[Toby Sherman's Ancient Guide To Modern Well-being] That article I mentioned at the on line Wednesday 8/17 meeting

Quote from Nate

Epicurus never wrote that The Greatest Good is the Removal of Pain. He always identifies The Greatest Good as Pleasure. I think the concept of Removal of Pain is really only relevant with regards to the "limit" of Pleasure, and how to measure it. But anti-Pain is not the goal, just a measuring stick. Pleasure is the goal, and sometimes pain is necessary for a greater pleasure. Focusing on the Removal of Pain as a person's goal might lead them to miss out on rewarding challenges.

That's a very clear and simple way of stating it.

I continue to think that the background context which these "Pain-focused" people are missing is that the "limit" issue comes up in the specific context of the Platonic argument that "something which has no limit cannot be the greatest good, because it cannot be made better." Epicurus needed to establish a conceptual "limit of pleasure" and he did so very well, but he never intended that issue of a limit to overwrite everything else he ever wrote about "Pleasure" as we ordinarily feel and understand the word being the greatest good.

These guys are conflating "limit of pleasure" as if it were intended to denote some specific type of pleasure, so they run around in circles trying to equate "limit of pleasure" with ataraxia, aponia, kinetic, or katastematic pleasure. As I see it they are trying to define apples in terms of oranges and they will never get there with that approach. Worse, they make the entire issue hopelessly muddy. A two year old, or the proverbial newborn animals of any type, can simply by feeling run circles around that analysis, but these guys are hell-bent on pursuing it because it equates with their views of Stoicism and Buddhism.

Quote from kochiekoch

Although, I don't think the author is just saying that we should forgo ALL pleasures, for lack of pain; in as much as we reach that perfect level of contentment only rarely. Then, chocolate, hugs, sex, roller coaster rides, etc. serve to make us happier.

So in other words, it is only your failure to succeed in being a good Epicurean that makes it appropriate for you to engage in chocolate, hugs, sex, and roller coaster rides???

If that is the case then may none of us succeed in becoming good Epicureans!!

Okay, so the Epicurean ideal (in the widest, non-Platonic sense!!) is the untroubled, blessed life of the gods, content in their incorruptible existence.

So, I have no problem with aspiring to living a life of pleasurable fulfillment and contentment. A mind untroubled by unfulfilled desires? Without nagging anxiety? Experiencing pleasure as it becomes available, varying my well-being? That sounds pretty good actually.

I see an Epicurean way of life as being a path toward a goal, and a goal that is met from time to time and then back on the path.

I'll use this opportunity to get back on my desire soapbox. Desires are what we actually work with; pleasure and pain are reactions. I've got a working hypothesis that the categories of desires describe the upper and lower limits of desires (not pleasures), and that by defining these for oneself, a person develops a personal sweet spot for working with desires in order to discover what leads to their most pleasant life.

In the Principle Doctrines, it seems that the Doctrines on pleasure go from more theoretical to more practical as you progress through the Doctrines. So I'm also thinking that PD18-21 may actually be more pertinent, once one has worked through the earlier ones. I think that they build on each other. After that come the PDs on desires. One's understanding has to progress through the sequence in order to gain a practical understanding of the ethics.

Quote from Don

So, I have no problem with aspiring to living a life of pleasurable fulfillment and contentment. A mind untroubled by unfulfilled desires? Without nagging anxiety? Experiencing pleasure as it becomes available, varying my well-being? That sounds pretty good actually.

I think the issue presented in the article is probably fairly stated by asking something like:

And are you willing to embrace the idea of reducing your desires in every way possible, even cutting the "necessary" desires to a minimum, as the proper method of reaching a goal which is defined to be that of having zero desires which are unsatisfied? The implicit issue here is that you could have many more desires fulfilled if you seek them knowing that some of them may be unfulfilled.

Is the abolition of every possible pain so important to you that you would in fact voluntarily embrace life in a cave on bread and water so as to banish the possibility of experiencing the slightest pain?

Quote from kochiekoch

No, perfection is a high bar. The Epicurean gods are perfect, but us, not so much. As good Epicureans, any kind of pleasure is welcome as it improves our state of mind!

"Is welcome" sounds kind of like: "if it happens to fall out of the sky and hit me on the head."

Probably the issue, in terms of "desire," is more like: "Is it appropriate for you to desire, and act toward obtaining, any kind of additional pleasure once you are in the cave and have your bread and water?"

If so, why?

Because under one reading of the letter to Menoeceus it is only when you are in pain that you have any need of pleasure.

In the introduction the author asserts:

Quote

"However, Epicureanism does differ in one crucial respect to all forms of modern hedonism, in that it treats pleasure as strictly negative or privative: pleasure is simply the absence or removal of pain. Here, my reading departs from that of Hershenov and Woolf, both of whom try to find a place in Epicureanism for a positive conception of pleasure..."

So we need to track down Hershenov and Woolf's writings -- since we here on the forum have a positive conception of pleasure.

Raphael Woolf - "What Kind of Hedonist was Epicurus?"

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4182759

David B. Hershenov - "A More Palatable Epicureanism"

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20464366

The Hershenov paper mostly has to do with the Epicurean attitude on death. Here's the conclusion:

Quote

This paper sought to illuminate an important aspect of the wrongness of killing while defending the claim that death is not a harm. If this endeavor has been successful, readers can accept what is right about the Epicurean claim-that death is not a harm and an evil-without having to abandon the very reasonable claims that (in most cases) more life is good, it is prudent to make efforts to stay alive, allowing death when rescue is easy is wrong, and killing the innocent is very evil and should be prevented and punished. This should remove much of the motivation they may otherwise have had to misconstrue Epicurus's challenge (i.e., change the subject) or to meet it with some very controversial metaphysical theories about existence, reality, and time.

Quote from Kalosyni

So we need to track down Hershenov and Woolf's writings -- since we here on the forum have a positive conception of pleasure.

it is hard to believe that anyone who as a "negative conception of pleasure" has very much positive to contribute to Epicurean philosophy!

Just came across this paper:

The Epicurean Morality of Vergil's "Bucolics"

Vergil's "Bucolics" can be read as an Epicurean therapy to heal the disturbance of civil war.

www.academia.edu

I skimmed it, but it's an interesting take on comparing Lucretius' work with Vergil's Bucolics and Georgics.

Quote from Godfrey

I'll use this opportunity to get back on my desire soapbox.

"A Soapbox Named Desire"?

(Apologies to Tennessee Williams)