Posts by Cassius

Welcome to Episode 347 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue in Section 13 of Book Two.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here: Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

As we proceed through the end of Academic Questions these are the topics we expect to cover:

24. Lucullus's Extended Rebuttal of the Academic Doctrine, and His Concluding Appeal to Cicero (2:XIII)
25. Cicero Begins His Reply (2:XX)
26. Cicero Lays Out the Syllogism About Assent and Opinion (2:XXI)
27. Cicero Turns to Antiochus's Own Inconsistency (2:XXII)
28. Cicero Defends His Citation of the Ancient Philosophers (2:XXIII)
29. Cicero Adds Chrysippus and the Cyrenaics, Then Returns to Arcesilas and Zeno (2:XXIV)
30. Cicero Returns to Attacking the Senses (2:XXV)
31. Cicero Presses the Sun's Size and the Limits of Trained Perception (2:XXVI)
32. Cicero Turns the "Art" Argument Back on Lucullus (2:XXVII)
33. Cicero Multiplies Examples From Madness (2:XXVIII)
34. Cicero Attacks Reason and Dialectics: The Sorites Paradox (2:XXIX)
35. Cicero Presses the Liar Paradox (2:XXX)
36. Cicero Presents Carneades's Own Positive Doctrine of Probability (2:XXXI)
37. Cicero Distinguishes the Academic Position From Epicurus's (2:XXXII)
38. Cicero Defends Probability Against the Charge That It Cannot Support Memory or Action (2:XXXIII)
39. Cicero Answers the "Self-Refuting" and "Two Incompatible Propositions" Objections (2:XXXIV)
40. Cicero Broadens the Argument Beyond the Stoics (2:XXXV)
41. Cicero Reflects on His Own Position Among the Competing Schools (2:XXXVI)
42. Cicero's Survey of Disagreement Among the Natural Philosophers (2:XXXVII)
43. Cicero Presses the Problem of Providence and the Limits of Physics (2:XXXVIII)
44. Cicero's Survey Continues: The Soul, the Antipodes, and the Motion of the Earth (2:XXXIX)
45. Cicero Asks Which Natural Philosopher He Would Even Choose to Follow (2:XL)
46. Cicero Turns to Ethics: Even the Gods Are Disputed (2:XLI)
47. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part One (2:XLII)
48. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part Two (2:XLIII)
49. Cicero Weighs Zeno Against Antiochus on Virtue and the Happy Life (2:XLIV)
50. Cicero Catalogs the Stoic Paradoxes About the Wise Man (2:XLV)
51. Cicero's Climactic Debate Between Pleasure and Honor (2:XLVI)
52. Cicero Turns to the Canon of Truth, and Zeno's Hand (2:XLVII)
53. The Dialogue's Close (2:XLVIII)

It is clear to me that the topic of this thread is a continuing issue that needs regular discussion. Here's the original quote from Bentham in which he compares music and poetry to push-pin. He never says that they are objectively of equal value, he is saying that at certain times and circumstances push-pin can be more valuable. But of course the reverse is true even under this analysis - at other times and circumstances music and poetry can bring much more pleasure than push-pin - and it would be ridiculous to say that the activities are always interchangeable.

Epicurus never makes such an interchangeability claim either. Both of them are highlighting that pleasure and pain are personal and subjective, and not something that have objective basis in a particular activity. There are in fact no such things as objective "pleasure units" or "pain units" that are inherent in particular objects and that everyone experiences the same at all times.

This is important because while bread and water CAN give the greatest pleasure to those who are hungriest, Epicurus never claims that they ALWAYS produce the greatest pleasure, and it would be ridiculous to argue that eating bread produces exactly the same effect in every respect as eating steak.

But that's what is implied in arguing that all you really need to experience the best life is bread and water. There are different perspectives invoked, and if you ignore the context of those perspectives you easily go from the profound to the ridiculous. To hold that "bread and water" produce the greatest pleasure and imply "always" in saying so is as wrong as saying "steak dinners produce the greatest pleasure with the implication that that is "always" the case.

Lucretius Today Podcast Episode 346 is now available: "Epicurean Defense of The Senses Against Plato's Cave Analogy" -

Complete transcript is here:

Episode 346 - Epicurean Defense of The Senses Against Plato's Cave Analogy

Lucretius Today Podcast Episode 346 -Epicurean Defense of The Senses Against Plato's Cave Analogy

epicurustoday.com

You are asking great questions Matteng and each of them require detailed response. This is quick start:

Quote from Matteng

Is it needed that the Cup „must“ be full ? I think we not only fill the cup with Pleasure but also and that can be an important point: adjust the size of the cup ?

No, nothing requires you to get the most pleasure you can out of life. Nature allows you free will and you can sit in a cave and eat bread and water for the rest of your life if you choose to. But most normal people would agree that that is not the highest and best pleasure, nor is it free from painful repercussions for most people - which means for most people it is far from the best use of your time.

As to the size of the cup, here I think you need to be careful of the limits of the analogy. What does the cup represent here but "the full extent of your life"" - the "cup of life" so to speak. You can work to make your life longer or shorter or deeper or shallower, and in general you should work to make it longer and deeper. But in the end "your cup" is "your cup" and the question of whether it is full applies to all sizes and types of vessels.

Quote from Matteng

Reflecting desires, gratitude and other Epicurean Virtues often aim at limiting or realistically measure the desires and with it the limit of the cup.

I always kick back at the idea of limiting "the desires" in general without being clear that what you are targeting to limit are those desires that bring more pain than pleasure because they cannot be satisfied. It would make little sense to target limiting your desire for "bread and water so long as you live" because that desire is relatively easy to satisfy and highly unlikely to bring more pain than pleasure. The limitation of desire issue is focused on the question of making sure you don't pursue things that will bring more pain than pleasure.

Quote from Matteng

So now maybe I am full of Pleasure but later when I am hungry do I lose the full cup of Pleasure ?

Just like Epicurus in his dying days you are not experiencing 100% pleasure. But what you do not lose is happiness, because happiness is viewed as having more reason for joy than for vexation - having a positive balance of pleasures over pains. Epicurus had that positive balance even in his last days, and as even the wise man on the wrack can have because he can consider his past experiences and current thinking and upcoming relief from pain (through death if necessary) as offsetting his present torture.

Quote from Matteng

What is more stable is ataraxia or satisfaction with the one life and when this is my limit of the cup than it would be full even when little pains/ desires come back. Than Epicurus had a complete full cup of Pleasure in his last days.

Stability is not the goal or the overriding factor! The supreme good is pleasure. Yes you would prefer your pleasure to be stable, but even if not stable you prefer great pleasure accompanied by some instability over small pleasure that is absolutely stable. Epicurus did not have stability of complete pleasure in his last days but he had the more pleasures than pains even while both were fluctuating.

Quote from Matteng

But maybe that would go in the Stoic direction and neglect the body. And maybe it is ok that the cup is not always full and one is not a full Sage ( another topic could be, does one need to be an Epicurean Sage for full Pleasure ? Again a Stoic Idea ? But for what than should someone aim at wisdom / Sagehood ? )

Seems to me that when people today in English use the word sage, and especially when they capitalize it, they are looking for a type of perfection in wisdom that Epicurus never focused on promoting. In fact he said that prudence is more important than philosophy, and friendship is the greatest tool for happiness, and neither of those require classification as "Sage." That's more of a Stoic concept, and even they viewed their "sages" as being more rare than a phoenix. The whole idea of looking for "full pleasure" is a very subtle concept which people are interpreting as an ideal of perfection and then quickly converting that ideal of perfection into the worst enemy that practical happiness based on pleasures outweighing pains ever had.

Thanks again for the comment Patrikios. I think now the other colors are updated so that those major boxes are now matching the respective theme colors. Would not have picked that up without your comment.

A related question on the issue of fullness-as-a-bucket-list (which I am rejecting) would be:

- How many years must a person live to have lived a "full life"? If Epicurus had died at 25, which for the sake of argument had allowed him to get his school started, would it still be appropriate to say he had lived a "full" life? A bucket-list-view-of-fullness would seem to require a certain minimum number of years, but I think most of us would agree that does not make good sense.

In fact as another thought in the same direction I would pose the following questions to anyone - whether or not they have read the first word of the Arenson book.

Probably the most famous reference to the term "fullness of pleasure" comes from the Oinoanda inscription.

I think people are interpreting it as if it as reference to having "lived a 'full' life" or somehow "having experienced 'full' pleasure."

Questions:

• Is there any justification in the rest of the inscription -- or anywhere else in the preserved Epicurean texts -- for the reading that life is "full" because it meets some kind of list of specifice experiences?
• Where if ever has Epicurus or any leading Epicurean given a specific "list" of things that have made their lives "full"?
• What does that kind of "full" even mean, except as the most ambiguous of expressions?
• Is an ambiguous expression like that something you'd expect an Epicurus who values clarity to generate?

I don't recall that line of reasoning anywhere - and I suspect it's not there for the reasons cited to Matteng.

It's far more likely that any reference to fullness/completeness came about as a reference to the Platonic challenge that pleasure cannot be full or complete, which is the background that Arenson is excavating from Philebus and The Republic.

Thanks for this reply Matteng because when I see your reaction I see that there is more I need to say -

Quote from Matteng

Fullnes of Pleasure makes sense for me. It is not about avoiding all pain but to fullfill necessary bodily and mental desires. An unfullfilled necessary desire is a pain.

Only problem could be vulnerability ?
The vessel doesn‘t stay full, would a small pain destroy the fullness ?

When getting old we become more ill, is there fullness than even possible ?

Otherwise yes pain is a signal and motivation to get back to the fullness of Pleasure and maybe thats a reason why Epicurus advices to reduce the desires to natural/necessary, there is then a smaller vessel to fill or it will become easier/faster full.

Interesting is the role of mental pleasure vs short bodily in this subject. Epicurus memory if philosophy with friends made is whole life to a happy life in his last days. How full / complete was his Pleasure in his last days ? Overshadowed his Eudaimonia his bodily pains ? How long is that possible ? I think it supports the enduring of pain and resilience.

I read the way you are applying fullness and I think I can see exactly why you are thinking in that direction.

But I don't think that's the direction to think at all!

If you'll dig with us back into the Platonic origin of the "full/complete" problem, what I'd like to suggest is that you're using fullness/completeness in a very different way.

And again I can see why you would - your saying it just highlights to me that there is a problem here.

There's no single definition of a "full life." Or a "complete life." Does someone who lives his or her whole life and never have children fail to have a "complete" or " full" life? You could ask that question about any pleasure -- and the answer is pretty obviously -- NO - Nature doesn't have a checklist that you must experience each and every possible pleasure in order to have a complete life.

Plato's objection was not that there's a master list of Pleasures that has to be reached in order to be complete. His objection was that NO SET of pleasures can even begin to be thought of as complete because they are always "IN PROGRESS" -- they are a process not a destination.

So I don't think at all that we should think that "COMPLETENESS OR FULLNESS OF PLEASURE" means that there is a list that is to be fulfilled.

And certainly NOT a list that is composed of only "necessary" desires. Or of any list of necessary desires. Food and water and air are "necessary" -- but for how long? Must they be obtained for a certain number of years before one's life is "complete"? Again I would say no.

The natural and necessary classification is a tool for allowing you to predict the likely pain/pleasure result of any choice. It's not a list that says "if you subsist on bread and water for ten years your life is complete" or anything approaching that.

So thank you for posting that and describing your thought process.. It should have been obvious to me that someone would think this and that it needed to be "headed off at the pass."

I don't think fullness or completeness of pleasure has anything to do with the natural/necessary classification, or with any list of pleasures whatsoever.

The point that pleasure can be complete applies both to any individual pleasure, and to the concept of pleasure as a whole. The boundary of pleasure is pain, just as the boundary of an atom is the void. Pleasure is not "incomplete" any more than an atom is incomplete.

The last part of PDO3 - "Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once."

From the perspective of questioning whether pleasure is being vs becoming, Pleasure is always being (complete), and not becoming (in progress and therefore incomplete) I'd say the same thing about pain.

It apppears to me from the Platonic background that the whole being/becoming vs complete/incomplete analysis is just a Platonic word game that - once understood - should be rejected.

This is being discussed most intensely in the Kelly Arenson book thread, so as we read further into that hopefully we'll either confirm this viewpoint or refine it in a different direction.

I see what I failed to do on Inspire Green. I think I've fixed that now, and I will fix the other Inspire colors too. Unfortunately the Lucrretius Today box probably stays blue, but the rest of it should work well

It is very helpful to develop many different versions of these graphics as a way of making them better and better and we want to encourage that.

At the same time, we have to be careful of overwhelming the web structure with lots of large MB graphics.

Please try to generate everything as JPGS that are 250k or less. For those that get to be super-well-refined we can find a plave (or store here) mult-megabyte versions.

There are art websites, free storage locations, etc that can be used for this. Anyone who has experience with that or who wants to take the lead in finding locations where files can be stored and then we LINK to them - which is optimal - please let us know and we'll make sure those instructions are easy to find and follow.

Andy if it is something you can talk about I feel sure it would be interesting to hear more about your project.

Andy tells us --

Hi Cassius,

my background is in archaeology and cultural/natural heritage. I'm currently working on a project that focuses (at least partly) on Epicurus and I thought the forum might be interesting and useful.

Regards,

Andy

Welcome EP -

1. My only printed editions of Cicero are second-hand copies of the Loeb volumes I picked up years ago, so I don't know about the Cambridge version.
2. I think the Long & Sedley version is highly useful, but I found my first copy only several years after starting my research, so I haven't traditionally focused on it personally. I always like to say, however, that i've found David Sedley's works to be among the most helpful to me of all the commentators. Almost always when there is a dispute among commentators I find mysef agreeing with Sedley's take. As to Long I am not as familiar with all of his work, but his article "Chance and Natural Law in Epicureanism" is my favorite article on the swerve and what the swerve does and does not mean.

I think Titus' post is very much on point but I would not want someone to misinterpret this part:

Quote from Titus

This is why I consider "simplicity" so important. Without context, "simplicity" is an empty word, but generally it is understood as a way of doing tasks "as much as necessary, but as little as possible", effectively establishing a pleasure-pain calculus

The "as much as necessary but as little as possible" is presumably tied to "tasks" which probably means things that you don't want to do and which generate more pain that pleasure. Because in the field of pursuing pleasures doing things "as little as possible" would not make sense.

But given the possibilities of misinterpreting simplicity as an end in itself it would probably be good to spell that out.

Maybe you could elaborate on that specific phrasing Titus?

Welcome Andy

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Oh - Robert - I meant to say one more thing:

The overwhelming feeling I have at the moment in my reading of this book is what an incredible waste of time all this debating about katastematic and kinetic is. I am very impressed with the book and I think it's an important step forward but it is the opposite of "Living For Pleasure." A normal person who tries to read this book is going to say "what in the world are you talking about, and why?" As appreciative as I am of the book I doubt I could recommend it to a layman - it's mainly useful only to someone who's debating the precise issue that we are talking about.

What makes me mad is that this book wouldn't be needed at all but for the fact that generations now of writers have created a mess that people like Arenson will need to clean up. We're already at the point where you have serious and qualified academic authorities who take multiple incompatible views of what the distinction means. That leads me to conclude that anyone who asserts that they are the confident arbiter of truth on this issue is blowing smoke. There's enough contradictory inference to support just about any conclusion someone would like to reach -- until you go back to the original Platonic / Aristotelian starting point of the debate.

But one thing I think is clear is that Arenson is completely rejecting the idea that --whatever else katastematic implies -- it is a "non-sensory" experience. All pleasure is sensory or it would not be pleasure.

In today's episode since we are continuing to talk about about the Stoics unwillingness to defend ALL sensations as true, I want us to remember to include:

Cicero, Academica ("Academic Questions"), Book II ("Lucullus"), Chapter XXV (C.D. Yonge's 1853 translation)

Quote

"Therefore you have always one backer who will plead the cause at his own risk: for Epicurus brings the matter down to this point, that if once in a man's life one of his senses has decided wrongly, none of them is ever to be trusted."

and

Cicero, Academica II, Chapter XXVI:

Quote

"There are four principles which conduct you to the conclusion that there is nothing which can be known, or perceived, or comprehended; -- and it is about this that the whole dispute is. The first principle is, that some perceptions are false; the second, that such cannot be perceived; the third, that of perceptions between which there is no difference, it is not possible that some of them can be perceived and that others cannot; the fourth, that there is no true perception proceeding from the senses, to which there is not some other perception opposed which in no respect differs from it, and which cannot be perceived. Now of these four principles, the second and third are admitted by every one. **Epicurus does not admit the first**, but you, with whom we are now arguing, admit that one too, -- the whole contest is about the fourth."

1. Some perceptions are false.
2. A false perception cannot be "perceived" (i.e. cannot count as genuine knowledge) -- this follows once (1) is granted.
3. Where two perceptions are indistinguishable from each other, it cannot be that one is knowable and the other is not -- i.e. if a false perception is indistinguishable from a true one, you can't selectively "know" the true one and not the false one.
4. Every true sense-perception has some corresponding false perception exactly like it, indistinguishable from it -- so no sense-perception is ever safe from principle 3's contamination.

Cicero's own accounting of where each school stands:

• Principles 2 and 3 -- accepted by everyone in the debate (Epicureans, Stoics, Academics alike).
• Principle 1 -- rejected by Epicurus alone. If no perception is ever false, principles 2-4 never get to operate on anything, and the skeptical conclusion has no foothold.
• Principle 4 -- accepted by the Stoics (Lucullus, in this dialogue), which is why Cicero says "the whole contest is about the fourth": the Stoics already conceded (1), so their only remaining line of defense against skepticism is denying (4).

Quote from Robert

One thing that gives me pause: Arenson wants to include "active" pleasures in the katastematic category in part because she fears Epicureans would otherwise lead boring, passive lives. I don't quite get this. Even if all active pleasures (per Sedley) were to be defined as kinetic, that doesn't mean we're supposed to renounce them. An Epicurean's life can be as active as he or she wants it to be, as long as our choices are guided by prudence, courage, moderation, and justice. Contrast two situations

I think she is wrestling with the issues we have been discussing -- she's aware of the argument that katastematic pleasures are somehow superior, but she is not going to accept the definition of katastemtic that equates those pleasures with basically nothing except some kind of ambiguous appreciation, because that would lead to the conclusion that the Epicurean goal is really to DO nothing in life -- and she isn't going to accept that as what Epicurus tought any more than Gosling and Taylor or Nikolsky or Emily Austin did.

I'm not finished yet myself but it appears to me that she's come up with the idea that Katastematic pleasures cannot really be the sensation-free nothingness that some allege, and she's dividing up pleasures into (1) those that respond to some lack or pain or need, and she's calling those kinetic, and (2) those that she's calling "painless" because they do not arise from a pain or lack. That's where she places smelling roses or music or even having sex, I gather (!)

So I'm still processing too, but as far as i can tell she's locked on in the real issue, sees it as a problem, and isn't going to accept it. She's not going to accept the idea that the best pleasure and therefore the supreme good is "katastematic" if that implies something that cannot be sensed. So she's rejecting the common interpretation of katastematic for that reason.

One really significant aspect of her analysis is that she's focusing on constructing something without reference to Cicero because of a combination of his unreliability or the simple confusion he causes.

But I note Robert that you said that you've read chapters 5-8, and I suspect you'll get a different picture when you read her analysis of Plato and Aristotle in the earlier chapters.

After far too long we now have available a "dark mode" version of the "Inspire" theme - the default site style.

If you'd like to try it go to the bottom of any page and you'll see a "Change Style" link.

That will take you to a page that looks like this:

It is best to select either the "Inspire Dark" or "Inspire Light" options. Other options may be listed on your screen and you're welcome to try them out, but they may not work as well.

If you choose the Dark theme and find any popups or screens that look weird or fail to work, please let me know. We'll keep the site default set to Inspire Light, but I'm using the Inspire Dark version and working to stamp out remaining bugs.

Welcome to Episode 346 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective, which gives us an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and helps us understand Epicurus' position on the same issues. This week will continue in Section 13 of Book Two.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackham translation here: Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

As we proceed through the end of Academic Questions these are the topics we expect to cover:

24. Lucullus's Extended Rebuttal of the Academic Doctrine, and His Concluding Appeal to Cicero (2:XIII)
25. Cicero Begins His Reply (2:XX)
26. Cicero Lays Out the Syllogism About Assent and Opinion (2:XXI)
27. Cicero Turns to Antiochus's Own Inconsistency (2:XXII)
28. Cicero Defends His Citation of the Ancient Philosophers (2:XXIII)
29. Cicero Adds Chrysippus and the Cyrenaics, Then Returns to Arcesilas and Zeno (2:XXIV)
30. Cicero Returns to Attacking the Senses (2:XXV)
31. Cicero Presses the Sun's Size and the Limits of Trained Perception (2:XXVI)
32. Cicero Turns the "Art" Argument Back on Lucullus (2:XXVII)
33. Cicero Multiplies Examples From Madness (2:XXVIII)
34. Cicero Attacks Reason and Dialectics: The Sorites Paradox (2:XXIX)
35. Cicero Presses the Liar Paradox (2:XXX)
36. Cicero Presents Carneades's Own Positive Doctrine of Probability (2:XXXI)
37. Cicero Distinguishes the Academic Position From Epicurus's (2:XXXII)
38. Cicero Defends Probability Against the Charge That It Cannot Support Memory or Action (2:XXXIII)
39. Cicero Answers the "Self-Refuting" and "Two Incompatible Propositions" Objections (2:XXXIV)
40. Cicero Broadens the Argument Beyond the Stoics (2:XXXV)
41. Cicero Reflects on His Own Position Among the Competing Schools (2:XXXVI)
42. Cicero's Survey of Disagreement Among the Natural Philosophers (2:XXXVII)
43. Cicero Presses the Problem of Providence and the Limits of Physics (2:XXXVIII)
44. Cicero's Survey Continues: The Soul, the Antipodes, and the Motion of the Earth (2:XXXIX)
45. Cicero Asks Which Natural Philosopher He Would Even Choose to Follow (2:XL)
46. Cicero Turns to Ethics: Even the Gods Are Disputed (2:XLI)
47. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part One (2:XLII)
48. Cicero's Roll Call of Rival Schools on the Chief Good, Part Two (2:XLIII)
49. Cicero Weighs Zeno Against Antiochus on Virtue and the Happy Life (2:XLIV)
50. Cicero Catalogs the Stoic Paradoxes About the Wise Man (2:XLV)
51. Cicero's Climactic Debate Between Pleasure and Honor (2:XLVI)
52. Cicero Turns to the Canon of Truth, and Zeno's Hand (2:XLVII)
53. The Dialogue's Close (2:XLVIII)

Complete transcript is here:

Episode 346 - Epicurean Defense of The Senses Against Plato's Cave Analogy

Lucretius Today Podcast Episode 346 -Epicurean Defense of The Senses Against Plato's Cave Analogy

epicurustoday.com