Thank you, Don. I will certainly check the link out 
Posts by JCRAGO
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Thank you, Cassius, for posting my comment here.
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I think the disagreement stems from mostly semantical/rhetorical confusion and a failure to more 'expansively' conceive of painlessness as positively pleasurable. (Understanding how terms are specifically defined is crucial). The way I will be conceiving of painlessness moving forward is to ask whether I would like to change anything about situation. If not, then I am at the limit of pleasure. It's that simple really, no need for a long debate.
Also, I am not apologizing for Platonists/Stoics or propping up a negative instead of a positive. I am positively declaring that pleasure is the end of life and that the greatest pleasure is painlessness.
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Hi all
I'm happy to engage in a public discussion of my blog post.
But in order to do so, I need to know what it is exactly that Cassius finds offensive about Sherman's thesis. Cassius says that the Epicurean goal is a state which will not admit of further improvement, but this is precisely what Sherman is defending -- in Sherman's own words, a state of which a person could say that there is "nothing at all about my situation that I would want to change." Sherman challenges the reader to imagine being in such a state--a state of perfect painlessness/contentment--and says that when they do, they will realise that Epicurus was right to consider this state the upper limit of pleasure we can experience.
It seems to me Cassius' main gripe is a stylistic one, not a philosophical one.
