Posts by Don

Quote from Cassius

Some people find pleasure in many different ways -- do we agree on that?

We agree but it's irrelevant. The feeling of pleasure is the canonical faculty at work. We feel pleasure, then ask why that was pleasurable. Feeling, then reason. The action or thought or recollection that elicits a pleasurable feeling is then chosen or rejected to be engaged in again or not on the basis of that feeling. The feeling -- to be modern -- is a reflex response to a stimulus. Those endorphins are the same chemical reaction for all humans. We feel the pleasure before any "thinking" about why we felt it. That's why it can be a standard. It's a biological response not predicated on cognitive reasoning.

Quote from Cassius

If we do, then that's the first indication that a canonical faculty gives different results for different people.

It seems to me you're conflating different "results" with different "feelings." There are different results because different people have different reactions to their feeling of pleasure. Pleasure is pleasure. Opinions about pleasure can be different. To use a metaphor: Fire can be used to burn a house down or cook your food. The results are different, but the nature of the fire remains the same regardless of the outcome. Same for pleasure.

This is a more in depth and fascinating discussion than I can handle at 11:30 pm. I promise I'll re-engage tomorrow. For now

I have been chomping at the proverbial bit all day to respond to this thread.

It seems to me some things are getting conflated here, specifically Canonics and Ethics.

The Canon consists of three sources:

"In The Canon Epicurus affirms that our (1) sensations and (2) preconceptions and our (3) feelings are the standards of truth" (Diogenes Laertius, X.31)

• Sensations αἴσθησις are the sense-perceptions.
• Preconceptions/Anticipations are the infamous prolepses προλήψεις
• Feelings πάθη are pleasure and pain. That's it, two. "They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined." (DL, X.33)

The Canon is literally the yardstick, standard, ruler. It is the standard against which things - reality? - are measured. I'm interpreting some things posted here to say that everyone has their own standard. No. I can't see how that can be correct. Everyone has their own opinions, beliefs, interpretations, etc., but the Canon provides a standard against which those opinions and beliefs are measured. You can't say a belief or opinion is "empty" κενός if you have nothing against which to measure it. Otherwise, the Canon has no meaning. You can't say the standard is not a standard. That doesn't place a value judgement. It a belief does not START with a canonical sensation, preconception, or feeling, it's not a valid belief. Not all beliefs are equal. How else could you say that a belief that the gods influence my actions is vain/empty/κενός without referring to the yardstick/ruler/Canon?

The Canon provides no ethical or conceptual content. All the canonic faculties (I think that's a good word) function pre-conceptually. "Images" impact the senses. Preconceptions/anticipations are exactly that: they are "before concepts" or "anticipate" concepts. The feelings of pleasure and pain are automatic. We cannot (really) control whether we feel pleasure or pain. We can decide to endure pain as a choice. But we feel pleasure or pain prior to any conceptual understanding of it or "meaning" behind it.

As far as determining whether something is just or not, whether there is justice in a given situation, that is entirely a matter for Ethics and the social contract. The most basic social contract - according to Epicurus - is "to neither harm nor to be harmed." That's not the prolepsis of justice. Granted, I'm still wrestling with what the "Prolepsis of Justice" is, but I'm leaning toward it having to do something with those animal experiments, especially since their working out something preverbally and maybe preconceptually but rather instinctually. The "prolepsis of justice" will not "tell" us whether something is just or not. That's determined by the social contract of a particular time and place.

I'll stop there for now.

Quote from EricR

Ok, think I'm sloooooowly getting the idea here. The feeling that something is unfair is the operation of the faculty of anticipation while the actual thought of "this is unfair because..." is the operation of the rational mind. That mind can make mistakes due to personal issue, incorrect information, ideoligical bias, etc. But the original ability of sensing "something" unfair is the faculty in operation that requires interpration.

I would agree with that. That seems well stated.

That's where I'm uneasy about Cassius maintaining the anticipations are wrong or can be wrong, if I'm reading him correctly. My reading of Epicurus is that the senses are an accurate reflection of reality. They are "true." It's our opinions and beliefs branching off from our canonical faculties that are the problem and not the Canon itself. I think it's the same or similar with the anticipations (as implied by that quote from the Letter to M.)

Quote from Cassius

there can be false anticipations, as cited in the letter to Menoeceus.

Hmmm. The anticipations aren't false. It's the popular opinions of the gods that Epicurus takes issue with in the Letter:

Quote

Impious is one who upholds popular beliefs about the gods, because those pronouncements are false opinions rather than actual preconceptions.

More later.

Quote from Cassius

But despite all that, these things are not properly thought of as "innate ideas." We are not born Presbyterians or Islamists or atheists.

Agreed. We are born humans, animals, and parts of the natural world.

I'll have more to respond to your other points later, Cassius .

Here's that full TED Talk:

Be sure to watch to the end for an explanation of chimps refusing the grape until the other one gets one, too!

Quote from EricR

Indeed for me, the notion that we are born with innate ideas makes no sense and I can understand its opposite, the blank slate.

I completely understand where you're coming from. However, the "blank slate" idea, while a popular and long-standing theory, has been well debunked. There is a lot of fascinating research on babies and toddlers.

Quote from EricR

When I've watched children at play and they get into a dispute over a toy, game, etc. I've witnessed the indignant retort, "hey, no fair!" This is usually the result of a desire being thwarted, but they don't say, "hey, I didn't get my want fulfilled!" or some childhood equivalent. They refer to something called "fair" that represents the feeling of their desire being denied. In other words, they sense innately that there was something unfair, or unjust, about the situation. Does this sound like the existence of an Anticipation of "justice"?

Excellent observation! This sense - anticipation - of "justice" or "fairness" has been observed in monkeys as well. I think I've posted elsewhere on there forum on this, but the one that comes to mind is the experiment where two monkeys are given a task and rewarded with a cucumber. However, as soon as one is rewarded with a "better" prize - fruit - the other monkey sees this and refuses to perform the task. I've seen videos of the "deprived" monkey throwing the carrot back at the researcher.

Here it is. Evidently he says they've done it with dogs and other animals:

That looks like a rudimentary anticipation of justice to me!

Quote from EricR

So I am curious to know what innate ideas are thought to be "justice" and "divine nature".

Sorry, realized I cut that quote off.

The innate idea of the "divine nature" is that it is "blessed" (μακαριος) and "incorruptible" (άφθαρτος). That's it. To assign any other characteristics goes beyond the anticipation from my readings.

Quote from EricR

I am curious to know what innate ideas are thought to be "justice"

My understanding of the basis of justice is "to neither harm nor be harmed." This is the yardstick of determining an action is just or not.

http://www.mss.vatlib.it/guii/scan/link1.jsp?fond=Vat.gr.

Bah!!! Vat. Gr. 1950 digitized images are only available in their Reading Room... I'm assuming that means onsite.

OH!OH!!

CLICK ON THE BOOK ICON!!

DigiVatLib

Woohoo!! Now just to figure out where they are, part 1 or part 2!!

Well, I have no recollection of that but I appreciate the positive review Look forward to listening to The Epicureans.

Okay, lace up your boots 'cause we're headin' into the weeds here!

So, the Vatican Sayings are contained in the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1950 which also contains Marcus Aurelius's Meditations evidently. The first publication of this manuscript was by Wotke along with Usener in Wiener Studien, Vol. X, in ,1888.

And it's digitized on Internet Archive:

Wiener Studien, vol. 9-10 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Wiener Studien, vol. 9-10 (1887-1888) Book digitized by Google

archive.org

I don't read German, but I read well enough to find saying 42 in this text. Since Wotke and Userner were evidently working from the manuscript itself, there's no Greek word for pain in number 42, just the "greatest good" του μέγιστου αγαθού

Wiener Studien, vol. 9-10 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Wiener Studien, vol. 9-10 (1887-1888) Book digitized by Google

archive.org

And the edit of απολύσεως in the manuscript to απολαύσεως by Wotke and Userner appears to be uncontroversial (to them at least) since 42 doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere else in the paper where various sayings are discussed.

Unfortunately, this looks to be as close as we can come to codex Vaticanus Graecus 1950 since I couldn't find a digitized version online ... yet.

That's the problem with the fragments. They're literally fragmentary. Without seeing the actual manuscripts, we're relying on scholars' educated guesses and interpretations. Without context, there's no way to ascertain how profound or prosaic an excerpt was in the original.

Quote from Cassius

I say that to say that at the moment I don't find "at the same time the greatest good is created and enjoyed" as saying anything really meaningful -especially given what I think is the firm premise that pleasure is a feeling and I don't see Epicurus being concerned about whether we think about it or not.

Unless he was trying to refute some "reason is the be all and end all" Philosopher and defending pain/pleasure as part of the Canon, a direct link with reality with no intermediary needed or necessary. There's literally no way to know. In any case, I'm enjoying sticking with απολαύσεως for now (pun fully intended )

Quote from Cassius

Yes you can state by definition that we achieve the most pleasure-filled life by evicting the last ounce of pain, but that's not what these commentators are suggesting, and this kind of construction "The same time the greatest good is both created and ended." really makes little sense at all -- as dewitt charitably calls it it is "obscure"

That's actually why I'm leaning to Usener's απολαύσεως "enjoyment" and not Dewitt's απολύσεως 'termination":

"At the same time, the greatest good (pleasure) is created and enjoyed."

There is no intermediate step between the arising of pleasure and its enjoyment; they're simultaneous. We don't need to think about whether we feel pleasure. We just do. That's my interpretation of this "rather obscure fragment."

That alleviates any need for an extra word (like some add evil/pain with evidently no evidence).

It keeps the standard meaning of "at the same time" and doesn't need Dewitt's "the same span of time" interpretation.

I suppose an alternative without the evil is:

The same time the greatest good is both created and ended.

ο αυτός χρονος is translated several other places as "the same time".

Here's the LSJ for χρόνος to judge for yourselves: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…7:entry=xro/nos

Several definitions there have αυτού (just a declension of αυτός) and it's always "same time" not "same span of time". It sounds to me more simultaneous. Which makes sense: as the greatest good (pleasure) increases, the greatest evil (pain) is destroyed.

PS: Bailey translates it: The greatest blessing is created and enjoyed at the same moment. T

Here's his commentary too.

So the context is lost and its hard to piece together the text. Always a problem! But I could see Bailey's interpretation about philosophical study at XXVII. And I believe I mentioned elsewhere that I'm inclined to accept Usener's textual interpretation on the original Greek texts, so maybe I'm leaning to απολαύσεως "enjoyment".

Here's the relevant Dewitt passage from The New Hedonism chapter:

Quote

There was for Epicureans no preexistence, as Plato believed, and no afterlife, as the majority of mankind believed. Epicurus himself expressed the thought with stark directness, Vatican Saying 14: "We are born once and we cannot be born twice but to all eternity must be no more." Thus the supreme values must be sought between the limits of birth and death.

The specific teaching that life itself is the greatest good is to be drawn from Vatican Saying 42: "The same span of time includes both beginning and termination of the greatest good." If this seems to be a dark saying, the obscurity is dispelled by viewing it as merely a denial of belief in either pre-existence or the afterlife. As Horace wrote, concluding Epistle i.i6 with stinging abruptness, "Death is the tape-line that ends the race of life." Editors, however, misled by the summum bonum fallacy, equate "the greatest good" with pleasure and so are forced to emend. The change of a single letter does the trick but fundamental teaching is obliterated.1

Footnote 1 reads: Editors follow Usener in changing απολύσεως to απολαύσεως, "termination" to "enjoyment."

Here's my copy of VS42:
42. At the very same time, the greatest good is created and the greatest evil is removed. ὁ αὐτὸς χρόνος καὶ τοῦ μεγίστου ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ἀπολύσεως <τοῦ κακοῦ>.

My copy has Dewitt's preferred απολύσεως but still doesn't have his translation. He's leaving the "evil" του κακού out so I'm not sure where that comes in in the editorial process. If you leave out the evil, it does read: At the same time, the greatest good is created and dispelled (terminated per DeWitt).

Quote from Cassius

If for absolutely certain you were sure you would be dead in ten seconds regardless, it might then make sense to jump off the wall of the Grand Canyon to experience the thrill of flight for nine seconds - a calculation that would not ordinarily be valid.

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere, but there's a Buddhist saying that: If you were to fall to your death from as great height, it would be a shame to miss the view on the way down.

Quote from Cassius

And sometimes we would in fact choose death if we can firmly project that living on would be too painful.

Agreed.

Quote from Cassius

But I do think it is a good point to say that "pleasure and pain have meaning only to the living" so that overall context of life does need to be incorporated into the "big picture" somehow.

So, how do you propose to "incorporate (it) into the 'big picture'"? PD2 does a good job of emphasizing that only the living have sensation and so only the living can experience pleasure and pain. I don't want to dilute the goal of pleasure/living pleasurably.

I understand where Dewitt is coming from with his "life is the greatest good" (because we can't experience pleasure without being alive as in PD2 ) but I fail to see how "life" is going to help me make choices and avoidances other than "stay alive." Pleasure - living a pleasurable life - is at least a target to shoot for. We should strive to live the most pleasurable life using pleasure and pain - long and short term - as our guiding principles.

Quote from Cassius

Ok well are we seeing it the same way that he is saying that "good" must be identified with a sensation / feeling, and is not something that can be defined in terms of a particular set of abstract ideas?

What he's talking about here is not "good" as in just the adjective "good/bad" it's "the good" ταγαθον (tagathon) as in the goal, the telos, the Alpha/Omega, the beginning and the end of life. Pleasure = The Good. He's planting his flag for pleasure as The Good in opposition to those who would tout virtue, etc.