"Pleasure" vs "Pleasant Experiences"

In the right context that's not a bad idea, but the end I don't see a way around explaining what Pleasure means in full, which is more than just sensual stimulation.

Referencing "pleasant experiences" may take some of the edge off for people who are suspicious of the word pleasure, but that may not be a good idea. In most cases we probably shouldn't be trying to accomodate people with wrong ideas, we should be trying to educate them as to why they are wrong and that there is a better way of understanding pleasure.

I have thoughts on the word "goal" for τέλος ... But that'll have to wait until this evening.

Quote from Kalosyni

I firmly believe that Epicurean philosophy should be easily explained without having to re-define a common word.

And you're on exactly the same page as Cicero, and you'll want to do more reading from Torquatus and decide whether Cicero's position or Torquatus' makes the most sense!

This is Cicero speaking to Torquatus in Book 2 of On Ends:

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, On Ends - De Finibus Bonorum Et Malorum : Cicero : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Cicero - De Finibus - translated by H. Rackham

archive.org

Cicero was certainly correct that the Timaeus is obscure—and I agree that the reader of Plato develops a sympathy for this obscurity, as Plato does seem to sincerely wish to be as clear as possible. In fact, the Timaeus is really the same geometric explanation repeated three different times, gradually introducing the complexity.

This sort of 'clarity through repetition' or 'clarity through saying your point in different ways' seems to be something that Epíkouros also employs in On Nature.

Quote from Kalosyni

"For it is not continuous drinkings and revelings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit."

Kalosyni , as I was reading your original post above, I thought that I was following your line of thought, but then my conclusion was the opposite of yours.... In this context I read it as an indictment of Cyrenaic pursuit of pleasure and a description of the fullness of Epicurean pleasure. Sober reasoning, etc, as the cake, and drinkings, etc, as the icing.

Or sober reasoning and such leading to katastematic pleasures, drinkings and such leading to kinetic pleasures. As it were.

Quote from Don

I have thoughts on the word "goal" for τέλος ... But that'll have to wait until this evening.

Okay, so what was I alluding to?

ΤΕΛΟΣ (telos) is often - predominantly - translated into the English as "goal," sometimes "end." This implies what comes at the finish of a race or end of a game or "winning if you reach the goal." That's an unfortunate side effect of working with the English word "goal." Think of a football/soccer match and the announcer yelling "GOOOOOAAAAL!"

My thought is that ΤΕΛΟΣ (and I'm purposefully using the Greek spelling to remove it from contamination of English semantics) should NOT be taken as a "goal" to be achieved but rather as a fact to be acknowledged. Let me provide a link to the dictionary here to start:

https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%CF%84%CE%AD%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82

While ΤΕΛΟΣ does have, within its dictionary definitions, English words like "achievement, attainment; winning-post, goal"; the connotation I want to focus on is "Philos., full realization, highest point. ideal; ... the end or purpose of action: hence, the final cause: hence simply = τὸ ἀγαθόν, the chief good."

When Epikouros writes to Menoikeus to say "καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος λέγομεν εἶναι τοῦ μακαρίως ζῆν" I maintain it is NOT something like "pleasure is the start ἀρχὴν and finish τέλος of the blessed life." The blessed life is enveloped by pleasure, it is the foundation and the fulfillment of the blessed life but we need to acknowledge that and live our life that way. The blessed life - a life akin to the gods - is a life where all one's actions are pointing toward pleasure. When we ask the question "Why do I do that?" the answer is always "for pleasure". If I undergo a painful trial to have a better life on the other side, the reason I went through that pain is pleasure. Pleasure imbues EVERYTHING we do. If we try to substitute another answer to "Why do I do that?" we are fooling ourselves. Pleasure is not a "winning-post" to be reached, something we have to strive for or agonize about not having or something to swim against the tide to achieve. Pleasure is present - sometimes slightly, sometimes intensely - in every moment of the day in everything we do. If we see Pleasure as something "out there" that we have to achieve, we're missing out.

"Goal" is an insufficient way to express the omnipresence of Pleasure. "Pleasure is the goal" is a pale way of saying - as I consider it more - "Pleasure is the reason I do everything." Pleasure is the final cause for all my actions. That kind of "final goal" is what is meant by "Pleasure is the goal." It's NOT "Pleasure is the GOAL" it is rather "Pleasure IS the goal."

We ONLY experience two feelings: Pleasure or Pain. If Cicero wants to go all apoplectic on what he considers an idiosyncratic use of "voluptas" or ηδονη, boohoo Cicero. It seems to me to be Epicurus calling reality as he sees it.

Pleasure exists as the omnipresent end-point of all our actions. We don't have to run the race to achieve pleasure. It is here, now, in every decision, every action, IF we're willing to admit that that is - in every moment - the final cause of all our actions.

That's what I'm beginning to understand "Pleasure is the goal" to mean.

Quote from Don

"Pleasure is the reason I do everything."

Yes, I fully agree. Our pleasure should be our continuous guide. We have pleasure, but we need to act in a way that ensures we continue to have it.

I think of pleasure as something like a compass. The boat is afloat, and it is a pleasure to be sailing: but we are always traveling through the seas of time, and we must steer in a coherent direction—or else risk sailing into storms or crashing against reefs.

Many people have goals beyond their own pleasure — some give too much of themselves, others take too much for themselves, while almost all seek unnecessary change of some sort — and this leads them into many unpleasant and unnecessary circumstances!

Quote from Kalosyni

I am motivated by the removal of pain.

Or you are motivated by the need to move toward pleasure.

PS. I'm thinking some of this is a matter of perspective and not just linguistic trickery.

Consider a light house.

The lighthouse is always there. We steer our little boat towards the lighthouse. We steer away from the rocks and shoals by the beacon of the lighthouse. We choose to keep going through storms and rocks to get to safety. We don't sit out the storm, unless we're too far out to see when we have to heave to.

That's a draft metaphor. Thoughts welcomed.

Quote from Don

PS. I'm thinking some of this is a matter of perspective and not just linguistic trickery.

I think this is what people are wrestling with mostly unsuccessfully. If you take the position that pleasure has to be stimulative (which means you accept Cicero's and Plato's and the other major philosophers' perspective) then you are going to think Epicurus is engaged in linguistic trickery.

If you take Epicurus' perspective that the purpose of life is not to fulfill some divine plan, but simply to live your life as happily as you can, then you can more easily see that being healthy and alive at all deserves to be considered pleasure, and you don't feel tricked by the fact that Epicurus doesn't promise you constant physical stimulation. A lot of people seem to think that Epicurus is saying that he's going to deliver them paradise through some kind of trick that the Stoics and Buddhists haven't thought of. (Hmmmm yeees - now I feel it - absence of pain really IS a great stimulant - feels kind of like marijuana - give me some more!!!)

Epicurus' viewpoint is a lot closer to choosing to see the glass of life as half-full, rather than half-empty, than it is to any kind of Buddhist of Stoic mind games.

In fact, I am not sure I should say it's "close" to that. It's exactly what it is -- learning through philosophy to see that life is pleasurable in all its aspects unless you are specifically experiencing some specific pain in some part of your experience. If you are experiencing some specific pains, then to the extent you can, you should try to minimize that pain, but not at the expense of giving up the majority of pleasures that you've successfully won and which continue to be available to you at reasonable cost.

"The wise man always has more reason for joy than for vexation." --->

For this is the way in which Epicurus represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the better course. Furnished with these advantages he is continually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains. For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from those defects of character which I quoted a little time ago, and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels great pleasure. And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation.

• Torquatus - Cicero, On Ends 1:62

Quote from Kalosyni

fit into this metaphor

Good question but I bet Don can do it.

Quote from Kalosyni

Quote from Don

The lighthouse is always there. We steer our little boat towards the lighthouse. We steer away from the rocks and shoals by the beacon of the lighthouse. We choose to keep going through storms and rocks to get to safety. We don't sit out the storm, unless we're too far out to see when we have to heave to.

How does pain, pleasure, homeostatis, satisfaction in the feeling of being alive (Chrysippus' hand), doing what needs to be done for good longterm outcomes, etc. fit into this metaphor?

Pain is represented by the storms, hidden reefs, submerged rocks, pirates(!), and other hazards as we keep our eyes on the lighthouse.

Pleasure, that to which all else points, is represented by the lighthouse, the highest point around, symbolizing safety, satisfaction, security, refuge, harbor, etc.

For now, I'm not going to shoehorn the other aspects into this metaphor. A metaphor can on encompass so much before you need another metaphor. And this is all iterally off the top of my head. I am in no way attached to it. If others find it helpful or want to build on it or discard it,

One aspect of the metaphor is that a lighthouse is clearly man-made, and the guidance we're looking to is something completely natural, more like a "north star" maybe. But metaphors are always approximate. Pointing out deficiencies in them is half the fun.

Quote from Usener Fragment 67

"For I at least do not even know what I should conceive the good to be, if I eliminate the pleasures of taste, and eliminate the pleasures of sex, and eliminate the pleasures of listening, and eliminate the pleasant motions caused in our vision by a visible form."

Whenever we discuss the Letter to Menoikeus, I feel it's important to contrast it with what Epicurus wrote in the above surviving fragment from a lost work Peri Telos, "On the End". For this and other reasons, I am unwilling to cede the word pleasure to the naysayers. We lose far more than we stand to gain. Lucretius sets the tone for me: dux vitae dia voluptas; Divine Pleasure, the guide of life.

If people hear 'pleasure' and think 'bodily pleasure', I do not regard that as a problem - mainly because I think those people are probably motivated to this misinterpretation by religion or politics or culture or upbringing, and they would reject Epicureanism no matter how thoroughly it was explained to them.