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.
Here's the relevant Dewitt passage from The New Hedonism chapter:
QuoteThere 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).
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".
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.
I am with DeWitt on that, and to the extent that some of the others are using this as a reference to absence of pain= greatest pleasure I do not think they are on the right track -- and at the very least, the way that they would use it is a negative way.
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"
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.
all of these are tentative comments and i claim and allow everyone the right to revise and extend comments without limit 
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.
Suppose it could be some kind of variation of the Plutarch statement about the greatest joy arising from escape from the greatest evil?
I just am not sure on this one, other than to reject any contention that it supports the "absence of pain is a full statement of the greatest pleasure" side. *who I am always on the lookout as lurking under every bed*
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.
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 )
Thanks for that reference Godfrey. Every interlinear version is helpful.
If in fact as the wiki translates there is a "GREATEST" qualifier in there I would still say that this is more than just a reference to the one-to-one relationship that all experience is either pleasure or pain.
Whenever we are talking about "limits" of any kind (as I would interpret "greatest") it seems to me that an important point of principle is being referenced, and likely in response to another school as a point of contrast.
So while this first point about the one to one relationship may be true to as one of several points being made I would expect that that is not the only or even the most important point.
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:
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
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.
Great Work! It has long been a frustration of mine that we ought to have - but don't seem to have - a picture of the Vatican Sayings. I hope we can eventually find that!
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!!
Woohoo!! Now just to figure out where they are, part 1 or part 2!!
At least you are pinning down the exact place to look - surely when we finish doing that we can find someone who can help - even if we have to post over on the Facebook page and Twitter.
