pleasure and pain, in all their many forms but still as pleasure and pain, are the only two motivations given by nature, then we see that "Wisdom" and "honor" and "justice" have no separate existence, but only as terms to describe certain specific relationships that support pleasure in a particular time and place among particular people.

Elli Pensa

September 22 at 11:31am
Doctrine 7. For the sake of feeling confidence and security in regard to other men, some men wish to be eminent and powerful, failing to remember the limits of kingly power. If such men happen to achieve a life of safety, then they have attained their goal, which is a good. But if their lives are not in fact safe, they have failed in obtaining the goal for the sake of which they originally desired power, and that is the result that generally occurs according to Nature.
E.S. 67. A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs, yet it possesses all things in unfailing abundance; and if by chance it obtains many possessions, it is easy to distribute them so as to win the gratitude of neighbors.
E.S. 81. The disturbance of the soul cannot be ended nor true joy created either by the possession of the greatest wealth or by honor and respect in the eyes of the mob or by anything else that is associated with or caused by unlimited desire.
==========================================
"Darius", by C.P. Cavafy
The poet Phernazes is at work
upon an important passage in his epic poem;
how the Kingdom of Persia
is secured by Darius, son of Hystaspes
(from whom is descended our glorious king
Mithradates Dionysus Eupator).
The passage is philosophic. He has to describe
the feelings that animated Darius:
“arrogance” perhaps and “exultation”; or no—
more probably a sense of the vanity of human greatness.
The poet is meditating deeply on his theme.
Running in, his servant interrupts him,
and brings a most serious piece of news.
The war with the Romans has begun.
Our army in full force has crossed the frontier.
The poet is speechless. What a misfortune!
How will our glorious king
Mithradates Dionysus Eupator
find time to listen to Greek poetry now?
In the middle of a war —Greek poetry, indeed!
Phernazes is in despair. Alas, alas!
His “Darius” was certain to bring him fame
and silence once for all those envious detractors.
What a set-back, what a set-back to his plans!
Were it only a set-back, no matter,
but shall we be quite safe at Amisus?
The city walls are none of the strongest,
the Romans are most terrible enemies.
Can we hold our own against them,
we Cappadocians? Is it likely?
Can we make a stand against the legions?
Help! Help! O ye Great Gods, protectors of Asia, defend us.
Yet through all his distress and anxiety
the poetic obsession still comes and goes;
surely “arrogance” and “exultation” are more probable;
yes, “arrogance” and “exultation” were the feelings that animated Darius.
Analysis of the poem “Darius”, by C.P. Cavafy
The poet Phernazes is concerned to write an epic poem for Darius thinking what position he should keep on the way that he took the power. Does he write honestly what happened (Darius killed his brother to reap the power) assigning arrogance and drunkenness of power and displease the current king Mithridates, as he considered descendant of Darius, or embellish the reality in order to win the favor of the king ?
He decides to become likeable to Mithridates and reap the benefit of its own priorities as a poet. Thus, it is an opportunistic and selfish driven by his own personal interest. A slimy flatterer who is "selling out" and even his art to secure the favor of the powerful king and to be grown among his competitors, the other poets . Even though he learns that the war was starting, he does not lament, for the evil that finds his country, but only just because his plans were canceled.
However, the poet Phernazes will change his attitude when he would realize the change of historical and real circumstances. The initial disappointment at the cancellation of his poetic projects succeeded by uncertainty of the fate of the city but also of his own. He considers now that the city of Amisus is not a sufficiently fortified city and the Romans are the most terrible enemies. His agitation from fear, and as his despair is been escalated, he invokes the gods ("gods, great protectors of Asia, defend us"). From this point we conclude that his Asian descent prevails in his thought, while his Greek culture has been marginalized. The Cavafy irony discharges the dramatic intensity of the lyrics.
"The poetic idea comes and goes despite the turmoil and trouble.
The defeat and the end of Mithridates is near; and now Phernazes will decide without fear, to serve his poetic art from the path of truth (perhaps thinking that with this, he will win the favor of the Romans who now are taking the power in his conquered country) Thus, Phernazes is honest when the new world order will entrain him just we to understand this honesty as alignment with this new order.
However Phernazes becomes poet again influenced by the war climate, and he adjusts his poetic thought. In such crucial times of agitation and poor reflective of thought "like an understanding of the vanity of greatness" does not match, while the attribution of arrogance and drunkenness of power fit and to Darius ; and to Mithridates ; and to the Romans and all executers of an arrogant power.
Cavafy seems to believe that the poetic activity can not be suspended, even under such adverse conditions; when the poetic practice can be adapted, influenced by the surrounding historical and social facts.

Cassius Amicus
September 20 at 10:32am

THE LEAKY CASK HYPOTHETICAL: In Gorgias, Socrates sets up the following hypo by which he seeks to prove that the better life is one without desire. Callicles disagrees, but Socrates slants the arguments in his own favor by disparaging pleasure as "scratching an itch" and the like. I think it would be helpful to discuss: "What else should Callicles have explained, and what presumptions of Socrates should he have rejected, in order to show that Socrates' analogy is ineffective as an argument against pleasure? Would it have been helpful for Callicles to have said: "But honey and wine aren't the kind of pleasures we are talking about Socrates, pleasure is the absence of pain, so we restrain our desires and we don't fill our casks with anything!" Would that have been a helpful answer?

SOCRATES: Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out of the same school:—Let me request you to consider how far you would accept this as an account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in a figure:—There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives:—And now would you say that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the truth?

CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx.

SOCRATES: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the holes must be large for the liquid to escape.

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead man, or of a stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that he is to be hungering and eating?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?

CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.

SOCRATES: Capital, excellent; go on as you have begun, and have no shame; I, too, must disencumber myself of shame: and first, will you tell me whether you include itching and scratching, provided you have enough of them and pass your life in scratching, in your notion of happiness?

Cassius Amicus It seems to be a common technique that the best way to attack "pleasure" is to talk as if pleasure="scratching your nose" or the like, and to contrast it with something high-brow like "reading literature" so as to imply that pleasure is always embarrassing and high-brow is always admirable. But this hides the fact that the reason we pursue the highbrow (art, etc) is the pleasure that it gives us, not because there is something "good" about it in itself.

And so the attack frequently turns to dividing "good pleasures" against "bad pleasures," and in order to know the difference you have to have some standard other than pleasure itself. So THAT standard becomes the highest good.

So anytime there is discussion of "good pleasures" and "bad pleasures" you can bet that pleasure in general is going to come out the loser.

Cassius Amicus Also "but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care about them." This obscures the question of why the person filled them in the first place - as if "god told him too" or something was the cause. But the question is "why were the casks filled in the first place" and "to what use are the contents of the cask being employed"?

No wonder these guys are so fond of "infinite indivisibility." Their favorite technique is to apply artificial/abstract divisions and then act as if those divisions were handed down by god, or exist in themselves, and then those divisions become more important than the reality that is being divided.

If you give into the suggestion that the artificial divisions have a reality in themselves then the dialectical game is lost.

Cassius Amicus "- moderation in all things is the true way to happiness. " No I would politely but strongly disagree! The issue of investigating the "greatest good" makes some degree of sense in that we are looking for the standard by which to guide our lives. If there is one contestant for that standard that miserably fails in every respect, it is "moderation" because that never gives you any idea of the direction your want to go - it just advises us to stay in the middle and never take a position on anything being better than anything else. We frequently see "moderation" cited here as a proper goal but I see nothing in Epicurus that sanctions that and much that opposes it. Once we decide what the guide/goal is, in my view we should use very bit of our strength to achieve it.

Cassius Amicus I think that's the point, Michael, that Socrates is making in saying that whatever our goal is, it must have limit, because if you can't achieve it then your life will be constant frustration. So therefore it is important to decide how to meet the objection. One way to set a goal that can be met is to drastically limit one's goal to pure survival, and then one can be happy that one is surviving. That's essentially what the Stoics advise, but is that what Epicurus advised? A thousand times no! "VS63. 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."

So the argument is an important one, and it demands a response, and Epicurus gave it in the form of the limit of pleasure being the elimination of all pain. But by sleight of hand ("absence of pain is all you need to know!") our Stoic friends turn Epicurus' answer into the elimination of pleasure itself!

RW VS63 there doesn't sound too different from "moderation in all things". What am I missing?

Cassius Amicus NO! Why does one shoot for the middle? Why would one shoot for any less pleasure than is available without an undue penalty in pain? Everyone's circumstances are going to be different, and the amount of pleasure they can reach is going to be di...See More
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Cassius Amicus Ronald Warrick I would appreciate any further comments you have that would help us all get a handle on the issue of the "limit of pleasure." I very much want to improve my description of this issue because I believe it is so important to what Epicurus discussed and why he said it. I agree totally that the issue seems very unimportant (at least to us today) and therefore it is confusing at best to discuss it.

But apparently the ancient Greeks thought that it was a killer argument to say "the greatest good must have an upper limit / be achievable in full / be measurable as complete / be pure / be full." And if you step back and put yourself in this world where syllogisms and formulas are everything, and words can become almost sacred in meaning, then the argument can make some sense. After all, if you want to say that a thing is "the highest" or "the best" then you can never admit that something else could be "higher" or "better." And so your highest and best therefore has to be defined as a quantity (complete) or a quality (pure) which cannot be improved.

Plato and his Stoic descendants therefore took the position that words like "moral worth" and "virtue" are complete in themselves, and got comfortable with it, just like we are comfortable in saying a "full glass of water" can't hold anything else.

And so any philosophical school which was going to oppose Plato and the Stoics, and which wanted to argue that "Pleasure" and not "virtue" or "moral worth" as the goal, had to show that pleasure does indeed have this quality of having a "limit" beyond which nothing could be higher or better. So how does Epicurus answer them? By using the flask / leaky flask analogy to illustrate that a life of pleasure does indeed have a point of fullness / completeness / highest capacity and purity. And that point is reached not by draining the flask until it is empty of pleasure (asceticism) nor by constantly pouring in new pleasures once the flask is full (that would be wasteful).

So this analogy / illustration answers the Platonists by providing a description of the goal of life which does "have a limit." I am beginning to detest that word "limit" because it has so many connotations in English that are negative, but we can also use more positive terms like "fullness" of "completeness" to show that the analogy makes a lot of sense.

And to repeat once more, if the goal is a flask full of pleasure that is not leaking and does not need replenishing, then your goal is not to seek "moderation" (fill the flask half full???) but to intelligently choose ones actions so that the flask does indeed become full of pleasure, (physical and mental pleasures as we ordinarily understand the word), which has been obtained without creating conditions of undue pain or expectation of pain. That's where Torquatus correctly emphasizes that:

"The Ends of Goods and Evils themselves, that is, pleasure and pain, are not open to mistake; ***where people go wrong is in not knowing what things are productive of pleasure and pain.***" All pleasure is desirable and all pain is undesirable, so actions have to be chosen solely on the criteria of what those actions produce. Sometimes "moderation" may in fact be the proper choice, but often choosing "the middle" is of no logical relationship at all to the desired goal of filling the flask with pleasure while eliminating pain or at least keeping it to a minimum.

This issue divides fans of Epicurus probably more than any other. Any illustrations, charts, diagrams, analogies, etc that we can use to make it more clear would be tremendously helpful.

Cassius Amicus Presuming "you" refers to me, Michael Stibbs, it is Plato who is trying to reduce the argument against pleasure to a formula, and Epicurus who realized that there was a need to be able to refute the argument. Torquatus: "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."

I fully agree with Epicurus that an elaborate argument is not necessary, but the circumstances of the world are that the Platonic approach has been entrenched for 2000 years, and those who are trained in these issues are taught that the Platonic "limits" argument is correct, so it must be answered, just as Epicurus did.

What's worse than that is that Epicurus' explanation, tailored to show the fallacy of the Platonic approach, has been taken out of that context and twisted into an argument for asceticism (absence of pain as the statement of the goal). A seemingly logical but out of context interpretation now undermines the whole Epicurean approach. The only way to undo the damage, prevent the twisting, and move things back in the right direction is to dig back into the context of 300BC to understand why things were said in the way they were.

MS Yes I agree. Its very hard though to step away from the formulaistic approach which we have all been taught to think in. But what do I know? I am just a humble lawyer. Plato I found fascinating as a boy because I was looking for rational certainties. As I grew older I realised that such certainies are just as much a myth as the divinities of the ancient world.

Elli Pensa
hi! I wonder how someone could find rational certainties in Plato, when Plato is famous that he based the most of his works on myths ? And I also wonder why all the ancient greek world is reflected only to Plato ? If there was a possibility to be taught in school for Epicurus and his philosophy, won't someone find some of the same certainties you were looking for ? Thanks !

Elli Pensa

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Elli Pensa

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Elli Pensa

"Without pleasure, not even the life of the gods is enviable." Simonides (Greek lyric poet c. 500 BC)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…93375460711413/

In further support of interpreting Epicurus' teachings to mean that life will be generally pleasurable (in an understandably pleasurable kind of way) when pain is absent, I think we can cite the following from Theophrastus, who cataloged the various Greek opinions on the senses, and included pleasure and pain in the discussion. This of course was prior to Epicurus, and as it seems consistent with the rest of Epicurean doctrine it is reasonable to think that Epicurus would have incorporated explanations like this in his own positions: "For as a rule we take pleasure in things, and perception itself is something sought by us, apart from any desire we might have for the particular <object perceived>" Here is the full context with several important points:

https://archive.org/details/theophrastusgree00stra

Thank you A!

Cassius Amicus 09-19-2016 0 Comments
Peace and Safety to the Epicureans of today, no matter where you might be - Happy Twentieth! It is my view that one of the most important things we can do to better understand Epicurus is to study the majority opinion of the leading philosophers who came before him. Epicurus would have done so himself, and prepared his doctrines in response to them and to vaccinate his students against the errors of those who found "the good" in something other than the faculty given to us by Nature for choice: pleasure. There are a number of key sources by which we can determine the issues that confronted Epicurus, and among the most important of them are the works of Plato (especially Gorgias, Philebus, and Timaeus). As a secondary source we can also refer to the summaries compiled later by Cicero in "On Ends." Over time I hope to go through these in detail, and link to the responses in the Epicurean texts, but for this post I have only been able to start - this time with a brief outline of major points of relevance made by Plato in Gorgias. Here we find a number of Plato's main attacks on pleasure. These very same arguments would have been before Epicurus, and he must have been compelled time and again to address them. For this post I only have time to provide a list of references to locations where the points are made in the text. Given what we know of Plato's own opinions and goals, whenever we see points like these being made, we should be suspicious that they constitute the bricks in the wall mainstream philosophy has erected against Epicurean doctrines:

• Socrates' Definition of "flattery"
• Everything is either good or evil or indifferent (a neutral state)
• The Greatest Evil is Doing Injustice
• A thing is good when just and evil when unjust.
• Good people are happy and evil people are miserable.
• The unjust are more miserable if they are not punished.
• The beautiful as the standard.
• He who is punished suffers what is good.
• Evil in the soul is the most disgraceful thing
• Injustice and intemperance are the greatest of evils
• Justice gives the greatest pleasure.
• Injustice is the greatest of evils
• To suffer punishment is to be released from evil.
• To do wrong and not be punished is the greatest evil.
• The better is the wiser.
• The leaky cask analogy.
• It is shameful not to distinguish between good and bad pleasures.
• Pleasure is not good because it requires pain (drinking requires thirst)
• Good is not the same as pleasant and pain is not the same as evil.
• All actions are done for the sake of the good.
• Pleasure ought to be sought for the sake of the good.
• It is agreed that good and pleasure are different.
• Order is good and disorder is evil.
• Health is regular order of the body (harmony)
• Restraint is better for the soul than intemperance.
• The good man must be temperate and just.
• To do evil is worse for the doer than to suffer evil for sufferer.
• To advocate pursuit of pleasure is vulgar flattery.
• Good men should try to make other citizens as good as possible - not please them.
• No man becomes good by pursuing pleasure.
• After death we will be judged according to our virtue.

I hope you find this list of links useful, as thinking about the Epicurean response to each of these would be a great exercise. ________ As Seneca recorded: Sic fac omnia tamquam spectet Epicurus! So do all things as though watching were Epicurus! And as Philodemus wrote: “I will be faithful to Epicurus, according to whom it has been my choice to live." Additional discussion of this post and other Epicurean ideas can be found at the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group and EpicureanFriends.com

Cassius Amicus
11 hrs

In one of the nearby threads there is an ongoing discussion of "absence of pain." Thanks to ES I was recently rereading Cicero's On Ends, and there is a passage there that those interested in this topic ought to know about. In this criticism of Epicurus by Cicero I think we can see that there is more going on than what meets the eye when people pull out a line that is translated as "By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul" and elevate it to imply that the ordinary definition of pleasure has been eradicated. Had this been true, Cicero could not have written the following (note particularly **as he in fact does**):

Cicero: "Had Epicurus cleared up the meaning of pleasure, he would not have fallen into such confusion. Either he would have upheld pleasure in the same sense as Aristippus, that is, an agreeable and delightful excitation of the sense, which is what even dumb cattle, if they could speak, would call pleasure; or, if he preferred to use an idiom of his own, instead of speaking the language of the Danaans one and all, men of Mycenae, Scions of Athens, and the rest of the Greeks invoked in these anapaests, he might have confined the name of pleasure to this state of freedom from pain, and despised pleasure as Aristippus understands it; or else, if he approved of both sorts of pleasure, as in fact he does, then he ought to combine together pleasure and absence of pain, and profess two ultimate Goods. Many distinguished philosophers have as a matter of fact thus interpreted the ultimate good as composite. For instance, Aristotle combined the exercise of virtue with well-being lasting throughout a complete lifetime; Callipho united pleasure with moral worth; Diodorus to moral worth added freedom from pain. Epicurus would have followed their example, had he coupled the view we are now discussing, which as it is belongs to Hieronymus, with the old doctrine of Aristippus. For there is a real difference of opinion between them, and accordingly each sets up his own separate End; and as both speak unimpeachable Greek, Aristippus, who calls pleasure the Chief Good, does not count absence of pain as pleasure, while Hieronymus, who makes the Chief Good absence of pain, never employs the name pleasure to denote this negation of pain, and in fact does not reckon pleasure among things desirable at all."

< --------------->

Whether or not you agree with my "full cup" argument as presented on my newepicurean.com page, it is clear from this passage that Cicero understood Epicurus to have embraced pleasure as ordinarily understood by all men, including Aristippus. It's a very important point also to see that Epicurus had rejected the position of Hieronymus, who according to Cicero had in fact erected "absence of pain" as the goal and specifically rejected ordinary pleasure in so doing. This passage shows that Epicurus would have been fully aware of this different arguments, and he clearly rejected the archtypical "absence of pain" argument, or Cicero would have explained how Epicurus and Hieronymus were the same.

So while we have to make an educated guess at the truth, in the absence of Epicurus' own words explaining this, whatever theory we follow cannot eject "ordinary pleasure" from the good / end of life, or else we end up embracing Hieronymus, who Epicurus rejected.

Personally, I think the key to unlocking this is to realize that Epicurus was dealing with an existing battlefield of ideas that included not only Hieronymus and Aristippus but Plato and others who employed the "limits" argument to argue that pleasure could not be the goal of life as it (in their view) has no limit. In order to meet this argument, Epicurus had to show that pleasure *does* have a limit, so he pointed out that the pleasures of life cannot be increased beyond our capacity to experience them, and our capacity to experience more pleasure is gone when we fill our experience with pleasure and succeed in ejecting all pain from our experience. There's nothing extraordinary about this state of pure pleasure that results - no new or unusual type of pleasure is involved - but being able to identify this theoretical state as possible essential for meeting the Platonic argument that the highest good must have a limit. {Note: In Epicurean theory this state is not only possible, but actual -- at least for "gods." One way of stating our goal in life is that we work toward the goal of becoming "gods among men."}

It seems to me that is why the "absence of pain" passage is there, and this also explains the similar reference that we have no need of [further] pleasure when all pain has been eliminated.

But I readily confess that the letter to Menoecus can appear to us to be confusing. But I also suggest that the letter as written was *not* confusing to Menoeceus, because any student of Epicurus in 300 BC would have been fully familiar with the existing anti-pleasure majority position. Any educated Epicurean reading the letter would instantly have understood it as a complete refutation of the anti-pleasure/pain position, and an explanation of why the other philosophers were wrong. Our disability is that we no longer have the instant recognition of the anti-pleasure arguments. But that is something that those of us in this group and elsewhere who support Epicurean philosophy can work to remedy.
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ES
ES "The pleasure we pursue is not that kind alone which directly affects our physical being with a delightful feeling,—a positively agreeable perception of the senses; on the contrary, the greatest pleasure according to us is that which is experienced as a result of the complete removal of pain. When we are released from pain, the mere sensation of complete emancipation and relief from uneasiness is in itself a source of gratification. But everything that causes gratification is a pleasure (just as everything that causes annoyance is a pain). Therefore the complete removal of pain has correctly been termed a pleasure. For example, when hunger and thirst are banished by food and drink, the mere fact of getting rid of uneasiness brings a resultant pleasure in its train. So generally, the removal of pain causes pleasure to take its place. Epicurus consequently maintained that there is no such thing as a neutral state of feeling intermediate between pleasure and pain; for the state supposed by some thinkers to be neutral, being characterized as it is by entire absence of pain, is itself, he held, a pleasure, and, what is more, a pleasure of the highest order. A man who is conscious of his condition at all must necessarily feel either pleasure or pain. But complete absence of pain Epicurus considers to be the limit and highest point of pleasure; beyond this point pleasure may vary in kind, but it cannot vary in intensity or degree."

-Torquatus
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus Yes, that's the passage in issue. No doubt it was written by Epicurus for an important purpose, but that purpose could not reasonably have been to upend and invert everything else he had previously taught about pleasure. Just like a contract in a court of law, or interpretation of a statute, if there is a way to harmonize the totality to give effect to every provision of what is written, that is the way to the preferred conclusion - at least as long as we think that the writer was a consistent thinker!
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus And that is exactly what Cicero, lawyer that he is, refuses to do - which is the technique of a lawyer seeking victory over his opponent, not someone who is trying to harmonize words that may seem to conflict, but do not in fact conflict when read in a certain way.
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ES
ES So are you arguing that the pleasure in which Epicurus promoted was something more or different than absence of emotional and physical pain? If so how is pleasure different and why is it important and can you show me textual evidence please.
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EB
EB Pleasure is not the abscence of pain. However, absence of pain is the highest limit of pleasure.
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EB
EB In my understanding of Epicurus
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ES
ES I'm sorry that just doesn't make sense to me.
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ES
ES I'd also like to point out that pleasure as I understand Epicurus is predominantly absence of EMOTIONAL Pain. It's apparent that tetrapharmakon is about easing all forms of anxiety-gods, death, sustenance and pain
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EB
EB I meant that there are different forms of pleasure. To say pleasure is the absence of pain would mean there aren't other forms of pleasure that aren't the absence of pain, which would be false. The distinguishing characteristic of pleasure as an absence of pain is that it doesn't get better than that.
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus I agree with this statement largely, but the "it" in "it doesn't get any better than that" still leaves a little wiggle room for ambiguity."
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Cassius Amicus
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ES
ES Right, but I'd like to see where Epicurus defines it as such
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ES
ES I think I have far weightier evidence
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EB
EB 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 revelry, not sexual lust, 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 tumults take possession of the soul.
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EB
EB " By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul."
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ES
ES Yes and even more that it is sober reasoning that BANISHES beliefs that cause anxiety !
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ES
ES What are those false beliefs? Superstitions, religion, Malevolent and intervening gods, that life and basic goods are hard to procure and that pain is difficult to bear.
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus I think this is well stated EB: "I meant that there are different forms of pleasure. To say pleasure is the absence of pain would mean there aren't other forms of pleasure that aren't the absence of pain, which would be false." Even in philosophy classes the "replenishment theory is acknowledged to be incomplete. Were we in pain from not smelling a rose before we smelled the rose? Was that smelling not a substantive pleasure? Yes, removal of pain is pleasurable, and provides space for pleasure as we ordinarily understand all its mental and physical variations, to fill in. But just like matter and void are opposites with real properties of their own, pleasure has a real existence with real positive properties, and these are not described by saying "absence of pain" any more than matter is sufficiently described as "absence of void."

Also, Eric, while mental pleasures and pains are held to be more intense than physical ones, I think there is no reason to think that Epicurus was focused on one at the expense of the other
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus Eric what is a positive description of what you think is being described as "absence of pain." in this case, simply saying "that's pleasure" would be thought by most people (in my view) to be playing a word game, so what positive substantive definition would you give of that experience?
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ES
ES I'm not disagreeing that pleasure is varied and positive. I'm just arguing that Epicurus defined it as an absence of emotional pain. I'd like to see textual evidence that Epicurus meant something more than what he said
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IV
IV Menoeceus 131:
"By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul."
Both the body and mind need to be pain-free for there to be a total lack of pain. If either one is in pain, the absence isn't complete.
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EP
EP Cassius, Ilkka, Hiram and friends, Epicurus is so clear to understand what he is saying and means in Menoeceus 131 : <<When we say that pleasure is the goal of life we mean ..."AND TO NOT" [=in greek he uses the word "μήτε" ] ACHING THE BODY “AND ΤΟ ΝΟΤ” DISTURBING THE SOUL>>. Where did the translators find the word "ABSENCE" ?? There is not such a meaning in the text “that pleasure, as the goal of life, is the absence of pain”. This description of what is the GOAL, is not accurate in any way and at all.

The ancient greek text from Menoeceus 131 Ὅταν οὖν λέγωμεν ἡδονὴν τέλος ὑπάρχειν͵ οὐ τὰς τῶν ἀσώτων ἡδονὰς καὶ τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας λέγομεν͵ ὥς τινες ἀγνοοῦντες καὶ οὐχ ὁμολογοῦντες ἢ κακῶς ἐκδεχόμενοι νομίζουσιν͵ ἀλλὰ τὸ **μήτε** ἀλγεῖν κατὰ σῶμα **μήτε** ταράττεσθαι κατὰ ψυχήν.

New greek : Όταν, λοιπόν, υποστηρίζουμε ότι ο σκοπός της ζωής είναι η ηδονή, δεν εννοούμε τις ηδονές των ασώτων και τις αισθησιακές απολαύσεις, όπως από άγνοια ορισμένοι νομίζουν, και επειδή διαφωνούν μαζί μας ή παρερμηνεύουν αυτά που λέμε, αλλά εννοούμε το να μη πονά το σώμα και να μην ταράσσεται η ψυχή.

And in english : Thus, when we say that the goal of life is pleasure, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal and sensual pleasures, such of an ignorance some think, and because they disagree with us or misinterpret what we say, but we mean and to not aching the body and not disturbing the soul.
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Epicurus uses two times the word “μήτε» «AND TO NOT». And he uses this negative conjunction of “μήτε» , because he wants to "conjunct" SIMILAR TERMS or SIMILAR SENTENCES. Since, it is similar "and to not" aching the BODY "and to not" disturbing THE SOUL. SOUL AND BODY is the similar issue.See Translation
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EP
EP Yes, Epicurus tried to give a description what is "pleasure", because it is well known this word , as the goal of life, WAS, IS AND WILL BE misinterpreted and misunderstood TOTALLY. I am sorry but we realize Epicurus was forced to describe the BIG PIC...See More
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EB
EB I believe part of the reason absence of pain was very important for Epicurus was that it set the limit to the good we called "pleasure." If pleasure was just some positive thing, then adding more pleasure would always be possible, but by saying pleasure is the absence of pain it is implied that the limit exists. And during that time the great good was expected to have some limit.
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus “It is observed too that in his treatise On the Ethical End he 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
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ES
ES That's fine. I find that acceptable. We can say that Epicurus defined pleasure as an absence of emotional and physical pain and additive and positive experiences mitigated by hedonic calculus
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus Well Eric here I think Ekshesh is focusing on a distinction that is very important. "Absence of ..." is not a susbstantive description of anything - it is a "limit" of something, but it is not a description of anything. So I cannot say that i agree that pleasure IS an "absence of pain" in any respect but in that of "measurement." Measurement of quantity or quality is of course significant, but it is far from a complete description of the thing being measured.
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus So in the end if someone is going to suggest that "pleasure" means something that we all experience ordinarily through our mind and senses, and that all of us recognize, then I would really like to know how that experience is to be defined. Because any description I can think of about a mental or physical state , even "wellbeing" is something I would say, well OK that is what everyone understands by pleasure and you are saying nothing new. It's only if someone could describe something totally out of the ordinary that we can't all immediately understand through experience that I would say would be cause for acknowledging that something unusual is being discussed.
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus And what really is at stake here, as I think many of us realize, is that stoicism and other philosophies are accused (rightly or wrongly) of seeking to suppress all emotion. And Epicurus is said to specifically have stated that the wise man feels emotion MORE deeply than others, not less, which is not tranqiility in the stoic sense..
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ES
ES The experience is defined by tranquility
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ES
ES And I acquiesce that there are additive pleasures
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ES
ES You would be in gross error to not understand that much of Epicurus is helping mankind be freed from anxieties
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus Oh I completely agree with that! I do agree that banishing anxiety is one of the huge aspects of the philosophy which is made necessary by many reasons, not the least of which is false religion and other philosophies. We are totally agreed there!
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ES
ES Cassius Amicus tranquility is the absence of mental pain
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ES
ES If we agree there id be happy
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ES
ES I just feel that both Stoics and Epicureans seem to dismiss or minimize this to detriment
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus ES I am not so sure of that Why do you believe it is so? Cannot an ocean be both powerful and calm at the same time?
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ES
ES You're not sure that Epicurus has anxieties in mind in much of what he addresses???
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus While we are discussing let me emphasize that I do consider calmness to be desirable! I am just not sure of all of the implications when people use the word tranqility, as that sounds too much like getting hit with a tranquilizer dart for me!
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ES
ES No no I understand your concern...
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ES
ES Epicurus again in his tetrapharmakon **IS** addressing anxieties and is aiming at peace of mind/tranquility/ataraxia
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus Yes I agree that relief from anxiety is a key goal, but I worry that relief from anxiety should never be read to be a complete statement of the goal, because I do believe life requires exertion to attain pleasure in the short time we are alive
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ES
ES Fair enough. I believe my reformulation in an earlier point entails both our concerns
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus Also while we are discussing this I need to emphasize that I acknowledge that there are many people in many situations for whom unloading mental anxieties is such an immense task that it seems like all that is needed, and I greatly sympathize and understand that - been there myself.
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus Without necessarily tagging anyone as the problem (well ok, I will tag many religions, but just not call any philosopher's names) I just always want to be aware of the ongoing campaign against pleasure as something that is dirty and disreputable and against gods will. That is a huge issue that will not go away as long as we live, unfortunately.....
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Cassius Amicus
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EB
EB I have 1 question thought. If the limit of pleasure is the absence of pain. If we have two people x and y. and both expereince no physical pain nor trouble of the soul, but y indulges in sex, listens to pleasurable music, eats tasty food, is it a folly to claim Y's life is more pleasurable than x's?
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IV
IV The absolute absence of pain cannot be more pain-free with additional pleasures. At that point the pleasures only vary. For example, person x will also eat food, and if it's nutritious it will be tasty.
Menoeceus 130: "Plain fare gives as much pleasure...See More
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EB
EB Happiness is a tricky word here though. One could experience much pain and still claim to have lived a happy life, according to the Stoics at least. Would that be a happy life for Epicurus?
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Cassius Amicus
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus A good question and this gets to the purity arguments. An experience of pure pleasure once pure can only be varied, but is not variation desirable when it is possible without pain? I think the answer here is related to how we would judge living 10 days as a "god among men" vs living 100 days. Given the choice I think it is clear that we would prefer to live 100 days, but the reason is not necessarily that the 100 days was "more pleasurable" in EVERY respect. The reason for the preference has to be carefully considered.
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus This is an excellent question EB and I can't "remember that we have discussed it recently. I think I will tag some of our other regulars like Hiram Crespo and AR and IV and EP to be sure they see this on and have a chance to comment if they like. "I have 1 question though. If the limit of pleasure is the absence of pain. If we have two people x and y. and both experience no physical pain nor trouble of the soul, but y indulges in sex, listens to pleasurable music, eats tasty food, is it a folly to claim Y's life is more pleasurable than x's?"
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RW
RW OK, if a neutral state is the absence of both pain and pleasure, and Epicurus denies the possibility of such a state, then the mere absence of pain is not sufficient for pleasure. There must be actual positive pleasure. But it is also true that pleasure must follow from removal of pain, because, again, there is no neutral state. I think this becomes clear when we look at how we actually go about removing pain - by eating, by drinking, having sex, etc., positive pleasures all.
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IV
IV Menoeceus 128.
"He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all o...See More
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RW
RW I guess what we are both saying is that absence of pain and presence of pleasure are not a dichotomy. They go hand in hand. So to say that one or the other or both are THE goal is rather unnecessary. They are just two ways of describing the same phenomenon.
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Cassius Amicus
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AR
AR Another way to understand this, "limit of pleasure is the absence of pain" bit is to get back to particle physics.
Analogy.

Particles/void in motion through space in time colliding with the spatial surface of a sensor.

For the sake of simple arithmetic we'll assume the sensor surface is fixed at 100. 100 units of surface area.

At every point in time that surface is occupied, with different proportions of particles and/or void.

If at some instant of time that sensor surface has 40 units of void occupying its surface, then what remains for particles is 60. The maximum of particles is determined by subtracting the void.

Now substitue:
1. pleasure for particle
2. pain for void
3. sensor surface for sensory orifice

How do we make more sensory surface available for particles, when we cannot change the sensor surface area?

By removing the void. The void occupies surface area as much as particles occupy surface area. If we want to fill the surface with 70 particles, at an instant of time, then we must reduce the void to 30.

Now let us suppose that the sensor surface was receiving 65 particles/35 void, for a long time, and so the surface shape due to collision reaction has stabilized, and is not changing. Let me repeat, the shape of the surface is not changing becaus it has been receiving collisions at the same rate for a long time. It sustains a shape that we can call the "65/35" shape.

Then suppose we suddenly decrease the flow rate to 55/45 and maintain that. How will the sensor respond?

The sensor surface will adjust its shape over some time, not suddenly, then it will assume a new shape. The span of time involved in that adjustment is a measure of the sensor's latency. The adjustment in shape over time, a measure if its reactivity at that rate.

Now suppose we smoothly increase the rate to 80/20. The shape of the surface of the sensor will once again adjust and settle on a new shape. A shape that we can associate to the new rate. The "80/20" shape.

In engineering terms we say that the sensor surface has a static response and a dynamic response. The static response depends on the rate and is revealed in its shape.

The dynamic response is revealed by the amount of latency involved in changing shape to accommodate a sudden change of rate. We call a sudden change of rate a pulse.

How else could we adjust the system? We can dampen the sensor, and then later undampen it.

Note that if we flow a rate of 99/1 we have a shape that can adjust up to 100/0 but not to more than that. In engineering we say the sensor has become saturated. It has reached its dynamic limit, and can only adjust down. Likewise if we flow a rate of 0/100 the shape can only adjust up, and not down.

Most sensors are most reactive, and most true to proportion in the middle of their range.
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EP
EP AR my friend, you left me astonished and speechless !

Can we assume that "the surface area" is our body and soul ?
And can we say it like this ? "when we say that pleasure is the goal, we mean that we feel it AS MUCH AS the pain is reducing ? Or we say it : "the more the pleasure we feel, so much more the pain is reducing" ? Did I understand correct this issue Alexander or not ?
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Cassius Amicus
Cassius Amicus AR I agree that there is a good analogy here between pleasure/pain and the space relationship between bodies and void. However I suppose there are limits to the analogy in the same way that we see the trouble with saying that pleasure "is" the absence of pain - we are looking at pleasure and pain, and bodies and void, in only one respect, which I think is "quantity." Of course pleasure and pain and bodies and void (at least bodies) have many other qualities besides "quantity." Is that not the real problem we are running into, that "X is absence of Y" is in one respect only (quantity)? And that the stumbling block is that people are not recognizing that we are talking only in one respect, and not even attempting to give a full overview of the topic?

When we say the word "orange" in the context of describing the fruit, we know what we are talking about because we know the orange-colored fruit that grows on trees. But if we did not know what that fruit was, the word "orange" would tell us about it only in respect to its color, and leave us totally in the dark as to its other qualities.

That's what we seem to be doing here. Epicurus is concerned about quantity and quality because the existing philosophical discussion about the goal of life requires that discussion (the goal is thought to be something that cannot be increased or purified). And the "X is absence of Y" or "we only need X when Y is present" is terminology that derives from that quantity/quality context, presuming that we understand that the pleasures and pains involved are real and have many other attributes BESIDES their quantity and quality.
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Cassius Amicus
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Torquatus, from "On Ends": "Those who place the Chief Good in virtue alone are beguiled by the glamour of a name, and do not understand the true demands of nature."

The fact that Epicurean philosophy rejects' Stoicism's fascination with the seductiveness of "virtue" is a major theme of Francis Wright's "A Few Days in Athens." Sometimes I think it is helpful to look the monster directly in the face so we can see the threat can be seen directly and identify it. Art can be very helpful in doing that. I woke up this morning thinking of examples of the "Virtue" mindset that might be appealing on first glance, and for some reason this clip comes to mind. Beautiful, or deadly, or both?

CA: I think that clip comes to mind as an illustration of this: "“True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, although neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal a part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or People, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly called punishment .” . .” — Marcus Tullius Cicero, Republic, The Laws, 59 – 47 B.C.

http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…amp;h=CAQEpRj4t

CA: How best to respond to the seductiveness of virtue and reason and logic as ends in themselves? I certainly don't think reason alone is the key - that would be very close to losing the war without fighting. The power of pleasure is not in reason or logic. If pleasure, which entails emotion, is the end of life, then pleasure and emotion are surely necessary for the defeat of the error of Stoic/Platonic "virtue" and "logic." Here is the most explicit artistic musical debate between the power of pleasure and the power of "virtue" that I am know about. Prevailing attitudes did not allow pleasure to win out in the story line, but I think pleasure clearly wins in the force of the performance, and the artist (Wagner) intended us to see that:

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…amp;h=bAQEGANFl

MC While like you I think it's incorrect, why does it necessarily entail being a Javert or other fanatic if you do believe it?"

CA: If one believes that there is only one truth, one way of life, one goal for all, then oppression and force and suppression of other points of view are baked in the cake. And ironically that will be pursued for the "best interest" of those who don't see it, just as Javert illustrates here, and just as Plato concluded with his elevation of the "golden" as Epicurus himself observed."}

MC Yet it seems the Epicureans too believe in universal truths (pleasure is the highest good, etc.) This does not mean they use force or oppression."}"

CA: Yes but the nature of that truth makes all the difference, as not stemming from a single source, but from the properties of the innumerable atoms. Without a single source of universal logic and reason that applies at all times and all places and to all people (reference the Cicero quote for the opposite point of view) Epicurean philosophy leads to justice that is the same for all only to the extent that it is conducive to the happiness of those concerned, and it is not the same for all people at all times and all places."}" class="UFILikeLink">Like · Reply · 9 hrs

MC Yet it seems that the truths of Epicureanism apply universally as well, unless I am quite mistaken. I agree that Epicurean justice has great strength in encompassing many ways of existing. However it seems to me that many conceptions of natural law also allow for diversity. Forgive my ignorance if this is not the case here with the Stoic view."

CA: don't think we are in disagreement about Epicurean philosophy, but I think history shows that natural law which
is based not on nature, but on some single prime mover/divine fire/jehovah brings with it a tendency toward absolutism while Epicurean views naturally lead toward freedom."}"

MC: Well perhaps that is the problem then. So do you think in a way Epicureanism has it's "natural law"? In the sense that pleasure and so on are "laws of nature""

CA: Yes I do believe it is appropriate to talk about "laws of nature" in Epicurean terms. The essential difference is that Epicurean laws of nature derive from the properties of the elements, which most other concepts of natural law presuppose a deity or some kind putting things in motion, if not superintending it closely. But just because the two terms have dramatically different meanings does not mean that it is inappropriate to talk about laws of nature. Epicurus embraced reason and did not argue against it - he emphasized that the *basis* of reason has to be in reality, however, and not in abstraction. (And here's another good place to cite A A Long's Article "Chance and Natural Law in Epicureanism") http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…amp;h=2AQER2at9

CA: Your points are excellent, Michael, for highlighting the issues for someone trying to scrutinize the difference between Epicurus and Plato/Aristotle/Zeno. I also think that there is an even bigger challenge and distinction that some people don't see at first - the distinction between Epicurus and the "random universe" crowd (for lack of a better term at the moment).

The AA Long article is excellent for pointing out what I think is a danger bigger than the Stoic argument:: the danger of thinking that there is no "natural law" in the universe at all, and that "anything" can happen at "any time." That's a view that often leads to nihilism.

Not everyone, but some seem to think that the Epicurean swerve leads in the same direction of concluding that the universe is essentially "random." Long emphasizes and shows that this is not the effect or logical conclusion of the "swerve" as such a conclusion would totally contradict the rest of Epicurean physics. This is obvious from the chain argument in Book 1 of Lucretius that deduces the existence of the elements in the first place from the reliability of the things we see arising from the elements. If the swerve were the type of mechanism that led to major random and unpredictable events at **any** moment or place, then Lucretius' argument here would be nonsense.

As further evidence, Long points out that the ancient attackers of Epicurus (especially Cicero) never argued that the Epicurean scheme of nature is based on randomness, and this would have been the logical obvious line of attack if Epicurus had really held such a view. Even the fragmentary texts we have left are enough to establish that the swerve is limited in effect, and that while we can see the effects of the existence of the swerve by observing free will in higher life forms, the theory of the swerve does not undercut the essential "natural law" basis on which the universe operates.

CA: As I rewatch the Tannahuaser music duel, and read the words of the transcript, I think I would nominate Wagner (at least in this clip) as being the most clear-sighted Epicurean philosopher in at least 1500 years. Every passage, every contrast, almost every word, is as if he has studied Platonism, Stoicism, and Epicurean philosophy and distilled their differences down to the very heart of the matter.

I agree with you, Leonard, in disagreeing with the interpretation of 4. I also disagree with the interpretation of 3. In this case my disagreement is not mainly with Cyril (though that is there too) as much as it is with the T. itself. I do not blame this on Epicurus, but on whoever decided that 3 and 4
were adequate summaries of PD3 and PD4. Of course we don't know what else that person wrote in context to explain it, so I blame the situation mainly onVesuvius.

Cassius Amicus

The full PD3 and PD4 are of course:

3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together.

4 "Continuous bodily pain does not last long; instead, pain, if extreme, is present a very short time, and even that degree of pain which slightly exceeds bodily pleasure does not last for many days at once. Diseases of long duration allow an excess of bodily pleasure over pain."

If one wants to use these to make a polemical (stoic) point about how the mind alone can overcome bad circumstances, so be it, because in some cases that is true. But we should not forget that there is alternative way of looking at PD 3 and 4: Epicurus was a philosophy teacher, and as such he was teaching his students the proper response to the establishment philosophers who taught that pleasure had no limit, and that continuous pleasure was impossible.

How to decide which interpretation is correct? Everyone can draw their own conclusions, but as for me, I ask whether Epicurus was the kind of teacher who would say to people in distressed circumstances that the good life is "easy" to get, or to people in the worst kind of pain from sickness and injury that pain is "easy" to avoid."

I believe these sentiments are accurately picked up by people like Leonard W Martin as ringing false, and therefore not what Epicurus taught. That's why I think the T. has to be carefully used, and kept in context of the rest of the teachings.

CJ What is this alternative interpretation? That Good Is hard to

MC So what do you think it means then?

Cassius Amicus I am doing nothing other that restating what DeWitt has explained exhaustively. Epicurus did not live and teach in a vacuum. He was dealing with and refuting claims made by generations of philosophers before him, especially Plato and Aristotle, and Plato in particular had taught that pleasure could not be the goal of life because it has no limit, and that pleasure could also not be the goal because it was not continuously present as our guide. These issues are in Phaedo and other Platonic works and well documented by DeWitt, which is one of the reasons that the mainstream doesn't like his work.

These issues were as important to a philosophic movement based on pleasure as was death and religion. And in order to refute them, just as PD1 and PD2 refute popular religion and fear of death, it is necessary to show the logical fallacy in the arguments. PD3 and other citations establish that pleasure DOES have a limit, and therefore there is nothing that is "higher" or "more worthy" or need
be "added" to pleasure to constitute the logical goal of life. This doctrine inoculates Epicurean students against the Platonic argument (repeated by Seneca and discussed here recently) showing that a life of full pleasure is possible.

PD4 does the same to refute the argument that pleasure cannot be the goal because it is not continuously present. Epicurus famously said that he calls us to a life of "continuous pleasure" and that is the context of the philosophical dispute. Pleasure IS constantly our guide because pain never overwhelms it to extinction.

These are common sense but crucial logical refutations of Platonic arguments. They are NOT the basis of flippant dismissal of the reality of pain, or the difficulty of achieving a peaceful and safe life.

We have NOTHING about the context of the tetrapharmakon to establish who the author was or what he said before or after that passage - even whether he was stating that this was a true doctrine of Epicurus.

This is much like the falsehood that is spread that ancient Epicureans lived in Communes. Where is the authority that establishes that ANY Epicurean ever referred in the ancient world to this formulation as helpful or authoritative? I have not seen any references to it in the texts anywhere, and the way it is used today reeks of anti-Epicurean sentiment that has infected the world since long before this parchment was discovered. Does anyone have ANY proof that an acknowledged faithful Epicurean cited it in an existing text? I haven't seen it - if someone has, please let us know.

Check the references here and you'll see that the authoritative use of this formulation (in a pro-Epicurean text in the ancient world, I mean) as a complete summary of PD3 and PD4 is non-existent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos#cite_note-2

The issue that arises endlessly is whether we are discussing pleasure as a term that ordinary people understand when they hear the word "pleasure" or whether we are discussing "something else" which is what an ordinary person is going to query when he or she hears "absence of pain." In normal everyday conversation a thing is never fully described as "absence of something else." Now Epicurus had a very good reason for doing so in describing a measurement situation between 100% and 0%, and in stressing that one characterizes our feelings when the other is absent. That is exactly the kind of discussion that is necessary when we want to reply to Plato and show that pleasure DOES have a limit (as Plato famously argued in Phaedo does not exist) by establishing that it is not possible to exceed 100% or to drop below 0%.

That is the context in which the issue of "two states of feeling" comes up. Epicurus argued clearly that pleasure is the guide of life, and that "virtue" is an abstraction empty of real meaning except insofar as it describes a tool for us to achieve pleasant living. In that context hypothetical claims of "more than two states of feeling" are then seen to be an attack on the point of view that by nature we only have the faculty of pleasure and pain as a guide to life. For if there are more states that pleasure and pain, how do we know them, and how do we rank them? Does our reasoning about them supersede the ultimate guidance of pleasure and pain given us by nature?

The letter to Menoeceus was written to a student familiar with the doctrine and the debate with Plato, as all Epicurean students would have been. But this measurement/limit issue is not what the vast majority of people rightly understand the conversation to be about. They rightly (since the debate with Plato is long forgotten, and the goal is practical results and not just speculation) understand the conversation to be "what is pleasure?" and "is there something else or higher than pleasure that I really should be aiming at?"

And that is the only question that makes any difference to ordinary people uncorrupted by the word games of philosophy. They understand the issue to be: "Is pleasurable living the highest goal of life, or is there some god to which I need to kneel, or some 'virtue' or "worthy living" that can be defined and should be my goal?"

As you presumably well know, the Stoics attack pleasure in general as at best a distraction from worthy living, and they specifically attack the idea that pleasure is the guide of life (they substitute "virtue" or "wisdom"). It is essential in responding to that attack to show that the faculty of pleasure is indeed the guide of life. Yes, as part of an academic discussion of the background of pleasure it is important to show that pleasure and pain operate reciprocally and that the sum total can never exceed 100%. Stated differently, it is important to show that our total experience is always composed of either pleasures or pains such that the two always total the same 100%. But that is a background issue that arises only when dialecticians like Plato posit that there are "higher" states, and that pleasure cannot be the goal of life because there is always "more" to look for.

The real **foreground issue** that takes precedence in the discussion is the definition of the word "pleasure." Is it a word that means what we ordinarily understand it to mean- as it is given to us by the faculty of nature to understand - or is it something else. Does pleasure include sex, drugs and rock and roll (if one wants to be graphic), or does "pleasure" have some abstract meaning that it is necessary to logically factor out like the geometric theorems that Plato loved so much. Does "pleasure" refer to something as attainable and reachable as dancing and eating and enjoying picnics with friends, or does it mean "flourshing" and "living well" and require wealth and status as the Aristotelians and their progeny insist?

Epicurus identified that the faculty of perceiving pleasure and pain is the starting point of all thinking about ethics and how we should live our lives. It is to the faculty of pleasure and pain, and not to man-made abstractions, to which in the end we should reconcile all our choices and avoidances. Opponents of this theory don't always attack it head on - they seek to undermine it through logical nitpicking, and we have to be alert to put arguments in context so that we apply them in the appropriate context.

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