Episode One Hundred Thirty Eight - Letter to Menoeceus 5 - Pleasure Part One

By Zeus! I knew that "bread and water" had done damage but I had no idea how much damage!!

Quote from Cassius

whether Epicurus himself was restricting himself to "ordinary food" on all occasions, much less "bread and water.

Even that phrasing - "restricting himself" - strikes me as a slippery slope. If maza and wine (or watered wine as was customary) were just what you ate at a midday meal, you're not"restricting" yourself. That's just your expectation. I see Epicurus as being frugal but not ascetic. And frugal in the sense of the old Frugal Gourmet, "Frugal doesn't mean cheap. It means you don't waste your money." I could see Epicurus making sure the maza was well prepared: fresh, warm, maybe with some honey in the dough. Good fresh spring water for drinking maybe kept in the shade in pottery to keep it slightly cool.

We're told that in the diatribe against Epicurus that "he spent a whole mina daily on his table, as he himself says in his letter to Leontion and in that to the philosophers at Mitylene."

"Is this the Doctors vertuous Epicurus, who spent every day a Mina, which was an hundred Drachma's, that is 3.l.2.s.6.d. every Drachma being 7.d.ob." (Note: That's £3 2 shillings 6 pence in 1652. That's over $700 a day in 2022 $s according to this website)

Arcana Microcosmi, II:16

PS. I wonder if there's a nugget of truth and that's $700 for the household or something like that.

Possibly the confusion comes from the feast of the 20th, in which more people would have gathered and eaten more and better food.

Quote from Cassius

I strongly suspect that the bread and water reference was one of his regular in-your-face hypotheticals that he COULD live perfectly well on such fare if he needed to do so

I don't think it was merely a hypothetical. I think he probably did live perfectly well and pleasurably and intentionally from time to time on simple, everyday fare. Maybe even most of the time. To prove he could. Not hypothetically but empirically. He was surrounded by friends and students. He taught that your eating companions are as or more important than what you eat. He didn't need extravagance, but certainly wouldn't have gone out of his way to avoid it and wouldn't have struggled to put out a large extravagant banquet every day.

If I remember, there's a text that talks about Epicurus from time to time experimenting to see how little would still give him pleasure. He probably did try fasting do see what was absolutely essential to his finding pleasure in living. From Porphyry, at least, we read the Epicureans had "simple, available food" but we have to add fruit to the bread/maza and water at the very least. And cheese, we know there was cheese from time to time. So, the menu grows.

Porphyry, On Abstinence, I.48-: For most of the Epicureans, starting with their leader, appear to be satisfied with barley-bread and fruit, and they have filled treatises with arguments that nature needs little and that its requirements are adequately met by simple, available food. Riches in accordance with nature, they say, are limited and easy to get; riches in accordance with empty beliefs are unlimited and hard to get.

We also have Philodemus dinner invitation poem:

To-morrow, dearest Piso, your friend, beloved by the Muses, who keeps our annual feast of the twentieth invites you to come after the ninth hour to his simple cottage. If you miss udders and draughts of Chian wine, you will see at least sincere friends and you will hear things far sweeter than the land of the Phaeacians. But if you ever cast your eyes on me, Piso, we shall celebrate the twentieth richly instead of simply.

This implies to me we're going to get a hearty but simple, frugal meal on the 20th. Not meagre or stingy, but we know we're not getting udders and expensive wine. It's not a banquet. People will leave satiated not stuffed. Piso will celebrate "richly" because of his friendship with Philodemus not because of the food being served.

I was curious about the "simple" words:

αὔριον εἰς λιτήν σε καλιάδα, φίλτατε Πείσων,

ἐξ ἐνάτης ἕλκει μουσοφιλὴς ἕταρος,

εἰκάδα δειπνίζων ἐνιαύσιον: εἰ δ᾽ ἀπολείψεις

οὔθατα καὶ Βρομίου χιογενῆ πρόποσιν,

ἀλλ᾽ ἑτάρους ὄψει παναληθέας, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπακούσῃ

Φαιήκων γαίης πουλὺ μελιχρότερα:

ἢν δέ ποτε στρέψῃς καὶ ἐς ἡμέας ὄμματα, Πείσων, ἄξομεν ἐκ λιτῆς εἰκάδα πιοτέρην.

καλιάδα = "simple" cottage; hut

λιτῆς = litēs = simple, inexpensive, frugal; of style, plain, simple, unadorned

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, λι_τός

Philodemus was also clever in his word choice because λιτήν = litēn = entreaty, prayer, invitation echoes the λιτῆς = litēs = simple, inexpensive, frugal in the last line.

Sadly I won't be able to make it Wednesday, but I'll add to the discussion. Metrodorus in on wealth talks about enduring pains in the present in order to avoid greater pain or gain greater pleasure in the future, from which we derive the concept of hedonic calculus. To me that sets the whole philosophy up to be a kind of psychological math problem. Which is why I like it so much, the idea that there's a formula for happiness. Just solve for x. Everyone's y might be different but x should be the same. Also from this I take that you can't eliminate pain in life so the goal should be to minimize it in a logical fashion. Accepting pains that can lead to greater pleasures and avoiding unnecessary pain. Hope this helps rather than just being a tangent.

Just wondering if this is the/a source:

The Epicurean Doctrines on Wealth | Society of Friends of Epicurus

Quote

Philodemus makes frequent appeals to the authority of Metrodorus, one of the founders of the School, who promoted the idea that hedonic calPhilodemus makes frequent appeals to the authority of Metrodorus, one of the founders of the School, who promoted the idea that hedonic calculus must be employed in the management of one’s household and economic affairs, making the point time and again that we must run certain risks and go through certain inconveniences in order to avoid greater ruin and gain greater advantages.

He disagreed with the destitute life of the Cynics, and appears to have made this point while arguing against them and in favor of a doctrine of the natural measure of wealth. This corresponds to that which is needed to secure the natural and necessary pleasures, and to have the confident expectation that we will be able to secure them in the future.

Quote from DavidN

To me that sets the whole philosophy up to be a kind of psychological math problem. Which is why I like it so much, the idea that there's a formula for happiness.

Yes, I'd agree up to point but I don't think we need to go the whole Utilitarian way of adding hedons and dolors.

Quote from Don

Quote from DavidN

To me that sets the whole philosophy up to be a kind of psychological math problem. Which is why I like it so much, the idea that there's a formula for happiness.

Yes, I'd agree up to point but I don't think we need to go the whole Utilitarian way of adding hedons and dolors.

I think the variables proposed by Bentham were mostly pretty spot on (the only one I'd take slight issue with is intensity), but that it's pretty obviously absurd to suggest that you can quantify these things to any reasonable degree. To do so would require the ability to see the future, but even quantifying an episode of pleasure after the fact doesn't really make sense, considering how much tiny details and difference in your mental or physical state can affect your experience.

I do really like considering (some of) these variables though and just taking them to be kind of fuzzy in order to make an informed best guess for a course of action. It feels more practical than the way I see most people trying to chase happiness.

It seems to me that a lot of Bentham's work starts with something really cool, then goes a step (or more) too far with it. (Which I personally find very familiar...)

It is worth noting that my knowledge of Bentham's utilitarianism is very limited and a lot of my assessment is in reading his Wikipedia page and the one for the panopticon a few days ago.

It's from Philodemus, quotes or paraphrasing depending on the scholar, Metrodorus.

Philodemus and Metrodorus are on the same page throughout: successful property-management is neither following the Cynics and living in a tub to avoid the bother, nor getting so obsessed with it as to be (in Philodemus’ vivid—if restored—phrase) “trapping oneself on treadmills” (XIV.28). It is taking trouble, but trouble that will pay off and help not just you but your friends (is allakton for greater pleasure, XV.37, XIX.22, and parametrētrikon tōi phusikōi telei, in a measure that accords with natural goals, XVII.45, cf. XXV.47) And if it does not pay off, then you must take more trouble, not less. This treatise sheds more light than any other Herculaneum text on the “hedonic calculus” by which the Epicureans could justify an all-but-Stoic amount of painstaking, just to ensure and secure pleasure.

Philodemus, On Property Management. Writings from the Greco-Roman world, 33 – Bryn Mawr Classical Review