Posts by Godfrey

Here are three versions of PD30:

PD30 “Among natural desires, those that do not bring pain when unfulfilled and that require intense exertion arise from groundless opinion; and such desires fail to be stamped out not by nature but because of the groundless opinions of humankind.” St.-Andre (2008)

PD30 "Those natural desires which create no pain when unfulfilled, though pursued with an intense effort, are also due to groundless opinion; and if they are not dispelled, it is not because of their own nature, but because of human vanity." Epicurus Wiki

PD30 “When those natural desires, which do not lead to pain if they are not satisfied, are violent and insistent, it is a proof that there is an admixture of vain opinion in them; for then energy does not arise from their own nature, but from the vain opinions of men.” Yonge (1853)

In outline:

Those natural (or bodily, in some translations) desires which

1. don't bring pain when unfulfilled (another of Epicurus' double negatives)

2. AND

- require intense exertion

- (or) are pursued with intense effort

- (or) are violent and insistent desires

3. are driven by vanity, not by their own nature

This seems like catnip for someone with an ascetic point of view. However, in plain, modern English, at least by my paraphrasing:

PD30 "Say you have a natural desire, and that if you don't fulfill it, it's not a big deal to you. If you do pursue it, it's going to require a lot of effort and potential pain. Do you think that this desire is worth pursuing? It would seem that your potential gratification would be outweighed by your potential suffering. Might it be wiser to spend your limited time pursuing something that's a bigger deal to you?" Godfrey (2022)

Put this way, is this really ascetic or is it just common sense? PD26 seems to confirm this view:

PD26 “The desires that do not bring pain when they go unfulfilled are not necessary; indeed they are easy to reject if they are hard to achieve or if they seem to produce harm.” St.-Andre (2008)

"By convention [or, “custom”], sweet; by convention, bitter; by convention, hot; by convention, cold; by convention, color; but in reality, atoms and void.64 (Democritus DK 68B9)"

This is in Philosophy Before Socrates Second Edition by Richard D. McKirahan.

"DK" refers to "H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th ed., Berlin, 1951 and later editions. The standard edition of the Presocratic Philosophers. Each Presocratic is assigned a number. The fragments of each Presocratic are also assigned numbers preceded by the letter “B.” Thus, the number for Heraclitus is 22, and Heraclitus’s fragment 101 is referred to as DK 22B101. Testimonia are likewise identified by numbers preceded by the letter “A.” The DK references are used widely in books and articles on the Presocratics."

So this quote above would appear to be a fragment directly from Democritus. This particular version has nothing that conflicts with Epicurus as far as I can tell.

Didn't the ancients discuss "the most pleasant life" rather than happiness?

From The Aesthetics of Joy blog:

"One of the first things I learned in my research was that happiness and joy are different things. I know I’m a broken record about this, but it’s such an important distinction that I want to take a moment to pull them apart. Happiness is a broad evaluation of how we feel about our lives over time. It’s made up of a range of factors: how we feel about our health and our work, whether have a sense of meaning and purpose in life, how connected we feel to other people. This explains why sometimes we can’t easily answer the question — happiness is a big concept, and it can be hard to encapsulate the complexity of our lives in one answer.

"Joy, on the other hand, is much simpler and more immediate. Psychologists define joy as an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion. Joy can be measured through direct physical expressions, like smiling, laughter, or a feeling of wanting to jump up and down. It’s about how good we feel right now, in the moment. It’s the opposite of vague — when we feel a moment of joy, there’s no doubt.

"With this distinction clear, I realized that happiness is often a red herring. Thinking about whether I’m happy takes me out of the flow of my life and prompts me to evaluate and compare. Am I happier than I was a year ago? Am I as happy as my friends? That smiling influencer I follow on social media sure looks happy. If I’m not that happy, am I really happy at all? Without a clear benchmark, I find I’m often measuring against some imagined ideal of happiness, and it’s easy for my everyday life to fall short.

"But as I began to focus more and more on moments of joy, I noticed that I stopped thinking so much about happiness."

5 ways my work has changed my life - The Aesthetics of Joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee

What can the science of joy teach us about living well? In this post, find five ways you can harness joy to build a life you love.

aestheticsofjoy.com

I'm not exactly sure where pleasure fits in to this view... Seems like it would encompass both happiness and joy, and all that's in between the two?

Well done, yet again!

I particularly enjoyed Joshua 's comments about the inscription being a bit weird, and wondering how his contemporaries reacted to it. It also strikes me as being rather "idiosyncratic": who is the person that took it upon himself to do this, and what did the locals make of it? Regardless, it's a great resource.

It's also interesting to me that it was constructed as late as it was, I just assumed that by that time it EP had been Latinized. Also interesting that it's in Ionia, the heart of so much materialist thought.

Off the top of my head, might aponia and ataraxia relate to pain and suffering? Where pain has a physical cause and suffering is a mental reaction to said cause? Both pain and suffering are reactions, or pathe as I understand what Don has often said. I'm just putting this out as an initial response: I'm not at all sure that this is on the right track.

Well stated Don !

As I understand it, mindfulness practice begins with building your concentration, typically through sitting quietly and focusing on an object (typically your breath). The thing to figure out before anything else is how you can sit most comfortably, preferably with an upright but relaxed spine. As for what you do once you're settled, everybody uses the word "curiosity", which drives me nuts due to its overuse. What I find happening when I do this meditation is that, in order to keep my mind from wandering and to not go crazy, I need to find something interesting to observe about my breathing while I'm sitting there. For instance what part of my breath am I consciously controlling and what part is unconscious, or maybe what is happening at specific places in my body.

Further, this practice isn't necessarily tranquil: all sorts of mental and physical stuff can happen while you're sitting there. This is part of the point however, because often this is stuff that needs to be sorted out in order to make positive choices and avoidances for leading your most pleasant life. As your concentration improves and you can focus on what's coming up, you eventually can arrive at useful insights about these things.

I have found, however, that I do often come away with the pleasures of feeling more relaxed, yet energetic, after I "have a sit" for 20 minutes. Tranquility is a pleasant, potential byproduct of mindfulness but it's not the goal, it's not the process and, depending on the situation it's not always possible. But I'm finding that the practice can be useful for Epicurean living.

Quote from Kalosyni

To be tranquil or not to be tranquil - perhaps we have to move beyond the "either/or"....

Exactly!

Another explanation to add to my post 14 above:

5) Since the purpose of the inscription was evangelism, saying that we've excised and minimized pains is much more appealing to the average passersby than saying we've excised and minimized desires. Working with desires is a way that pain can be minimized, but that detail can come later.

Quote from Kalosyni

The word "desires" has a sound of adding in something. Where as "removing pains" is getting rid of something.... And we may have differences in which direction we tend to go in (removing pain/adding in pleasure).

Kalosyni could you elaborate on this? Are you saying that desires add in pleasures? Or that desires equate to pleasures? Or desires are additional to pleasures and pains? I'm not clear as to what you're thinking here.

I'm joining late as I've had post-booster brain fog for most of the day.

Quote

These medicines we have put [fully] to the test; for we have dispelled the fears [that grip] us without justification, and, as for pains, those that are groundless we have completely excised, while those that are natural we have reduced to an absolute minimum, making their magnitude minute.

The way that I read Epicurus, as a Feeling a pain can never be groundless, nor can a pleasure. All pains and pleasures are natural and are true. Only what leads to a pain or a pleasure can be groundless. Also, if some desires are to be considered pains, some must also be considered pleasures. But to do that invites Ciceronian obfuscation and should be avoided.

So, using multiple explanations, since I'm not very familiar with Diogenes: 1) Don has probably the best explanation in the previous post. 2) Diogenes seems like an enthusiastic student and not a teacher, so his terminology may be looser than we're accustomed to from the other extant texts. 3) It could be that Joshua is correct and desires are pains. To some extent this is correct, but with all due respect I don't see this as being what Epicurus was saying. 4) It could also be that by the time of Diogenes, EP had evolved to include desires as pains.

Until we have more evidence, my guess is that the wording comes partly from the translator and partly from the use by Diogenes of less specific word choices.

Thanks, Cassius, and everyone else who has participated in these. Great work!

Cassius has said much of what I've been thinking. I'd just add as a synopsis to what he has written above that Epicurean philosophy meets people where they are, and gives a clear statement of how to live. The confusion comes from the fact that the statement isn't a strict formula, but one that each individual can adapt to their circumstances. (Of course the confusion also comes from the multitude of misrepresentations of the philosophy.)

1. The goal is pleasure. Pleasure is a Feeling, not a destination.

2. Understand desire, and act accordingly. There's nothing wrong with desire! You just have to balance the pursuit of desires with the goal of pleasure. A tool to use for this is the categories of desires: this is a tool for deciding for oneself which of one's desires might be fruitful to pursue, and which ones are likely to divert one from the goal. It's also helpful to think of the goal as the fullness of pleasure when evaluating desires.

Quote from Kalosyni

So what do you think that means for us moving forward? Does it seem that the word "Epicurean" in some sense is already taken to mean something different. Even if we say "Epicurean Philosophy" the common person will think "Food Philosophy"?

One option that comes to mind is to use "Lucretian" rather than "Epicurean". As far as I know, that hasn't been co-opted yet. But I agree with Cassius that a new term shouldn't be introduced. Probably best is to use "Epicurus" rather than "Epicurean" as in the previous post.

Quote from Don

Well put again! I would add - from my perspective - one of the goals is to increase those "segments of time" to be both longer and more frequent. And - again from my perspective - that's why cultivating "tranquility" and "peace of mind" is important: it allows us to have a "tranquil" baseline and to be less easily perturbed/disturbed. We will experience the bites of anger, annoyance, etc., but we won't be swept away by them.

Practically speaking, I completely agree with this. "Cultivating tranquility" is both mental and physical as well: it only makes sense since the mental is actually based in the physical. There's nothing mystical about this and such cultivation might include things like studying natural science, contemplating philosophy, doing deep breathing exercises, taking a hot bath, spending time in a hammock with a cold drink while feeling a breeze and observing the scenery. Or watching the stars and night. Or fully concentrating on a simple task... &c.

From the above linked paper "Emotions in Plato and Aristotle", discussing Aristotle: (the author uses "affections" in place of "emotions")

"The two Ethics introduce pleasure or pain, or pleasure and pain, in order to generalize from lists of affections. Thus we read, ‘By the affections I mean desire (epithumia), anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hatred, longing, emulation, pity, and in general things that are accompanied by pleasure or pain’ (NE 2.5.1105b21-3); but also, ‘By the affections I mean such things as anger, fear, shame, desire, and in general things that, as such, give rise for the most part to perceptual pleasure and pain (EE 2.2.1220b12-14). Presumably it is not a coincidence that the Eudemian Ethics adds both the qualification ‘for the most part’ and the specification ‘perceptual’: Aristotle must think that a special kind of pleasure or pain attaches to most affections, though not all. The Physics identifies the affections with changes in the soul’s perceptual part (to aisthêtikon morion) that involve bodily pleasures and pains excited by action, memory, or anticipation (7.3.247a3-9). Such pleasures and pains are excited by sensible things through perception or imagination (a9-17). They arise from their location within that part of the soul which Aristotle elsewhere calls ‘the perceptual and desirous’ (EE 2.2.1219b23): they are not merely sensible because conscious, but sensory in that they connect closely with sense-perception and imagination within the affective soul (to pathêtikon morion, Pol. 1.5.1254b8). Many of the affections involve imagination (phantasia) in the service of memory and expectation; this connects them with the pleasures that follow on imagination as a weak form of perception (Rhet. 1.11.1370a27-32)."

"It is true that there is no explicit mention of belief in the initial definition of anger (2.2.1378a30-2); but belief is implicit in mention of desire (orexis), given that such orexis is equated with ‘aiming at’ (ephiesthai), which is taken to presuppose believing, and not just imagining, that an end is attainable."

Quote from reneliza

I know Epicurus speaks about remembering past pleasures. Does he ever say anything about thinking ahead to future pleasure as a form of pleasure? (Or anything remotely related)

Regarding future pleasures, I think there's a passage somewhere in which Epicurus says something about the remembering of past pleasures and anticipation of future pleasures and you will live like a god among men... I thought it was in a letter or a fragment, but all I can find is this from Cicero....

Tusculan Disputations 5.95-96. The upshot of his entire discussion of pleasure is this. He holds that pleasure itself should always be wished for and pursued for its own sake because it is pleasure, and that by the same reasoning pain should always be avoided, just because it is pain; and so the wise man will employ a principle of compensation, and will avoid pleasure if it will produce a greater pain and will endure pain if it produces a greater pleasure; and that all pleasing feelings are to be referred to the mind, although they are actually judged by bodily senses. 96. As a result the body is pleased for only so long as it perceives a present pleasure, while the mind perceives a present pleasure just as much as the body does, but also foresees a pleasure which is coming in the future and does not let a past pleasure slip from its grasp. So the wise man will always have a continuous and interconnected [set of] pleasures, since the expectation of hoped-for pleasures is linked to the memory of pleasures already perceived.

Quote from reneliza

How is having an unmet longing NOT painful? I'd love to figure out where the misunderstanding between the two sides is occurring.

Right now there's some pineapple in our refrigerator, which I'm going to snack on in a little while. I'm experiencing a desire for some of that pineapple, which I don't experience as a pain but as an anticipation of a future pleasure. Before that, however, I desire to take a nap; I'm experiencing this desire as a reaction to the pain caused by a bad night's sleep last night.

For me, desire is intricately tied to both pain and pleasure; it can have elements of either or both. My practical Epicurean take is that desire provides the stimulus to action, while pleasure/pain provides guidance in how to act. Practice involves being aware of and responsive to all of these: desire, pleasure, and pain.

The concluding paragraph from the paper that Don posted previously in this thread:

"Without separating off emotions as such, Plato and Aristotle alert us to their compositional intricacy, which involves body and mind, cognition and desire, perception and feeling. Even the differences of interpretation to which scholars are resigned focus our minds upon the complexity of the phenomena, and their resistance to over-unitary definitions. Emotions, after all, are things that we feel; at the same time, emotionally is how we often think. Discarding too simple a Socratic focus upon contents of thought, Plato and Aristotle embrace the interconnections, within the emotions, of body and soul, and of perception, imagination, feeling, and thinking. Theirs was not the last word; but, after them, there was no going back to first words. We should still read them, for the reason that what demands clarification in them demands clarification in itself. The questions that they bring alive for us are our questions."

In other words, we've happened upon a very juicy topic