Posts by DistantLaughter

Sharon Street’s critique in “Nothing ‘Really’ Matters, but That’s Not What Matters” is not merely directed at the attempt to prove that pleasure is the good, but at any metaethical framework that assumes real normativity must be grounded in a metaphysically independent, attitude-transcendent realm. This assumption—central to Derek Parfit’s non-naturalist realism—is, for Street, both conceptually misguided and unnecessary for meaningful ethical thought. From her constructivist standpoint, what matters is not what’s true from nowhere, but what withstands scrutiny from within our own reflective evaluative outlook.

This is where her thought strikingly converges with the Epicurean rejection of cosmic teleology. Like Street, Epicurus denies the existence of any divine or supernatural moral order that human beings must detect or conform to. Epicurean physics, with its insistence on atomism and the absence of providential design, closes the door on moral realism of the theistic or Platonic kind. What replaces it is a focus on our faculties—aisthēsis (sensation), pathē (feeling), and prolepsis (preconception)—and the recognition that our criteria for truth and value lie within us, not in some cosmic blueprint. In both systems, normativity is human-centered and constructed, not discovered in a realm beyond.

Street’s analogy—that we are not using a “cosmic truth detector” but are instead building a framework of what matters to us—is deeply consonant with the Epicurean “canon of truth.” Epicurus’s emphasis on sensation, feeling, and preconception as the criteria for knowledge is not an attempt to uncover eternal, mind-independent truths, but a method for navigating the world as it appears to us, in ways that are grounded in human nature and conducive to our flourishing. For both thinkers, the idea of some moral truth existing independently of what humans actually care about is not just superfluous—it is a misunderstanding of what it means for something to matter at all.

According to Professor Sharon Street, in her chapter “Nothing ‘Really’ Matters, but That’s Not What Matters” from Does Anything Really Matter? Essays on Parfit on Objectivity (Oxford University Press, 2017), the attempt to prove that pleasure is the good rests on a mistaken metaethical assumption—namely, that normative truths must be robustly attitude-independent in order to be real or meaningful. Street argues that this demand, central to Derek Parfit’s non-naturalist realism, is both conceptually confused and unnecessary for normative thought.

From Street’s constructivist or Humean antirealist standpoint, evaluative truths like “pleasure is good” do not stand or fall by whether they correspond to some metaphysically independent normative realm. Rather, their truth is constituted within the context of a deliberating agent’s practical standpoint. On this view, to say “pleasure is the good” is to say something from within a framework of evaluative commitments, not to assert a metaphysical fact discoverable apart from those commitments.

Thus, the question “Can you prove that pleasure is the good?” is, on her account, ill-formed. There is no external, neutral court of appeal by which such a claim could be vindicated once and for all. What we can do is examine whether valuing pleasure survives critical scrutiny within our web of normative attitudes—whether it is what we find, on reflection, we are most deeply committed to. If it is, then pleasure is the good—from that standpoint. And Street insists that this is all that normativity requires.

Importantly, Street’s evolutionary debunking argument bolsters this view. If our evaluative dispositions—such as the tendency to value pleasure and avoid pain—are products of evolutionary forces, then it becomes implausible to think they are tracking mind-independent normative truths. We are not, in her analogy, consulting a “cosmic truth detector”; we are engaging in a deeply human process of constructing what matters to us. Trying to prove that pleasure is good by appeal to some robustly independent truth is epistemically circular: it assumes what it seeks to justify.

In sum, Street’s chapter argues that we do not need to prove that pleasure is objectively the good in order for it to matter. The normative authority of pleasure emerges not from correspondence with an independent moral realm, but from its reflective endorsement within our evaluative standpoint. As she puts it, the fear that “nothing really matters” misunderstands what mattering is. The fact that things matter to us, in ways that withstand our most serious reflection, is what mattering consists in—and that is enough.

These are my reflections on the relationship between Epicurean prolepsis and Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar—two distinct yet convergent attempts to explain how the mind organizes experience into coherent and communicable forms. Though separated by centuries and embedded in fundamentally different philosophical systems, both concepts serve to account for the mind’s ability to move from the flux of sensory data to the formation of stable, generalizable structures of thought. In doing so, they may also help explain how human cognition is able to cope with the Heraclitean condition of flux—the ever-changing, unstable nature of perceptual experience—by positing internal mechanisms that impose stability, regularity, or intelligibility upon an otherwise shifting world.

Epicurus introduces prolepsis as one of the three criteria of truth, alongside sensation (aisthēsis) and affective response (pathē). Prolepsis refers to the mental preconceptions or anticipations that arise from repeated encounters with similar sensory phenomena. These are not innate in the strict sense but are generated through a process of accumulated experience, resulting in cognitive templates that are later used in reasoning and discourse. For Epicurus, these preconceptions are natural and universal in the sense that all humans will tend to form them under similar conditions, but their origin lies in the empirically grounded process of sensory repetition. The mind, in this view, is not a blank slate in a passive sense—it is responsive, regularized by nature, and capable of organizing experience into recognizable forms—but it lacks pre-specified content independent of perceptual input.

Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, by contrast, asserts that certain core aspects of human linguistic competence are biologically innate. The grammatical structures underlying all human languages are not abstracted from repeated sensory experience but are instead manifestations of an internal, species-specific cognitive architecture. This internal grammar enables children to generate and comprehend linguistic expressions far more rapidly and systematically than could be explained by empirical learning alone—a problem Chomsky famously framed as the "poverty of the stimulus." The linguistic input a child receives is often fragmentary, ungrammatical, or ambiguous, yet the child arrives at a sophisticated and largely unconscious grasp of complex syntactic rules. This strongly suggests the presence of innate cognitive structures that do not emerge from experience but precede and shape it. Chomsky's innatism does not rest on metaphysical Platonism; it is naturalistic, grounded in biology and evolution, and seeks to explain the universality and specificity of language acquisition through internal, genetically encoded mechanisms.

The tension between these positions lies in their differing causal trajectories. Prolepsis is an empirically derived, bottom-up process in which general concepts are formed through accumulated exposure to particular instances. Universal Grammar is a top-down account: it posits that the human mind comes equipped with an a priori framework that structures experience from the outset. And yet, despite this opposition in orientation, both views converge on the idea that the mind imposes order on experience—it is not simply shaped by the world but participates actively in its interpretation. Both theories recognize a form of cognitive mediation: for Epicurus, this mediation is grounded in natural regularities of perception; for Chomsky, in internal biological design.

This parallel becomes especially relevant when considered in light of the Heraclitean doctrine of flux—the idea that all things are in constant motion and that no object remains the same from one moment to the next. If we take this seriously, then the possibility of stable knowledge, fixed categories, or even coherent language is immediately threatened. But both prolepsis and Universal Grammar offer a reply to this ancient challenge. They locate the source of stability not in the external world—which may indeed be in perpetual change—but in the mind’s capacity to regularize and interpret experience according to internally generated patterns. Whether these patterns are formed through empirical generalization (as in prolepsis) or are biologically prefigured (as in Chomsky), the result is the same: a cognitive apparatus capable of holding meaning steady amid perceptual variation. Thus, both systems allow for epistemic continuity in a world of ontological instability, and both suggest that the coherence of human understanding arises from the structural capacities of the subject rather than from the fixity of the external world.

Professor Rivka Weinberg argues that human life, as a totality, is metaphysically incapable of possessing Ultimate Meaning. Meaning, in the relevant sense, is a "point"—a justifying, valued end external to the activity or enterprise it renders purposeful. While particular actions and projects within a life may have such points (what she terms "Everyday Meaning"), the life as a whole cannot, because there exists nothing external to one’s life to serve as its end. Any value we might pursue—like justice, love, truth, or legacy—takes place within the span of our life. But because our life includes those pursuits, those values can't be outside of our life and therefore can't serve as the kind of external justification (or "point") that Ultimate Meaning requires. Thus, life’s structure precludes the possibility of Ultimate Meaning.

Weinberg distinguishes this from value skepticism: it is not that life lacks value, but that the overarching effort of living lacks a final justifying reason. Appeals to God, the afterlife, cosmic purpose, or narrative unity merely defer or obscure the problem, since these too are subsumed within life or else render justification circular. Even lofty, unattainable goals fail as solutions; their inaccessibility may prevent confrontation with pointlessness, but not resolve it. Despite the meaningfulness of our individual pursuits, we remain metaphysically blocked from answering the question of why we lead lives at all. Weinberg concludes that this structural pointlessness is a genuine and tragic feature of the human condition—and that sadness is a fitting and rational response to this fact, one that aligns both with our agential nature and our values as purposeful beings.

An Epicurean would contest both the metaphysical framing and the affective conclusion. Epicurus denies the need for life to have a telos beyond itself; the good life consists in the experience of pleasure and the elimination of distress, not in securing a transcendent justification. The desire for Ultimate Meaning is, on Epicurean terms, an empty and unnatural craving, akin to the longing for immortality or divine purpose. Once we understand that death is the end of all sensation and not an evil, and that pleasure is self-justifying, the supposed tragedy of life's pointlessness dissolves. Rather than lament the absence of a final end, the Epicurean would recommend cultivating immanent goods—friendship, thought, moderation—as fully sufficient for a life worth choosing.

Weinberg is a philosophy professor working in the analytic tradition and is a Kantian contractualist. Her article, Ultimate Meaning: We Don’t Have It, We Can’t Get It, and We Should Be Very, Very Sad, was published in the Journal of Controversial Ideas, vol. 1, no. 1 (2021), article 4, and is freely available online as an open access publication: https://doi.org/10.35995/jci01010004.

Thanks, Cassius—this has been an extremely clarifying exchange. I don’t have much more to add, except to say that I now see even more clearly the importance of resisting any framing that elevates katastematic pleasure above other forms, or that risks collapsing Epicurean pleasure into mere tranquility. You're right to emphasize that Epicurus affirmed both active and stable pleasures—and that hedonism, for him, was never a euphemism for detachment.

The Cicero passage you quoted makes that unmistakably clear. If Epicurus had meant to subordinate the full range of bodily and emotional pleasures to stillness or quietude, he would never have written the way he did. So while I still think terms like "peace of mind" can have a useful role if carefully defined, I fully agree that we must take care not to let that language obscure the breadth and vitality of Epicurean pleasure.

Thanks again for pressing the issue—and thanks as well to Don and Bryan for supplying the excellent supporting quotes/citations. Nothing more from me on this for now.

Hi Cassius, thanks for the engagement.

#1

I’m sympathetic to Nikolsky’s view that the katastematic/kinetic distinction, as commonly deployed, is a later conceptual imposition rather than a central Epicurean principle. While later sources like Cicero and Diogenes Laertius develop this framework, the extant writings of Epicurus suggest a more fluid and pragmatic focus on the removal of pain and fear as the path to tranquility—without rigid typologies. Thus, I tend to agree that Epicurus did not place strong emphasis on this distinction, at least not in the technical sense that later interpreters project onto him.

#2

Thanks for this strong and well-articulated response—I genuinely appreciate your clarity and conviction. I think we may agree more than it seems, though we might diverge on emphasis and interpretive framing.

You're absolutely right that pleasure, not "peace of mind" as such, is the goal of Epicurean philosophy. Epicurus is explicit about this in the Letter to Menoeceus. But where the disagreement often arises is over what kind of pleasure constitutes the telos. When Epicurus says the wise man "does not choose the greatest quantity of food but the most pleasant," the pleasant turns out to be that which contributes to a tranquil and painless state of body and mind—a katastematic condition, even if he doesn’t use that term himself. So, when some people talk about "peace of mind" as the goal, they're typically using it as shorthand for that condition of ongoing, stable pleasure free from turmoil—rather than as a mystical or detached asceticism.

I completely agree that Epicureanism is not about disengagement from life. That’s where I think your reading is most powerful. The lives of Epicurus, Lucretius, and Diogenes of Oinoanda show that the philosophy demands intellectual work, even polemic, in service of freeing people from fear and confusion. But the goal of that labor is precisely to attain and preserve a state of freedom from disturbance, not to glorify striving or motion for its own sake. That’s why the "agitation" over fine distinctions can ironically work against the aim of those distinctions.

The concern isn't that activity itself is bad—Epicurus himself wrote extensively and encouraged philosophical conversation—but that we should choose activity wisely, guided by whether it contributes to lasting pleasure and peace. So in that light, the worry about "disengagement" might misfire if it treats tranquility as a withdrawal rather than a cultivated condition of maximal enjoyment, given the constraints of mortal life.

As for the references to death and reincarnation, I'm with you: Epicurus is unambiguous—death is nothing to us. Any move toward ambiguity there would indeed be surprising, and potentially inconsistent with the core doctrines.

I look forward to continuing this discussion when the time zones allow—very glad to be engaging with someone who's clearly thought deeply and personally about these questions.

The core initial objection rightly highlights a significant conceptual tension within the katastematic/kinetic distinction: if katastematic pleasure is understood as an evaluative mental process, can it truly be regarded as a form of “rest” or non-motion? This challenge exposes the difficulty of neatly categorizing complex mental phenomena within rigid binaries.

However, this critique may rest on an overly restrictive interpretation of “motion” and “rest” in the context of Epicurean psychology. The evaluative activity constitutive of katastematic pleasure need not be equated with the disruptive or agitative motions characteristic of sensory or passionate pleasures. Instead, it can be conceived as a stable, reflective cognitive state—an ongoing but tranquil affirmation—that preserves ataraxia rather than undermines it. Thus, “motion” here need not imply mental agitation but can signify a subtle, sustained cognitive engagement consistent with mental tranquility.

Furthermore, the katastematic/kinetic distinction itself is a later philosophical construct imposed retrospectively on Epicurus’s thought, which was far more fluid and pragmatic. Mental phenomena, especially within Epicurean ethics, resist simplistic binary classification, and it is plausible that katastematic pleasure encompasses a spectrum of minimally active evaluative states that nonetheless maintain serene equanimity.

Ironically, this very dispute over categorical precision—arguably a kinetic agitation of the mind—may itself undermine the Epicurean ideal of peace of mind (ataraxia) that these concepts aim to clarify. The passionate contestation over definitions risks generating precisely the mental disturbance that Epicurean ethics seeks to avoid, underscoring the limitations of philosophical categorization when it becomes an end in itself rather than a means to tranquility.

Ultimately, the challenge invites us to exercise interpretive humility and to balance conceptual rigor with sensitivity to the lived experience and pragmatic aims of Epicurean philosophy.

Thank you so much, Adrastus, for the warm welcome! I’m really glad to be here and look forward to engaging with everyone on the forum.

Thank you for setting up that new thread, Cassius.

Thank you for the warm welcome Cassius and Kalosyni!

I came across this forum while searching for Epicurean material on YouTube and was pleased to find such a focused and active community. Many thanks to Cassius for compiling and sharing such a rich body of resources—it's already proven incredibly helpful.

I'm currently reading Epicurus and His Philosophy by Norman DeWitt and have read a range of both primary and secondary texts, including the Letter to Menoeceus, Lucretius, and Diogenes Laertius, as well as modern scholarship by Tim O’Keefe, Emily Austin, and the Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism. My understanding of the distinction between kinetic and katastematic pleasure has been shaped by Peter Preuss’s Epicurean Ethics: Katastematic Hedonism, though I remain open to revising that view in light of the Gosling & Taylor material cited by Cassius, especially their argument that the distinction may not have been central for Epicurus himself.

Outside of Epicureanism, I’ve been influenced by Humean constructivism in metaethics (particularly the work of Sharon Street), and I lean toward free will skepticism, as argued by Galen Strawson. I’m also intrigued by Strawson’s panpsychist position on consciousness, which posits that some form of experience is a fundamental feature of matter. I recognize that these views may sit uneasily alongside Epicurean materialism, and I’m curious to explore how—or if—they can be integrated without violating core Epicurean principles.

What draws me most to Epicureanism is its emphasis on rational pleasure, its rejection of metaphysical fear, and its commitment to a naturalistic and psychologically grounded ethics. I look forward to learning from everyone here and contributing to the discussion.

Thanks, Rolf! I'm glad to be here and looking forward to the conversations.

Thanks Martin! Happy to be here.

Thanks so much for the warm welcome, Don! I really appreciate you sharing your translation and commentary on Epicurus’s Letter to Menoikeus — I’m definitely interested in a deep dive. I look forward to exploring your work and engaging with the nuances of the text.

Hello and thank you for the welcome.

I'm writing from Australia. I came to Epicureanism after struggling with loneliness and the sense that it's become increasingly difficult to find thoughtful, sincere friendships. Many of the people I meet seem caught up in chasing status or possessions, while others have turned to traditional religion, nationalism, or conspiracy theories—especially in the wake of the pandemic. Amid all that noise, Epicurus's quiet emphasis on friendship, modest pleasure, and freedom from fear felt like a lifeline.

I've read the Letter to Menoeceus, parts of Lucretius, and some modern commentary. I'm still exploring how to apply these ideas in daily life, especially around katastematic pleasure and simplicity. I'm glad to have found this community and look forward to learning more.

— DistantLaughter