Posts by Godfrey

Some brief highlights from The Birth of Hedonism, which I read and highlighted a few years ago....

From chapter 3.4. The Cyrenaic Theory of the Experiences:

their most fundamental set of doctrines concerns the division between their experiences (pathē) and what causes those experiences.

...the Metrodidact... explained that there are three states in our constitution. In one, which is like a storm at sea, we feel pain. In another, which is similar to a smooth undulation stirred by a favorable breeze, we feel pleasure (for pleasure is a smooth motion). The third state, in which we feel neither pain nor pleasure, is in the middle and is like a calm sea. And he used to say we have perception of these experiences alone. (SSR 4b.5 = Eusebius PE 14.18.32)

The most straightforward reading of this terminological shift is that by “these experiences” (pathē), Eusebius means the experiences of our own states: it is solely of these that we “have perception.”

Whether the Cyrenaics’ own term was “perception,” “knowledge,” “apprehension,” or something else again, its meaning is tolerably clear from our sources. This is that our sensations of vision, hearing, taste, and touch do not vouch for whatever they appear to represent; they only vouch for themselves, and they do so inwardly, unmistakably, truly, and incorrigibly.

Cicero testifies to their inwardness by distinguishing the “inner touch” from all our exterior sensations. We have interior contact with our pleasure and pain, just as we have interior perception of our own yellowing, burning, or embittering. Plutarch employs similar rhetoric in saying,

These men placed the experiences and appearances in themselves; they didn’t think the proof from these sufficed for the confirmation of real things. As if in a siege, they withdrew from what is outside and locked themselves into their experiences. (Mor. 1120c–d = SSR 4a.211)

But the Cyrenaics do not believe we can work through these disagreements and thus reveal the truth about external reality. They not only want to argue that we are less certain about the external world than about our own experiences, they want to argue that that we cannot know external reality at all.

This is a pretty comprehensive book for anybody interested in the Cyrenaics. There are some nuances separating various Cyrenaic schools which the book examines; as it's been a while since I read it, I'll shy away from getting into any detail in these matters.

Happy 20th!

That's an interesting take on it.

Is the argument of Chrysippus specific to pleasure, or is it regarding the highest good? I'm again thinking of virtue: do Stoics consider that you can reach a state where you are virtuous, and therefore don't long for it any more? This could be analogous to a homeostatic state of pleasure, in his mind. But that doesn't seem to work in this case either, although it does work for an argument against virtue as the greatest good.

Does anybody know a Stoic to ask about this? Personally, the argument seems to me to be so absurd as to be meaningless but that's probably not the case for somebody serious about Stoicism.

Quote from Don

Chryssipus is saying that if the hand didn't "want" anything, if it didn't "want" pleasure, then pleasure can't be the supreme good because we should always strive to gain the supreme good.

Very well said. So another mistake by Chryssipus is that according to his argument, virtue can't be the supreme good. For that matter, nothing can be. But I may be missing something: it's been a long day.

This also gets to the question of whether, in a purely material universe, there is a supreme good. Organisms have a highest level goal, but that's quite different from an idealized supreme good.

It seems as if he's trying to make a case for a neutral state as a way of disproving pleasure as the highest good. But, if that's true, his argument makes no sense. If there's no neutral state, and the hand feels no lack, then it is experiencing pleasure. He's set up a false argument with "if pleasure is the supreme good, it would feel a lack," complete with a Platonic stooge to agree with the incorrect assertions.

At least that's all I can get out of it

Quote from Cassius

So I agree, but I am not sure that it theoretically even makes sense to consider the implication that you are questioning - maybe it should be so clear to us that Nature works through particulars, and not through ideal patterns, that we should never use ideal patterns as a starting point for consideration.

It depends on who "us" is.... I made the distinction between "nature" and "one's nature" to make it perfectly clear that nature works through particulars since we're constantly in philosophical sparring with the idealists. Additionally, it's not uncommon for people to try to meld idealist ideas with EP. Ideas such as fancy pleasures and absence of pain, just for starters. We shouldn't be using any wording that allows idealist concepts to bleed over, imho.

Quote from Cassius

(I put that "desires that outrun the limits fixed by nature" in red not because it is related to the current topic, but because that seems to me to be a good choice of words to describe something we often struggle with as "neither natural nor necessary" or all sorts of other adjectives." Seems to me that the factor that unites them all is that they "outrun the limits fixed by nature.")

At first blush that sounds quite good, but I'm beginning to wonder if, to some, that might imply a limit that is the same for everybody. With all due respect to Diogenes, would a better phrasing be "desires that outrun the limits fixed by one's nature"?

Quote from Pacatus

With that said, meditation and contemplation might still be philosophically relevant – as is simply contemplating the beauties of nature, and feeling awe.

Anyway, I am trying to explore a third position between the options of real gods thoroughly removed from our everyday natural reality, and gods that are solely ideal mental fabrications.

One version of a third option is suggested by the two sentences in this quote, and relates to the hymn to Venus by Lucretius. It is to contemplate the life force or evolutionary forces and/or processes by which the universe has come to be in its current state, with us in it.

Does pleasure drive a seedling that grows roots and reaches for the light?

True piety is for a man to have the power

To contemplate the world with quiet mind.

Lucretius 5-1203 (Melville translation)

Quote from Cassius

That's probably a question a lot of people should think about.

Definitely! Some of the most rewarding experiences of my life have been some of the most "risky." A couple have even scared the wits out of me but, in retrospect, changed my life for the better.

In a similar vein, here's a list of some risky behaviors:

- driving a car, riding public transit

- asking someone out on a date for the first time

- applying for a job that you really want

- having sex

- getting married

- having a child

- going for a hike

- zip-lining   Martin

- trying a new food

- adopting a new philosophy

- swimming in the ocean

- skiing or snowboarding

- &c

This also leads to thinking about the "absence of pain" interpretation of EP....

Quote from Quiesco

I wonder why one should accept that Nature gives you only pleasure and pain to judge with.

Welcome, Quiesco !

The idea that pleasure and pain are the guides (or judges) comes from observation. This seems to be getting confirmation in current neuroscience, but maybe the best way to examine the idea is to pay close attention to your own functioning. To understand pleasure and use it for a guide, one must really understand pain as well. When I looked at my feelings at any given time, my initial thought would often be that I was in a neutral state. But by paying closer attention I would notice some discomfort or perhaps very subtle enjoyment. The term is a bit loaded, but one could say that a principle Epicurean practice is mindfulness of one's Feelings. I capitalize Feelings as they are one of the three faculties in EP from which we can measure reality.

Personally, I would restate "accept that Nature gives you only..." as "our biology is such that" we have three basic faculties of understanding: Sensations, Feelings and Prolepsis.

Quote from Quiesco

Of course fire is only hot because that is my sense experience, fire in principle just is, if it even really exists in the way that I experience it. My subjective experience is the only thing that is real to me and it does not have a self-evident good-bad dichotomy.

Exactly! This philosophy relies on understanding some science and following personal observations. And there is no universal god-bad dichotomy, there is only what we personally perceive. If you've not listened to the Lucretius Today podcast (you can access it on this site or various podcast apps), the latest episode or two have been discussing Epicurean physics and its ramifications. Basically, in a world in which everything is material and there is no omnipotent god or afterlife, Epicurus determined that the only thing that we can use to construct an ethical theory is our own faculties, which are called the Canon.

Quote from Quiesco

And from there it is of couse a question of what pleasure really is so I can live to it to the best of my abilities, which is what made me stumble upon Epicureanism.

Ah, that's the journey! It gets richer the farther one gets into it.

Brilliant article! Lots to chew on in there.

I may have read it some time ago, but I'm not sure. Sounds like a good one.

Well done discussing emergent properties: I kept wanting to raise my hand and say "what about emergent properties!?" That seems to be the bridge between atomic scale and everyday living scale, and I think that it goes beyond the leaf v stone example and applies more on the level of consciousness. Which might make the smaller, lighter atoms involved in the swerve the key bridge for Epicurus.

This idea also, in my mind, breaks any connection between determinism at the atomic level in that I see emergent properties as potentially unpredictable.

The book Atomic Habits, by James Clear, is a book on habits and not philosophy. But to some degree it addresses determinism by discussing that our habits are determined by our environment. However, a key idea of the book is that we can take control of our habits by modifying our environment.

Great podcast and I look forward to part 2!

Good outline and nice presentation!

In Step 3, #3, I would prefer "laws", not "law" of nature.

Re: the Homeric example of no pain for one day... typically that just makes the next day more painful, by contrast.

Kalosyni makes good points about the "advanced Epicurean" needing friends. A couple additional points:

- it's quite common for retirees to have a relatively pleasant life, with all of their material needs met, yet to suffer from extreme loneliness. To different degrees, we all need people.

- motion never ceases, nor does change. So even if an Epicurean reaches an "advanced" stage they are subject to change, and therefore from time to time may experience a desire for friendship.

- at the risk of being absolutist, I would venture that friendship falls into the category of natural and necessary desires. So an "advanced" Epicurean (say perhaps Epicurus), in attaining their advanced stage, would have a group of loyal, like minded friends to which they belong. This would be necessary for meeting the natural and necessary desires. To be otherwise, they might actually be a Cynic or a Stoic.

"Measuring" brings to mind the "measuring stick" (Canon). Is that more than coincidence? Is there a relation in the Greek, or is it just a quirk of the English?

It does seem to me that the faculties of the Canon are quite useful in judgments of the type being discussed.

Quote from Cassius

Would a pill that brings you "tranquility" at the cost of never experiencing "joy" be worth it?

That's pretty much the definition of what happens to one's feelings when one tries to dull the pain in one's life, isn't it? When you minimize your pain, over time, your pleasure goes with it.

Quote from Pacatus

(and I tend to react negatively that way – with a kind of emotional clutch – every time I hear the phrase “hedonic (or Epicurean) calculus” or the like; that’s just me personally,

Amen to that! It's not just you, Pacatus .

Quote from Cassius

I doubt that Epicurus considered any aspect of "grasping" something to be part of the canonic faculty. Recognizing a pattern as significant and deserving of attention seems to me to be one thing, while interpreting it - in any way at all, as a snake or a danger or anything - seems to be another thing, and the part where error can enter in.

And it looks to me that it was important to Epicurus to keep separate the part where error can enter from the part that we accept without question - else we have a feedback loop and lose the ability to distinguish between our opinion vs what Nature is relaying to us directly and precognitively.

Well said!