Episode 216 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 23 - Why Does Epicurus Say Length Of Time Does Not Contribute To Pleasure?

We had some interesting discussion in the Zoom tonight, with most of the comments being relatively consistent with what has been discussed already.

My own thoughts are not likely to be satisfied without more clarity (citations) on what exactly the non-Epicureans were arguing about about the nature of the "limits" argument (which I perceive to be likely another way of stating Plato's "class of the infinite" argument).

For me, the most clear statement at the moment of what I perceive to be the "limits" argument remains that of Seneca. I wonder that the next-to-last sentence in this translation could be made more clear, and I would like to see this more precisely stated using the word "limit" in the sense of edge or "definition" (in the sense of high-definition photo) but i think this helps a lot:

Seneca’s Letters – To Lucilius – 66.45: “What can be added to that which is perfect? Nothing otherwise that was not perfect to which something has been added. Nor can anything be added to virtue, either, for if anything can be added thereto, it must have contained a defect. Honour, also, permits of no addition; for it is honourable because of the very qualities which I have mentioned.[5] What then? Do you think that propriety, justice, lawfulness, do not also belong to the same type, and that they are kept within fixed limits? The ability to increase is proof that a thing is still imperfect.”

It's the last sentence that seems to me to be most revealing. I wonder if the meaning of "perfect" here is not "perfect in the sense of best" but rather "perfect in the sense of perfected / finished / sharp."

In other words, an incomplete / imperfect jar is not really a jar at all - it is something else that is in the process of becoming a jar, but it is not a jar at all.

If that is the direction of the argument, then incomplete or unfinished pleasure is not really pleasure at all, and the drift of the argument from Seneca's / Plato's / Cicero's perspective is that "pleasure" cannot really be experienced at all, because it is always accompanied by pain of some sort, and that the experience is mixed and not the same as pleasure.

From Epicurus' perspective, this argument (that it is impossible to experience pleasure at all because it is always mixed with pain) is solved by showing that what we are experiencing anytime we feel pleasure in some part of our experience. In other words, there is no such thing as "incomplete" pleasure, because if you feel pleasure you know it is pleasure because it does not feel painful.

This interpretation would place the emphasis on understanding from a conceptual perspective that pleasure is pleasure and pain is pain and they can exist in *different* parts of the body and in different amounts of duration and different intensities, but that these differences do not mean that what is being experienced at any moment of pleasure is not pleasure.

This interpretation would also mean that what is being discussed is not the "best" or the "highest" pleasure at all, but whether "pleasure" itself can be said to exist as a certain thing that can be experienced, or whether it is always (like a gas or liquid) something that can never be grasped and is always "slipping through our fingers."

Were it not for the understanding that every experience of pleasure is "complete in itself," then one would never be able to experience pleasure at all.

It seems to me that that might be an interpretation of PD03 that would explain how it fits in parallel along with PD01 and PD02 as an antidote (ok, a "remedy" if you like) for a major error that has to be refuted. The three are:

(1) The error that a "god" would concern himself with us is refuted by the position that a god is complete in itself,

(2) the error that the state of being dead is a concern for us is refuted by showing that where life is, death is not (life is complete without needing any aspect of death) and

(3) the error of thinking that pleasure can never be attained is refuted by establishing that pleasure too is complete in itself. All pleasure is complete in itself because given that there are only two feelings, whenever what we are feeling is not painful it is pleasurable - pleasure is complete wherever pleasure exists. The life that contains some pain does not fail to contain pleasure, it is just the life of a human being, in contrast to the life of a "god," which has attained the ability to never expeience pain.

PD03. The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once.

Nothing here would then be intended to imply that "absence of pain" should be understood to describe is the most intense pleasure, the longest pleasure, or the pleasure covering the most numerous parts of the body. Nor would it imply at all that you need not concern yourself with continuing to stay alive, because you do in fact want to experience more pleasure by staying alive. The main point would be that since pleasure is complete whereever pleasure exists, the consideration of "pleasure" to be a proper goal of life does make sense, because it is in fact possible to experience pleasure. You're not doomed to be always drowning an inch below the surface never able to breathe - you do in fact figuratively "break through to the surface of the water and escape drowning" every time you experience any pleasure at all.

It would be very desirable to see if there are other surviving texts (such as the Seneca quote, or the statement in Hermotimus) that will make clear that this aspect of completeness was what was being argued by the non-Epicurean philosophers. Finding statements even more clear than Seneca's would help nail down this perspective and keep us from going around and around being frustrated that Plato's Philebus argument was not as clear as we would like it to be asking: SOCRATES: Have pleasure and pain a limit, or do they belong to the class which admits of more and less?

Understanding and being able to explain clearly to an ordinary person why asked that question, and why Epicurus' answer would differ from that of Plato, is key.

Thank you Don for the extra Seneca because that ("You will find nothing straighter than the straight, nothing truer than the truth, and nothing more temperate than that which is temperate") does make the point more clear.

I think we are on the same track but for perhaps the final sentence:

Quote from Don

Epicurus answers that by saying pleasure cannot rise to greater heights than the absence of all pain, therefore, pleasure cannot be added to once it has replaced all pain.

If pleasure IS absence of pain, as Torquatus insists to Cicero multiple times, then the same analysis applies to pleasure as to virtue. There is no "rising" or "moving" involved in the analysis at the level we are talking about. "You will find nothing straighter than the straight, nothing truer than the truth, and nothing more temperate than that which is temperate." It's easy to extend that to "You will find nothing more pleasurable than pleasure."

The important point would be NOT that it is essential to remove all pain in life before we can experience pleasure. Only "the gods" can do that, and that is the lever that Cicero is using to argue that Epicurus makes no sense. Cicero is saying that Epicurus himself does not even experience pleasure because what he in fact experiences is a mixture of pleasure and pain, which is not pleasure.

The important point would be that WHEREVER pleasure exists, pain is absent, which means that anytime we experience pleasure we are in fact experiencing pleasure in the full and complete sense of the term. Nothing is more pleasurable than pleasure.

If this were not so, then we would never be able to experience pleasure at all, because what we would be experiencing would be some incomplete pleasure, some mixture of pleasure and pain, which from this perspective is not pleasure at all. A "mixture" is not the same thing as a "thing in its pure form."

So this "pleasure is the absence of pain" is necessary to comprehend that it is possible to experience pleasure at all.

This would be the "mental" part of the perspective, the part that the mind has to do in order for the person to understand that what his body feels when it feels pleasure is not lacking something, but which is in fact complete.

And since I think it is fair to say that Seneca is even more derivative as a philosopher than is Cicero, we are going to find this same point argued in other forms in other philosophers of the Platonic-Stoic line. But at the moment, this particular passage from Seneca stands out for its clarity.

Quote from Don

Epicurus answers that by saying pleasure cannot rise to greater heights than the absence of all pain, therefore, pleasure cannot be added to once it has replaced all pain.

Still thinking about this, and to repeat a point from post 23, I think a danger in emphasizing this "pleasure cannot be added to once it has replaced all pain" part of the perspective is that the superficial point overwhelms the deeper point. While it is true that once "all pain is removed no more pleasure can be added," that situation is effectively limited only to "the gods." If we obsess over the goal of eliminating "all pain" then we are trying to duplicate Zeus, which we can never fully do.

Now we can approximate Zeus figuratively, and I think that's what Epicurus is talking about as "competing with Zeus" and "living as a god among men." But that distinction between literally eliminating all pain and becoming a Zeus, vs figuratively eliminating as much pain as possible so you can run with Zeus for a while, is very important.

What I think a lot of writers about Epicurus are doing is saying that your literal goal is to be Zeus by draining every drop of pain from experience, and they imply the best way to do that is live on bread and water in a cave. When living ascetically fails to satisfy us, as it always will, we set ourselves up for disappointment and thus fail to be as happy as we could otherwise. So from that perspective wanting to be Zeus would be a natural but unnecessary desire - unnecessary because while the variation is desirable, we can live approximately like Zeus while we are alive and say we have tasted the same thing. Frustration at not being perfect doesn't become an enemy of living a good pleasant life.

So to repeat what I think is the main point that needs center stage:

You will find nothing straighter than the straight, nothing truer than the truth, and nothing more temperate than that which is temperate -- and you will also find nothing more pleasurable than pleasure.

This does in fact place pleasure in the same category of "completable" or "graspable" things as virtue, which as Joshua stated in the podcast, could be a concern --- but the concern isn't a problem when you see that the main issue is not that the perfect is being made the enemy of the good, but in fact the perfect is a "concept" that is being used as a guide toward the good, never to be confused with our actual experience. That's another application too of "all models are wrong, but some models are useful." Neither the words "virtue" nor "pleasure" exist as entities out in the universe on their own - they are just conceptions of the human mind, but when viewed properly they are very useful conceptions.

Quote from Cassius

This does in fact place pleasure in the same category of "completable" or "graspable" things as virtue, which as Joshua stated in the podcast, could be a concern --- but the concern isn't a problem when you see that the main issue is not that the perfect is being made the enemy of the good, but in fact the perfect is a "concept" that is being used as a guide toward the good, never to be confused with our actual experience. That's another application too of "all models are wrong, but some models are useful." Neither the words "virtue" nor "pleasure" exist as entities out in the universe on their own - they are just conceptions of the human mind, but when viewed properly they are very useful conceptions.

Given that Joshua stated his concern very eloquently in the podcast episode that there was a danger in viewing pleasure as the stoics apparently viewed virtue, this issue deserves further comment.

Joshua was essentially affirming the hazards of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Joshua stated that it would be very self-defeating and would lead to all sorts of frustrations and other negative consequences if you allow perfectionism to prevent you from achieving the "good enough." We see that all the time in real life, when people get obsessed with perfection. We run into the problem than an friend once mentioned in the form of a question: "You know what happened to the man who kept searching for the perfect woman? He found her but couldn't keep her, because she was searching for the perfect man!"

It seems to me that Joshua's concern is very close to what has happened to many modern Epicureans. In thinking that "absence of pain" means that they must drain every ounce of pain from their lives, which they frequently think is best done through "simple living / asceticism," they obsess over their goal just like a stoic obsesses over virtue. Wen they fail to achieve a pleasurable life, which they always fail to do (PD25. If on each occasion, instead of referring your actions to the end of nature, you turn to some other, nearer, standard, when you are making a choice or an avoidance, your actions will not be consistent with your principles) they either stay frustrated or give up on the philosophy completely or just compartmentalize it as just another impractical philosopher's dream.

If, in contrast, we follow the lead of Torquatus' statements and see that the primary meaning of Epicurus' doctrine is that pleasure is absence of pain and absence of pain is pleasure, then we see that the terms are interchangeable and mean nothing more of less than each other. Seeing that, we don't fall for the trap of pursuing frugality or luxury as the way to a happy life of pleasure. We can see that since pleasure is absence of pain then we can spend our time on whatever combination of pleasures that result from "outside stimulation" or "inner appreciation of living" that we ourselves find most suited to our conditions and our preferences and our personalities.

We need to be "extraordinarily obstinate" on this point: On Ends Book Two, 9 : Cicero: “…[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'” Torquatus: “Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be.” Which is basically the same, but more starkly clear given the surrounding conceptual argument, as Epicurus saying in the letter to Menoeceus that ”By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.“

Getting confident on this issue is going to mean getting confident in seeing why Torquatus was right in saying that this formulation is as true as any proposition can be. It seems very similar to using the same reasoning which leads someone to say "You will find nothing straighter than the straight, nothing truer than the truth, and nothing more temperate than that which is temperate" to also conclude that "there is nothing more pleasurable than pleasure."

Quote from Don

"Therefore the power and the greatness of virtue cannot rise to greater heights, because increase is denied to that which is superlatively great. You will find nothing straighter than the straight, nothing truer than the truth, and nothing more temperate than that which is temperate. 9. Every virtue is limitless; for limits depend upon definite measurements. Constancy cannot advance further, any more than fidelity, or truthfulness, or loyalty. What can be added to that which is perfect? Nothing otherwise that was not perfect to which something has been added. Nor can anything be added to virtue, either, for if anything can be added thereto, it must have contained a defect. Honour, also, permits of no addition; for it is honourable because of the very qualities which I have mentioned.[5] What then? Do you think that propriety, justice, lawfulness, do not also belong to the same type, and that they are kept within fixed limits? The ability to increase is proof that a thing is still imperfect."

The closer you look at this the more clear it is, so we can thank Seneca in addition to Cicero.

Part of why this is complex to us is because of the multiple meanings of "limits", but Seneca makes it clear:

Every virtue is limitless; for limits depend upon definite measurements.

That's the sentence that shines the spotlight - what they are talking about when they are talking about limits is not "the highest" or "the best" but whether a thing can be measured with definite measurements.

Saying that "Absence of pain = pleasure" does not primarily refer to the "most intense" or "longest" or "widest scope of the organism" - it refers first and most importantly to a definite measurement which can be grasped and understood.

"Absence of pain" is important because it is a definite measurement of pleasure.

It is only by recognizing that "absence of pain equals pleasure" that we can conceptualize a definite amount of pleasure, and that applies regardless of whether we are talking about a length of time, a part of the body, a measure of intensity ---- or an entire lifetime.

Somewhere along the way the Stoics apparently took this to the ridiculous extreme exhibited in Hermotimus that a moment at the top of the mountain of virtue would be worth a lifetime of effort. That makes no more sense than arguing that a moment of "pure pleasure" is worth a life time of effort.

But along the way, the observation that a definite measurement is possible allows you to talk about a goal and to see that no matter how long you live, the experience of pleasure never gets 'better" than before - it only varies. And yes more experiences of pleasure are desirable, so it is desirable to live longer, but you can die knowing that you have not missed pleasure that was "better" than what you actually experienced while you were alive.

This perspective also fits along well with Martin's example of the set level of temperature which we have discussed a number of times and which Onenski brought up last night.

Quote from Godfrey

You must think completely outside of (discard?) the Platonic worldview in order to fully understand Epicurus, even though Epicurus does the work to refute the Platonic worldview

I would say that definitely you do not have to be restricted by the bounds of the box set by Plato, but I do not think it is a good idea to "discard" knowledge of Plato's worldview, because i think we see that Epicurus was in many cases responding to an argument of Plato, so you have to know that the argument came from Plato in the first place, and at least understand its outline, so you can understand why Epicurus is addressing the issue.

I think most of us would say that the argument that a thing cannot be the good unless it can be contained within definite limits (nothing is straighter than straight) is a relatively absurd argument. And yet it seems in Epicurus' time it was a huge issue, huge enough to rank third in attention behind the first two principal doctrines.

And yet because we today don't keep in mind the Platonic/Cicero/Seneca argument, we presume that Epicurus must be saying something else that is profound, and so a simple statement that pleasure also has definite measurements, and can therefore be grasped and attained, becomes transmuted into a call to live like a monk on bread and water in a cave!

I don't mean to sound too frivolous in that last paragraph. I think that's exactly what has happened, and why so many Epicureans today are in thrall of "simplicity" and "minimizing desires" and the other assorted corruptions that so attract those of Buddhist or Stoic mindset.

And it is also safe to say that there would be a lot of resistance by the same crowd to updating their viewpoint on what PD03 and Absence of Pain are all about, but that's exactly what is needed from my point of view.

Quote from Bryan

This statement is in part a response to the view of the Κυρηναϊκοί (Cyrenaics), following Ἀρίστιππος ὁ Κυρηναῖος (Aristippus of Cyrene), that (1) pleasures do not differ from one another, (2) one pleasure is not more or less pleasant than another, and (3) any particular pleasure is momentary, unable to be prolonged. This incorrect understanding leads to indiscrimination in choosing pleasures.

That's very helpful Bryan! Is the source of that information from Diogenes Laertius, or somewhere else? It's probably worth it to track this down to a particular cite so that we can annotate PD09 with this information. Do you know how they come up with that (what seems to me) very strange set of positions? Is the explanation in the cite you are referencing?

Thank you again Bryan. I'd like to test opinions on this part in particular. Do we think that this part, which is not stated to be inconsistent with Epicurus, would be something that Epicurus would have agreed with? If so, this would be a helpful statement of detail on the relationship between pleasure and happiness that i don't think we have preserved in the Epicureans' own texts to this level of detail. Much of this *does* seem to be consistent with Epicurus and at the moment I am inclined to believe that all of it may represent the Epicurean view as well as Cyreniac.

Anyone see a reason to reject any of this?

Quote from Bryan

They also hold that there is a difference between "end" and "happiness." Our end is particular pleasure, whereas happiness is the sum total of all particular pleasures, in which are included both past and future pleasures.

[88] Particular pleasure is desirable for its own sake, whereas happiness is desirable not for its own sake but for the sake of particular pleasures. That pleasure is the end is proved by the fact that from our youth up we are instinctively attracted to it, and, when we obtain it, seek for nothing more, and shun nothing so much as its opposite, pain. Pleasure is good even if it proceeds from the most unseemly conduct, as Hippobotus says in his work On the Sects. For even if the action be irregular, still, at any rate, the resultant pleasure is desirable for its own sake and is good.