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Wouldn't the summit be the summit of pleasure/removal of pain and the bottom the "summit" of pain? At least that's how I read it from Eikadistes 's translation above.
Maybe the bottom could relate to katastematic pleasure.... But that might invite going down another rabbit hole, as it were.
I voted for Bailey, but also like the Hicks version. Which brings up the question: which is the best word choice, "quantity" or "magnitude"?
Also, I prefer the versions that begin with pleasure rather than removal of pain. Just seems that this arrangement emphasizes pleasure rather than absence of pain.
It takes practice to rely on emotions. But it's also not a case of "either emotions or reason". It's become such a paradigm that reason is the basis of wise choices. I'm finding that understanding the Epicurean Canon and the role of pleasure and pain within it is, with some work, a game changer for prudent decision-making.
Our feelings are always going to be there. Science is confirming that we just need to learn to listen to the wisdom that they offer us.
That's an illuminating translation from White! I haven't read that in a while, and hadn't read White's version.
Just for reference: Natural science - Wikipedia
On a more prosaic note: is "dissolved" the most accurate English word? It's in most of the translations, but I keep associating it with dissolving something in water. Resolved into its elements, dispersed, dispersed into elements, broken down into atoms seem to work. Especially "dispersed into elements".
I actually like "the".
1) Epicurus maintained that gods do exist.
2) With an idealist interpretation of the gods, the implication of "the" is that such a condition is achievable. "A" somehow seems watered down to me.
In Lucretius these two emblems symbolize his entire project--the sweet golden honey of his beautiful verse, graced by the muse's touch, masking the bitter but healthful draught of true philosophy.
I was actually thinking today that another thing Lucretius was doing was that the first 7000+/- lines of De Rerum Natura are the honey and the plague of Athens is the wormwood.
Don you might add "won by gifts" and "obligation" to the "favor" brew....
"For perfect peace gods by their very nature
Must of necessity enjoy, and immortal life,
Far separate, far removed from our affairs.
For free from every sorrow, every danger,
Strong in their own powers, needing naught from us,
They are not won by gifts nor touched by anger."
Lucretius I.44-49 (+/-) Melville translation
Arghh, there's "immortal" again. But "won by gifts" fits well with "favor" or "obligation".
I would vote for Wallace. It's not perfect, but I think it's the only one with "incorruptible" and with "favor" instead of "gratitude".
This sounds like an interesting practice which may apply for adding sensitivity to one's choices and avoidances. The Epicurean process, I think, is much less specific than the Six Steps and probably more "rational" as well. But, at least for me, there's a point where I rely on my "intuition" in the decision making process and I think that this might be considered the elegant choice.
Tasty food for thought!
This article addresses what has really been bugging me: the precise meanings of khara and euphrosyne in Fragment 2 from Epicurus. I just can't wrap my head around these terms in the context of this discussion, and they seem to be the source of what I find "off" in the chart in post #30. (BTW, apologies for "banal" and "useless"; I didn't mean to sound so harsh.)
https://cup.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Philosophies-of-Happiness-Appendix-8.pdf
I'm not sure that it provides a satisfying answer. But there is this:
[footnote] xi However, we should allow also for another possibility. Epicurus is not a systematic philosopher in the same way as Aristotle. We have seen that in his use of the term pathos he slides from a generic sense to a more restricted, technical sense. Likewise, although he may say that animals experience hedonê, while joy is a rational emotion (and thus imply that pleasure is a function of the non-rational soul), he may use the terms somewhat interchangeably. Thus he may not always parse out the precise distinction between pleasure and joy; he may see the katastematic condition as a fluid conjunction of pleasant experiences of both the rational and non-rational dimensions of the soul.
Just finished reading this article from post #48: https://cup.columbia.edu/wp-content/upl…-Appendix-6.pdf
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?
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 TauPhiit 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.
