It’s great to see the Epicurean community engaging in this kind of frank philosophical discussion. This is parrhesia in action, exactly as Epicurus intended, friends seeking truth together rather than scoring points. i also notice the title has already softened from “primarily about absence of pain” to “emphasizing reduction of pain,” which is itself an interesting move worth noting.
As a self-taught Epicurean who is actively trying to live this philosophy rather than catalogue it, i find myself drawn to where this interpretive divide actually comes from. Epicurus was explicit that philosophy which does not therapeutically treat human suffering is empty. That standard applies as much to how we read the texts as to how we live them.
The fault line in this debate seems to track closely to the difference between DeWitt’s reading of Epicurus as a genuine positive hedonist and the more academically cautious approach represented by O’Keefe’s suggestion that “tranquillist” might be a less misleading term than “hedonist” for general audiences. Those are genuinely different starting points producing genuinely different emphases. DeWitt’s Epicurus is an altruistic hedonist for whom pleasure is a genuine active positive good. O’Keefe’s Epicurus is a tranquillist whose primary therapeutic focus is the reduction of pain. The debate happening here maps almost exactly onto that earlier divide.
Frank speech is exactly what I was hoping for. If any online community can have good faith discussions about major issues, it should be the Epicureans! Here are a few thoughts:
On the title: Yes, if it were up to me to frame this discussion from the start, my preferred and most easily defended phrasing would be something like "Epicurean hedonism emphasizes the reduction of pain." I noted in the essay that even I had some detailed reservations about Cassius' specific phrasing of "primarily about the absence of pain," but felt that many of the arguments he advanced would also have applied to my specific position. Overall, we did seem to have a real difference of opinion and hopefully I addressed the substance of it, rather than getting too caught up in the exact words he used at different points in his piece.
On DeWitt and "altruistic hedonism": I agree with the majority of things that DeWitt says, but here I think he's being a bit dramatic and hyperbolic. I went back and reread the passage (page 30-31) where he explicitly rejects the label of "egoistic hedonist." In it, he notes the term as being a product of the 19th century, I believe coined by Sidgwick in The Methods of Ethics (and explicitly applied to Epicurus there). I was just preparing an essay on Sidgwick for next Friday, so his system of categorization is fresh in my mind and I think he is very fair and correct. *Technically* Epicurus is an egoistic hedonist, rather than a universalistic hedonist (i.e. a utilitarian). There are real differences between those two camps. Sidgwick is happy to recognize, however, that egoistic hedonists are not the selfish caricatures that people imagine and would in fact often act in very pro-social ways.
On "tranquillist": my endorsement was a qualified one. Personally, I still use hedonist--and then explain at length. But given the constant popular misinterpretations of "hedonist," the net amount of confusion generated among general audiences by a quick label of "tranquillist" is probably less than that caused by "hedonist." "Tranquillist" is still not ideal, in that it excessively downplays the positive pleasures, but sidestepping the more prevalent caricatures is valuable.
All in all, I appreciate your summary of the two camps as a reasonable debate. Your characterization of my (and O'Keefe's) reading that Epicurus' "primary therapeutic focus is the reduction of pain" is a good restrained summary that doesn't overstate our claims. Have we convinced you that that particular sentence is valid?
I'm glad to see this difference in emphasis or perspective get some parrhesia applied to it. I think we agree on much, but I'm interested in poking through the differences, too. I apologize for the length.
Your "I do believe Epicurus would agree ... that most of our therapeutic attention should go to avoiding mental pain" is more nuanced. I agree that Epicurus identifies what is causing us pain - especially false beliefs - and instructs us to work to eliminate those sources of pain in our lives. Again, is this just a difference in emphasis?
To me, PD3 is Epicurus' bold statement of his doctrine that there are ONLY two ways of experiencing the world, as pleasure or as pain. The presence or absence of one IS the presence or absence of the other. When all pain is removed, there is only pleasure.
"When all our pain has been relieved, we need no further pleasure.” My own (more literal) translation of that section is "For it is then that we need pleasure, if we were to be in pain from the pleasure not being present; but if we were to not be in pain, we no longer desire or beg for pleasure. And this is why we say pleasure is the foundation and fulfillment of the blessed life." This again, to me, emphasizes that there are ONLY two feelings: pleasure and pain. We don't seek for pleasure when we are not in pain precisely because pleasure is present when pain is gone. It would be akin to searching for your keys after you've found them.
When Epicurus says we make pleasure the telos by "self-controlled reasoning and examining the cause of every choice and rejection and driving out the greatest number of opinions that take hold of the mind and bring confusion and trouble," it seems to me the emphasis here is on rooting out the opinions (τὰς δόξας "the notions, opinions") that cause that mental pain, trouble, and confusion (θόρυβος literally "noise, esp. the confused noise of a crowded assembly, uproar"). If you would define this as "avoiding mental pain," then maybe our differing perspectives are again semantic.
Your characterization of PD1-4 as imperative commands is not inherent in the original texts. The four lines of the tetrapharmakos are statements of fact: The gods cause no fear; death is free from risk; The Good (pleasure) is easily obtained; The Terrible (pain) is easily endured (my own paraphrases). I see them as statements of fact to be understood and internalized to fortify oneself against incorrect beliefs and opinions rather than talking about reduction of pain specifically. Again, maybe the same result but a difference in emphasis?
I agree we have to stop the leaks and clean the be-fouled, leaky, cracked vessel tainting all that fills it. Lucretius urges us to stop the leaks coming from false beliefs and opinions. The lines after "..filled" go on to say that "The master, then by his truth-speaking words, / Purged the breasts of men, and set the bounds / Of lust and terror, and exhibited / The supreme good whither we all endeavour, /And showed the path whereby we might arrive" (Leonard translations). Epicurus "set the bounds of lust and terror" precisely because he needed to show pleasure had a limit and could thus be stated as the telos "whither we all endeavor." We need to stop the leaks, clean the filth of false opinions, before we can ever hope to fill the cup to its limit with pleasure, i.e., having removed all pain.
In conclusion, your "pain management" assertions near the end are non-controversial from my perspective. Epicurus did place vital importance on getting a right view of the gods and death and did teach that the multitude pursued pleasure, unwisely often leading to pain. I just don't like the characterization of "pain management" or "Epicureanism is primarily about the reduction of pain." That statement, to me, fails to express the joy and delight possible with an Epicurean life. Maybe I'm emphasizing Lucretius' honeyed rim rather than the wormwood in the cup. With all this said, I agree with your last statement: "eliminating groundless opinions and living a life of thoughtful prudence is the best way to reduce fear and mental disturbance, and this in turn is the most crucial step in enabling a life of pleasure." Maybe, in the end, it's a matter of focus or semantics that separates our perspectives. I do hope this frank discussion proves helpful in coming to an understanding of each other's perspectives. The Epicurean corner of the internet is too small for schisms :-)
I'm sure we do agree on a lot. Long is fine! It was a lengthy post.
On "difference in emphasis": Yes, I think we established that we both accept that Epicureanism discusses both positive pleasures and pain management. My contention here was largely that *Epicurus* clearly emphasizes pain reduction. I don't think it's just me--he himself gives a huge amount of attention to systematically reducing pain.
On PD 3: I don't disagree with anything you say. But your conclusion of "you don't need to search for your keys" sounds to me like a downplaying of the pursuit of pleasure in favor of the vital precondition of removing sources of pain.
On rooting out groundless opinions: Yes, this is exactly what I (and scholars like O'Keefe) have in mind when we talk about "avoiding mental pain." If you weren't thinking of this sort of thing, then we probably did have a largely semantic miscommunication. Overall, I think it is a fair and natural characterization. Avoiding "confusion and trouble" is more accurately described as a way of "avoiding pain" rather than a way of pursuing positive pleasures.
On PD 1-4: I would not translate them as imperatives either. I was merely paraphrasing as quickly as possible to refer to the general subject of each. As with the above, I consider removing unjustified fears about the gods and death to be a form of pain removal (this was the specific subject of the O'Keefe paper that indirectly set off this debate). My point in referring to them in this essay was that Cassius mentioned them as supposed (rather circuitous) evidence for the position that Epicurus emphasized the pursuit of pleasure more than the avoidance of pain. If you had to characterize PD 1-4 as representing the "pursue pleasure" or "avoid pain" side of the scale, however, I think they clearly incline more to the latter.
I'm glad that you found many of my preferred summaries of my position to be unobjectionable. I myself noted that I was not entirely comfortable with the statement that "Epicureanism is primarily about the reduction of pain"--I preferred to narrow the scope to something like "Epicurean hedonic theory." The philosophy as a whole definitely contains more than pain management! But when it comes specifically to his teachings on hedonism, I think Epicurus himself clearly has a distinctive emphasis on reducing mental pain that sets him apart from both hedonistic precursors and the common caricatures of what hedonists are like.
The keys analogy is the best single illustration of the two-feelings doctrine i have come across. We do not search for our keys after we have already found them. That is the whole argument in one sentence and it probably deserves to be carved into stone somewhere.
What strikes me most is that this is not just a rhetorical point. Nature gave every living creature exactly two feelings and they leave no room for a third. Your more literal translation of the Menoeceus passage makes this unmistakable from the primary source itself. When pain is gone we do not seek pleasure because it is already there. The seeking would be absurd.
The question was never pain reduction versus positive pleasure. Those describe the same state from opposite directions. Epicurus was not shy about answering what fills the cup.
After reading and thinking about and commenting and responding to Jack Gedney here on Substack, I don't believe his view and mine are really that far apart. I applaud his work here and appreciate his willingness to engage in discussion. Even Epicurus felt the need to explain what he meant by pleasure: "whenever we say repeatedly that "pleasure is the τέλος," we do not say..." Within "pleasure" there is tranquility, blessedness, painlessness, joy, delight, happiness. They're all related, because "the feelings are two." To give the "camp" that emphasizes the absence or removal of pain their due, Epicurus does teach us to work to remove the pain of fear of gods, death; remove the pain from empty desires. But why? To live a pleasant, happy, blessed life, but that also means a life free from unnecessary pain, fear, and anxiety. That "freedom from pain" doesn't necessarily equate immediately hyperbolically to asceticism. The absence of pain IS pleasure, and the absence of pleasure IS pain. We can't have one of those without the other. Do I personally prefer focusing on the pleasure? Yes. Is there an insurmountable problem with focusing on the philosophy as giving one a life free from pain? No, I don't think so. But BOTH those positions require explanation. From my perspective, it's not enough to use either "pleasure" or "pain" as a shibboleth to identify the "real" Epicureans. All that said, I do not agree with those who say "Epicureans lived on bread, water, and the occasional cheese." I'll push against that all day long. But I'm tiring of the fortified camps on both sides. In the end, for those sincerely trying to incorporate Epicurean philosophy into their lives, I believe there is much more that unites us than divides us and both "camps" could benefit from more dialogue with each other.
Great article. This shouldn’t even be a debate. The historical record is strongly in your favor and, even more importantly (because this is life, not an abstracted dorm room debate), basic human experience favors your view as well. Pleasure almost by definition is episodic. The absence of pain can be made more durable and consistent. Ergo, the latter is the simpler and more stable path to eudaimonia. Nicely argued.
In thinking more about this, one of my pet peeves about characterizing Epicureanism as "primarily about the reduction of pain" is that it misses the point of why Epicurus teaches that sources of pain, trouble, and fear should be rooted out: he wants us to lead pleasurabl lives. Is tranquility part of that? Sure. But having an untroubled mind allows us to experience both everyday pleasures and occasional extravagant pleasures more fully, without guilt or fear of their being taken away or missing. Emphasizing the "reduction of pain" rather than the "increase of pleasure" seems a disservice to the philosophy. As he says in the letter to Menoikeus, "when extravagant experiences do come up every once in a while, they are experienced more intensely by us, and we are better able to fearlessly face the vicissitudes of fortune."
I agree with all of the specific claims here. But I don't think my interpretive camp misses the point that pleasure is the end goal. I would simply characterize us as emphasizing:
"Reducing mental pain is the essential prerequisite to a life of pleasure."
This sentence does not obscure the end goal or importance of pleasure. But I would still say that a teacher making that claim is "emphasizing the reduction of pain."
Do you agree with that sentence in quotes? Do you agree that it emphasizes pain reduction? If so, then I think we essentially agree, once we sufficiently narrow down the specifics of my claim.
I'm a little uneasy with the "our camp" paradigm. I would hope we can reserve that language for the Stoics and Skeptics :-) "Reducing mental pain is the essential prerequisite to a life of pleasure" still emphasizes pain over pleasure. I would prefer something like "Pursuing pleasure wisely requires the elimination of wrong beliefs and fears." Eradicating fears of the divine, post-death punishment, etc. is the prerequisite to the foundation of a tranquil mind. Or are we dancing the same dance in opposite directions?
I'm some ways this discussion seems to be taking on the characteristics of the story of the blind men and the elephant. Does Epicurus teach us to eradicate pain, fear, and anxiety? Of course. Does Epicurus teach us to pursue pleasure, joy, and delight? Of course. Does he teach that the best way to pursue a life of pleasure, happiness, well-being, fearlessness, and joy is to root out those beliefs and choices that cause nothing but pain, fear, and anxiety? Of course. Do we all agree on those basic statements? To lean into the elephant metaphor, it seems to me there is one group that wants to focus on the trunk and another that wants to focus on the tusks while still acknowledging there IS actually a whole elephant standing there. Is there a way to briefly describe the whole elephant, including tusks and trunk?
I think we're getting closer to agreement! I am on board with both of these two formulations of yours:
"Pursuing pleasure wisely requires the elimination of wrong beliefs and fears."
"The best way to pursue a life of pleasure, happiness, well-being, fearlessness, and joy is to root out those beliefs and choices that cause nothing but pain, fear, and anxiety."
To me, both of these suggestions sound very similar to what I've been saying all along. My conclusion in the original essay was this:
"Eliminating groundless opinions and living a life of thoughtful prudence is the best way to reduce fear and mental disturbance, and this in turn is the most crucial step in enabling a life of pleasure."
I am completely happy to recognize the whole elephant, trunk and tusks included. All three of these formulations seem to get at the whole animal to me: the fundamental point (which we seem to be in agreement about) is that rooting out the sources of pain is necessary *for* a pleasurable life. I was just discontented with readings that insisted on minimizing the reduction of fears and other mental pains to a minor footnote, or on removing such core concerns from the hedonic discussion.
Someone reading Cassius' essay, for instance, would have no sense of the importance of "eliminating wrong beliefs and fears," which is exactly what I mean when I say "reduction of mental pain." It seems you and I agree that that process is central to Epicureanism. It seems you and I agree that the problem with those errors is that they "cause nothing but pain, fear, and anxiety." And that is the case I and O'Keefe have been trying to make--which we originally thought was a noncontroversial descriptive statement of Epicurean priorities:
"See all that time Epicurus spends diagnosing incorrect beliefs? The point of that is to reduce fear, unsatisfiable unnatural desires, and other sources of mental pain. While the world often incorrectly caricatures hedonism as impulsive pleasure seeking, an emphasis on reducing mental pain in this way is the distinctive hallmark of the Epicurean approach to hedonism."
I'm hopeful that the distance between our positions is continuing to shrink!
Thanks for pointing out that critique. It isn't very accurate; I posted this response on that article:
This article is a useful correction to a common misconception about Stoicism, but unfortunately promulgates the same misconception about the Epicureans. I was struck by the quote from Seneca saying that the Epicurean sage "does not even feel" discomforts, since that doesn't fit their typical language, so I looked up Letter 9. The Latin doesn't refer to the wise man "of the Epicureans"--it refers to "their" wise man, referring to the wise men of Stilpo and the Cynics, whom Epicurus was criticizing. Both the Loeb and Long/Graver editions translate and footnote this position as being attributed to the Cynics here, not to the Epicureans, so the given translation is simply incorrect.
More broadly, the Epicureans certainly feel emotions. The issue under dispute in that Seneca letter was Epicurus' position that friends are valuable because they provide us material aid and the security of knowing they will be there for us when we need them. I wouldn't describe cultivating reliable friendships as "experiential avoidance," any more than it would be to enroll in health insurance, manage your finances prudently, or avoid competing for wealth and fame. In terms of real-world behaviors, this is what Epicurus means by avoiding pain. (Their even greater emphasis was on avoiding superstitious fears and incorrect beliefs, which fits even less as "experiential avoidance.") The Epicureans also explicitly recommended accustoming oneself to hardship as one of their therapeutic methods for enduring the unavoidable difficulties of life, as in Seneca's Letter 18 ("Epicurus...used to have certain days during which he would do the bare minimum to quiet his hunger").
Epicureans avoid unnecessary pain, because that is prudent common sense, but avoidance is far from their only strategy. Overall, I think the common conception that they are generally warmer and more sympathetic than the Stoics is essentially correct.
While I have little knowledge of the details of Epicurean philosophy, on the surface the similarity to Daoist philosophy/cosmology is surprising.
Daoism is also misunderstood, imho, in a strikingly similar way.
The avoidance of pain, is achieved by perceiving, then understanding how the universe works, and acting accordingly within those laws, so as to avoid suffering/pain, by avoiding the conflict that arises from violating the laws of nature.
Daoists emphasize action through non action, but it is not passive in the least.
One does not avoid, experiences to “be safe”, but one should go out in the world to experience as much as possible, as direct experience is the best way to understand the world.
Only then, by choices made from knowledge acquired through direct experience, can one eschew what is irrelevant, harmful, painful, and take what is necessary for a happy, peaceful, life, free from pain.
On Point 8, Diogenes of Oenoanda said that when you remove the pains and fears, then pleasures are able to enter into the psyche. The Punctured Jar parable in Lucretius also implies that you have to empty the contents first (if the contents are contaminated) before you can fill the jar with pleasures.
Concerning askesis: the word "hesuchia" is found in Principal Doctrine 14 and at least one interpretation is that this is a tradition of separation from the dominant society that precedes the monasteries of the orthodox Christian faith (which, in Greece, still use "hesuchia" to refer to their tradition). Furthermore, the word askesis simply means "exercise". It's not a bad word in itself: just like the body needs exercise, so does the mind.
It’s great to see the Epicurean community engaging in this kind of frank philosophical discussion. This is parrhesia in action, exactly as Epicurus intended, friends seeking truth together rather than scoring points. i also notice the title has already softened from “primarily about absence of pain” to “emphasizing reduction of pain,” which is itself an interesting move worth noting.
As a self-taught Epicurean who is actively trying to live this philosophy rather than catalogue it, i find myself drawn to where this interpretive divide actually comes from. Epicurus was explicit that philosophy which does not therapeutically treat human suffering is empty. That standard applies as much to how we read the texts as to how we live them.
The fault line in this debate seems to track closely to the difference between DeWitt’s reading of Epicurus as a genuine positive hedonist and the more academically cautious approach represented by O’Keefe’s suggestion that “tranquillist” might be a less misleading term than “hedonist” for general audiences. Those are genuinely different starting points producing genuinely different emphases. DeWitt’s Epicurus is an altruistic hedonist for whom pleasure is a genuine active positive good. O’Keefe’s Epicurus is a tranquillist whose primary therapeutic focus is the reduction of pain. The debate happening here maps almost exactly onto that earlier divide.
Frank speech is exactly what I was hoping for. If any online community can have good faith discussions about major issues, it should be the Epicureans! Here are a few thoughts:
On the title: Yes, if it were up to me to frame this discussion from the start, my preferred and most easily defended phrasing would be something like "Epicurean hedonism emphasizes the reduction of pain." I noted in the essay that even I had some detailed reservations about Cassius' specific phrasing of "primarily about the absence of pain," but felt that many of the arguments he advanced would also have applied to my specific position. Overall, we did seem to have a real difference of opinion and hopefully I addressed the substance of it, rather than getting too caught up in the exact words he used at different points in his piece.
On DeWitt and "altruistic hedonism": I agree with the majority of things that DeWitt says, but here I think he's being a bit dramatic and hyperbolic. I went back and reread the passage (page 30-31) where he explicitly rejects the label of "egoistic hedonist." In it, he notes the term as being a product of the 19th century, I believe coined by Sidgwick in The Methods of Ethics (and explicitly applied to Epicurus there). I was just preparing an essay on Sidgwick for next Friday, so his system of categorization is fresh in my mind and I think he is very fair and correct. *Technically* Epicurus is an egoistic hedonist, rather than a universalistic hedonist (i.e. a utilitarian). There are real differences between those two camps. Sidgwick is happy to recognize, however, that egoistic hedonists are not the selfish caricatures that people imagine and would in fact often act in very pro-social ways.
On "tranquillist": my endorsement was a qualified one. Personally, I still use hedonist--and then explain at length. But given the constant popular misinterpretations of "hedonist," the net amount of confusion generated among general audiences by a quick label of "tranquillist" is probably less than that caused by "hedonist." "Tranquillist" is still not ideal, in that it excessively downplays the positive pleasures, but sidestepping the more prevalent caricatures is valuable.
All in all, I appreciate your summary of the two camps as a reasonable debate. Your characterization of my (and O'Keefe's) reading that Epicurus' "primary therapeutic focus is the reduction of pain" is a good restrained summary that doesn't overstate our claims. Have we convinced you that that particular sentence is valid?
I'm glad to see this difference in emphasis or perspective get some parrhesia applied to it. I think we agree on much, but I'm interested in poking through the differences, too. I apologize for the length.
Your "I do believe Epicurus would agree ... that most of our therapeutic attention should go to avoiding mental pain" is more nuanced. I agree that Epicurus identifies what is causing us pain - especially false beliefs - and instructs us to work to eliminate those sources of pain in our lives. Again, is this just a difference in emphasis?
To me, PD3 is Epicurus' bold statement of his doctrine that there are ONLY two ways of experiencing the world, as pleasure or as pain. The presence or absence of one IS the presence or absence of the other. When all pain is removed, there is only pleasure.
"When all our pain has been relieved, we need no further pleasure.” My own (more literal) translation of that section is "For it is then that we need pleasure, if we were to be in pain from the pleasure not being present; but if we were to not be in pain, we no longer desire or beg for pleasure. And this is why we say pleasure is the foundation and fulfillment of the blessed life." This again, to me, emphasizes that there are ONLY two feelings: pleasure and pain. We don't seek for pleasure when we are not in pain precisely because pleasure is present when pain is gone. It would be akin to searching for your keys after you've found them.
When Epicurus says we make pleasure the telos by "self-controlled reasoning and examining the cause of every choice and rejection and driving out the greatest number of opinions that take hold of the mind and bring confusion and trouble," it seems to me the emphasis here is on rooting out the opinions (τὰς δόξας "the notions, opinions") that cause that mental pain, trouble, and confusion (θόρυβος literally "noise, esp. the confused noise of a crowded assembly, uproar"). If you would define this as "avoiding mental pain," then maybe our differing perspectives are again semantic.
Your characterization of PD1-4 as imperative commands is not inherent in the original texts. The four lines of the tetrapharmakos are statements of fact: The gods cause no fear; death is free from risk; The Good (pleasure) is easily obtained; The Terrible (pain) is easily endured (my own paraphrases). I see them as statements of fact to be understood and internalized to fortify oneself against incorrect beliefs and opinions rather than talking about reduction of pain specifically. Again, maybe the same result but a difference in emphasis?
I agree we have to stop the leaks and clean the be-fouled, leaky, cracked vessel tainting all that fills it. Lucretius urges us to stop the leaks coming from false beliefs and opinions. The lines after "..filled" go on to say that "The master, then by his truth-speaking words, / Purged the breasts of men, and set the bounds / Of lust and terror, and exhibited / The supreme good whither we all endeavour, /And showed the path whereby we might arrive" (Leonard translations). Epicurus "set the bounds of lust and terror" precisely because he needed to show pleasure had a limit and could thus be stated as the telos "whither we all endeavor." We need to stop the leaks, clean the filth of false opinions, before we can ever hope to fill the cup to its limit with pleasure, i.e., having removed all pain.
In conclusion, your "pain management" assertions near the end are non-controversial from my perspective. Epicurus did place vital importance on getting a right view of the gods and death and did teach that the multitude pursued pleasure, unwisely often leading to pain. I just don't like the characterization of "pain management" or "Epicureanism is primarily about the reduction of pain." That statement, to me, fails to express the joy and delight possible with an Epicurean life. Maybe I'm emphasizing Lucretius' honeyed rim rather than the wormwood in the cup. With all this said, I agree with your last statement: "eliminating groundless opinions and living a life of thoughtful prudence is the best way to reduce fear and mental disturbance, and this in turn is the most crucial step in enabling a life of pleasure." Maybe, in the end, it's a matter of focus or semantics that separates our perspectives. I do hope this frank discussion proves helpful in coming to an understanding of each other's perspectives. The Epicurean corner of the internet is too small for schisms :-)
I'm sure we do agree on a lot. Long is fine! It was a lengthy post.
On "difference in emphasis": Yes, I think we established that we both accept that Epicureanism discusses both positive pleasures and pain management. My contention here was largely that *Epicurus* clearly emphasizes pain reduction. I don't think it's just me--he himself gives a huge amount of attention to systematically reducing pain.
On PD 3: I don't disagree with anything you say. But your conclusion of "you don't need to search for your keys" sounds to me like a downplaying of the pursuit of pleasure in favor of the vital precondition of removing sources of pain.
On rooting out groundless opinions: Yes, this is exactly what I (and scholars like O'Keefe) have in mind when we talk about "avoiding mental pain." If you weren't thinking of this sort of thing, then we probably did have a largely semantic miscommunication. Overall, I think it is a fair and natural characterization. Avoiding "confusion and trouble" is more accurately described as a way of "avoiding pain" rather than a way of pursuing positive pleasures.
On PD 1-4: I would not translate them as imperatives either. I was merely paraphrasing as quickly as possible to refer to the general subject of each. As with the above, I consider removing unjustified fears about the gods and death to be a form of pain removal (this was the specific subject of the O'Keefe paper that indirectly set off this debate). My point in referring to them in this essay was that Cassius mentioned them as supposed (rather circuitous) evidence for the position that Epicurus emphasized the pursuit of pleasure more than the avoidance of pain. If you had to characterize PD 1-4 as representing the "pursue pleasure" or "avoid pain" side of the scale, however, I think they clearly incline more to the latter.
I'm glad that you found many of my preferred summaries of my position to be unobjectionable. I myself noted that I was not entirely comfortable with the statement that "Epicureanism is primarily about the reduction of pain"--I preferred to narrow the scope to something like "Epicurean hedonic theory." The philosophy as a whole definitely contains more than pain management! But when it comes specifically to his teachings on hedonism, I think Epicurus himself clearly has a distinctive emphasis on reducing mental pain that sets him apart from both hedonistic precursors and the common caricatures of what hedonists are like.
The keys analogy is the best single illustration of the two-feelings doctrine i have come across. We do not search for our keys after we have already found them. That is the whole argument in one sentence and it probably deserves to be carved into stone somewhere.
What strikes me most is that this is not just a rhetorical point. Nature gave every living creature exactly two feelings and they leave no room for a third. Your more literal translation of the Menoeceus passage makes this unmistakable from the primary source itself. When pain is gone we do not seek pleasure because it is already there. The seeking would be absurd.
The question was never pain reduction versus positive pleasure. Those describe the same state from opposite directions. Epicurus was not shy about answering what fills the cup.
After reading and thinking about and commenting and responding to Jack Gedney here on Substack, I don't believe his view and mine are really that far apart. I applaud his work here and appreciate his willingness to engage in discussion. Even Epicurus felt the need to explain what he meant by pleasure: "whenever we say repeatedly that "pleasure is the τέλος," we do not say..." Within "pleasure" there is tranquility, blessedness, painlessness, joy, delight, happiness. They're all related, because "the feelings are two." To give the "camp" that emphasizes the absence or removal of pain their due, Epicurus does teach us to work to remove the pain of fear of gods, death; remove the pain from empty desires. But why? To live a pleasant, happy, blessed life, but that also means a life free from unnecessary pain, fear, and anxiety. That "freedom from pain" doesn't necessarily equate immediately hyperbolically to asceticism. The absence of pain IS pleasure, and the absence of pleasure IS pain. We can't have one of those without the other. Do I personally prefer focusing on the pleasure? Yes. Is there an insurmountable problem with focusing on the philosophy as giving one a life free from pain? No, I don't think so. But BOTH those positions require explanation. From my perspective, it's not enough to use either "pleasure" or "pain" as a shibboleth to identify the "real" Epicureans. All that said, I do not agree with those who say "Epicureans lived on bread, water, and the occasional cheese." I'll push against that all day long. But I'm tiring of the fortified camps on both sides. In the end, for those sincerely trying to incorporate Epicurean philosophy into their lives, I believe there is much more that unites us than divides us and both "camps" could benefit from more dialogue with each other.
Great article. This shouldn’t even be a debate. The historical record is strongly in your favor and, even more importantly (because this is life, not an abstracted dorm room debate), basic human experience favors your view as well. Pleasure almost by definition is episodic. The absence of pain can be made more durable and consistent. Ergo, the latter is the simpler and more stable path to eudaimonia. Nicely argued.
In thinking more about this, one of my pet peeves about characterizing Epicureanism as "primarily about the reduction of pain" is that it misses the point of why Epicurus teaches that sources of pain, trouble, and fear should be rooted out: he wants us to lead pleasurabl lives. Is tranquility part of that? Sure. But having an untroubled mind allows us to experience both everyday pleasures and occasional extravagant pleasures more fully, without guilt or fear of their being taken away or missing. Emphasizing the "reduction of pain" rather than the "increase of pleasure" seems a disservice to the philosophy. As he says in the letter to Menoikeus, "when extravagant experiences do come up every once in a while, they are experienced more intensely by us, and we are better able to fearlessly face the vicissitudes of fortune."
I agree with all of the specific claims here. But I don't think my interpretive camp misses the point that pleasure is the end goal. I would simply characterize us as emphasizing:
"Reducing mental pain is the essential prerequisite to a life of pleasure."
This sentence does not obscure the end goal or importance of pleasure. But I would still say that a teacher making that claim is "emphasizing the reduction of pain."
Do you agree with that sentence in quotes? Do you agree that it emphasizes pain reduction? If so, then I think we essentially agree, once we sufficiently narrow down the specifics of my claim.
I'm a little uneasy with the "our camp" paradigm. I would hope we can reserve that language for the Stoics and Skeptics :-) "Reducing mental pain is the essential prerequisite to a life of pleasure" still emphasizes pain over pleasure. I would prefer something like "Pursuing pleasure wisely requires the elimination of wrong beliefs and fears." Eradicating fears of the divine, post-death punishment, etc. is the prerequisite to the foundation of a tranquil mind. Or are we dancing the same dance in opposite directions?
I'm some ways this discussion seems to be taking on the characteristics of the story of the blind men and the elephant. Does Epicurus teach us to eradicate pain, fear, and anxiety? Of course. Does Epicurus teach us to pursue pleasure, joy, and delight? Of course. Does he teach that the best way to pursue a life of pleasure, happiness, well-being, fearlessness, and joy is to root out those beliefs and choices that cause nothing but pain, fear, and anxiety? Of course. Do we all agree on those basic statements? To lean into the elephant metaphor, it seems to me there is one group that wants to focus on the trunk and another that wants to focus on the tusks while still acknowledging there IS actually a whole elephant standing there. Is there a way to briefly describe the whole elephant, including tusks and trunk?
I think we're getting closer to agreement! I am on board with both of these two formulations of yours:
"Pursuing pleasure wisely requires the elimination of wrong beliefs and fears."
"The best way to pursue a life of pleasure, happiness, well-being, fearlessness, and joy is to root out those beliefs and choices that cause nothing but pain, fear, and anxiety."
To me, both of these suggestions sound very similar to what I've been saying all along. My conclusion in the original essay was this:
"Eliminating groundless opinions and living a life of thoughtful prudence is the best way to reduce fear and mental disturbance, and this in turn is the most crucial step in enabling a life of pleasure."
I am completely happy to recognize the whole elephant, trunk and tusks included. All three of these formulations seem to get at the whole animal to me: the fundamental point (which we seem to be in agreement about) is that rooting out the sources of pain is necessary *for* a pleasurable life. I was just discontented with readings that insisted on minimizing the reduction of fears and other mental pains to a minor footnote, or on removing such core concerns from the hedonic discussion.
Someone reading Cassius' essay, for instance, would have no sense of the importance of "eliminating wrong beliefs and fears," which is exactly what I mean when I say "reduction of mental pain." It seems you and I agree that that process is central to Epicureanism. It seems you and I agree that the problem with those errors is that they "cause nothing but pain, fear, and anxiety." And that is the case I and O'Keefe have been trying to make--which we originally thought was a noncontroversial descriptive statement of Epicurean priorities:
"See all that time Epicurus spends diagnosing incorrect beliefs? The point of that is to reduce fear, unsatisfiable unnatural desires, and other sources of mental pain. While the world often incorrectly caricatures hedonism as impulsive pleasure seeking, an emphasis on reducing mental pain in this way is the distinctive hallmark of the Epicurean approach to hedonism."
I'm hopeful that the distance between our positions is continuing to shrink!
Hi, I am curious, what is your opinion about this critics of Epicurean pain avoidance in this Stoic essay ?
https://donaldrobertson.substack.com/p/stoicism-is-not-unemotional?r=34q8qw&utm_medium=ios.
Thanks for pointing out that critique. It isn't very accurate; I posted this response on that article:
This article is a useful correction to a common misconception about Stoicism, but unfortunately promulgates the same misconception about the Epicureans. I was struck by the quote from Seneca saying that the Epicurean sage "does not even feel" discomforts, since that doesn't fit their typical language, so I looked up Letter 9. The Latin doesn't refer to the wise man "of the Epicureans"--it refers to "their" wise man, referring to the wise men of Stilpo and the Cynics, whom Epicurus was criticizing. Both the Loeb and Long/Graver editions translate and footnote this position as being attributed to the Cynics here, not to the Epicureans, so the given translation is simply incorrect.
More broadly, the Epicureans certainly feel emotions. The issue under dispute in that Seneca letter was Epicurus' position that friends are valuable because they provide us material aid and the security of knowing they will be there for us when we need them. I wouldn't describe cultivating reliable friendships as "experiential avoidance," any more than it would be to enroll in health insurance, manage your finances prudently, or avoid competing for wealth and fame. In terms of real-world behaviors, this is what Epicurus means by avoiding pain. (Their even greater emphasis was on avoiding superstitious fears and incorrect beliefs, which fits even less as "experiential avoidance.") The Epicureans also explicitly recommended accustoming oneself to hardship as one of their therapeutic methods for enduring the unavoidable difficulties of life, as in Seneca's Letter 18 ("Epicurus...used to have certain days during which he would do the bare minimum to quiet his hunger").
Epicureans avoid unnecessary pain, because that is prudent common sense, but avoidance is far from their only strategy. Overall, I think the common conception that they are generally warmer and more sympathetic than the Stoics is essentially correct.
While I have little knowledge of the details of Epicurean philosophy, on the surface the similarity to Daoist philosophy/cosmology is surprising.
Daoism is also misunderstood, imho, in a strikingly similar way.
The avoidance of pain, is achieved by perceiving, then understanding how the universe works, and acting accordingly within those laws, so as to avoid suffering/pain, by avoiding the conflict that arises from violating the laws of nature.
Daoists emphasize action through non action, but it is not passive in the least.
One does not avoid, experiences to “be safe”, but one should go out in the world to experience as much as possible, as direct experience is the best way to understand the world.
Only then, by choices made from knowledge acquired through direct experience, can one eschew what is irrelevant, harmful, painful, and take what is necessary for a happy, peaceful, life, free from pain.
As supporting evidence, the Daoists, believe the microcosm reflects the microcosm, and vice versa.
The human body’s, as microcosm, pain avoidance mechanisms are many times stronger than, the pleasure seeking mechanisms.
The highest level of happiness, can only be achieved if one is living without pain.
On Point 8, Diogenes of Oenoanda said that when you remove the pains and fears, then pleasures are able to enter into the psyche. The Punctured Jar parable in Lucretius also implies that you have to empty the contents first (if the contents are contaminated) before you can fill the jar with pleasures.
Concerning askesis: the word "hesuchia" is found in Principal Doctrine 14 and at least one interpretation is that this is a tradition of separation from the dominant society that precedes the monasteries of the orthodox Christian faith (which, in Greece, still use "hesuchia" to refer to their tradition). Furthermore, the word askesis simply means "exercise". It's not a bad word in itself: just like the body needs exercise, so does the mind.