New Christos Yapijakis Article: "The Philosophical Management of Stress"

I noticed that Conatus is open-access (hooray!), and the studies Yapijakis references in the introduction are contained separately in the issue:

Epicurean Stability (eustatheia): A Philosophical Approach of Stress Management

Philosophical Management of Stress based on Science and Epicurean Pragmatism: A Pilot Study

I was curious what footnote 92 referred to, and it's simply the fact that that quoted section is from his other paper. That seems a little circular, but at least it's referenced.

FWIW, I always cringe when pleasures are referred to as useful, harmful and such. This implies a ranking of pleasures, which to my understanding, Epicurus was firmly against. To me, choices and avoidances occur with desires, not pleasures. This is perhaps picking a nit, but it's a nit that can lead to "fancy pleasures" like absence of pain, as well as a misunderstanding of the philosophy.

Quote from Little Rocker

I noticed that Conatus is open-access (hooray!), and the studies Yapijakis references in the introduction are contained separately in the issue:

Epicurean Stability (eustatheia): A Philosophical Approach of Stress Management

I realize Dr. Yapijakis is a Associate Professor of Genetics, but his use in this paper of the outdated "triune brain" - even as a metaphor - stopped my reading in its tracks. I have been familiar with this reptile/ mammal/ primate brain "theory" since Carl Sagan's Dragons of Eden. But, first in Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett's work then following up with others, I found out that this idea, even as a metaphor, is outdated and simply factually wrong. For example:

A theory abandoned but still compelling

In 1977 readers were enthralled by The Dragons of Eden, a book by the astronomer Carl Sagan that explored the evolution of the human brain. Dragons won the

medicine.yale.edu

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MacLean’s basic premise—his “‘hats on top of hats’ view” that brain systems were added by accretion over the course of evolution—was mistaken.

Rethinking the reptilian brain. - Dr Sarah McKay

The reptilian brain model is not based on evolution or neuroscience. What neuroscience-based stories or concepts should use you instead?

drsarahmckay.com

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Does it matter if we use the ‘reptilian brain’?

TL:DR. YES!

We are not born with hard-wired pre-packaged emotions emerging from a lizard brain. The human brain is not a tripartite-series of separate complexes. We are not at the mercy of our lizard brain when we experience threat. We’ve established that.

It's Time To Correct Neuroscience Myths - Northeastern University College of Science

Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychology professor at Northeastern who has been awarded a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, finds misinformation and myths about the brain…

cos.northeastern.edu

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“Scientists have known since at least the 1970s that the idea of a lizard brain is a fiction of neuroscience,” Barrett says. “The problem here is that is takes 10, 20, sometimes 50 years before discoveries in science make it to the public.”

And so on. I could paste a number of articles, but I think that makes the point. I also vaguely remember making this point about his using the triune brain a year or so again. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. Even if "lizard brain" is in quotes, it's factually wrong and metaphorically misleading. It's not necessary to explain Epicurean philosophy. Just leave it out.

I should echo Cassius 's respect for Dr. Yapijakis' efforts in establishing the Gardens in Greece and the conferences in-person and online and the publishing efforts. I did watch most of the online conference in which Cassius participated (I am remembering correctly that you gave a talk, correct??), and I have an idea what it takes to coordinate events like that. So, that all is impressive in the evangelizing - the spreading the good news - of Epicurean philosophy.

However...

I'm a little uneasy about how some of that paper is phrased, especially (emphasis added):

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Therefore, the Epicureans aimed at eustatheia, the good psychosomatic balance, since they believed that “the consistently good condition of the flesh and the relating hope for its preservation offer the ultimate and surest joy to those who are able to contemplate it.”30 Epicureans were taught to ascend the scale of pleasure by intensifying its continuity and to control its discontinuity. They became more interested in quality than in quantity by taking into account (συμμέτρησις, symmetrisis) useful and useless pleasures.

The "aiming at eustatheia" is interesting. It's most prominent in the Usener 68 fragment from Plutarch:

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[ U68 ]

Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 4, p. 1089D: It is this, I believe, that has driven them, seeing for themselves the absurdities to which they were reduced, to take refuge in the "painlessness" and the "stable condition of the flesh," supposing that the pleasurable life is found in thinking of this state as about to occur in people or as being achieved; for the "stable and settled condition of the flesh," and the "trustworthy expectation" of this condition contain, they say, the highest and the most assured delight for men who are able to reflect. Now to begin with, observe their conduct here, how they keep decanting this "pleasure" or "painlessness" or "stable condition" of theirs back and forth, from body to mind and then once more from mind to body.

Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, IX.5.2: Epicurus makes pleasure the highest good but defines it as sarkos eustathes katastema, or "a well-balanced condition of the body."

....

Fragment 68: To those who are able to reason it out, the highest and surest joy is found in the stable health of the body and a firm confidence in keeping it. τὸ γὰρ εὐσταθὲς σαρκὸς κατάστημα καὶ τὸ περὶ ταύτης πιστὸν ἔλπισμα τὴν ἀκροτάτην χαρὰν καὶ βεβαιοτάτην ἔχει τοῖς ἐπιλογίζεσθαι δυναμένοις.

See also VS33

The body cries out to not be hungry, not be thirsty, not be cold. Anyone who has these things, and who is confident of continuing to have them, can rival the gods for happiness (eudaimonia).

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Metrodorus also echoes these thoughts, almost exactly in his Fragment 5.

However, Plutarch's text is interesting: they keep decanting this "pleasure" or "painlessness" or "stable condition" of theirs back and forth. He seems to imply that the Epicureans used "pleasure" or "painlessness" or "stable condition" almost interchangeably: ἡδονὴν (hēdonēn) ταύτην εἴτ᾽ ἀπονίαν (aponian) ἢ εὐστάθειαν (eustatheian). But this is the first time I've seen the word eustatheia. It's not a bad word to use, but I can surmise some may have an issue with it being "aimed at." It might be interesting to delve into that term more. So, I applaud Dr. Yapijakis for calling my attention to that.

I'm more concerned with the phrasing "ascend the scale of pleasure" and "useful and useless pleasures." I agree with Godfrey that that should be "useful and useless *desires*" at best. The "ascent" doesn't strike me as appropriate either.

In the end, as I said, I can appreciate his work over the years, but I'm not entirely comfortable with some of his emphasis and his framing.

Quote from Cassius

"flourishing" and "wellbeing" and similar terms

I'm personally fine with Epicureans using terms like that as long as they're in the context of eudaimonia and in the larger context of pleasure/pain, etc.

Quote from Cassius

Anytime we start de-emphasizing the term "pleasure" with other wording we are in dangerous territory.

See that's why I find that Plutarch quote so interesting with him claiming that the Epicureans went "back and forth" using pleasure, aponia, and eustatheia. However, my take on that is that it all referred back to pleasure. Aponia is "absence of pain" (sort of, but that's another thread) because pleasure replaces it. Eustatheia is pleasure because it's that internal, stable tranquility that we can be sure of. Pleasure is the key in the philosophy, so whatever terms one uses, they have to return to a framing of pleasure.

While Epicurus calls all sorts of actions or agreements 'beneficial' or 'harmful,' I'm inclined to agree with Godfrey and Cassius that Epicurus would hesitate to call pleasures as such harmful because he insists that all pleasures are in themselves good and that pain exhausts the category of harm. So saying a pleasure *is* harmful is a contradiction--like saying that pleasure is pain.

Now, you could technically run pleasure and harm together via causation--if some pleasures always produce more pain than pleasure, then you could perhaps say those pleasures *are* harmful because they produce harms of necessity. You might think that move makes the most sense in the case of vice because he says 'it is *impossible* to live pleasantly' if we are vicious. So someone might reasonably ask, why not just say 'vicious pleasure is harmful pleasure'? Or, *it is impossible* to be tranquil without studying science, so that relishing scientific ignorance is a harmful pleasure.

But I again think Godfrey is right that running them together muddies important distinctions best kept separate and tidy, like between instrumental and intrinsic goods. More importantly, Epicurus almost always writes in conditionals about particular actions (which is what makes his Greek so freaking frustrating!), so I'm not entirely convinced you could establish a firm causal link for specific pleasures anyway. So he'll say, 'if it were not the case that X, then we would not object,' or 'if it were true that X, then we would approve...'

Consider, for example, politics. There is a lot of pain in politics, and generally that pain does not produce sufficient pleasure to justify the pain. But Epicurus makes it clear that in some cases the benefits might justify the pain. So we don't want to say that politics is in most cases a harmful pain, but sometimes a beneficial pain. Better to just say that sometimes pain is worth it, and other times its not.

So, my interpretation has been that pleasure *is* good but it's the *context* within which that pleasure is experienced (and the personal responsibility we take for that context) that makes all the difference.

Ex., Drinking wine with friends is pleasurable.

Drinking wine to excess party after party is going to be... let's say less than optimal for your pleasurable existence.

Quote from Fragment from the Greek Playwright Euboulos

"For sensible men I prepare only three kraters: one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home. The fourth krater is not mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness."

I mean, at the risk of sounding too extreme, I suspect that Epicurus is even open to the possibility that drinking to excess can be beneficial under some bizarre, even common, circumstances. If, for lack of a better example, a tyrant says he will force the citizens with the healthiest relationship to alcohol to fight in an unjust war, I think Epicurus might recommend falling down drunk in public a few times. Or if the only way a person can motivate themselves to do something courageous is to opt for 'liquid courage,' then Epicurus might say, 'hey, better perhaps you didn't need it, but well, turns out you do. Let me refill your glass.'

Or, ruling out the genuinely bad behavior Euboulos mentions, if it turns out empirically that getting drunk on Friday and ending up at Waffle House with college friends creates long-lasting memories of pleasure, then those memories could justify the hangover. I guess I'm just saying that I'm willing to consider going a lot further into traditional hedonism than a lot of people might find comfortable.

Thanks, Joshua !! I had forgotten about these lines.

Here's a variant translation from Perseus:

And Eubulus introduces Bacchus as saying—

Let them three parts of wine all duly season

With nine of water, who'd preserve their reason;

The first gives health, the second sweet desires,

The third tranquillity and sleep inspires.

These are the wholesome draughts which wise men please,

Who from the banquet home return in peace.

From a fourth measure insolence proceeds;

Uproar a fifth, a sixth wild licence breeds;

A seventh brings black eyes and livid bruises,

The eighth the constable next introduces;

Black gall and hatred lurk the ninth beneath,

The tenth is madness, arms, and fearful death;

For too much wine pour'd in one little vessel,

Trips up all those who seek with it to wrestle.

Εὔβουλος δὲ ποιεῖ τὸν Διόνυσον λέγοντα ῾II 196 K':'

τρεῖς γὰρ μόνους κρατῆρας ἐγκεραννύω

τοῖς εὖ φρονοῦσι: τὸν μὲν ὑγιείας ἕνα,

ὃν πρῶτον ἐκπίνουσι: τὸν δὲ δεύτερον

ἔρωτος ἡδονῆς τε: τὸν τρίτον δ᾽ ὕπνου,

ὃν ἐκπιόντες οἱ σοφοὶ κεκλημένοι

οἴκαδε βαδίζουσ᾽. ὁ δὲ τέταρτος οὐκ ἔτι

ἡμέτερός ἐστ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ὕβρεος: ὁ δὲ πέμπτος βοῆς:

ἕκτος δὲ κώμων: ἕβδομος δ᾽ ὑπωπίων:

<ὁ δ᾽> ὄγδοος κλητῆρος: ὁ δ᾽ ἔνατος χολῆς:

δέκατος δὲ μανίας, ὥστε καὶ βάλλειν ποιεῖ.

πολὺς γὰρ εἰς ἓν μικρὸν ἀγγεῖον χυθεὶς

ὑποσκελίζει ῥᾷστα τοὺς πεπωκότας.

Ha! There's nearly an hour gone looking for the Greek text. Found 45 minutes after Don...

Since I've found it, I can record for the record that this is fragment 93 from the 4th century b.c.e middle comedy poet Eubulus, thought to be from a comic play titled Semele or Dionysus, and preserved by the 2nd-3rd century c.e. Greek grammarian Athenaeus.

Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book II., chapter 3

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I mean, at the risk of sounding too extreme, I suspect that Epicurus is even open to the possibility that drinking to excess can be beneficial under some bizarre, even common, circumstances.

I don't think I've ever related a tale with so much vigor as when I was sitting with friends at my sister's wedding reception, describing a pleasant morning on I-24 south of Nashville when the resident of a hot air balloon floating over the interstate gestured for me to pull the air horn. The wine rather added something, I think.

Quote from Little Rocker

I mean, at the risk of sounding too extreme, I suspect that Epicurus is even open to the possibility that drinking to excess can be beneficial under some bizarre, even common, circumstances. If, for lack of a better example, a tyrant says he will force the citizens with the healthiest relationship to alcohol to fight in an unjust war, I think Epicurus might recommend falling down drunk in public a few times. Or if the only way a person can motivate themselves to do something courageous is to opt for 'liquid courage,' then Epicurus might say, 'hey, better perhaps you didn't need it, but well, turns out you do. Let me refill your glass.'

Or, ruling out the genuinely bad behavior Euboulos mentions, if it turns out empirically that getting drunk on Friday and ending up at Waffle House with college friends creates long-lasting memories of pleasure, then those memories could justify the hangover. I guess I'm just saying that I'm willing to consider going a lot further into traditional hedonism than a lot of people might find comfortable.

I don't think that's extreme. I would absolutely agree. You're just a little more creative in your scenarios than I've been

Having been raised in a society that likes absolutes in its ethics, that lack of absolutes in Epicurus I find refreshing, difficult to internalize, and intriguing all at the same time.