Posts by Godfrey

Just finished reading this article from post #48: https://cup.columbia.edu/wp-content/upl…-Appendix-6.pdf

Quote from Don

the katastematic pleasure is the preferred background condition of being. Kinetic pleasure is the moment by moment awareness of individual pleasures. Katastematic pleasure is the calm ocean, kinetic pleasures are the waves.

This (current ) interpretation seems to be the author's conclusion as well and makes a lot of sense to me. In the article she gives the idea some context wrt Plato, Aristotle and Cicero which is helpful. Plus, this interpretation has the virtue of simplicity. It seems that it may have been Cicero who made such a complex and confusing issue of it. Imagine that!

OK now things may be getting clearer but more confusing at the same time....

Now I understand where the table in post #30 comes from; it sometimes takes a few repetitions for an idea to sink in. So, as I interpret this, all Epicurus is saying is that kinetic pleasure (which he defines as joy, delight, merriment: totally counterintuitive to me) is more intense than katastematic pleasure. And perhaps more observable because you're smiling and laughing. That seems to me to be rather banal, not very useful, and I think different from most of the academic interpretations. Not that the academic interpretations agree on much. But I readily admit that I may have got lost in the weeds and am totally missing the point.

I'm curious how this relates to PD09:

If every pleasure were condensed in <location> and duration and distributed all over the structure or the dominant parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another. Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers 115 (1987)

I never considered that this could be referring to kinetic and katastematic pleasures. If so, is it saying that worrying about the difference between kinetic and katastematic pleasures is rather banal and not very useful? I've got to let this percolate Maybe for a couple of weeks

Don I've added those articles to my reading list as well

In the meantime, here's my latest line of thinking. It's rather stream-of-consciousness, but at least it's a starting point. I've come to think of the natural and unnecessary (extravagant... how about "mahvelous"?) desires as the "sweet spot", the place where we do most our personal ethical work. We try to set up our lives so that the natural and necessary ones are for the most part taken care of (stable?). We root out our toxic desires. This leaves us in what we might loosely call a katastematic state with regard to both the natural/necessary and toxic desires.

The reason that I bring this up is to suggest that katastematic pleasures may be the "sweet spot" for working with our pleasures. (As I said, I'm figuring this out as I write...) Take hunger as an example:

- I'm hungry (a state of pain)

- I eat (a kinetic pleasure leading to a change of state).

- I'm nourished (a state of pleasure)

How do I add to my state of pleasure regarding hunger? Eating nourishing food, and eating food that doesn't spike my blood sugar are two ways: they each increase the duration of my state of nourishment. If I'm well nourished, then every now and then I can enjoy an extravagant meal without causing much disruption to my state of nourishment. But every few hours I'll be hungry again. That gives me regular opportunities to make choices and avoidances that will increase my overall pleasure.

Suppose I'm terrified of dying and going to hell.

- I'm terrified (a state of pain)

- I study Epicurus (a kinetic pleasure leading to a change of state)

- I'm no longer terrified (a state of pleasure)

This pleasurable state my last the rest of my life, or I may need to periodically study and refresh my understanding of why I shouldn't be terrified.

Both of the above states of pleasure are stable, but their duration varies. If we treat this state as a "sweet spot" to work with, we would search out various fears and desires that we experience. Then we would determine how best to work with each one so as to spend the greatest amount of time in a stable state of pleasure regarding each particular fear or desire. Further, we might begin with the ones that cause us the most distress. We would try to make wise choices regarding acting on each fear or desire, so that we maximize the resulting state of pleasure. Thought of in this way, katastematic pleasures serve as the major guide to well-being. Kinetic pleasures are then both a means to that end and a way to add variety to our pleasures, depending on the circumstances in which they're chosen. It seems to me that this presents kinetic and katastematic pleasures as functional parts of a unified system for maximizing pleasure, which after all is what Epicurus was attempting to create. This is unlike the Cyrenaic system, which only accepts kinetic pleasures and therefore lacks the sophistication that Epicurus brought to living a life of well-being.

Upon further percolating, what happens if we remove duration from the definitions of kinetic and katastematic pleasures? Would it be that kinetic pleasure is a condition of a change of state and katastematic pleasure is a condition of being in a state? This actually seems like the simplest and most accurate definition. It might also be the most useful, if it's combined with the categories of desires and we want to concentrate on experiencing pleasure and not on spending our time analyzing it.

Using motion or the lack thereof as the defining characteristic of kinetic or katastematic has, I think, been refuted on the grounds that all atoms are in motion no matter what type of pleasure you are experiencing, and therefore there is only kinetic pleasure. Is there anything in the Greek (or Latin) that would support the idea that Epicurus was referring to change, not motion, if/when he used the terms kinetic and katastematic?

Quote from Cassius

Someone will ask: If duration is the difference between katastematic and kinetic, what is the exact dividing line between the two and how is that line philosophically established? Would the time frame be a second, minute, hour, day, or what?

Actually, I sort of asked that in post #19 After rereading that post I'm thinking that kinetic is of short duration and katastematic is of long duration, and there's a large gap between the two. There's no precise point that differentiates between the two. But it's a good question and I don't know if there's anything resembling a precise answer. (If we were Supreme Court justices we could say we know it when we see it, but that's too sloppy for earnest philosophical discussion. )

That's a great layout of the issues, Don ! A lot to digest. Your chart in post #129 seems to me to be the most useful place to start tiptoeing through the minefield.

1) I totally agree that kinetic pleasure can be either mental or physical, and the same for katastematic pleasure.

2) I'm not sure that degree of arousal is pertinent. It may be, but it seems to me that the difference between katastematic and kinetic is a factor of time rather than "intensity". For example, I can be hungry and get pleasure from relieving that hunger. But I can be a little bit hungry (low arousal, negative valence) or really hungry (high arousal, negative valence). What makes the pleasure from eating kinetic is that it changes my temporary state from hunger (pain) to pleasure (absence of pain = negative pleasure), possibly with the additional positive pleasure of tasting really good. But before long I'll be hungry again, either way. (BTW you can further say that relieving the hunger results from a natural and necessary desire, whereas tasting really good is related to natural and unnecessary desires. I think this is a separate issue from being kinetic or katastematic.) The katastematic pleasure of a correct worldview or of knowing that my needs are cared for for the foreseeable future could last years, not hours or minutes, and becomes a sort of "background" state of pleasure.

3) I don't think that observability is relevant to either kinetic or katastematic pleasure. For instance, someone teaching a correct worldview is in a sense witnessing the source of their student's resultant katastematic pleasure. And the source of a kinetic pleasure may be either observable or not. Think about meditating: in one way, it's an activity that involves continual moving between pleasure and pain, both physical and mental. Sitting there quite still, your back could be getting sore or you may be experiencing a particularly painful thought. Then you let go and "poof", the pain is gone. Likewise for pleasure: you might notice (or think) "oh, my back doesn't hurt anymore, this feels great!" or "I'm so relaxed"; then "poof" something unwanted, distressing or otherwise painful comes up. This is kinetic, but not observable.

Quote from TauPhi

it occurred to me that pleasure might not be the highest good, in fact. Technically, pleasure may be just an emergent phenomenon caused by release of dopamine in animals' brains.

I agree that a basic understanding of neurochemistry can aid in the pursuit of pleasure and well-being. But pleasure remains the way that we experience our neurochemical functioning and so, I think, remains the highest good/the goal/the guide. Neurochemistry is the mechanism of pleasure but, to my way of thinking, doesn't supercede pleasure. For it to do so we would need equipment that would instantaneously monitor our levels of the various chemicals. The equipment that we have for that is our faculty of Feelings.

Don , I particularly like the last 2/3 of the quote from Farrington. When I read his book a year or two, though, I found some of his interpretations to be quite interesting and others to be rather hostile. So I'm not quite sure what to make of him. I may have to re-read his book when I have some spare time... just one more book on the stack!

However, this:

Quote from Cassius

"The more one stresses this the less important the distinction comes to look, since any condition, however steady, of a living thing, must according to Epicurus, be a condition of perceiving: but there is no evidence of a special kind of perceiving or object of perception to constitute ataraxia and aponia. Consequently we should be left with steady long-lasting perceptions over against fleeting ones. It seems simplest just to suppose that when the organism is functioning harmoniously it is always having some form of perception; that since the operation is harmonious the perception is pleasant and without pain; and that is just what aponia is. Ataraxia is the condition when, because of correct views, our expectations are undisturbed by fear, our desires do not pursue empty objectives and our memories are pleasant: this leaves us to enjoy our pleasures unanxiously."

pretty much sums up my understanding of the topic. I think of katastematic as more of a "steady state" whereas kinetic is constantly changing. At least that's how I interpret the terms. Practically speaking, this conception requires some sort of a transition point between "constantly changing" and "steady state": this adds a layer of unnecessary complexity to determining the difference between the two. So from this point of view, defining the difference as "inside v outside" is maybe more concrete, but to me it seems incorrect.

Practically speaking, again, I subscribe to the idea that katastematic pleasure is largely because of correct views. Once you hold correct views you are in a steady state, because correct views shouldn't be constantly changing. (That's not to say that they won't change with additional information, but they are relatively stable.)

Don do you see homeostasis as being a helpful idea in sorting out this conundrum?

Quote from Don

The pleasure derived from the anticipation of eating or the recollection of eating is always katastematic.

This doesn't sound right to me; at first blush I'd consider these to be kinetic. Katastematic, to me, would be more along the lines of the stable pleasure of knowing that you aren't going to go hungry any time soon, or the stable pleasure of having a correct worldview. Even though the anticipation or recollection of eating are "inner" pleasures, they are very kinetic. I see the difference between the activity and the anticipation of the activity as physical v mental and not kinetic v katastematic.

Quote from Cristiano Luchini

Above all the pursuit of pleasure, hedonism, which is something absolutely nonexistent in Epicurus' thought. Pleasure as understood by him is the absence of pain, not the pleasure of the senses.

Egads! This is a seriously over-selective reading of the texts and, to me, a complete misunderstanding of the Canon and the Physics.

Quote from Cassius

And moving toward "life" is a much more accurate and satisfying way forward rather than obsessing over "katastematic pleasure" or "pleasures of rest."

This makes sense to me when you consider that canonic pleasure is the guide to a healthy life. However "life itself," or being alive, often and for many can involve a preponderance of pain over pleasure. Being alive is our greatest gift, moving toward "life" or pleasure seems more in line with the greatest good and I'm not convinced that Epicurus was trying to make that particular leap of reasoning.

However.... If one were to reach the conclusion that "virtue" is the greatest good then the approach might be different. Virtue is an abstract idea. Life is an objective experience. Framed in this way, life is a greater good than any abstract ideal (at least, I assume, for most of us reading this).

On the lighter side, an entertaining sci-fi novel that explores near death experiences is Passage by Connie Willis.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_(Willis_novel)

It might be useful to put the tags table in the Tools drop down menu.

Another enjoyable podcast!

Here's a quotation that makes a case against Lucretius having written a seventh book:

Study of endings and closure in classical poetry (in particular of the abrupt and unsettling end of the Aeneid, with its image of Aeneas killing Turnus after Turnus's surrender, which also was once widely attributed to the poem's unfinished state) has made clearer that the abrupt ending of the De rerum natura is far less an anomaly than earlier readers suggested. The opening reference to Athens and suffering mortals is likely a structuring device linking the beginning and end of the book. At any rate, the sixth book clearly constitutes the end of the poem in Lucretius's overall plan, not only because he has created the neat structure of three pairs of books but also because he announces this book as the final one near the end of the proem, with a punning invocation of the Muse Calliope and a reminiscence of the prayer to Venus in book 1: "Precede me and mark out my course, as I run my stint to the white line of my final goal, callida Musa Calliope (clever Muse Calliope), repose of men and delight of gods, that with you as leader I may win the crown with signal glory" (6.92-95). From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucretius

Also, in light of the discussion, PD01 sounds a bit like a predecessor to "what would Jesus do?" in addition to its other interpretations. I hadn't thought of it in that way before.

Thanks for that, Joshua ! That's one of my favorite passages from Lucretius; nice to have a reminder!

The biggest risk I ever took in my working life was to leave a very stable job, in which I was miserable, for a life with zero prospects. I was married, with two small children at the time. It took me two years to take action and leave, and after a few months of scraping by I came into an opportunity which forever changed my life, and my family's lives, for the better.

Relationships are an interesting example. Even in a perfect relationship you'll get your heart broken. It's morbid, but you're both going to die and probably not at the same time. But think of the potential for joy in the relationship compared to the grief. Another illustration is to imagine getting a pet: odds are that you'll outlive the pet, and it will break your heart. But would you trade all of the joy, comfort and love to avoid the pain of loss?

This hints at "hedonic calculus", a phrase with which I'm very uncomfortable. Any choice or avoidance is, in the end, based on the faculty of the Feelings and not on any sort of mathematics. So the work is to really search your feelings (and your preconceptions), both positive (pleasure) and negative (pain). Then remind yourself that there's no neutral state, and continue to experience your feelings.

Thanks for that TauPhi ! Although there might be a more compassionate imaginary friend than Tyler Durden...

Quote from Pacatus

We also need something to the effect that we're not talking "Pleasure" in the abstract as an antidote to pain, but the real feelings of pleasure that are particular to the individual concerned, such that we focus on seeking out things that are pleasurable to person feeling overwhelmed.

Enjoy tiny bites of easily obtained pleasure. Even if they're only for a minute or two; gradually build from there. Just a chance to enjoy a moment of respite.

Remember as often as possible that pleasure and pain are the guides, and think about what small (or large) things you can do differently to reduce your pain of overwhelm and increase your pleasure. Understand that working in this way will improve your experience, as well as that of those around you.

Also understand that duty is subservient to pleasure, not the other way around. This may be the most difficult as well as the most important.

Letting go of the supernatural may have caused the biggest change in me. I now spend my time learning how best to enjoy this life, rather than searching for something that (in all likelihood) doesn't exist.

Quote from Little Rocker

We just don't have the freedom to choose to act on something other than what we consider most pleasant.

That's an interesting statement and I've never thought about the Feelings in this way. My first take is that we, as humans, do have the freedom to choose to act on something other than what we consider most pleasant. But doing so will just make us miserable. As Epicureans, we have the good sense to reason correctly and will choose what is the most pleasant.

My second take is: hmmm, maybe we don't have that freedom.... Our reasoning is one of many inputs into the feelings, and faulty reasoning can lead to reactions from the feelings that guide us to misery. The feelings can only react to the input that they receive: garbage in, garbage out.

Third, this is a case in which I would answer that the original question of this thread is an abstraction. We Epicureans believe that the faculty of the Feelings is universal to all organisms and we pursue pleasure as it is Feeling which is the guide toward well-being. To tie this in with the quote above from Little Rocker, I would add that the more aware we are of our sensations and feelings, the more nuance is available to us in our choices and avoidances. The gray area, for me, remains whether we are able to "override" the guidance of our feelings or whether we give too much weight to reason and are simply unaware of our true feelings.