Posts by Don

"feeling no pain" is an idiom for feeling blissful. Just saying

Quote from Cassius

"if you think about it this current feeling that you perceive as blahness is really the greatest pleasure anyone can experience in life!"

That's the point. What they rightly subjectively perceive as blahness isn't the highest pleasure. They are not really free from all pain. I would go so far as to say that none of us are ever going to be at the highest pleasure. We're not gods. Even Epicurus wasn't free from all pain, and he's supposed to be the exemplar, the savior. It's a goal, it's the theoretical limit, but we're mortal beings in a natural material world. It's a theoretical limit that let's pleasure be the good. There is a limit. Parts of our body and sometimes our minds can be free from pain, but it's temporary... Unless we're talking about rooting out fears and anxieties of things that shouldn't be feared or be anxious about.

"It depends how you look at it" plays into the other person's hands. You've accepted their terms and are agreeing to play by their rules on their turf.

They're "looking at it" ....... Okay, I hesitate to say "the wrong way," but that's what I want to say.

And what are we looking at?

I think a more potentially fruitful way is to "Consider this: If you're alive right now, interacting with the world, what are you feeling?" "Nothing much." "Tell me more." "Oh, my back's a little twingy, but overall... meh." And so on.

Are you alive?

Yes?

What are you feeling right now?

Nothing. I am in a neutral state, I am feeling neither pleasure nor pain.

Then you are not alive but dead.

Harrrrumph! Well, the absence of pain is not the highest pleasure.

If you are alive, you are *feeling*, experiencing sensations. Someone who is alive is always feeling...

Etc.

Quote from Cassius

For example, all of those headings around the circumference are labels that the model-writer has assigned based on his or her experience. Would it be any less legitimate to assign them differently?

Depends what you mean by "different". My impression is that most everyone would agree that alert, excited, happy, calm, etc are positive feelings; and stressed, upset, nervous, bored are negative feelings. Those positive and negative sides can be sliced to infinity. Those marked are marking of examples.

Quote from Cassius

a model in which there is a middle ground. Is there really a difference in real-world evidence that says that one model conforms with reality more than does the other?

I would bet that that "middle ground" is not as stable as your argument and Cicero's is making it out to be. If you actually ask someone supposedly experiencing this "middle ground," I would meet they'd defer to adjectives like calm, bored, relaxed, with varying degrees of positive or negative feelings with varying degrees of intensity.

The fact - yes, fact - is that if you are alive, you're feeling something positive or negative. There is no "middle ground" and no "neutral" feeling. "Meh, I'm okay" is still positive, albeit at a low level of intensity.

Or the circumplex model of affect is applicable:

As one moves around the circle, you experience varying intensities of pleasant and unpleasant/painful feelings. But there's are only two big baskets: pleasant/unpleasant overall. As long as you are a living, breathing being, you're going to experience something in this diagram somewhere along that continuum. Pleasure is to the right of the vertical axis, pain to the left. You can't sit on the line. (Please don't get hung up on whether it's the circumference or the area of the diagram. It's a model after all.)

You two did a great job of defining the "problem" of "the feelings are two" and giving some great answers.

I would only add that Cicero sets up this pain and pleasure spectrum. My analogy would be the timeline we currently use to reckon years. Call the AD/CE side pleasure, the BC/BCE side as pain. There is no year zero. You're either in year 1 BCE or year 1 CE. Same with pleasure and pain, your feeling might be slight, but it's going to be in one era or the other. There is no feeling zero... Unless you've died and ceased to exist.

I get why some translators use static, but I feel they want it to connotate "a state - ic" and not necessarily frozen. That's what I get about static.

καταστηματικός; κᾰτᾰ́στημα = a state, condition (e.g., weather conditions); pertaining to a state or condition

Kinetic is effervescent, momentary, ..

So...?

Pleasure found in a state of being, pleasure coming from a stable condition

Pleasure found in the momentary experience

Like I said, workshopping it. I just don't like any connotation of katastematic as frozen or stuck or static or ... Like that.

Quote from Cassius

Is it not of first importance to understand what they mean separately before combining them with pleasure?

I don't think so. It's the phrase "+ pleasure" that's important.

But I've never liked the static or rest analogies. Off the top of my head, I'd be more readily drawn to a clear blue sky, free of clouds, and the night sky awash with various stars, planets, the moon. Still workshopping this.

I'm going to ignore the Grokkery above.

To answer your question, I see katastematic pleasure as that which results, at least in part, from the weeding out of fear of the gods and death. Once those are truly rooted out - not just intellectually but viscerally - they don't come back. Without those fears and anxieties, the mind can remain untroubled. That's katastematic pleasure. A firm state of being.

Kinetic pleasure are all the pleasures that arise in the moment, from pleasant memories to drinking with friends to eating food.

That's the nutshell.

I thought it might be interesting to listeners to see what other quotes exist from Epicurus' "On the End-Goal" (Περι Τελος): https://www.attalus.org/translate/epicurus.html#k45

As is also my wont, I want to *briefly* address the "pleasures of the profligate" mentioned in this episode. If you want to go even more into the weeds on this, most of this below is copied from my translation and commentary of the Letter to Menoikeus.

The specific section of the Letter is:

Ὅταν οὖν λέγωμεν ἡδονὴν τέλος ὑπάρχειν¹, οὐ τὰς τῶν ἀσώτων ἡδονὰς καὶ τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας λέγομεν, ὥς τινες ἀγνοοῦντες καὶ οὐχ ὁμολογοῦντες ἢ κακῶς ἐκδεχόμενοι νομίζουσιν, ἀλλὰ τὸ μήτε ἀλγεῖν κατὰ σῶμα μήτε ταράττεσθαι κατὰ ψυχήν·

Therefore, whenever we say repeatedly that "pleasure is the goal (τέλος)," we do not say the pleasure of those who are prodigal and those stuck in delighting in pleasures arising from circumstances outside of ourselves like those who are ignorant, those who don't agree with us, or those who believe wrongly; but we mean that which neither pains the body nor troubles the mind. (My translation)

A. τὰς τῶν ἀσώτων ἡδονὰς = "the pleasures of those who are past recovery with no hope of safety'" My discovery, several years ago now, that ἀσώτων (genitive of ἄσωτος (asōtos)) is the exact same word used in the Parable of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament gave this line a new resonance. I grew up on stories of the wanton ways of the prodigal son:

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living ( ζῶν ἀσώτως). After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything."

Hmm, pigs? Coincidence?? In any case, I digress...

ἄσωτος = having no hope of safety, in desperate case; to be past recovery; in moral sense, abandoned, profligate. The Latin synonym given is perditus "squander, dissipate, waste, throw away, lost" (from which we get "perdition.")

So, when Epicurus says "we don't say" he's talking about that kind of behavior that leads to loss, desperation, and to be beyond recovery.

B. τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας = "those stuck in delighting in pleasures arising from circumstances outside of ourselves" I'll admit my translation could be controversial.

There was an extensive discussion on ἀπολαύσει on the forum a couple years ago.

I brought up that ἀπολαύσει and its variants convey the idea of enjoyment, specifically “to have enjoyment of a thing, have the benefit of it.” It can also convey “enjoy an advantage from some source.” This also implies enjoyment of something external to oneself. One source from 1572 stated that the word could also be translated into Latin by oblectationem or delectationem. These also imply enjoyment of physical or sensual pleasures:
- oblectatio "a delighting, delight (a favorite word of Cicero)"
- delectatio "a delighting, delight, pleasure, amusement"
ἀπολαύσει, at its most basic meaning, is the “act of enjoying, fruition” or the “result of enjoying, pleasure.” Again, this implies enjoying the benefit of something with the additional meaning of “advantage got from a thing.”

This sense is very clear in the use of ἀπόλαυσις in Vatican Saying 27, where the "fruit" is explicitly included in the connotation:

Whereas other pursuits yield their fruit only to those who have practiced them to perfection, in the love and practice of wisdom knowledge is accompanied by delight; for here enjoying comes along with learning, not afterward.
ἐπὶ μὲν τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιτηδευμάτων μόλις τελειωθεῖσιν ὁ καρπὸς ἔρχεται, ἐπὶ δὲ φιλοσοφίας συντρέχει τῇ γνώσει τὸ τερπνόν· οὐ γὰρ μετὰ μάθησιν ἀπόλαυσις, ἀλλὰ ἅμα μάθησις καὶ ἀπόλαυσις.

One is literally here taking delight in the fruit of the love and practice of wisdom.

To cut to the chase:

I am now of the opinion that τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας should be interpreted as "those who are stuck in enjoying (only) those things which provide enjoyment from outside themselves." To me, this is a direct reference to the "incorrect" beliefs of the Cyrenaics and others in relation to pleasure. And, yes, the reader is correct that I'm referring to the kinetic and katastematic pleasures that Epicurus mentions. I realize this will be considered controversial by some, but I believe this best explains Epicurus's being able to use ἀπολαύσει in both positive and negative senses.

Epicurus is on record for including both kinetic and katastematic pleasures within his definition of "pleasure." I have now come to understand kinetic pleasures as those arising from factors and circumstances and that “stand out” from our “background” state of katastematic pleasures within ourselves. A metaphor discussed at the EpicureanFriends forum for this was that katastematic pleasures are the calm ocean while kinetic pleasures are the waves which we can surf. We can enjoy both floating on the calm water as well as the catching of the waves and “shooting the curl.” While Epicurus conveys (along with Metrodorus and Philodemus) that we can be more confident in katastematic pleasures, we continue to "delight" in kinetic pleasures when they are available. It is the exclusivity of "getting stuck in" only seeing kinetic pleasures as pleasure that Epicurus is objecting to here with τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας.

1 Footnote on ἡδονὴν τέλος ὑπάρχειν. When Epicurus writes this phrase, he's not just saying "Pleasure is the end-goal." It's more emphatic than that. ὑπάρχειν expresses a more integral, intimate relationship. It's more than just "is." It's more like "The telos/the end-goal has its being from the very beginning of the universe in pleasure." Granted, that may be pushing it to limit, but that gets closer than just "is" from how I can interpret it.

See also https://philarchive.org/rec/GHOWDU

Preexistence before Socrates – Research Bulletin

FWIW, the word translated virtue there is αρετή (aretē)

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἀρετή

The Verde article is this one:

Ancora sullo statuto veritativo della sensazione in Epicuro | Lexicon Philosophicum: International Journal for the History of Texts and Ideas

When Sedley writes "above" he literally means above in the same issue. Verde's directly precedes him in that issue:

2018: Special Issue - Hellenistic Theories of Knowledge | Lexicon Philosophicum: International Journal for the History of Texts and Ideas

Quote from Cassius

I don't think the article came to Martin's attention because it was the best science available or particularly well written. It's more of a data point give a current generic summary of arguments we seen thrown around by average people (to the extent average people get around to discussing the issue).

Oh, I didn't mean to insinuate that I faulted Martin for anything! I completely fault the author for putting that drivel out into the world to begin with.

And I understand your point about knowing what's being said and having a summary of the pseudo-intellectual drivel that comes dangerously close (or crosses into) to the "just asking questions" strategy.

I see no evidence for "intelligence" - benevolent or otherwise - inherent in the cosmos or the wider universe. That which is held up as "evidence" requires a suspension of critical thinking that I am unwilling to partake in.

I just skimmed the original article, including reading the authors "credentials" and sour grapes ranting at the end, and my primary reaction is "those are several minutes of my life I'll never get back."

Quote from Joshua

By this logic we should disregard all laboratory experiments.

Quote from Cassius

We have all the evidence we need to conclude firmly that life is a product of natural processes and did not originate from a supernatural intelligence.

Both of those

Substack provides *anybody* a platform. Anybody can "publish" a book now. My other primary result from that Yates article is to know to avoid anything by Yates now.

with my usual caveats ...

The first two lines in the original are not imperatives (commands) but declarative statements. So...

1. The course is not to be feared.
2. Failure is free of guilt.

The second line is originally something like "free of suspicion" or Death is free of suspicion (that something is bad about it). I used poetic license on using "guilt."

scurra Atticus: the clown of Athens

scurra m (genitive scurrae); first declension

1. elegant man about town, dandy, rake
2. jester, joker, wit, clown

Atticus: (in general) of or pertaining to Attica or Athens, Attic, Athenian

Chrysippa is simply the feminine form of Chrysippus, playing on his "father" figure status, basically giving him a "mother's" name.

Horace: You do not understand what Chrysippus,[*] the father [of your sect], says...

Scaife Viewer | Satyrarum libri

Welcome aboard!

Coryphaeus:

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin coryphaeus, from Ancient Greek κορυφαῖος (koruphaîos, “leader of the chorus in an Ancient Greek drama”), from κορυφή (koruphḗ, “top of the head, crown”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (“head, top; horn”)) + -ῐος (-ĭos, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘belonging to, pertaining to’).

coryphaeus (plural coryphaeuses or coryphaei)

(Ancient Greece, drama, historical) The conductor or leader of the chorus of a drama.

Synonym: coryphée

(by extension) The chief or leader of an interest or party.

Synonyms: coryphe, coryphée

The leader of an opera chorus or another ensemble of singers.