Differences between Epicureanism and Cyrenaicism

Quote from Kalosyni

Perhaps my viewpoint comes from past dabbling in Zen meditation (and modified by a Theravadin approach of sitting for the feeling of bodily enjoyment).

You'll find several of us here with some Buddhism in our backgrounds.

Quote from Kalosyni

I admit that the "pleasure at rest" sense of satisfaction doesn't happen for me very often. But I wonder if Epicurus might have taught this in the Garden. And if it was lost, though it's not something that easily translates into words.

I'm very skeptical if Epicurus taught a form of sitting (Eastern) meditation in the Garden. But his use of the word μελετᾶν/μελέτη "study, practice, meditate on, practice, exercise" suggests to me some form of sustained focused attention on and memorization of the Principal Doctrines and other epitomes and summaries. That being said, mindfulness, in my opinion, could easily be incorporated into an Epicurean practice (as that podcast I recently posted suggests to me). Anything that makes us more aware of our feelings and makes us better able to make informed decisions on what to choose and what to reject seems applicable to me.

Quote from Kalosyni

For me the katastematic "pleasure at rest" is a mental sense of satisfaction and gratitude, a quiet feeling of joy...when everything is fullfilled.

See the difficulty there is that if you can "feel" the sensation of pleasure -- which I think is doubly clear when you refer to it as joy, then by definition according to the scholars what you are feeling is not katastematic pleasure - it is kinetic simply because you do in fact feel and enjoy it.

Once again I want to be especially clear: I am not criticizing yours or anyone else's descriptions of what you feel. What I am doing is pointing out that when you dive deep into the technical terms that they were using in ancient Greeks, there is a lot of specificity that we as "normal people" who haven't devoted our lives to studying ancient Greek and Greek philosophy don't have any way of knowing about.

In fact as I write this comment I think what we're talking about here is exactly what a large number of commentators are doing and have done to us. We all can feel at times what it means to "rest" and to have a "good attitude" and a "positive outlook" and similar emotions feelings. We know that those are important to us, and so when we read (from the commentators!!!) that Epicurus was really interested in "resting" pleasures, we presume "Oh that makes sense and I totally agree!" and we end up endorsing the "kinetic / katastematic distinction" as if it were a really important part of Epicurean philosophy.

To the contrary, I think Nikolsky, Gosling & Taylor, Wenham, and others (I'll include dewitt here) have totally demolished that argument and upended the academic viewpoint. They have done so not by showing that such pleasures don't exist - they clearly do! But rather the academic viewpoint has never been consistent with or perceptive in understanding what Epicurus taught. You can't follow the full argument without the information that Nikolsky provides, which is that this darned katastematic-kinetic distinction is an essentially STOIC method of categorization, and that it likely appears in Diogenes Laertius only because by 300 AD (when DL wrote) and even by 50 BC (when Cicero was trying to defeat Epicureans with word games) it had become common practice among philosophers to split up types of pleasures using those terms. DL was going through chapter after chapter of Greek philosophers attempting to explain their positions in terms that people in 300AD would expect to see, and in 300 AD most people interested in philosophy (not necessarily including Epicureans of the day) expected to hear about katastematic pleasure.

OK - again - these aren't my arguments, these are the arguments of people a lot smarter than me (Gosling, Taylor, Nikolsky, etc.)

But I will repeat too that I think Wenham points out a real key to the situation. If you always keep in mind that nothing trumps PD2, and that all good and evil comes to us through sensation, and without sensation we're dead, and that nothing that doesn't produce sensation is of any concern to us, then you will burn in your mind that "pleasure" (which we all seem to agree is the ultimate goal) must come to us through sensation - through experience. And is apparently universal among the literati that the definition of katastematic pleasure EXCLUDES pleasure that can be sensed. I leave it to you to unwind what that means as to "katastematic pleasure" as the ancient Greeks defined it, but I suggest to everyone that Epicurus was interested in pleasure that can be felt. Pleasure that can't be felt - no matter what term is applied to it, not only cannot therefore be the highest good, as so many allege, but I would allege in turn that if it can't be felt it is of no more concern to us than death itself.

Which makes it prime territory for the Stoics and other logicians, who apparently where the ones obsessing over the term.

In my study, I'm coming to the conclusion that katastematic pleasure refers to deriving pleasure from a stable (albeit temporary) state or condition while kinetic pleasure has to do with deriving pleasure from an action. To me, this makes sense if ataraxia is a katastematic pleasure. Tranquility is a stable state of being. Eating, drinking etc are kinetic pleasure.

This is all in flux, but I'm exploring this as an avenue of research in authoritative sources.

PS: My understanding is that the Cyrenaics only recognized "kinetic" pleasures. Epicurus recognized all sources of pleasure.

Quote from Don

In my study, I'm coming to the conclusion that katastematic pleasure refers to deriving pleasure from a stable (albeit temporary) state or condition while kinetic pleasure has to do with deriving pleasure from an action.

it will be beneficial as we go along in the future to to post sources so we can see what exactly exists in the Epicurean texts to support the respective reconstructions.

OK I have re-read the Wenham Article ("On Cicero's Interpretation of Katastematic Pleasure") and I do need to correct what I said above:

I now remember why I find Wenham's article useful, but not in the way of Gosling & Taylor and Nikolsky.

The key point of departure in Wenham is that when Wenham is forced to decide whether Cicero (1) misrepresented Epicurus or (2) misunderstood Epicurus, Wenham departs from G&T and decides to go easy on Cicero and accuse him of incompetence rather than malevolence. Here's the key part - Wenham is sure Cicero is wrong, but the question is WHY:

.... And so Wenham decides that CIcero simply must be wrong. The rest of the article gives his reasoning, which is where my memory was bad. Wenham says (I think rightly) that Epicurus held that pleasure is pleasure because it can be experienced, and so Wenham concludes that whatever katastematic pleasure it, is must be felt / experienced just like kinetic pleasure.

Maybe you'll read the article differently than I do, but where does that leave Wenham in describing what katastemtatic pleasure must mean (under this theory)? I've read over the article several times, and I think he's left right where we would expect. He can't and doesn't even try to define katastematic pleasure as separate from kinetic. All he does is conclude that whatever it is, it must be "experienced" or "felt" because that's the way Epicurus looked at pleasure.

So as I read it this article would implicitly support Don's current position, but I say that still convinced that the reason Wenham stops where he does is that he doesn't follow Gosling & Taylor to the logical conclusion that Nikolsky took them. Wenham chooses to believe that despite Cicero's sweeping knowledge, access to the Epicurean friends and teachers, and Cicero's own training in Epicurean philosophy, that Cicero simply "misunderstood" what Epicurus was saying.

That's where I would say that people should trust there instincts and always beware of lawyers!

And so i take the position taken by Norman DeWitt, another line I haven't forgotten despite my poor memory: "i do not believe he could have misrepresented the truth so successfully had he not understood it completely."

For now, one more comment as to Cicero's own views, this from the first part of De Officiis, which Cicero wrote to his son:

And Cicero's own very unflattering views of Epicurus and of the role of pleasure and virtue (if he can be believed in writing this to his own son):

Thanks for all that legwork, Cassius

Epicurus: in outline and in history

<p>This chapter has two aims. First, it provides an overview of the basics of Epicureanism. It therefore reviews the Epicurean adaptation of atomism,…

www.elgaronline.com

Came across this book chapter online and liked the way the author lays it out overall:

Quote

To claim that pleasure is good, then, does not mean imagining that all pleasures are equally good (Jones, 1989: 49–50). Epicureans therefore distinguished between two categories (Mitsis, 1988: 45–51; Preuss, 1994: Ch. 6).

Kinetic pleasures are non-necessary ‘pleasures in motion’ which depend upon change and process. Sensual pleasures of sight, touch, hearing and so forth seem to fall under this heading. A kinetic pleasure also seems to depend upon pain. If I enjoy reading a novel the enjoyment comes from anxious anticipation about how things will turn out. Will my favourite character die? Will the hero defeat the villain?

Katastematic pleasures are ‘pleasures at rest’ or in stasis, which implies an absence of disturbance or discomfort. They denote a state of being, involving equilibrium, calm, stability and completeness. Since they can be varied but cannot be quantitatively improved upon (as with the white loaf of bread) these are the highest pleasures and are sometimes known as ‘static pleasures’ (see Epic IV.130–32).

Though we should be wary of drawing an exact parallel, the kinetic/katastematic distinction is presumably what J.S. Mill had in mind when he praised Epicureanism and devised his own distinction between higher and lower pleasures as a way of evolving Utilitarianism beyond Bentham, for whom all pleasures were equally good (Arangno, 2013: 201, 203–204; Wilson, 2009: 280).¹²

But there is an important difference. Mill was more willing to identify the higher with one set of activities and the lower with another set. For Mill, poetry simply was superior to pushpin, as anyone who had experienced and been educated in the former could tell you.

For Epicureanism things are not quite that simple (Rist, 1972: 108–109, 115). Even if the kinetic are lower (though this is a proposition we will interrogate in Chapter 2), this does not mean we should disdain them (as Mill seems to disdain pushpin) for three reasons.

Firstly, as materialists Epicureans were receptive to the delights which we experience when the senses are stimulated. A good game of pushpin enjoyed with friends is presumably better than reading bad poetry in solitude.

Secondly, therefore, even if kinetic pleasures do invite pain and disturbances, these may be worth experiencing. The short-term anxiety caused by reading my novel may be worthwhile if the result leaves me in a higher, long-term state of katastematic pleasure than I would have experienced otherwise.

Finally, the above arguments suggest that kinetic pleasures may be valuable for their own sake. Seeking variations in pleasure is important if a life is to go well. Epicurus’ distinction between adding pleasure and varying pleasure may not hold if and when variation itself constitutes a form of addition. If we can derive simple, untroubling enjoyment from kinetic activities then they may add to life’s richness. (This is an argument we pursue in the next chapter under Puzzle 3.)

The kinetic and katastematic are therefore intermingled to a degree that does not appear true of Mill’s lower/higher distinction. What matters is not just what we do but the reasons why we do what we do (Jones, 1989: 51).

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Here's the pushpin referred to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push-pin_…%29?wprov=sfla1

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To claim that pleasure is good, then, does not mean imagining that all pleasures are equally good (Jones, 1989: 49–50).

OK right off the bat I say to that writer -- NO! Clearly Epicurus says that all pleasure are good, and all pains are bad -- yes you have to drill down, but this is where I think Godfrey is clearly correct because now the emphasis is on choiceworthiness and desire, but that doesn't mean that they still aren't "good" in the sense of pleasing. I know that we are now going down the rabbit hole of the meaning of "good," but in these philosophical discussions I strongly think that unless we generally refer to "good" as meaning "good in itself" then we never get anywhere in being clear.

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Epicureans therefore distinguished between two categories (Mitsis, 1988: 45–51; Preuss, 1994: Ch. 6).

I also of course question this. D.L. did so, per the quote above. Cicero did so. But show me an instance of an authoritative EPICUREAN doing that distinguishing.

As I read the rest of that I won't comment in as much detail other than to say that I don't doubt that Mil and Bentham were struggling with their formulations because they where in fact trying to distinguish higher and lower pleasures - which means that they were looking for a standard other than pleasure itself.

Unfortunately I have to say that the entire analysis of that excerpt strikes me as totally disastrous, for the reason that is explained amply in Philebus.

Once anyone starts down the road of saying that some pleasures are "more good" or "higher" or "lower" than others, then you are introducing into the discussion the strong implication that there is another standard - a standard outside of pleasure itself, by which you can rank pleasures into "more good" or "less good" or "higher" or "lower" or "more noble" or "less noble." You are then inevitably led to the conclusion that the "art of distinguishing the higher from the lower" is more important than pleasure itself. And what is the "art of distinguishing the higher and the lower"? Of course it's WISDOM (even call it PRUDENCE if you like) -- which are VIRTUES -- and you are led to conclude, as Philebus surrendered and concluded, that wisdom is the true target of life and not pleasure.

This thread is advancing my thoughts on this topic for the reason I stated to Kalosyni: "We all can feel at times what it means to "rest" and to have a "good attitude" and a "positive outlook" and similar emotions and feelings. We know that those are important to us, and so when we read (from the commentators!!!) that Epicurus was really interested in "resting" pleasures, we presume "Oh that makes sense and I totally agree!" and we end up endorsing the "kinetic / katastematic distinction" as if it were a really important part of Epicurean philosophy."

So I strongly think that was these commentators are doing. They are so immersed into the "psychological" or even "clinical" perspective that they assure themselves that because they identify in their own minds background feelings which they think are important, and they want to find that in Epicurus, they grasp at these few lines from DL and from Epicurus and say "See, this is where the Epicureans said what we modern psychologists say!" But they are trying to graft that psychological viewpoint on top of the foundational philosophic battle over these words and goals that was going on between Stoics and Epicureans after Epicurus himself was long dead. The danger in doing so is that if you start playing around with the debate about "the good" (which is what so much of Greek philosophy was all about) by changing it around to fit one's views of psychology, then you make it impossible to see what the foundational argument was all about.

We're continuing to go back and forth on this issue of whether pleasures can be "ranked" in our individual lives, or chosen between in daily life. Of course they can and should be chosen between, all pleasures are not exactly the same in every respect. But the very definition of pleasure is that it "feels good" to us and if some fundamental meaning is put on "good" of the "feels good" other than "pleasant," then you're implying that there is a standard outside and superior to pleasure.

So I assert that it is foundational that "all pleasures are good" and that cannot convey any meaning other than that "all pleasures are pleasing." It makes sense to say "some pleasures are more pleasing than others" because that is how we feel them to be (duration, intensity, etc). But to vaguely say that "some pleasures are more good than others" implies that there is a standard of choiceworthiness other than how pleasing they are.

Yes in strictly Epicurean terms we can define "pleasing" and "good" to mean exactly the same thing, and we can use those words interchangeably.

But the world is full of Stoics and Platonists and Peripatetics, and they assuredly do NOT mean "pleasing" and "good" to mean exactly the same thing. We as Epicureans are a very small minority, and if we don't make this distinction clear then we get swept up in the tide of Platonism and lose any claim to distinctiveness.

So the concluding lines of that excerpt are in my mind pure Platonism/Stoicism: "What matters is not just what we do but the reasons why we do what we do (Jones, 1989: 51)." That's where you end up, just like Philebus, when you decide to rank pleasures as "lower" or "higher" on a scale outside of pleasure itself (Lower or higher here implying "less noble" or "more noble.")

I would say strongly no to that last sentence of the excerpt -- "the reasons why we do what we do" rings of "virtue" ---What matters is not the "reason" (our understanding of "wisdom" or of "why") but the actual practical result - whether our lives are pleasing or not. Yes we want wisdom in order to produce pleasure, but what "matters" is the result (pleasure) not the too (wisdom).

Just as an aside, I am at peace with the idea that if I live for another 30 years into my doddering old age I will still be engaged in this precise debate til the very end.

There's no getting around it: people come to the discussion thinking about their own experiences, and they have their own definitions. I do that too.

But in order to be able to carry on a clear conversation, we have to take a lot of time to explain what the words mean in a particular context. Most of the good people who are smart enough to reject the mainstream and come to the study of Epicurus know enough to realize that the mainstream doesn't make sense, but they haven't taken seriously what the Platonists and Stoics were really saying. They don't get the implications of "virtue is its own reward" and what "good in itself" is really talking about. They think that the Platonists and Stoics and everyone else just wants to live a happy life, and the only thing that separates us is the details of how to get there.

I want to be clear than I don't think I am smarter than other people and I certainly could be wrong, but until you go through the details of the Platonic arguments in Philebus and elsewhere I don't think most people today will appreciate the differences and the depth of the word game that's involved in explaining those differences.

And that means that for the six or so years that this website has existed we have gone round and round on that issue. No matter how long it continues to exist into the future, and so long as new people come to the discussion, it will be necessary to go into it over and over again.

So I hope we all enjoy the ride and maybe every time we go through it we can find new and better ways to explain what it's all about.

The time to worry would be if we don't have this discussion, because that would indicate we are stagnant and not expanding.

Quote from Cassius

Just as an aside, I am at peace with the idea that if I live for another 30 years into my doddering old age I will still be engaged in this precise debate til the very end.

But that doesn't mean I want to do it exactly the same way, over and over. This is probably where it makes sense to develop a way to convey the shade of meaning used in a particular context, so that it is clear for example when someone means "good-in-and-of-itself" or "good-as-desirable-for-the-moment-as-a-tool" or "good-as-pleasant." And I am sure there are more shades of meaning that are important to set out.

Likewise we need to be more clear on:

(1) the relationship of "feeling" and "sense" and what it means to "experience" something.

(2) the shades of meaning of "pleasure," including the issue of comparatively choosing between different pleasures.

If we can come up with a set of key issues for discussion we can start separate threads on each and maybe eventually find a way to make them "required reading" for new people at the forum.

Cassius : First, your passion is apparent, appreciated, and completely understandable.

I'd like to address your last few posts above in a tangential way and then state why I "liked the way the author lays it out overall" in that article I posted. I don't necessarily expect you to agree with me, but it might at least give you (and any curious readers) a better idea where my head is at.

For me:

- There are obviously different kinds of activities that bring pleasure discerned simply by observation.

- Categorizing two broad categories as katastematic and kinetic doesn't bother me, especially since Diogenes Laertius quotes both Metrodorus and Epicurus himself in Lives, X:136, that pleasure can be experienced, let's say, katastematically and kinetically:

Metrodorus in his Timocrates, whose actual words are : "Thus pleasure being conceived both as that species which consists in motion and that which is a state of rest." (κίνησιν καὶ τῆς καταστηματικῆς (kinesin and [tes] katastematikes)) The words of Epicurus in his work On Choice are : "Peace of mind and freedom from pain are pleasures which imply a state of rest ; joy and delight are seen to consist in motion and activity." (ὁ δ᾽ Ἐπίκουρος ἐν τῷ Περὶ αἱρέσεων οὕτω λέγει: "ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἀταραξία καὶ ἀπονία (ataraxia and aponia) καταστηματικαί (katastematikai) εἰσιν ἡδοναί: ἡ δὲ χαρὰ καὶ ἡ εὐφροσύνη (khara and euphrosune) κατὰ κίνησιν (kinesin) ἐνεργείᾳ βλέπονται.")

- Metrodorus and Epicurus are drawing a distinction between the philosophy of the Garden and the philosophy of Cyrenaics who appear to only recognize kinetic pleasures as the goal or the highest good. Epicurus (and Metrodorus) are quoted as saying, "No, pleasures encompass those gained from both kinds of pleasures."

- Ataraxia and aponia are specifically designated by Epicurus in On Choices as καταστηματικαί (katastematikai). This appears to mean in a stable state. It is related to the word meaning ‘bring to anchor,’ bringing one to his destination.

- Khara (joy/delight) and euphrosune (mirth/merriment/good cheer/cheered with glad thoughts) are defined by Epicurus as kinetic pleasure. Why? I don't know other than to say maybe your soul atoms are bouncing around more (they're kinetic) in response to the

pleasure; whereas they are stable (at anchor) while experiencing a katastematic pleasure.

- No value judgements that one is better than another.

Where I liked the article was:

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To claim that pleasure is good, then, does not mean imagining that all pleasures are equally good

I interpreted this to mean "good [for you]" as PD10. I realize I'm reading into the article's text, but that's the way I interpreted it.

I'll admit I have some misgivings about their characterization of kinetic pleasures. Going back to Epicurus, he states joy and merriment are kinetic pleasures, not pleasures from sight, touch, hearing, etc. You can get feelings of joy and merriment from any number of activities. Excitement might be a candidate from my perspective of pleasure derived through kinesis. I like their katastematic lines better:

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Katastematic pleasures are ‘pleasures at rest’ or in stasis, which implies an absence of disturbance or discomfort. They denote a state of being, involving equilibrium, calm, stability and completeness.

That's the definition I'm coming around to to try and describe them.

I liked their repudiation of Mill. I also liked this:

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For Epicureanism things are not quite that simple (Rist, 1972: 108–109, 115). Even if the kinetic are lower (though this is a proposition we will interrogate in Chapter 2), this does not mean we should disdain them (as Mill seems to disdain pushpin) for three reasons.

Firstly, as materialists Epicureans were receptive to the delights which we experience when the senses are stimulated.

This goes back to the idea that we can only experience pleasure when our senses interact with the external world at least in the kinetic pleasures. Katastematic pleasure can be experienced through internal sensations (interoception to channel Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett and others).

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Finally, the above arguments suggest that kinetic pleasures may be valuable for their own sake. Seeking variations in pleasure is important if a life is to go well. ... If we can derive simple, untroubling enjoyment from kinetic activities then they may add to life’s richness.

The kinetic and katastematic are therefore intermingled to a degree that does not appear true of Mill’s lower/higher distinction. What matters is not just what we do but the reasons why we do what we do (Jones, 1989: 51).

So, kinetic and katastematic are NOT higher/lower, better/worse for Epicurus like they were Mill. They are simply ways of talking about the various ways pleasure is experienced.

Let's take the pleasure derived from intoxication. Epicurus wrote his Symposium (paraphrasing) "Don't act the fool when you're drunk", so I'm going to assume he didn't prohibit drinking. If one goes out drinking with friends to strengthen the bonds of friendship with no responsibilities the next day, I see no reason that's not a valid Epicurean choice. If you go out alone drinking when you have a big social or work commitment the next day, that would not be choice-worthy and would lead to more pain. The pleasure is the same (probably kinetic if we're keeping to the thread) but the *desires* to experience that pleasure are not equally choice-worthy.

So, that's where my head is at right now in regards to kinetic and katastematic.

Quote from Cassius

But show me an instance of an authoritative EPICUREAN doing that distinguishing.

[136] He differs from the Cyrenaics136 with regard to pleasure. They do not include under the term the pleasure which is a state of rest, but only that which consists in motion. Epicurus admits both ; also pleasure of mind as well as of body, as he states in his work On Choice and Avoidance and in that On the Ethical End, and in the first book of his work On Human Life and in the epistle to his philosopher friends in Mytilene. So also Diogenes in the seventeenth book of his Epilecta, and Metrodorus in his Timocrates, whose actual words are : "Thus pleasure being conceived both as that species which consists in motion and that which is a state of rest." The words of Epicurus in his work On Choice are : "Peace of mind and freedom from pain are pleasures which imply a state of rest ; joy and delight are seen to consist in motion and activity." (Diogenes Laertius X.136)

Good points as to those quotes, but without the surrounding context we don't have the important part of the assertion that is generally made, which is that pleasures of rest are superior and the goal of pleasures of action. In fact by the absence of those statements in these excerpts we have the opposite implication, that such conclusion does not exist. And the reason for DL looking for those excerpts to pull out is what Nikolsky explains - the division suggested by Carnaedes.

Note also this footnote from page 444 of the Nikolsky article, and the section it references;

So I think again we're basically in agreement as to our final interpretation, the issue is what is to be done with that interpretation. I know you are saying you don't see any harm in using it, and I agree, just so long as we all stay aware that the implications that some pleasures can by value judgment be determined to be higher or lower is not allowed to take root and grow, because THAT is the lever by which the Platonists seek to overturn the whole analysis. You don't do that yourself because you are now convinced that moral value judgments do not supercede pleasure (or at least I think you are ). But the majority of the world is not convinced of that, and they will immediately join the k-k distinction to the value judgment that only katastematic is worth pursuing, and that is why you see that assertion in virtually every modern article written about Epicurus.

So there's a problem to be dealt with and I look forward to everyone's suggestions on how to do so.

It would also help the discussion to know if you disagree with any of the major assertions of the Nikolsky article, and if so, why.

I'll have to go back and carefully read Nikolsky. I was going to wing it but that's not fair to Nikolsky nor to this discussion.

I will share an analogy/metaphor that just struck me. As of right now (reserving the right to extend & revise etc), I think "pleasure" may be able to be thought of like "taste"; katastematic and kinetic may be able to be thought of as analogous here to salty, sweet, sour, bitter, or umami. Salty isn't better or higher than sour, just different. They're all tastes. This is only a metaphor to show how one thing can be categorized into smaller things without making value judgments. I'm not equating pleasure with the sense of taste, just trying to build a metaphor.

As additional incentive to re-read Nikolsky:

... or maybe pleasure is an apple and katastematic and kinesis can be thought of like red and sweet.

Still working on an apt metaphor.