Posts by Godfrey

Quote from Cassius

Godfrey from this formulation I infer you are eliminating all "unnatural" desires completely. How did you define or give examples for that category?

Quote from reneliza

I wonder if the “unnatural” desires are meant to be things that don’t bring you pleasure even when they are satisfied, or those that can never be met, but instead expand further and further as you get closer (like desire for wealth or fame that only grows as you reach the previous goals you’d set)

Thanks reneliza ! You've said this better than I would have.

There are other things that I notice I'm beginning to find addictive in that they're becoming an obstacle to pursuing other pleasurable activities. It could be that I'm finding less pleasure in the addictive activity as well. A current example for me is reading: reading one book or article tends to lead to another, then three more, and before I know it way more hours have gone by than I originally planned on. Another example is dark chocolate. For years, I would eat a square after one or two meals a day. It wasn't until I returned from a vacation where I didn't eat any chocolate that I realized that I wasn't really enjoying it much any longer.

Neither of these things are things that I would eliminate entirely. But in both cases I had become oblivious of the natural limit, in that they were no longer producing an excess of pleasure or were to some degree producing pain. Since I had become oblivious to my natural limits in these cases, I had to self-limit in order to reestablish awareness of my natural limit. Now I'm enjoying the occasional piece of chocolate again, and I'm finding the time to do the things that I was neglecting due to reading.

I interpret the dividing line, in terms of limits, as those that require a person to self-limit. But there are those that I just self-limit out of hand and stop thinking about, such as hunger for glory, then the ones that I need to self-limit just enough to return to my normal pleasure/pain equilibrium. The second kind become natural and unnecessary desires once I've successfully returned to normal functioning. If nothing else, this should make clear why Epicurus never categorized specific desires.

The passage where Epicurus gives a young man advice about sex might be a good example to look at, but I can't remember the source at the moment.

Also about how to reason from the observable to the non-observable.

One clarification, which I may have mentioned previously. When I refer to the sweet spot of natural and unnecessary desires, I'm not saying that every desire in this category is meant to be chosen. What I'm thinking is that this is where the majority of our day to day choices and avoidances happen. The natural and necessary desires are, for the most part, choices. The unnatural desires are, for the most part, avoidances.

First off, I would throw out Torquatus in this instance because, at least for me, this is the heart of Cicero’s attempt to discredit Epicurus. He's over-complicating pleasure and over-simplifying desire.

All of the nuance is in Epicurus' writings. He's the one who brings up limits. The problem that arises with Cicero is that the feelings aren't adequate to create a personal value system: they're reactions. You can anticipate how you might feel, and that is integral to choosing and avoiding, but it's a piecemeal approach to ethics and Cicero and others have a field day with that.

Effective ethics aren't created piecemeal. But as Epicurus clearly shows, they're not handed down from above (any "above"). I'm thinking that the categories of desires are a framework that we each use to create our own ethical system. Epicurus, as I think was pointed out in the podcast recently, wasn't a dogmatist: he was teaching us how to think. And this is another example of him doing so. We each, in our given situation, are given this tool to categorize and prioritize what is important to us.

As for limits.... As I currently understand it, the natural and necessary desires are the basics. We need these to survive. It's pretty confusing from the remaining texts of Epicurus (and Cicero doesn't add anything useful here as far as I can tell) what the difference is between natural/unnecessary and unnatural (or unnatural/unnecessary). So to reason it out, how can we differentiate these two?

The natural relationship between pleasure and pain is that they limit each other. This is how we reach homeostasis: too much pleasure leads to pain, which we limit through pleasure, and so on in a continuous cycle. As for what is unnatural: we know the limit of pleasure from PD03, but PD11 points out that we need to know the limits of pains and desires. The physical limits of pains are spelled out in PD04, but what are the mental limits? The natural limit of pain is through pleasure. But we humans have a unique ability to give ourselves unlimited mental pain, and this breaks the natural cycle of homeostasis and can be considered unnatural. This is probably where addiction lies, and addiction is now understood (correct me if I'm wrong) as desire run amok. If we've gotten to this point, we've broken the natural limit of pain and desire and must self-limit or find other means to limit such as hospitalization, rehab, having oneself tied to a mast and so forth.

To be in the "sweet spot" of a pleasurable life we must have our basic needs (natural and necessary desires) met, and we must know our personal unnatural desires. The pain from unnatural desires is just a result, to avoid that pain we have to understand and limit our desires. Then, when our basic needs are met and we are free from unnatural desires, we can embrace the natural and unnecessary desires as we like, and experience all variety of pleasures. So maybe Cicero got this part right when he described the perfect life of pleasure; he just neglected to put it in the proper context. Or he couldn't reason it out.

Another way to approach the problem is through the categories of desires. The problem laid out in post #1 involves all the categories: natural and necessary, natural and unnecessary, and unnatural. The problem is to break down the problem and see which parts you would align with which categories. Pleasure as well as pain is involved in the situation; in looking at them and analyzing the various feelings as results of particular categories you might find some clarity.

Without assigning them to categories, because that would reflect my values and not yours, here are some of the pieces:

- desire for financial security

- desire for a massive amount of financial security

- desire to manage your own finances

- desire to keep up with financial news

- desire to keep up with geopolitical news

There are probably more moving parts than this, but you get the idea. For each desire I've listed, plus any others involved, think deeply as to whether it’s a need (natural and necessary), a want (natural and unnecessary), or an unhealthy obsession (unnatural and unnecessary). [Note: I borrowed this language from Nate's excellent introduction to his compilation of Key Doctrines.] This is a method to figure out how to align your actions with your values and with the end goal of pleasure.

Regarding investments:

Many years ago and after much research, I became a passive investor. I moved all of my equity investments into index ETFs. These funds were in several segments of the market, and I allocated them as best as I could based on the research I did at the time. Since then, every six months I do some math and rebalance my allocations as necessary.

Obviously this isn't for everyone. But I have found that I don't worry about investing, and I've stopped feeling the need to check news as regards investing.

I'd separate out the desire quite easily: I don't have any desire to build said rocket, so any consideration of doing so is strictly hypothetical. I don't need to think about it and I can spend my time pursuing my natural and necessary and my natural and unnecessary desires.

If for some reason I found that I had the desire to build said rocket, I wouldn't need to give it much thought. I'm retired, and at this point in my life there's very little possibility that I could complete such a project. I'd just intuitively consider it, for me, to be unnatural. In point of fact any decision would pretty much be subconscious. If I were to analyze why, I would find that the potential pain that I'd experience in doing such a project would be far beyond any pleasure that I might experience.

I think that the key here is that I've already considered, very generally, what I feel is unnatural for me. Because of this it's almost become a personal prolepsis: I have a preconception (which may or may not actually be a prolepsis ) as to what is unnatural for me. Running for president, becoming a billionaire, solving the great problems of physics are other things that I find in my unnatural category if I rummage around.

Now imagine, if you will, that I'm a 40 year old rocket scientist. First I can ask myself, "would I like to do this?" (do I have a desire to do this?) If I don't, end of story. If I do, then I can ask myself why I'd like to. What are my motivations? Am I motivated by the money I might make? By the fame it might bring? By the excitement of the challenge &c.... Then I can analyze each of those motivations (desires) in terms of the pleasure and pain involved.

At least for the moment, I think this comes down to two basic points:

1) The goal is always pleasure. If we get away from that, we'll lose our way. (PD22) In evaluating desires, the end goal is pleasure. But desire and pleasure are different. Examining and understanding our desires helps us to attain pleasure.

2) Understanding our categories of desires in a sense becomes our personal value system. This system runs in the background and simplifies our life by directing our thoughts and actions to what is most important to us.

This post was in my head before I read post #19, so it's not a reply but there's probably some overlap.

I've been stewing over where my thinking and posts on the desires are leading, and I'm beginning to form a conclusion. When a person is new to EP, they go through a process of working to understand the categories of desires. In so doing, they form a broad idea of how these apply in their life. Basically, what is natural and necessary for themselves, and what is pretty much out there for them so that it can reasonably be considered to be "unnatural", or causing unending distress for them.

After living with the philosophy for a while one no longer needs to give much thought to what for them is natural and necessary and what for them is unnatural and therefore unnecessary. At this point, where the rubber meets the road is in the day to day practice of choices and avoidances, and the majority of these would now constitute working with the category of natural and unnecessary desires. The big choices have been made.

This leads me to think that the critical category for the practicing Epicurean is natural and unnecessary. Practically speaking, how might I maximize my pleasure in doing a particular activity? Or is a particular activity something to pursue, or might it cause me unending distress. Take playing golf as an example. Personally, getting serious about golf would probably cause me great distress. But playing a non-competetive game with friends, in a spectacular natural setting, could be very pleasant.

Reaching a point where one has answered the big questions and is living in the "sweet spot" of working with natural and unnecessary desires sounds to me like the Epicurean "good life".

The philosophical implication of this is that the absence of pain crowd have made two category errors. The first is to confuse pleasure and desire, and the second is to focus on the natural and necessary category. Those living the philosophy are living in the natural and unnecessary category.

Quote from reneliza

There's a lot of talk about Epicurus "dividing" pleasure into two categories, but from the discussion here so far, it looks like the wrong math term is being used. It seems more accurate to say that he ADDED to the earlier understanding of pleasure. So perhaps it is not that he wanted to separate pleasure into two parts, but that he wanted to take a limited definition of "pleasure" and expand it to include more, or unite the things he found pleasurable

reneliza to me that sounds exactly right!

Quote from Godfrey

Theoretically, it would appear that one key to working with desires is to understand what Epicurus meant by "natural" and "unnatural". If I'm not mistaken, the unnatural desires are the only ones that he says have no limits.

Speculating on how these limits might work, what I come up with is that:

- Natural desires are limited through the natural limits of pleasure and pain.

- Natural but unnecessary desires don't cause any pain. They may be vain, but it doesn't really matter since there's no pain involved.

- Unnatural desires are not subject to the natural limits of pleasure and pain. This is due to being unaware of or consciously ignoring the experience of one's pain caused by a specific desire.

VS71 Ask this question of every desire: what will happen to me if the object of desire is achieved, and what if not?

Cassius I just saw your post. A quick answer would be that desires and choices and avoidances are all practically evaluated in terms of the goal of pleasure. But they aren't the same thing.

To drill further into desires....

To my understanding, and I think Philodemus supports this, desire was something that was dealt with in detail in Epicurean communities. Since it requires the setting of limits which are specific to each person and to each context, this would be the most effective, practical way to treat desires.

Theoretically, it would appear that one key to working with desires is to understand what Epicurus meant by "natural" and "unnatural". If I'm not mistaken, the unnatural desires are the only ones that he says have no limits.

PD15 The wealth demanded by nature is both limited and easily procured; that demanded by idle imaginings stretches on to infnity.

PD29 Among desires some are natural (and necessary, some natural) but not necessary, and others neither natural nor necessary, but due to idle imagination.

PD30 Natural desires that afford no pain if they are not indulged, though they are eagerly pursued, arise from groundless opinion; and when they are not dispelled it is not because of their own nature but because of the man's groundless opinion.

LM127 ...on the one hand, there are the natural desires; on the other, the 'empty, fruitless, or vain ones.' And of the natural ones, on the one hand, are the necessary ones; on the other, the ones which are only natural; then, of the necessary ones: on the one hand, those necessary for eudaimonia; then, those necessary for the freedom from disturbance for the body; then those necessary for life itself. [128] The steady contemplation of these things equips one to know how to decide all choice and rejection for the health of the body and for the tranquility of the mind, that is for our physical and our mental existence, since this is the goal of a blessed life. (Don's translation)

LM130 Additionally, we believe αὐτάρκεια is a great good. Not so that we are furnished with the use of a few things; but, if we were to have many things, we would be content with few things. Those in need who are genuinely convinced of this find extravagance more pleasant, and that every natural desire is easily procured, and an empty desire difficult to get. (Don's translation)

I've run out of time and will have to leave this for now. The bones are here, but they still need parsing

First, an aside. The obvious occurred to me after posting #1 above, that being that separating pleasure and desire, and understanding desires as unlimited, provides an answer to the idea that pleasure can't be the good because it knows no limit. This of course in conjunction with PD03.

In the Zoom call last week, we discussed pleasure being conflated with desire. I'm posting here to continue that discussion. My general premise is that people trying to discredit Epicurus have consistently conflated the two, which leads to getting caught up in endlessly discussing types of pleasure and ultimately ends with the attempt to rank pleasures.

In reviewing the Principal Doctrines, there seems to be a clear distinction between pleasure and desire. PD03, PD05, PD08, PD09, PD10, PD12, PD18, PD19, PD20 discuss pleasure; PD10, PD11, PD15, PD26, PD29, PD30 discuss desires. This quote by Stefano Maso, from a post of Nate's, got me thinking about limits of pleasures, pains and desires:

"...it is important to understand the ethical basis of Epicurus’ doctrine, and, in particular, its therapeutic proposal.... Epicurus pithily expressed it [the tetrapharmakos] as follows: “Were we not upset by the worries that celestial phenomena and death might matter to us, and also by failure to appreciate the limits of pains and desires, we would have no need for natural philosophy” (KD 11 = LS 25.B.11; cfr. KD 1–4, 10, 20, and Ep. Men. 133).

It is interesting to note that the tetrapharmakos also rests on a doctrine of the “limit”... This doctrine applies to everything that exists and is perceived within the cosmos. Take atoms: we have isolated atoms that eternally fall and never combine with others; but we also have atoms that combine into endless, more or less changeable structures. The gods constitute the ultimate “limit” of this changeability, for they are eternally stable atomic compounds. They never change because, by definition, they are intangible: they never collide with other atoms or other compounds. Take death: by definition, it never has anything to do with life. It constitutes the “limit” of life. Take pain and, in parallel, pleasure: each constitutes the other’s “limit.”

Based on this doctrine of the “limit,” Epicurus infers that we must not fear the gods, because they are imperturbable and, hence, take no interest in us or interfere with other atomic compounds (Ep. Men. 123–124). We must not fear death, because when it exists, we do not; and as long as we are alive, we cannot perceive it (Ep. Men. 124–127). We must not fear pain, because it may be more or less intense: if it is light, it is so easily endurable that at its limit it can be perceived as pleasure; if it is extreme, a loss of sensibility occurs and we no longer feel it (KD 4). Finally, we must not fear pleasure, in the sense that we must not fear the dissatisfaction that affects those who give themselves over to the pursuit of the most intense and prolonged sort of kinetic pleasure, as did the Cyrenaics....

<a href="https://www.epicureanfriends.com/index.php?thre…18884#post18884">Do Pigs Value Katastematic Pleasure? ( Summer 2022 K / K Discussion)</a>

PD11 (KD11) was of particular concern to me after our Zoom discussion because it mentions both pains and desires. The concern brought up in the discussion was that this was somehow advocating for an "absence of pain" position. After digesting this quote, I don't think that that's the case, although I don't think of it in the terms Maso uses in his final sentence above.

My take is this: Epicurus takes the natural goal of life to be pleasure, the natural evil to be pain. Increasing pleasure decreases pain, and vice versa. Failure to understand natural science increases pain (fear) and by the same token proper understanding increases pleasure. Failure to understand the limits of pains and desires increases pain and decreases pleasure. There's no need to worry about the limit of pleasure in this context (which Epicurus already defined in PD03) and therefore he doesn't mention it. How to understand the limit of pain? He describes this in PD04: as per Maso, pain is limited by pleasure. Pain and pleasure naturally limit each other.

But what about the limit of desires? Reading the PDs and the Letter to Menoikeus, it becomes clear that desires can be unlimited, which differentiates them from both pleasure and pain. This is why the categories of desires are important to understand. These categories are a tool to help us to impose our own limits on our desires, which have no natural limit other than the "natural and necessary" desires. This then becomes one of the key methods to increase pleasure and reduce pain.

Quote from Don

we can rely more on the pleasure that arises from within us than we can on the pleasures that arise from external circumstances.

This seems to make perfect sense based on practical day-to-day experience. It also strikes me as a correction of the Stoic inner citadel idea.

Don I'm coming to the idea that the detailed discussions of types of pleasure, such as katastematic and kinetic, are a misunderstanding and obfuscation of what Epicurus was saying. The way I read the PDs and the letters, pleasure is pleasure. Sure there are varieties of pleasures, but they are of very minor concern.

What I see as the problem is conflating pleasures and desires. It's very easy to do, and in conflating them, one can then imply that there are greater and lesser pleasures and hence pleasure can't be "the good". But the way I read Epicurus' works, he treats pleasure and desire very differently. He categorizes desires, but not pleasures. And in doing so he provides a way to understand and work with desires. A way that is intended to result in an abundance of pleasure. Worrying about what type of pleasure is best serves no purpose for living his philosophy. (Some of these thoughts were prompted by the Liebersohn article in which he tried to make a connection between katastematic-kinetic and necessary-unnecessary. In reviewing Epicurus' writings and giving it some thought, I think he totally missed the boat [if you will].)

An interesting thing, though, is that Epicurus does mention desire and pain together. I only recently noticed this, and haven't yet given it adequate thought. But I don't believe that this leads to either an "absence of pain" or a "remove all desire" interpretation. He makes clear that we choose some pains for a greater pleasure. I think that he's doing something similar by ranking desires: he's giving us a practical framework to work with desires, just as we can use pain as a tool to increase pleasure.

Quote from Don

I don't think there is a neutral state although I'm going to have to go back to Barrett and Lembke to think about this in light of their research. (Sent thoughts, Godfrey ?)

Practically speaking I don't think there's a neutral state.

Neurologically speaking I'm not qualified to answer that. But of course I'm happy to toss out an opinion. The affective circumplex and the teeter totter are both conceptual models or analogies and therefore it could be assumed that they don't fully represent the biological processes at work. They seem to imply a neutral state at 0,0 or at perfectly level, respectively. But it could be that these implied states are a failure of the analogies, or that they are so infinitesimal as to be meaningless.

Quote from Don

We use the goal of pleasure as the guide in making our choices and rejections.

And the experience of pleasure, as well as pain, also provides feedback regarding our choices and avoidances. The process is a loop.

Don enjoy the pleasure of feeling better!