Posts by Godfrey

If Liebersohn was correct in his assertions (in his paper on Kinetic-katastematic pleasure) that the Letter to Menoikos was written around 296 or 295 BCE and that it was written for people new to the philosophy, does this have any relevance in placing LM in relation to other passages on pleasure? More or less developed due to being written when he was older or younger? More broad brushed for a newbie reader? Or are the contexts of the other passages too vague to make any reasonable assumptions?

Quote from Cassius

- There is no supernatural realm and no meddling God or gods.

- There is no heaven and hell and no existence after death.

- There is no fate and you are not a billiard ball.

-There is no absolute right / wrong / sin/ evil / good / virtue / depravity.

- Nature gave us only pleasure and pain as guides for us to make decisions on how to live.

- Do your best to intelligently maximize the pleasure and minimize pain in your life because you only live once.

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Also something along the lines of "perception/sensations are our primary means of understanding. Reason can only be an effective tool in evaluating information that the senses provide: it cannot provide correct information about the world if it seeks to undermine the senses."

Quote from Cassius

pursuing the details on difficult topics can be very motivational.

Yes, this is a very useful discussion. Painful at times but great for getting clarity. Thanks Cassius and Don !

Quote from Cassius

We also know that for example Epicurus divided things into "natural and necessary," and that that distinction was significant to be recorded several places very clearly, including the principal doctrines, the letter to Menoeceus, and the vatican sayings

Quote from Don

To that, I'd say "Bingo!" According to On Choices and other quoted material, Epicurus used the words katastematic and kinetic. Yes, I will continue to "assert" that. But *maybe* they weren't central to his philosophy because THEY'RE BOTH PLEASURES. He didn't see the need to belabor the point.

This discussion has me thinking further about pleasures v desires. Whether with nefarious intent or through misunderstanding, it seems to me that the Platonic/Ciceronian treatment conflates and confuses pleasure with desire, and that this is a major cause or the katastematic-kinetic brouhaha.

Don's quote seems to hit on a key: of course there are different types of pleasure, but they're all pleasure. And pleasure is the goal, not any particular type of pleasure. More specifically, the experience of the feeling which is pleasure is the goal (or guide, if you prefer).

As to Cassius' quote, Epicurus clearly has a division of "things into natural and necessary". Correct me if I'm missing something, but I've never found a connection between pleasure and natural and necessary in any of the writings of Epicurus. The connection that he consistently makes, in all cases (at least in translation) is between natural and necessary and desires. In the PDs it's between desires and pains. But never pleasures.

Why? My thinking is that pleasure is typically a result. Desires are something that we can tangibly work with. Epicurus' concern is with describing practice, with things anybody can do to achieve pleasure. He doesn't care what type of pleasure you achieve, he's concerned with how you go about achieving pleasure. And to him, you do this by working with your desires and with your pains. If you understand your desires, you will be more effective at achieving pleasure. As you minimize your various pains, these will by definition be replaced with pleasure. But you must always remember that your guide and goal is pleasure. Understanding desires and removing pains are only tools for pursuing pleasure. We can also pursue various pleasures for pure enjoyment, but for an effective practice to achieve lasting pleasure he focused on working with desires and on things which cause pain.

To me, this is the important concern for a practicing Epicurean. And the Golden Ones and The Cow have done a fine job of diverting the focus to sorting out fancy pleasures. But since they have been so successful, it's useful for us to untangle the mess that they've created.

Thanks for that compilation Don !

Quote from Don

One can take pleasure in being in a state one can describe as being "undisturbed" or in a state one can describe as "pain-free." I simply don't accept that ataraxia and aponia are not "sensed."

I tend to agree with this statement. I think it's a slippery slope from "not sensed" to "neutral state". But I would say that it's a different quality of pleasure: quieter, more subtle.

It sounds like Seneca is describing aponia and ataraxia. But that's a good quote; I'm certainly curious what list he might be referring to!

Quote from Kalosyni

There is just this very open way of referring to different desires, and as I think about it then it would only make sense if Epicurus had clearly defined all of these categories.

I've always understood Epicurus' descriptions of the types of desires as all that's required. I agree with Cassius that these are principles which provide guidance in making decisions. We can use them now, in a society much different from that of Epicurus, whereas a specific list from ancient Greece could be open to misinterpretation. For example, from some of Don 's posts it sounds like the typical Athenian diet may have been much different from what we eat today. So for us it would be unnecessary and possibly bothersome to try to mimic the ancient diet when we have modern standards as to what is healthy and easily obtained.

Liebersohn's article is a fascinating case study. His simple proposition is that katastematic pleasure is necessary, whereas kinetic pleasure is unnecessary.

However it quickly becomes evident that his thinking is grounded in Platonism and this defines his entire approach to arguing his proposition. I imagine that even conceiving of this proposition was determined by his evident Platonic background, but it's possible to examine his proposition from outside of Platonism, which of course is how I and most of us here would probably approach it.

Here are two ways that he states his proposition:

1) "As the removal of pain is a necessary condition for Epicurean ataraxia and aponia, 'katastematic' pleasure, having to do with the removal of pain, is the necessary pleasure pertaining both to the process of removing pain and to its result... while 'kinetic' pleasure is an unnecessary pleasure having nothing to do with the removal of pain, e.g. it starts after pain has been removed." [Now this sounds thoroughly Platonic, Ciceronian perhaps]

2) "I propose to distinguish between 'moving towards an end', i.e. movement which has an end (the absence of pain) and 'moving qua moving', i.e. movement which has no end (it is concerned with its own movement)". [If he had left out the parenthetical "absence of pain", I might find this an interesting topic for discussion. But I haven't given that much thought because that's not what he's arguing. It is, however, why I read his article.]

I'm not a scholar and don't want to disturb my ataraxia by making a counter argument to his article. I do want to point out that he's apparently done a great deal of research in preparing his article. He even quotes DeWitt: "as was rightly detected by N. DeWitt... [EAHP pp. 7-8]... Plato did not regard pleasure as the highest good since it is "becoming" rather than "being".... And a chunk of his article is devoted to discussing Nikolsky. But his conclusions are for the most part diametrically opposed to what I think I would conclude from reviewing the same material that he reviewed. (The only footnote that I checked was one referencing Long and Sedley's The Hellenistic Philosophers. He seemed to be referencing from a different edition than the kindle version that I have, and I couldn't find his reference on the pages that he cited. However what I guessed he was referring to didn't say at all what he was suggesting, but I can't say that I was pointing to the same quote as he was.)

The way he approaches his proposition is steeped in absence of pain and, apparently, hierarchical pleasures. And he favorably mentions absence of pain as a neutral state. It pretty much made my head spin the way his conclusions seemed to differ from mine. When he points out a passage that I would read as supporting my interpretation of pleasure, he argues off in an entirely different direction. But I do find this article to be useful as a case study, although I've spent more than enough time with it now and leave that study to someone more academically minded than me.

There are two things he suggests, which I don't think that I've heard before. First is that the Principle Doctrines may include statements by later Epicureans as well, based on Bailey's Epicurus The Extent Remains pp. 344-7. This is counter to my understanding: has it ever been disputed or disproved, or is this accepted? I thought this was the case with the Vatican Sayings but not the Principle Doctrines.

Secondly, he gives a date for the Letter to Menoeceus as c. 296-295 BC (J.E Hessler, Proposte sulla data di conposizione e il destinatario dell'Epistola a Meneceo, <Cronache Ercolanesi>, XLI (2011) pp. 7-11). He also states that this letter "was intended to reach a wider public who might still be under the influence of an erroneous philosophy or of the unsupported maxims and opinions of popular thought [per Bailey ETER p. 327]... in the [LM] there appear colloquial terms such as 'necessary-unnecessary' (Menoec. 127), while technical terms such as 'kinetic' and 'katastematic' populate treatises such as [that referenced in Diogenes Laertius X 136], addressed to the devoted Epicurean." Liebersohn states elsewhere that Menoeceus was a beginner in the philosophy; to my understanding there's no information regarding Menoeceus; this must be inferred from the Bailey quote or perhaps some foreign language publication.

One last comment. To go out on a limb, I'm still not convinced that there are necessary and unnecessary pleasures. I'm convinced that there are necessary and unnecessary desires, but to me desires are quite different from pleasures. So for me, his proposition is invalid on these grounds although others here may disagree.

I was there about 4 years ago. And to the original in the 1980s. Of course there's also the Getty Villa in Malibu, CA: a replica of the Villa de Papyri

Don for a 2000 year sidestep, does your interest in homeostasis come from reading Dopamine Nation? That book has been on my list for quite a while but I haven't got around to reading it.

Just curious. I don't want to derail this thread! Great research!

If you haven't already, take a look at Long and Sedley's commentary in the Pleasure section of The Hellenistic Philosophers. They devoted a page or so to this topic.

So we don't have much to go on from Epicurus himself, including this fragment:

The words of Epicurus in his work On Choice are : "Peace of mind and freedom from pain are pleasures which imply a state of rest ; joy and delight are seen to consist in motion and activity."

Can any significance be derived from the fact that he wrote that peace of mind and freedom from pain imply a state of rest, whereas joy and delight are seen to consist in motion and activity? Could he have been suggesting that a katastematic state isn't experienced directly, but only through such pleasures as peace of mind and freedom from pain? Could he have been discounting katastematic pleasure altogether and answering Plato, et al, that it is only a mental description based on experienced pleasures?

This is a great example of the much documented issue of lack of documentation

Further, Cicero’s opposition to Epicurus is well established. Knowing his agenda, relying on his presentation of what has become such a key idea is pretty much guaranteed to lead us into the conundrum we're grappling with. This was his agenda after all.

Quote from Don

My question: Does this describe a life of katastematic pleasure as a foundation filled with kinetic pleasure?

Reading it in this context and considering the source, it strikes me as quite a sarcastic and misleading description of that. As we often discuss, "a life of ease", of otiosus, might be absolute pleasure to some people yet entirely odius to others. And "crammed full of pleasures" seems to indicate disdain for prudent choices and avoidances.

OK abiding probably isn't a great word choice I'm having trouble coming up with a correct word; background condition is one attempt, maybe underlayment is another. I'm trying to express it from experience, not texts, so it's challenging.

Quote from Don

The words of Epicurus in his work On Choice are : "Peace of mind and freedom from pain are pleasures which imply a state of rest ; joy and delight are seen to consist in motion and activity."

Thanks for this quote Don . it's been some time since I read Nikolsky, Wenham or Gosling and Taylor; how does this square with their arguments? Isn't their point that katastematic and kinetic weren't terms used by Epicurus? This would seem to contradict that view.

Quote from Cassius, of Arenson

Epicurus made a name for himself in the ancient world when he identified pleasure with the absence of pain and proceeded to distinguish it from a second, seemingly different variety of pleasure--that found `in motion' (kinetic).

As I've been struggling to express above, I'm beginning to have what I think is an answer to this argument. FWIW I'll try to clarify it here.

1. Pleasure and pain are, first and foremost, feelings.

2. Pleasure and pain are opposing feelings, so absence of either of them implies the maximum quantity of the other by definition.

3. Properly understanding natural science results in an abiding absence of pains which are due to fears of the gods, fears of death, and other fears caused by common myths. It also gives us knowledge of how to best live our lives in our particular circumstances, through prudent choices and avoiding of desires to pursue.

4. This abiding absence of pain due to understanding natural science is the only pleasure that could be properly considered katastematic. All other pleasures and pains come and go. Being pleasantly full for two or three hours is not, to my current thinking, katastematic. However living in a situation in which you will never have to worry about hunger, due to your reasoning about pleasures and pains concerning food, could be considered katastematic regarding hunger.

5. This abiding absence of pain is a pleasure which is properly referred to as wisdom and is also called ataraxia. If Epicurus indeed ever used the term "katastematic pleasure", which is debatable, I propose that this is what he was referring to. By this interpretation katastematic pleasure isn’t meant to refer to being replenished, or to any specific part of the neurological process of experiencing pleasure. It's simply a background condition that we've created for ourselves through correct study and correct reasoning.

Could this be a valid counterargument to the above quote? Or am I misinterpreting something?

Here are some of my notes from TGOP which reinforce Don 's post above:

19.2.3 Ataraxia and aponia are considered conditions of life, not particular pleasures.

19.2.4 Since aponia is just a condition of painless perception it does not mean that Epicurus thought of a non-perceiving state as pleasurable.

19.3.2 Katastematic pleasures refer to "the well-established katastema (condition) of the flesh. Not to replenishment, movement, or katastasis eis phusin (restoration to the natural state). The latter was an argument against pleasure, on the basis that what was being returned to was the good, not pleasure. When the organism is operating properly it will be in a state of pleasure, and pain is a matter of unnatural operation.

19.3.3 Therefore kinetic pleasures are not a different kind than katastematic ones: they too are sensory and a matter of some part of the organism operating properly. Due to this most of Cicero can be discounted in this regard.

19.4.27 Ataraxia is achieved by the removal of superstitious fear and false beliefs, the constant memory of the truth, and attention to present experience and perception. Now the mind is free of disturbance and so memory and expectation operate without anxiety. Similarly when physical pain is removed the body operates without pain and that will mean that always some pleasurable and painless perception is occurring, a condition of good cheer.

19.4.30 When the organism is functioning harmoniously it is always having some form of perception; since the operation is harmonious the perception is pleasant and without pain; that is just what aponia is. Ataraxia is the condition when, because of correct views, our expectations are undisturbed by fear, our desires do not pursue empty objectives and our memories are pleasant: this leaves us to enjoy our pleasures unanxiously.

Related to this are these notes:

18.3.15 A wise man needs to know certain basic facts about man and nature, convince himself of them and acquire certain habits of life. These will ensure that pleasure predominates. No daily hedonic calculus is necessary; the calculation is all at the stage of working out the facts, the effects of belief in them, and the proper regimen. From

time to time one will have to review one's knowledge and confirm one's attitudes and practices. Once one is convinced of the truth of Epicurus' doctrines and has incorporated his teachings into one's life, one ceases to worry and lives a life as near to ataraxia and aponia as is possible for one. To achieve the best life possible, conviction and good habits are enough. One's wisdom shows in the acquisition and development of those

characteristics that will keep his life as pleasant as it can be, and that being so he will not be deluded into thinking that it will improve if only it lasts a little longer.

18.3.19 Ataraxia consists in a condition of correct belief, and aponia in a condition free of bodily lack. The distinction between wisdom and ataraxia is therefore verbal rather than real. Since absence of wisdom is equivalent to the absence of ataraxia and therefore of mental pleasure, and its presence to the presence of mental pleasure, using it or mental pleasure as a criterion of worth amount to the same thing.

Before reviewing my notes I had been thinking of these last two notes as references to katastematic pleasure, but now I see that wasn't what Gosling and Taylor were saying at all.

As I recall from a while ago, one of my conclusions from reading The Greeks On Pleasure was that the considered katastematic pleasure to be obtained when you absorb and understand the conclusions from natural science that we need not fear the gods or death.

PD18: As soon as the pain produced by the lack of something is removed, pleasure in the flesh is not increased but only embellished. Yet the limit of enjoyment in the mind is produced by thinking through these very things and similar things, which once provoked the greatest fears in the mind.

PD19: Finite time and infinite time contain the same amount of joy, if its limits are measured out through reasoning.

Also,

PD11: If our suspicions about astronomical phenomena and about death were nothing to us and troubled us not at all, and if this were also the case regarding our ignorance about the limits of our pains and desires, then we would have no need for studying what is natural. PD12: It is impossible for someone who is completely ignorant about nature to wash away his fears about the most important matters if he retains some suspicions about the myths. So it is impossible to experience undiluted enjoyment without studying what is natural.

To me, these describe how to achieve katastematic pleasure: by studying nature and achieving a correct worldview. This worldview provides a pleasure which is unchanging, unaffected by the slings and arrow of outrageous fortune. It doesn't mean that we've left behind the myriad of other pleasures and pains, but that they are embellishments to the pleasure of a correct worldview. We've built a stable base on which to make choices and avoidances regarding all other pleasures, all of which are constantly changing.

There's also this tidbit....

A Google search for "isonomia David Sedley" revealed the book Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity by David Sedley. It has what appears to be a pertinent chapter titled "Epicurean Infinity". https://books.google.com/books?id=SgRuJ…epage&q&f=false

It's always worth asking David Sedley

Thanks Cassius that's helpful. But of course I have more questions

DeWitt mentions Zoroaster as an influence for thinking in terms of good and evil, and good and evil would fit with the analogy of the legal system. But they don't seem to fit with Epicurus' description of justice. I'm curious if love and strife are more direct influences, being pre-Socratic influences on and precursors to the development of atomism. (Was it Parmenides theory? I tend to get the Pre-Socratics mixed up.) This would be what is being described in the underlined portion of the quotation in post #2.

It also seems curious that the term isonomia doesn’t exist in extant Epicurean texts but is only found in Cicero, per DeWitt. Curious in that Cicero, the crafty lawyer, would express it in legal terms. And that such terms imply good and evil....

"The existence of the imperfect in an infinite universe demands belief in the existence of the perfect. Cicero employs very similar language: "It is his doctrine that there are gods, because there is bound to be some surpassing being than which nothing is better."

I also don't see the truth in this statement. To me, in an infinite universe there is an infinite progression of "better". I'm fully on board with the idea of an hierarchy, but in keeping with the mind-bogglingness of infinity, I can't conceive of a limit such as "best". I suppose there could be something that is "biggest", but, again, does infinity contain such a limit?

BTW Cassius in what section of DeWitt is the quote in post #2 located? At some point it might be helpful to track down his footnotes. And do you know offhand where it is that Lucretius discusses this?

Quote from DeWitt via Cassius

By this time three aspects of the principles of isonomy have been brought forward: first, that in an infinite universe perfection is bound to exist as well as imperfection; that is, "that there must be some surpassing being, than which nothing is better"; second, that the number of these beings, the gods, cannot be less than the number of mortals; and third, that in the universe at large the forces of preservation always prevail over the forces of destruction.

I've had problems wrapping my head around isonomia from the first time I read DeWitt. Using this quote as a summary helps to analyze my concerns with the idea.

First aspect: at first it makes sense that in in an infinite universe there would be perfection as well as imperfection. But on further thought, how is perfection defined? Isn't this a mental concept rather than something inherent in a material universe? If anything, I would consider the universe itself as perfect rather than some aspect of it. This leads me to a definition of perfection as a self-contained, self-perpetuating system, a definition which then leads back to the original question of the destruction of the world. And maybe this leads to the imperturbability of the Epicurean gods as well. But the key point in my mind is that perfection is a value judgment, and therefore has no place in describing a material universe.

The second aspect, that the number of gods must equal the number of mortals, makes absolutely no sense to me. Can someone explain this?

The third aspect seems to make sense to me, but I should read the conversation between Martin and Marco before I make up my mind.

Anybody have other thoughts or explanations about isonomia? I'm rather befuddled.

In modern physics we're unable to measure things smaller than a certain size because the act of measuring will affect the thing being measured. For example, something smaller than a photon cannot be observed/measured using light, and something smaller than an electron cannot be measured using an electron microscope. There's a name for this which escapes me; hopefully someone has the name at hand and can correct me if I've mis-stated it.

This would be the modern equivalent of a single atom not being able to emit a film.