Do Pigs Value Katastematic Pleasure? ( Summer 2022 K / K Discussion)

With an extended discussion like this it's easy to lose track of what points are agreed and what are in dispute.

No one seems to question that Epicurus at least occasionally used the term katastematic and kinetic.

The clearest point of contention to anything that has been under discussion is the sort of "Wikipedia" version that Epicurus held that the ultimate goal of life is katastematic pleasure.

I don't gather that Don is advocating for that position but at this point in the conversation we ought to regroup and clarify the implications of the respective positions.

Don what would you say are the implications of your position (which at this point I gather to be mainly only that you are thinking that Epicurus considered the distinction more significant than Gosling & Taylor and Nikolsky do)?

Quote from Godfrey

Quote from Don

I don't think there is a neutral state although I'm going to have to go back to Barrett and Lembke to think about this in light of their research. (Sent thoughts, Godfrey ?)

Practically speaking I don't think there's a neutral state.

Neurologically speaking I'm not qualified to answer that. But of course I'm happy to toss out an opinion. The affective circumplex and the teeter totter are both conceptual models or analogies and therefore it could be assumed that they don't fully represent the biological processes at work. They seem to imply a neutral state at 0,0 or at perfectly level, respectively. But it could be that these implied states are a failure of the analogies, or that they are so infinitesimal as to be meaningless.

This paper is generally...not great (especially with chestnuts like this, implying that the ideal state of a hedonist would be maximum, activated bliss all the time - wearing me out literally just reading the sentence..."For instance, going from a painful experience to a neutral one probably feels like an improvement, whereas going from a joyous state to a neutral one might be experienced as a decline." emphasis mine)

But it does offer a nice overview and lots of links to other sources. The one thing I do agree with the author on, is that the "neutral" affect, if it exists at all, need not be experienced neutrally. My thoughts are that "neutral" states are valenced by our perspective (not necessarily only fleeting momentary moods), which is why an Epicurean can experience hedonic pleasure from them, while a Cyrenaic may try to avoid them altogether, and many other people may seek or avoid depending on their moods, or the amount of "virtue" they place in not feeling much of anything.

Thank you ReneLiza and good to hear from you again!

Another thought: I think it’s freaking WILD that valence is so clearly thought of as the only axis by which we measure emotion. That emotion can only be judged by how strongly negative and positive it is, plotting horror and sorrow on the same point, while joy and contentedness are half the spectrum apart just because content is calm and joy is not.

I know there are some researchers trying to find better models for emotion, but I think the absolute simplest would need at least separate axes for valence and activation. Example: anxiety and joy are positive activation, depression is negative activation, and contentedness is neutral activation (but positive VALENCE because those are two obviously separate things)

Pleasure/pain refers to the valence axis, and as stubbing your toe is closer to the origin than childbirth, so too are there variations in the intensity of pleasure of any given experience. It’s important to note though that I don’t think the katastematic pleasures are close to the origin than kinetic pleasures. Some kinetic pleasures are less intense valence in valence and some katastematic pleasures are overwhelmingly pleasurable. Think eating a grape vs unraveling a puzzle/problem you’ve been mulling over for weeks. Both pleasure, but the sensory/kinetic pleasure is not inherently more intense just for being a sensory experience.

Quote from Cassius

Thank you ReneLiza and good to hear from you again!

Thanks! I’ve been lurking and learning and absorbing 😊

Your earlier Pink Circle diagram for "absence of pain" was excellent. Looking forward to more inspiration like that !

Quote from reneliza

The one thing I do agree with the author on, is that the "neutral" affect, if it exists at all, need not be experienced neutrally. My thoughts are that "neutral" states are valenced by our perspective (not necessarily only fleeting momentary moods), which is why an Epicurean can experience hedonic pleasure from them,

Thank you reneliza, I started reading the article and it looks good, and brings up some important ideas. Also, as I get older I am noticing that I now have "neutral" feelings with regard to some things which in the past used to create a tremendous positive affect. And reading this article may help me understand, as well as feel okay about that neutrality.

Here is an excerpt about how the author of the article defines neutral affect.

"We define neutral affect as feeling indifferent, nothing in particular, and a lack of preference one way or the other. Note, when we use the term “indifferent,” we do not use it to indicate disliking something because that would imply a negative rather than a neutral reaction. It also is important to keep in mind that neutral affect could, theoretically, co-occur with positive and/or negative affect."

".....Additionally, it is important to point out that neutral affect is distinct from other nonvalenced states, such as feeling numb or shocked."

I especially like the phrase: "a lack of preference one way or the other" as a way to define neutrality.

Quote from Don

On perceived errors in Wikipedia: We can all be Wikipedia editors and contribute content, External links, and references to all relevant articles. Nothing stopping us but time and inertia (two powerful forces btw)

I realize that I refer to the Wikipedia situation regularly, but that's really a proxy for "the great majority of the acadermic and non-academic world that has written about Epicurus in the 20th/21st century," with few exceptions, notably including DeWitt, which DeWitt himself complained about in his intro to his book.

I am in pretty much agreement with everything Don wrote, as I expected I would be. The elephant in the room remains the "perspective" issue in which the commentators on Epicurus have elevated "ataraxia" (not so much aponia) as the goal of life, and they have either explicitly or implicitly equated that which a state of contemplative satisfaction which could equally be attained in essentially a very similar way by an oyster or by a healthy adult in his or her prime - i.e.: by reducing desires to an absolute minimum to sustain life, and to cultivate pleasures only as they are absolutely natural and necessary and require zero or an absolute minimum of pain to achieve.

It seems to me that Cicero's major criticism of Epicurean philosophy as not acceptable for the camp or the senate involved the presumption that Epicureans would pursue sensual pleasure and shun the required activities that are necessary to maintain a healthy and safe community.

Cicero brought out the apparent problems with holding "absence of pain" to be the highest goal, but presumably because he did not see many Epicureans of his time withdrawing from society to live in caves on bread and water, he didn't consider the logical conclusion of "absence of pain" to be worth spending much time combatting.

Once the Epicureans faded (or were driven) completely from the world stage, it hasn't been so necessary in recent centuries for the Academic majority to contend with people using Epicurean philosophy to justify actions about which the (the Academic majority) disapproved. In the modern world very few people take Epicurus seriously on his full "worldview" and the only point of interest for the majority is making sure that Epicurean views are held down into the mainstream of "humanist" philosophers, all of whom agree that there is a single "good" to which we need to aspire. And that has proven very easy to do by elevating "ataraxia" rather than "pleasure" to the central focus of Epicurean discussion. If you demote pleasure to an inconvenient sideline, and hold up an untranslated word of uncertain meaning as a proxy for the same kind of detachment and apathy which Stoicism and other philosophies praise, then Epicurus remains a footnote to history forever.

The art of taking things out of context and elevating them to a role that they were never intended to assume is really at the heart of a lot of tactical "lawyerly" argument, so it isn't a surprise that Cicero would use the tactic to skewer Epicurus in the same way he was skewering corrupt Senators who plundered their assigned provinces or who aspired to take over the Roman republic.

And it's not surprising that the Academic world is comfortable making Epicurean "absence of pain" into a twin sister of Stoic apathy and detachment.

These issues aren't going to be solved by editing Wikipedia entries, even though that effort would be worthwhile. I personally doubt its success in doing anything more than getting a footnote that the controversy exists, since the "modern consensus" is probably 90% plus of the people who write about Epicurus. And I am not sure the number is not more like 99%.

And of course there are lots of quotes from Epicurus that we shouldn't measure our success by whether "the crowd" agrees with us or not. The best we can do is be sure we study the points and articulate them clearly when we have the chance, like we're doing in this thread, and then follow the implications of our research to put them into presentation form so we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time these issues come up.

I haven't been here for awhile, and just finished reading through this thread. Three comments:

First, I want to thank Godfrey and Don for pointing out that "natural and necessary" etc. refer to desires, not pleasures. I made that error on my personal outline, and will now correct.

Second, I do not find a sharp distinction between kinetic and katastemic pleasure to be personally helpful; I tend to think of them as complementary, perhaps shading into one another. With that in mind (as I play more with Latin than Greek), I tend to use amoenitas -- rather than the traditional voluptas -- to render hedone. Amoenitas can mean both pleasure/pleasureableness and pleasantness. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amoenitas (Though I sometimes use voluptas as well.)

A phrase that I use for my own contemplation is "In amoenitate et otio manere" -- To abide in pleasantness/pleasure and ease.

Third, I think this statement by Cassius is critically important: "On an individual level it is essential that we know our own selves and identify what types of pleasure are most valuable to our own natures." And I tend by nature to be more of an introvert.

Thank you for joining this discussion Pacatus and in case it isn't obvious we welcome all others here to comment as well.

To answer the original question, ABSOLUTELY, pigs feel the guiding relief of stable pleasure that is the enjoyment of having had one's natural needs satisfied. That statement goes for other animals as well, and not just the "intelligent" ones. Pleasure and pain seems to me to be a language of life. Katastematic pleasure is not limited to the intellect of philosophers. Pure pleasure is accessible to all lifeforms that operate according to the barometer of pleasure and pain.

I have a feeling that this question (depending on who's reading it) might beg a Platonic or Stoic answer, one that might say, "Katastematic pleasure (i.e. supreme mental tranquility) is the only pleasure that matters, it is unrelated to physical sensations, it is so superior to the body's sensations that physical pleasure can be ignored completely, and that only philosophically-minded human beings are capable of interfacing with this otherworldly pleasure."

Contrary to Plato, the goal is neither otherworldly, nor limited to the privileged few. Contrary to the Stoics, achieving the goal does not yield an unaffected state of indifference, but rather, a positive feeling of pleasure.

Quote from Nate

To answer the original question, ABSOLUTELY, pigs feel the guiding relief of stable pleasure that is the enjoyment of having had one's natural needs satisfied. That statement goes for other animals as well, and not just the "intelligent" ones. Pleasure and pain seems to me to be a language of life. Katastematic pleasure is not limited to the intellect of philosophers. Pure pleasure is accessible to all lifeforms that operate according to the barometer of pleasure and pain.

I have a feeling that this question (depending on who's reading it) might beg a Platonic or Stoic answer, one that might say, "Katastematic pleasure (i.e. supreme mental tranquility) is the only pleasure that matters, it is unrelated to physical sensations, it is so superior to the body's sensations that physical pleasure can be ignored completely, and that only philosophically-minded human beings are capable of interfacing with this otherworldly pleasure."

Contrary to Plato, the goal is neither otherworldly, nor limited to the privileged few. Contrary to the Stoics, achieving the goal does not yield an unaffected state of indifference, but rather, a positive feeling of pleasure.

I agree with all this, but it seems to me that the same people who elevate "katastematic" pleasure DO usually elevate certain "simple pleasures" which are themselves only physical sensations (ie, stop and smell the roses), but there's a certain judgment about clean sensory pleasures and dirty sensory pleasures.

Smelling a flower, feeling the sun on your face or a breeze in your hair, eating certain "healthy" foods are clean, natural, simple pleasures that you can and should appreciate and will add to your mental tranquility, while the dirty pleasures are things like sex, rich foods, television or modern music and they will detract from your tranquility.

Note, that's not my own judgment, but the kinds of things I hear from other people. I think there IS something to the basic idea (that some things that are enjoyable in the moment cause net pain overall), but that the strength of Epicureanism is that you get to define your own clean and dirty pleasures, and how much of each one is worth pursuing.

I've noticed- definitively as of this morning- that in-person social engagements give me migraines 100% of the time these days. Spending time with friends is obviously something almost anyone would consider a "clean" pleasure, yet it disrupts my mental tranquility (by interrupting aponia) so what does that mean? Should I ignore my own physical pain and essentially gaslight myself because other people told me that friendship is a moral good? Should I partake in social engagements only occasionally in order to avoid unnecessary pain? Or should I use this knowledge going forward and bring my medicine, headphones, and sunglasses with me so that I can indulge in this apparently dirty (for me, because it causes pain) pleasure, while minimizing the pain, making adjustments as I get more information, in order to maximize my overall pleasure?

What the heck is philosophy for if not practical solutions to real life?

Yes Reneliza what is the use of philosophy unless it bring happiness? Some guidelines can be reached that apply in many situations, but it is the exceptions that prove the rule and there is no absolute rule that applies to everyone. I think that's the ultimate power of Epicurean philosophy and it is what "scares" some people away from it. We have conducted a very useful discussion here of this topic because I think we all share that same framework, but step far outside of the confines of this friendly garden and the condemnation will be quick and the punishment severe.

That's why we need to be sure to keep our eyes on the ultimate ball - that while we clarify deeper issues for ourselves we don't lose sight of the challenges that confront most all of us long before we get to the discussion of "types" of pleasure.

We each have to play the cards we are given.

Quote from Cassius

Yes Reneliza what is the use of philosophy unless it bring happiness? Some guidelines can be reached that apply in many situations, but it is the exceptions that prove the rule and there is no absolute rule that applies to everyone. I think that's the ultimate power of Epicurean philosophy and it is what "scares" some people away from it. We have conducted a very useful discussion here of this topic because I think we all share that same framework, but step far outside of the confines of this friendly garden and the condemnation will be quick and the punishment severe.

That's why we need to be sure to keep our eyes on the ultimate ball - that while we clarify deeper issues for ourselves we don't lose sight of the challenges that confront most all of us long before we get to the discussion of "types" of pleasure.

We each have to play the cards we are given.

Yeah I agree that it's worth questioning how much usefulness there is in talking about different kinds of pleasure to non-Epicureans. There's a lot of talk about Epicurus "dividing" pleasure into two categories, but from the discussion here so far, it looks like the wrong math term is being used. It seems more accurate to say that he ADDED to the earlier understanding of pleasure. So perhaps it is not that he wanted to separate pleasure into two parts, but that he wanted to take a limited definition of "pleasure" and expand it to include more, or unite the things he found pleasurable (IIRC you said early on in the discussion that you believed Epicurus just found life itself to be pleasurable and I think that's exactly it).

I'm curious (first of all, if you agree with that assessment in the first place, and secondly) how you do like to approach the topic of those kinds of less obvious pleasures with newbies. I'm not afraid to use the word "pleasure" but the connotation is definitely not one that would include ataraxia or aponia as pleasure in and of itself, and I think most people don't think of pleasure in just being okay.

Quote from reneliza

There's a lot of talk about Epicurus "dividing" pleasure into two categories, but from the discussion here so far, it looks like the wrong math term is being used. It seems more accurate to say that he ADDED to the earlier understanding of pleasure. So perhaps it is not that he wanted to separate pleasure into two parts, but that he wanted to take a limited definition of "pleasure" and expand it to include more, or unite the things he found pleasurable

reneliza to me that sounds exactly right!

Quote from Godfrey

Quote from reneliza

There's a lot of talk about Epicurus "dividing" pleasure into two categories, but from the discussion here so far, it looks like the wrong math term is being used. It seems more accurate to say that he ADDED to the earlier understanding of pleasure. So perhaps it is not that he wanted to separate pleasure into two parts, but that he wanted to take a limited definition of "pleasure" and expand it to include more, or unite the things he found pleasurable

reneliza to me that sounds exactly right!

"Epicurus thought pleasure to be a unified phenomenon. He claimed that it takes on two aspects (i.e. katastematic and kinetic) nonetheless, he thought both these aspects species of the same genus."

I just got this from this paper and like... YES this is what I mean!

ETA: related to that paper, I've recently become interested in the ancient Druids, who left no written record so almost all information about them comes through the lens of biased Roman accounts. I'm starting to wonder why this engineer ever even started bothering with trying to learn history lol