1. The Term "Pleasure" Means The Same Thing As "Absence of Pain," And Includes All Mental And Bodily Experience That Is Not Painful
The claim that "pleasure" and "absence of pain" are the same thing is one of the most frequently misunderstood aspects of Epicurean philosophy: these two terms are exact equivalents that name the same reality from different directions. The key to understanding this is Epicurus' foundational claim that there are only two feelings -- pleasure and pain -- with no neutral "zero" state in between. Given this, the absence of pain is not a neutral condition but simply the presence of pleasure, and the absence of pleasure is simply the presence of pain. The two terms are interchangeable because they refer to the same territory mapped from opposite poles.
This is not a limiting or pessimistic doctrine -- it is an expansive one. It means that every waking moment in which we are not in pain is, by definition, a moment of pleasure. The philosopher who has achieved freedom from bodily suffering and mental disturbance is experiencing the full positive pleasure of a flourishing life, even if they are doing nothing more than sitting quietly in a garden. The common criticism that Epicurus reduced pleasure to "mere absence of pain" gets the logic exactly backwards: he was expanding the concept of pleasure to include all non-painful experience, insisting that the Stoic sage's "tranquility" and the Epicurean philosopher's "pleasure" name exactly the same positive condition.
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined. (Bailey)
Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in full surrounding context, tr. Rackham, On Ends I.38-39.]
"It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example: 'And not unwillingly they charged,' and again: 'Not then would you divine Atrides see confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight.' Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words: 'The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains.' Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool 'unlovely.'"
***** English Source at penelope.uchicago.edu - Gellius • Attic Nights — Book II
/On some words which Virgil is asserted to have used carelessly and negligently; and the answer to be made to those who bring this false charge./
Some grammarians of an earlier time, men by no means without learning and repute, who wrote commentaries on Virgil, and among them Annaeus Cornutus, criticize the poet's use of a word in the following verses as careless and negligent: /That, her white waist with howling monsters girt, Dread Scylla knocked about (vexasse) Ulysses' ships Amid the swirling depths, and, piteous sight! The trembling sailors with her sea-dogs rent./
They think, namely, that vexasse is a weak word, indicating a slight and trivial annoyance, and not adapted to such a horror as the sudden seizing and rending of human beings by a ruthless monster.
They also criticize another word in the following: /Who has not heard Of king Eurystheus' pitiless commands And altars of Busiris, the unpraised (inlaudati)?/ Inlaudati, they say, is not at all a suitable word, but is quite inadequate to express abhorrence of a wretch who, because he used to sacrifice guests from all over the world, was not merely "undeserving of praise," but rather deserving of the abhorrence and execration of the whole human race.
They have criticized still another word in the verse:
| Through tunic rough (squalentem) with gold the sword drank from his pierced side, |
on the ground that it is out of place to say auro squalentem, since the filth of squalor is quite opposed to the brilliance and splendour of gold.
5 Now as to the word vexasse, I believe the following answer may be made: vexasse is an intensive verb, and is obviously derived from vehere, p137 in which there is already some notion of compulsion by another; for a man who is carried is not his own master. But vexare, which is derived from vehere, unquestionably implies greater force and impulse. For vexare is properly used of one who is seized and carried away, and dragged about hither and yon; just as taxare denotes more forcible and repeated action than tangere, from which it is undoubtedly derived; and iactare a much fuller and more vigorous action than iacere, from which it comes; and quassare something severer and more violent than quatere. 6 Therefore, merely because vexare is commonly used of the annoyance of smoke or wind or dust is no reason why the original force and meaning of the word should be lost; and that meaning was preserved by the earlier writers who, as became them, spoke correctly and clearly.
7 Marcus Cato, in the speech which he wrote /On the Achaeans/,12 has these words: "And when Hannibal was rending and harrying (vexaret) the land of Italy." That is to say, Cato used vexare of the effect on Italy of Hannibal's conduct, at a time when no species of disaster, cruelty or savagery could be imagined which Italy did not suffer from his hands. 8 Marcus Tullius, in his fourth /Oration against Verres/, wrote: "This13 was so pillaged and ravaged by that wretch, that it did not seem to have been laid waste (vexata) by an enemy who in the heat of war still felt some religious scruple and some respect for customary law, but by barbarous pirates."
9 But concerning inlaudatus it seems possible to give two answers. One is of this kind: There is absolutely no one who is of so perverted a character p139 as not sometimes to do or say something that can be commended (laudari). And therefore this very ancient line has become a familiar proverb:
| Oft-times even a fool expresses himself to the purpose. |
10 But one who, on the contrary, in his every act and at all times, deserves no praise (laude) at all is inlaudatus, and such a man is the very worst and most despicable of all mortals, just as freedom from all reproach makes one inculpatus (blameless). Now inculpatus is the synonym for perfect goodness; therefore conversely inlaudatus represents the limit of extreme wickedness. 11 It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example:14 "And not unwillingly they charged," and again:15
| Not then would you divine Atrides see Confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight. |
12 Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words:16 "The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains." 13 Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool "unlovely."17 14 For just as he expressed abhorrence of the "unpraised" man by the denial of praise, 15 so he abhorred the "unlovable" by the denial of love. 16 Another defence of inlaudatus is this: laudare in early Latin means "to name" and "cite." Thus in civil actions they use laudare of an authority, when he is cited. 17 Conversely, the inlaudatus is the same as p141 the inlaudabilis, namely, one who is worthy neither of mention nor remembrance, and is never to be named; 18 as, for example, in days gone by the common council of Asia decreed that no one should ever mention the name of the man who had burned the temple of Diana at Ephesus.18
***** Latin of the key section
Sed enim qui omni in re atque omni tempore laude omni vacat, is "inlaudatus" est isque omnium pessimus deterrimusque est, sicuti omnis culpae privatio "inculpatum" facit. "Inculpatus" autem instar est absolutae virtutis; "inlaudatus" quoque igitur finis est extremae malitiae. 11 Itaque Homerus non virtutibus appellandis, sed vitiis detrahendis laudare ampliter solet. Hoc enim est: to d'ouk akonte petesthen, et item illud: enth'ouk an brizonta idois Agamemnona dion, oude kataptossont', oud'ouk ethelonta machesthai. _12 Epicurus quoque simili modo maximam voluptatem privationem detractionemque omnis doloris definivit his verbis: Horos tou megethous ton hedonon pantos tou algountos hypexaireis_ 13 Eadem ratione idem Vergilius "inamabilem" dixit Stygiam paludem. 14 Nam sicut "inlaudatum" kata steresin laudis, ita "inamabilem" kata amoris steresin detestatus est. 15 Altero modo "inlaudatus" ita defenditur: 16 "Laudare" significat prisca lingua nominare appellareque. Sic in actionibus civilibus auctor "laudari" dicitur, quod est nominari. 17 "Inlaudatus" autem est, quasi inlaudabilis, qui neque mentione aut memoria ulla dignus neque umquam nominandus est, 18 sicuti quondam a communi consilio Asiae decretum est, uti nomen eius, qui templum Dianae Ephesi incenderat, ne quis ullo in tempore nominaret. 19 Tertium restat ex his, quae reprehensa sunt, quod "tunicam squalentem auro" dixit.
*****
[Directly continuing the point made in 1:38 above (that absence of pain is itself the highest pleasure): Torquatus states the corollary that this limit-pleasure can vary in kind but not in degree -- the same claim as Principal Doctrine 18, in Cicero's rendering of Torquatus's own voice.]
But complete absence of pain Epicurus considers to be the limit and highest point of pleasure; beyond this point pleasure may vary in kind, but it cannot vary in intensity or degree. (tr. Rackham -- corrected from a prior "(Reid)" mislabel; this sentence is verbatim Rackham's translation of On Ends 1.39, confirmed on the same page as the 1:38 clip above)
What actual pleasure do you, Torquatus, or does Triarius here, derive from literature, from history and learning, from turning the pages of the poets and committing vast quantities of verse to memory? Do not tell me that these pursuits are in themselves a pleasure to you, and that so were the deeds I mentioned of the Torquati. That line of defense was never taken by Epicurus or Metrodorus, nor by any one of them if he possessed any intelligence or had mastered the doctrines of your school.
[Locus corrected from a prior "1.10" mislabel: this passage is On Ends 1.33, confirmed on the clipped page below.]
We denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of the pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain emergencies it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pain. (Rackham)
At Athens there is in the Ceramicus a statue of Chrysippus seated and holding out one hand. 'Does your hand want anything, while it is in its present condition?' Answer: 'No, nothing.' 'But if pleasure were a good, it would want pleasure.' 'Yes, I suppose it would.' 'Therefore pleasure is not a good.' This is an argument, my father declared, which not even a statue would employ; it does not touch Epicurus. For if the only kind of pleasure were that which so to speak tickles the senses, neither the hand, nor any other part of the body, could be satisfied with the absence of pain unaccompanied by an agreeable and active sensation of pleasure. Whereas if, as Epicurus holds, the highest pleasure be to feel no pain, the reason why it would not have wanted pleasure is that to be without pain is to be in a state of pleasure. (Rackham)
This therefore clearly appears, that intense mental pleasure or distress contributes more to our happiness or misery than a bodily pleasure or pain of equal duration. But we do not agree that when pleasure is withdrawn uneasiness at once ensues, unless the pleasure happens to have been replaced by a pain: while on the other hand one is glad to lose a pain even though no active sensation of pleasure comes in its place: and this fact serves to show how great a pleasure is the mere absence of pain. (Rackham)
[Cicero:] 'Unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that "freedom from pain" does not mean the same thing as "pleasure."' [Torquatus:] 'Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for the fact that freedom from pain means pleasure is as true as any proposition can be.' (Rackham)
[Cicero:] 'Still, granting that there is nothing better, surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?' [Torquatus:] 'Clearly the same, and indeed the greatest, beyond which none greater can possibly be.' (Rackham)
The name of pleasure certainly has no dignity in it, and perhaps we do not exactly understand what is meant by it. Cannot we understand what pleasure is, a thing which is known to every sparrow? At another time you speak of some other highest pleasure, which is susceptible of no addition whatever, but that it is present when every sort of pain is absent, and you call it then a 'state,' not a 'motion.' Let that, then, be pleasure. (Yonge)
For if that were the only pleasure which tickled the senses, as it were, if I may say so, and which overflowed and penetrated them with a certain agreeable feeling, then even a hand could not be content with freedom from pain without some pleasing motion of pleasure. But if the highest pleasure is, as Epicurus asserts, to be free from pain, then, O Chrysippus, the first admission was correctly made to you, that the hand, when it was in that condition, was in want of nothing; but the second admission was not equally correct, that if pleasure were a good it would wish for it. For it would not wish for it for this reason, inasmuch as whatever is free from pain is in pleasure. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in full surrounding context, tr. Yonge, On Ends II.23.]
The removal of all pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, pain or distress or their combination is absent. (tr. Long & Sedley)
The pleasure in the flesh is not increased when once the pain due to want is removed, but is only varied: and the limit as regards pleasure in the mind is begotten by the reasoned understanding of these very pleasures and of the emotions akin to them, which used to cause the greatest fear to the mind. (tr. Long & Sedley)
They therefore assign not only a treacherous and unsure ground of
their pleasurable living, but also one in all respects despicable and little,
if the escaping of evils be the matter of their complacence and last
good. But now they tell us, nothing else can be so much as imagined,
and nature hath no other place to bestow her good in but only that out
of which her evil hath been driven; as Metrodorus speaks in his book
Against the Sophists. So that this single thing, to escape evil, he says,
is the supreme good; _for there is no room to lodge this good in where
no more of what is painful and afflicting goes out._
The extension of the name of pleasure to this normal state of being was the major innovation of the new hedonism... nor that reason justified the application; nor that human beings would be the happier for so reasoning and believing.
[Sedley's argument is that Epicurus's ethics follows the identical four-stage inferential method he used in physics: just as body and void are exhaustive, mutually necessary categories (nothing is neither, nothing is both), so pleasure and pain are exhaustive, mutually necessary categories of feeling -- making "absence of pain is pleasure" a rigorous logical conclusion from the same method used to establish the physics, not an ad hoc redefinition.] The parallel between the two arguments is so close that it cannot have been unconscious or accidental.
2. Love And Hate, Pleasure And Pain Are Natural Complements -- Not Opposites
One of the most important and most frequently misunderstood aspects of Epicurean philosophy is the relationship between what are commonly called "opposites" -- pleasure and pain, love and hate, desire and aversion. These are not in fact opposites in the sense of being mutually exclusive or of one being the simple negation of the other. They are complementary realities that arise from the same underlying natural structure, and cannot be fully understood or correctly engaged with in isolation from each other.
The foundational point is established in Epicurean physics: pleasure and pain are the two natural criteria that every living creature is equipped with from birth for evaluating what is good and harmful. They are not opposites like light and darkness, where one is simply the absence of the other. They are complementary guides, both equally real, both equally necessary, and both pointing toward the same single underlying reality -- the natural state of a living creature in relation to its environment. Principal Doctrine 3 establishes that when pleasure is fully present, pain is absent, and when pain is present, pleasure is absent: they define each other and give each other meaning.
The same complementary structure extends into the emotional life. Love -- genuine attachment to people and things that genuinely matter -- and the capacity for righteous anger in defense of what is loved are not opposing forces of which one should be cultivated and the other suppressed. They are inseparable expressions of the same underlying commitment to what is genuinely good. A person incapable of anger at real, intentional harm done to what they love has not achieved philosophical tranquility -- they have lost something essential to what love actually is. Philodemus in his treatise /On Anger/ (/Peri Orgēs/) makes this explicit: natural anger in response to real intentional harm is not a failing of Epicurean philosophy but one of its clearest predictions.
Philodemus carefully distinguishes three types of anger: first, empty anger based on false beliefs (getting angry at accidents, at impersonal events, or in anticipation of harm that has not occurred and may not occur -- this the Epicurean sage will not experience); second, chronic fury as a disease of character (an ongoing disposition toward rage that reflects a distorted soul -- this too the sage avoids); and third, natural anger arising in response to real, intentional harm done by real agents who acted knowingly and deliberately -- this, Philodemus says, is not only permitted but is /inescapable/ for a person whose soul is properly constituted.
The practical implication is that the Epicurean life is not a life of emotional flatness, numbness, or withdrawal from genuine engagement with the world. It is a life of full, natural emotional engagement conducted with wisdom. The person who loves genuinely is capable of natural anger when what they love is threatened or harmed. The person who enjoys genuine pleasures is also capable of honest acknowledgment of genuine pains. This complementary fullness is what the Epicurean full cup actually contains -- not a cup drained of the negative experiences that give the positive ones their meaning, but a cup full of the complete range of natural human engagement with a real world.
This connects directly to the insight from C-9 that happiness is an emergent property of the well-lived life: a happiness achieved by suppressing or eliminating one pole of the complementary pairs -- allowing only pleasure and not pain, only love and not the anger that protects it -- is not genuine Epicurean happiness but an impoverished substitute that misunderstands what the full cup requires.
The removal of all pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, pain or distress or their combination is absent. (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Page scan: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 3 (tr. Bailey), same page also carries PD 1-2, 4-6
- Online text: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 3 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
- Online text: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 3 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
That which is blessed and indestructible has no troubles itself, nor does it give trouble to anyone else, so that it is not affected by feelings of anger or gratitude. For all such things imply weakness. (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Page scan: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 1 (tr. Bailey), same page also carries PD 2-6
- Online text: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 1 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
- Online text: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 1 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
Pain does not last continuously in the flesh: when acute it is there for a very short time, while the pain which just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh does not persist for many days; and chronic illnesses contain an excess of pleasure in the flesh over pain. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Thus often the body, which is clear to see, is sick, when, all the same we feel pleasure in some other hidden part; and contrariwise it happens that the reverse often comes to be in turn, when one wretched in mind feels pleasure in all his body; in no other wise than if, when a sick man's foot is painful, all the while, may be, his head is in no pain. (Bailey)
Let us completely rid ourselves of our bad habits as if they were evil men who have long done us great harm. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Injustice is not an evil in itself, but only in consequence of the fear which attaches to the apprehension of being unable to escape those appointed to punish such actions. It is not possible for one who acts in secret violation of the terms of the compact not to do wrong, even if at present he evades detection a thousand times over; for right up to the moment of death it cannot be certain that he will escape detection. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Once he has become wise, he no longer adopts the opposite character and does not intentionally feign it either; rather, he will be affected by feelings but without having his wisdom impeded. However, not every bodily condition nor every people makes the occurrence of a wise man possible. Even if he is put on the rack, the wise man is happy, but when he is on the rack, he shrieks and groans. (tr. Long & Sedley)
It is possible to insert "the sage" in place of "a human being in general": when he has been intentionally harmed by someone or has received the impression he will be harmed, will he experience an indifferent feeling, as if someone looked at him, or a painful one, since calling it attractive to him is senseless? Well, certainly calling it indifferent is forced, but if it is painful, and he (the sage) knows that, when punished, he (the adversary) will be checked and will rein in the others, he (the sage) would be insane not to grit his teeth and come back at him in one way or another. We call that sort of thing anger. (tr. Armstrong & McOsker)
It now remains to explain why the soul's motions and the soul itself are not all of a single kind throughout. We see that different natures are born in men, and that various manners cling to particular races -- and the different species of animals have very different modes of life. Hence in the lion the spirit is fierce, in the fox crafty, in the deer timid, and so forth. Thus from the very start these same natural seeds, these same first-beginnings have their effect through the bodies of all creatures differing in nature and appearance. (Bailey, adapted)
[Quoting Epicurus] 'Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers therapy for no human suffering. For just as there is no use in medical expertise if it does not give therapy for bodily diseases, so too there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul.' (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Page scan: Porphyry, To Marcella 31 (tr. Zimmern, 1896)