On Epicurean Views Of Pleasure
Epicurus taught a complete worldview that constitutes a revolutionary paradigm as to the nature of the universe, the nature of thought and truth, and the nature of the best life. We point you in our Wiki to many of our resources exploring the details, including an even more detailed explanation of Pleasure, with additional citations.
In typical Epicurean fashion, however, let's get right to the main points: Epicurus taught that there are no supernatural gods, there is no life after death, and that the goal of life according to Nature is "Pleasure."
The first two of these are clear, and we explore the implications in detail here at EpicureanFriends. What Epicurus meant by "Pleasure," however, has been disputed for two thousand years. That controversy continues today, with some - often influenced by Stoicism or Buddhism or other non-Epicurean viewpoints - interpreting Epicurus as advising a life of asceticism, total withdrawal from society, and the pursuit of "tranquility" above all else.
In contrast, those in the ancient world who knew the Epicureans best were clear: they understood Epicurus as teaching that "Pleasure," and not "Tranquility" or any other particular pleasure, should be considered to be the highest good and the ultimate goal of life. The implications of focusing on "Pleasure" or "Tranquility" are so profound that the question should be addressed right at the start of any discussion about Epicurus. Additional citations are here, but what follows will be enough to acquaint you with the issues, and with how Epicurus is interpreted at EpicureanFriends.com:
Rather than limiting pleasure to sensory stimulation (the common view) or tranquility (the ascetic view) alone, Epicurus taught that "pleasure" should be considered to include every experience in life that is not painful. Epicurus held this to include every non-painful experience of body and mind, and he held that this perspective is correct because Nature gives us only "pleasure" and "pain" by which to determine what to choose and what to avoid. From Epicurus' point of view, if we are alive and feeling anything at all, we are feeling either pleasure or pain, with no middle ground or third alternative. From this perspective, every agreeable experience of life, whether of the body, of the mind, or of the "spirit," comes within the meaning of "pleasure."
”The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined.“
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.“
If you are not feeling pain you are feeling pleasure, and so to Epicurus the word "pleasure" includes not only agreeable sensory stimulation of mind and body but also all normal and healthy experiences of mind and body. Both are not painful, and both are therefore pleasurable. Pleasure therefore includes every non-painful moment of life of mind or body, whether "in motion" or "at rest," and not just moments of stimulation:
For if that were the only pleasure which tickled the senses, as it were, if I may say so, and which overflowed and penetrated them with a certain agreeable feeling, then even a hand could not be content with freedom from pain without some pleasing motion of pleasure. But if the highest pleasure is, as Epicurus asserts, to be free from pain, then, O Chrysippus, the first admission was correctly made to you, that the hand, when it was in that condition, was in want of nothing; but the second admission was not equally correct, that if pleasure were a good it would wish for it. For it would not wish for it for this reason, inasmuch as whatever is free from pain is in pleasure.
Seen in this way, Epicurean philosophy is neither "hedonistic" nor "ascetic," as those terms are generally viewed today. Instead, Epicurus assures us that all types of healthy non-painful function of both body and mind are pleasurable and therefore desirable, and in this way a life full of pleasure is attainable.
To illustrate how it is possible to grasp the view that there is no neutral state or third alternative, a parallel may be drawn with Epicurean physics. In Epicurean physics, every specific location in the universe is occupied either by one of two things, matter or void, with no mixture or third alternative.
We can view human life in a similar way. Epicurean ethics holds that everything in life as either agreeable or disagreeable, in other words pleasure or pain. When we remind ourselves of the vast nothingness that passed before our birth and will pass after our death, we see that every moment of life when we are not in pain is worthy of being considered agreeable and pleasurable, and can in fact be so if we approach life with the proper attitude. Even in those moments when we face pain in some part of our experience, we can look to the other parts of our mental and physical experience to find pleasure, and thus more reason for joy than for vexation.
Some will ask: "Are not bodies mixtures of atoms and void, and human lives mixtures of pleasure and pain, and are not these mixtures a third alternative?" The Epicurean response is that mixtures are not third alternatives that destroy the integrity of component parts. In Physics, "Bodies" are properly viewed as existing as combinations of matter and void, but within bodies, matter and void are properly viewed as retaining their individual identities. Likewise, a human life as a whole is properly viewed as existing as a combination of pleasures and pains, but within a life, pleasures and pains are properly viewed as retaining their individual identities. Despite the difference in their levels of observation, both perspectives are valid.
As a distinguished expert on Epicurus has written:
"Almost uniquely among Greek philosophers [Epicurus] arrived at what is nowadays the unreflective assumption of almost anyone with a smattering of science, that there are truths at the microscopic level of elementary particles, and further very different truths at the phenomenal level; that the former must be capable of explaining the latter; but that neither level of description has a monopoly of truth."
Epicurus rejects prevailing views of ethics by recognizing that absence of pain is pleasure, just as absence of pleasure is pain. Any feeling which is not a pleasure is a pain, and any feeling which is not a pain is a pleasure. The value of this perspective is that it lays the groundwork for living a life in which pleasure predominates over pain and continuous happiness is possible:
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.
This sweeping redefinition of the life of pleasure - rather than the gluttony or asceticism which his detractors assert - is the hallmark of the Epicurean approach to living. As one biographer of Epicurus observed:
The extension of the name of pleasure to this normal state of being was the major innovation of the new hedonism. It was in the negative form, freedom from pain of body and distress of mind, that it drew the most persistent and vigorous condemnation from adversaries. The contention was that the application of the name of pleasure to this state was unjustified on the ground that two different things were thereby being denominated by one name. Cicero made a great to-do over this argument, but it is really superficial and captious. The fact that the name of pleasure was not customarily applied to the normal or static state did not alter the fact that the name ought to be applied to it; nor that reason justified the application; nor that human beings would be the happier for so reasoning and believing.
In this revolutionary approach to the best life, to the dismay of other philosophers, "Pleasure" is identified as the Supreme Good, rather than Virtue or Piety or Tranquility or Rationality or any other conventional ideal. The Epicureans stated this boldly and emphatically:
We are inquiring, then, into what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in Pleasure; Pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, and Pain the Chief Evil.
"Again, the truth that pleasure is the supreme good can be most easily apprehended from the following consideration. Let us imagine an individual in the enjoyment of pleasures great, numerous and constant, both mental and bodily, with no pain to thwart or threaten them; I ask what circumstances can we describe as more excellent than these or more desirable? A man whose circumstances are such must needs possess, as well as other things, a robust mind subject to no fear of death or pain, because death is apart from sensation, and pain when lasting is usually slight, when oppressive is of short duration, so that its temporariness reconciles us to its intensity, and its slightness to its continuance. When in addition we suppose that such a man is in no awe of the influence of the gods, and does not allow his past pleasures to slip away, but takes delight in constantly recalling them, what circumstance is it possible to add to these, to make his condition better?" (On Ends [40] XII)
Epicurus' rejection of commonplace assumptions was by no means limited to the prevailing definition of "pleasure." Epicurean philosophy leads to a re-examination of many other common misconceptions, including those regarding "gods," "virtue," "good and evil," and even the status of "logic."
In Epicurean terms, "gods" do exist, and it is important to act "virtuously," but "gods" are not supernatural or omniscient beings which create universes or control human affairs, and "virtue" is not desirable as an end it itself, but as a means of obtaining pleasure. "Good" and "evil" are not abstract absolutes, but are ultimately evaluations based on sensations of pleasure and pain felt by real living beings. "Dialectical logic" is rejected as misleading, while at the same time "Practical Reason" is embraced as essential for living happily. All of these are important topics to explore and clarify, and that's what we do here at EpicureanFriends.
For I would certainly prefer, as I study Nature, to announce frankly what is beneficial to all people, even if none agrees with me, rather than to compromise with common opinions, and thus reap the frequent praise of the many.
As the Epicureans held, "We are born once and cannot be born twice, but for all time must be no more. But you, who are not master of tomorrow, postpone your happiness. Life is wasted in procrastination, and each one of us dies while occupied."
If you too wish to avoid postponing your happiness, we invite you to join with us in studying and applying Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it.
