Posts by Godfrey

Cassius I think you're leading right up to the answer to your question. The best way to discuss pleasure, pain and neutral is by leading with the sensations and feelings, not by leading with logic. As it's playoff season in many sports right now, think of it as making use of the home court advantage. Cicero and his ilk have claimed the home court and are refusing to play an away game.

Rather than play Cicero’s game, we could design an exercise to lead through a Canonic process. Ask if the person is in a neutral state at the moment. If not, what are they experiencing and how would they describe it in terms of pleasure or pain? If they say that they are in a neutral state, ask them where they typically feel pain or stress in their body. Then ask them how that spot feels now. Is it neutral? Whether yes or no, have them try relaxing the spot and describe how that feels. The idea is to get them to experience the subtleties of the feelings, and then to understand that they are guides. It all begins there, and that's where the argument should begin. We need to get back on our home court.

Some thoughts on the neutral state:

What are the limits of the neutral state?

To me, insisting on a neutral state is a means of jackhammering all of the subtlety out of Epicurean ethics (something which the "insufferable" Cicero loves to do). First, it removes the usefulness of pleasure and pain as guides unless you can determine the limits of pleasure, pain and the neutral state. Practically speaking, when I was new to this philosophy and began to examine the supposed neutral state, I discovered that it is more properly described as the "oblivious state". The more that I looked, the more pleasure and pain I discovered in what I previously would have considered to be without feeling, and the more information I realized was available for exploring the guidance of the feelings. A classic method of negating any idea that one opposes is to reduce it to a slogan, and in fact this is what the neutral state is if you look closely.

The affective circumplex illustrates this well. An opponent of Epicurus might say that the point 0,0 is the neutral state and that the goal is to hit and remain at that target. This bothered me when I first encountered the circumplex. But if you attempt to pinpoint any point on the circumplex you soon see that you really can't: each point represents a fleeting moment in time. As you try to zero in on any particular point in the circumplex you realize that your attention to the subtlety of the feelings must increase the closer you get to the point that you are trying to pin down. 0,0 is simply the limit of either side of the axes.

Stephen White

"So when we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of the dissolute or those of indulgence, as some mistakenly maintain, whether out of disagreement or malicious distortion."

Noting that I'm completely ignorant of the Greek, I could see how pleasures of "indulgence" in this translation could refer to being out of limits.

Life and the world suddenly make sense when freed from religious faith. This freedom allows the great pleasure of personal agency and responsibility.

A proper understanding of Epicurus doesn't just fall off the page: it takes time, and work, but ultimately is very rewarding.

As noted, there isn't much remaining from Epicurus himself, and many of the ancient sources are hostile. As is much of the modern and contemporary scholarship.

My process began with reading as much I could find, often haphazardly, and trying to make sense of it. Then I discovered this forum; at that time writing and developing personal outlines of the philosophy was being emphasized. I found writing and getting feedback on an outline was very helpful, a bit intimidating, and just a beginning.

A key part of my process has been to try to put to use what I've read and to see if it is useful in my daily life. This has been very helpful, as it has allowed me to shed some unhelpful ideas while continuing to pursue those which I find fruitful.

Continuing with reading: modern, non-Epicurean authors such as Victor Stenger, Lisa Feldman Barrett and many others have proven to be quite relevant for me. Plus some (but not much, I find it painful!) reading of Plato and Aristotle has been really good for providing context. Even a book or two on the pre-Socratics has been quite interesting, to show the early development of Greek thought.

In short, for me at least, Epicurus has proven to be a gateway to all sorts of study and understanding. So much of his thinking is being built upon even today, mostly without acknowledgement. He wrote that he got great pleasure from the study of natural philosophy, and I'm finding something similar. The interesting thing is that so much divergent reading can lead to a better understanding of what Epicurus was saying so long ago.

The Stoics are famous for their "spiritual exercises"; this continuing study is an important Epicurean exercise. As is always testing what you read through your direct experience.

Hopefully this rambling post is of some relevance to your question ThinkingCat !

I'd like to attend.

Somewhat related, this video plots humanity in relation to the age of the universe using a 4 mile long model in the desert.

Thanks Kalosyni ! Lots of useful information in a short and concise video.

Isn't "perfect" more along the lines of a Platonic ideal than an actionable concept? What is the most perfect iteration of any given thing? If you're comparing several things you can determine one to be the most perfect based on the criteria you select. Beyond that, anything can always be more perfect. But how would you define "Perfect"? It's much like "Quality" in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

As a practical matter, "perfect" can be used as a label. But that varies from person to person, from life stage to life stage, from context to context.

(I haven't read any of the above attachments, so apologies if I'm just repeating something said elsewhere.)

Comparing #12 to #21, I would describe (poorly, I admit) #12 as having almost "pugilistic" features compared to Epicurus' typical portrayal. That's a bad word choice, but the one that comes immediately to mind. Look at #12's broad, short nose, compared with Epicurus' relatively long, thin nose. #12's head shape seems thicker, Epicurus' longer.

Put another way, I picture (rightly or wrongly) Epicurus as an ectomorph body type based on his typical portrayal, whereas I picture #12 as more of an endomorph type.

Now that it's not so early, the book cover doesn't look like Epicurus. As for #12, the shape of the head seems wrong and he's way too stern to accord with the images of Epicurus that I'm used to seeing.

A large part of the problem could be that different artists had different interpretations. Or different levels of skill. How many statues of contemporary athletes have you seen that look nothing like the athlete?

BTW there's a YouTube video of James Corden showing David Beckham a goofy version of his statue before the unveiling, which is a great send up of the modern athlete statue.

On the book cover his right shoulder is much higher so they are would appear to be different sculptures. However after examining #12 above and then looking at the book cover, the book cover looks more like Epicurus

But it's early here, and I'm looking on my phone, so there's much squinting involved.

Interesting that the PDs are referred to as "sentences." In the Saint-Andre translation I quickly counted only 5 as having more than one sentence. This may help to explain, at least to a degree, how they were divided into the current 40 PDs: the original groupings may have simply been separated into sentences.

Somewhere I read, although I can't remember where, that the authorship of the PDs was in question. Wherever I read it, I think a footnote connected the idea to an Italian source. Tantalizing, but not much help!

To me, Epicurus has a slightly thinner face with slightly more pronounced cheekbones than the figure in #5 and #12; I would not say that that is Epicurus. Looks much more stern than Epicurus as well. But if the image is labeled "Epicurus," that could explain how it ended up on the Guyau book cover.

Cassius do you use LibreOffice Draw for your highlighted and underlined text clips that you post? For your other posted graphics? I use other aspects of LibreOffice but haven't tried Draw.

If you zoom in on the images in my original post, you can see tiny numbers beneath the sculptures. Descriptions of these are in the text to the left of the two Epicurus images.

Yes. Sorry for the poor image quality!

Today I was in an out-of-town bookstore with my family and ran across this book, which is the catalog from the exhibit at the Getty in Malibu a few years ago:

Buried by Vesuvius: The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum - Google Books

It may be of interest in itself, but what I noticed while quickly browsing through it was a few images in particular. Pardon my poor photo quality; the store was one of those great rabbit-warrens of books and lighting wasn't a prime concern in the design....

(L-R, top to bottom: Epicurus, Epicurus, Hermarchus and Demosthenes)

Here's an image of the pig. In case it's not legible, the dimension given is the height, which is 40cm (15.75") including the base.

And the prosciutto. The height is 11.3cm to which the ring adds 2.5cm; the width is 7.8cm.

Not to repeat myself, but this also relates to my comment elsewhere:

Post

RE: PD01 - Gratitude and Weakness (Especially In Relation to the Gods)

This brings to mind pleasure ethics v duty ethics: if you consider it to be your duty to do a particular thing then you're likely to pursue it regardless of the pain involved. Compare this to pleasure ethics, where minimizing pain is a concern: you may achieve the same thing, but often much more pleasurably for all involved. Or you may choose to flee from the particular thing if you judge it to be a corrosive desire.

Godfrey

May 14, 2023 at 7:27 PM

This brings to mind pleasure ethics v duty ethics: if you consider it to be your duty to do a particular thing then you're likely to pursue it regardless of the pain involved. Compare this to pleasure ethics, where minimizing pain is a concern: you may achieve the same thing, but often much more pleasurably for all involved. Or you may choose to flee from the particular thing if you judge it to be a corrosive desire.