The Definitive "Chrysippus' Hand Argument" Thread

Earlier today, after revisiting the "Chrysippus hand argument" from Torquatus' "On Ends" speech, I am convinced that we - unlike Chrysippus' hand - have a lack for something - and that something is a Definitive Thread on the topic. I would like to eventually make a graphic for the front page of the website that highlights this episode in the Epicurean texts because I think it is a good way to focus on a critical issue. We have discussed the issue previously a number of times, probably more than the two threads listed below, and I know we discussed it in the Lucretius Today podcast when we went through the Torquatus material.

But I am convinced from my own lack of comfort with this passage that there is a lot more to be learned. Chrysippus and/or the Stoics seemed to think that this argument against pleasure as the good was a killer, significant enough to be featured in the statue dedicated to his memory - at least if Torquatus's story can be credited as supporting that conclusion.

So the first thing I will do in this thread is to quote again the Reid translation of the relevant passage, and before going further, I would like to challenge anyone who has the time to contribute - before we go much further - their explanation of what he is arguing. Before we can deal with whether he is right or wrong, we first have to understand what he is saying, and it seems clear that there are some underlying and unstated presumptions behind his framing of the question that have to be brought to the surface.

First, here is the quote:

Quote

[38] Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension.

[39] But actually at Athens, as my father used to tell me, when he wittily and humorously ridiculed the Stoics, there is in the Ceramicus a statue of Chrysippus, sitting with his hand extended, which hand indicates that he was fond of the following little argument: Does your hand, being in its present condition, feel the lack of anything at all? Certainly of nothing. But if pleasure were the supreme good, it would feel a lack. I agree. Pleasure then is not the supreme good. My father used to say that even a statue would not talk in that way, if it had power of speech. The inference is shrewd enough as against the Cyrenaics, but does not touch Epicurus. For if the only pleasure were that which, as it were, tickles the senses, if I may say so, and attended by sweetness overflows them and insinuates itself into them, neither the hand nor any other member would be able to rest satisfied with the absence of pain apart from a joyous activity of pleasure. But if it is the highest pleasure, as Epicurus believes, to be in no pain, then the first admission, that the hand in its then existing condition felt no lack, was properly made to you, Chrysippus, but the second improperly, I mean that it would have felt a lack had pleasure been the supreme good. It would certainly feel no lack, and on this ground, that anything which is cut off from the state of pain is in the state of pleasure.

As to underlying but unstated presumptions, there seems to be something going on in the assertion: "But if pleasure were the supreme good, it would feel a lack."

Chrysippus seems to expect us to take as a given that hand would feel the absence of the supreme good at that moment if the supreme good were pleasure. Is that an assertion with which everyone would agree? What is it presuming that might need to be brought to the surface? That one characteristic of the supreme good is that it is always present and - if absent - that the presence would be felt immediately? Why would that be so and what is the implication of it?

I don't think we can understand Chrysippus' assertion, or Torquatus' explanation of why it is wrong, if we don't understand that point.

Anyone want to try to explain in their own words what Chrysippus is saying and why?

Prior Threads:

1 - Starting here in a thread from 2021 (probably the best existing thread)

2 -Comments in Kalosyni's "Slider" thread of 2023

#HighestGood

Quote from Don

Your hand doesn't "feel" anything. You may sense something with your hand, on your hand, in your hand, and so on; but your hand, in its present condition, is merely a part of your sensory apparatus. If you feel that your hand doesn't lack anything, it's in homeostasis. It is in balance.

While I think this angle of approach is true, I don't think it meets directly what Chrysippus was saying so I wouldn't start with this one. I don't see any reason why he could not have picked out any other part of the body, or even a total person, and made the same point, just so long as that person was sitting quietly and not being stimulated from the outside.

Quote from Godfrey

Very well said. So another mistake by Chryssipus is that according to his argument, virtue can't be the supreme good. For that matter, nothing can be. But I may be missing something: it's been a long day.

That's the feeling I have - that we are missing something that from Chrysippus' point of view is vital.

Referring to Joshua's list:

Quote from Joshua

1. The hand either feels pleasure, or it feels pain, or it feels neither pleasure nor pain.
2. If pleasure is the highest good, then the absence of pleasure would feel like a lack of pleasure.
3. This lack of pleasure would be felt in every member of the body.
4. My hand does not feel pleasure or pain.
5. My hand does not feel a lack of pleasure.

1 - Don's comment goes to 1, but I think that to be fair to Chrysippus that 1 is a reasonable premise that most people would accept under normal discussion. Now Epicurus would not accept the last phrase "or it feels neither pleasure nor pain" but that's the subject in question that we're trying to prove, so I don't know we can object to it here at this point in the argument.

2- I am thinking that 2 is the missing link in our comprehension. WHY would this be the case? As Don asks why would the highest good necessarily be present at all times? What gives Chrysippus the right to presume that? At the moment the main thing that occurs to me is that rather than highest good the operative perspective is more "guide" than "highest good" and we would want our "guide" to be always present in order for it to truly be our ultimate guide. But that may not be the point or it may be only a part of the point. But SOMEHOW there is a reason behind this presumption that Chrysippus thought that we would accept, and quite possibly that we would accept it even as Cyreniacs or Epicureans devoted to he central role of pleasure.

3 - I am not sure about that one, but yes I can see that being presumed, in order to pick out the hand.

4 - Yes he's presuming a state of inactivity does not involve pleasure or pain.

5 - Yes he's presuming that too, and that is something that we would probably accept.

I was looking for a passage that I thought I remembered from Lucian, where he remarked (or so I thought) that it was surprising or un-Stoic to look for an ever-present "guide." Unfortunately I cannot find what I am looking for, but while looking I found this, a cute list of illustrations of the type of logic as the guide of life to which Lucian and presumably Epicurus objected. This is from an appendix to the Fowler translation of the Works of Lucian of Samosata:

IF (and I am not taking that as established) we were to conclude that the issue Chrysippus is alluding to is that the guide or the greatest good must be continuously present (for some combination of practical or philosophical reasons that we still need to clarify) , then we have DeWitt's explanation of the "continuity" issue in the following clips.

It boils down to:

The argument is most fully stated in the section "Pleasure can be Continuous" on page 239. Here are two isolated references, then part of the section devoted to the topic so people can evaluate for themselves whether this is the relevant issue:

and the rest:

Yes, but as you quoted above, it seems that Chrysippus thought that the following argument is self-contained:

C: Does your hand, being in its present condition, feel the lack of anything at all?

S: Certainly of nothing.

C: But if pleasure were the supreme good, it would feel a lack.

S: I agree.

C: Pleasure then is not the supreme good.

And that seems to imply that the "absence of lack" is the critical issue. He does not seem to me to be arguing about what to call the absence of lack, it is the absence of lack itself that he thinks says something.

Yes he would presumably and eventually agree with Cicero and argue that the absence of lack should not be called pleasure, but he seems to think already that the absence of lack speaks for itself as to why pleasure is not the highest good. As you also indicated earlier, I see no reason why the highest good should be required to be always present. There seems to be an element missing in Chrysippus' argument that would explain why he thinks it must always be present. The only possibility I can think of is the implicit requirement that the highest good (or the guide to the highest good) must be always available in order for it to meet some definition that Chrysippus thinks is agreed upon as to the nature of the highest good or guide to the highest good.

Is there any other possible reason for his argument? He could have simply said "the absence of any feeling is not pleasure and no one thinks of it that way" if his argument was over nothing more than what to call the state being discussed. That's what Cicero eventually argued, but Chrysippus does not seem to be saying that. He is saying that the "absence of lack" means something in and of itself as to why pleasure is not the good.

I don't know that the difference between lack or long for makes a difference, but I think the rest is interesting. Apparently the stoics agreed with Epicurus that Nature is the standard. Chrysipus would also have known that Epicurus said to look to babies for the pure standard. Maybe chrysipus was saying "I will up you Epicurus and look to a hand, which is TOTALLY uncorrupted since it has no mind to corrupt."

Maybe.

Quote from Godfrey

I'm again thinking of virtue: do Stoics consider that you can reach a state where you are virtuous, and therefore don't long for it any more?

I think that is a definite yes - when you get to the summit you are at the top and there is nothing greater.

Cant call a cite but I am pretty sure the summit analogy is a favorite, and that is another argument they use against pleasure - that it has no summit or limit.

We can hold this question out there as long as needs be because I would surely think that they took it seriously