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-====== The Epicurean Goal is "Pleasure" and not "Ataraxia." ======+====== The Epicurean Goal is "Pleasure" - not "Ataraxia." ======
  
 Questions frequently arise as to the role of "Tranquility" in Epicurean philosophy, and whether in the form of "Ataraxia" or "Aponia" Epicurus was advocating these terms as either some special and highest form of pleasure, or something higher than pleasure itself, to be pursued as the ultimate goal of life. Questions frequently arise as to the role of "Tranquility" in Epicurean philosophy, and whether in the form of "Ataraxia" or "Aponia" Epicurus was advocating these terms as either some special and highest form of pleasure, or something higher than pleasure itself, to be pursued as the ultimate goal of life.
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 Difficulties arise in defining what these terms mean, how Epicurus was referring to them, and where they stand in relation to "Pleasure" - the term that Epicurus generally employs in describing the guide or goal of life. While there is no doubt that tranquility and concepts such as "Absence of pain" and "absence of disturbance" are important aspects of the best life, the Epicureans made clear that their primary focus was on "Pleasure" and how best to obtain it. Difficulties arise in defining what these terms mean, how Epicurus was referring to them, and where they stand in relation to "Pleasure" - the term that Epicurus generally employs in describing the guide or goal of life. While there is no doubt that tranquility and concepts such as "Absence of pain" and "absence of disturbance" are important aspects of the best life, the Epicureans made clear that their primary focus was on "Pleasure" and how best to obtain it.
  
-===== 1. Philosophically speaking there can be only one ultimate goal, and Epicurus finds that in "Pleasure" rather than "Tranquility." or "Absence of Pain" or "Absence of Disturbance =====+===== 1. Philosophically speaking there can be only one ultimate goal, and Epicurus finds that in "Pleasure" rather than "Tranquility," or "Absence of Pain," or "Absence of Disturbance." =====
  
   - **Cicero: On Ends Book One - [29] IX.**  "‘First, then,’ said he, ‘I shall plead my case on the lines laid down by the founder of our school himself: I shall define the essence and features of the problem before us, not because I imagine you to be unacquainted with them, but with a view to the methodical progress of my speech. The problem before us then is, what is the climax and standard of things good, and this in the opinion of all philosophers must needs be such that we are bound to test all things by it, but the standard itself by nothing. Epicurus places this standard in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good, while pain is the supreme evil; and he founds his proof of this on the following considerations. [30] Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil, and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself prompts unbiased and unaffected decisions. So he says we need no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire, pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?"   - **Cicero: On Ends Book One - [29] IX.**  "‘First, then,’ said he, ‘I shall plead my case on the lines laid down by the founder of our school himself: I shall define the essence and features of the problem before us, not because I imagine you to be unacquainted with them, but with a view to the methodical progress of my speech. The problem before us then is, what is the climax and standard of things good, and this in the opinion of all philosophers must needs be such that we are bound to test all things by it, but the standard itself by nothing. Epicurus places this standard in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good, while pain is the supreme evil; and he founds his proof of this on the following considerations. [30] Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil, and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself prompts unbiased and unaffected decisions. So he says we need no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire, pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?"
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   - **Diogenes Laertius Biography of Epicurus**: " They say that he wrote to many other women of pleasure and particularly to Leontion, with whom Metrodorus was also in love; and that in the treatise On the End of Life he wrote, ‘I know not how I can conceive the good, if I withdraw the pleasures of taste and withdraw the pleasures of love and those of hearing and sight.’   - **Diogenes Laertius Biography of Epicurus**: " They say that he wrote to many other women of pleasure and particularly to Leontion, with whom Metrodorus was also in love; and that in the treatise On the End of Life he wrote, ‘I know not how I can conceive the good, if I withdraw the pleasures of taste and withdraw the pleasures of love and those of hearing and sight.’
   - **Diogenes Laertius Biography of Epicurus**: "They hold that faults are not all of equal gravity, that health is a blessing to some, but indifferent to others, that courage does not come by nature, but by a calculation of advantage. That friendship too has practical needs as its motive: one must indeed lay its foundations (for we sow the ground too for the sake of crops), but it is formed and maintained by means of community of life among those who have reached the fullness of pleasure. They say also that there are two ideas of happiness, complete happiness, such as belongs to a god, which admits of no increase, and the happiness which is concerned with the addition and subtraction of pleasures."   - **Diogenes Laertius Biography of Epicurus**: "They hold that faults are not all of equal gravity, that health is a blessing to some, but indifferent to others, that courage does not come by nature, but by a calculation of advantage. That friendship too has practical needs as its motive: one must indeed lay its foundations (for we sow the ground too for the sake of crops), but it is formed and maintained by means of community of life among those who have reached the fullness of pleasure. They say also that there are two ideas of happiness, complete happiness, such as belongs to a god, which admits of no increase, and the happiness which is concerned with the addition and subtraction of pleasures."
 +  - **Lucretius On The Nature of Things**: Book 2 Line 1 "O miserable minds of men! O blinded breasts! In what darkness of life and in how great dangers is passed this term of life whatever its duration! Not choose to see that nature craves for herself no more than this, that pain hold aloof from the body, and she in mind enjoy a feeling of __pleasure__  exempt from care and fear?
 ===== 4. Epicurus never identified any pleasure as intrinsically "better" than another pleasure. ===== ===== 4. Epicurus never identified any pleasure as intrinsically "better" than another pleasure. =====
  
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   - Epicurus listed a number of pleasures "by which he was able to determine the good" but he did not list "Tranquility" among them, nor did he rank his list in order of importance. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Philosophers, X.6: "It is observed too that in his treatise On the End-Goal, he writes in these terms: “I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.”   - Epicurus listed a number of pleasures "by which he was able to determine the good" but he did not list "Tranquility" among them, nor did he rank his list in order of importance. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Philosophers, X.6: "It is observed too that in his treatise On the End-Goal, he writes in these terms: “I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.”
  
-===== 5. Although Epicurus had no reason to identify a "best" or "highest" type of pleasure, Epicurus had a very strong reason for discussing and identifying a "LIMIT of pleasure." =====+===== 5. Although Epicurus had no reason to identify a "best" or "highest" type of pleasure, Epicurus had a very strong reason for discussing and identifying a "limit" of pleasure. =====
  
   - A "best" Pleasure has no necessary connection with a "limit of pleasure" but it is the desire to equate these terms that generates confusion, such as Cicero employed in arguing that "absence of pain" is not the way normal people discuss pleasure."   - A "best" Pleasure has no necessary connection with a "limit of pleasure" but it is the desire to equate these terms that generates confusion, such as Cicero employed in arguing that "absence of pain" is not the way normal people discuss pleasure."
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   - **Lactantius, Divine Institutes, III.7.7**: "Epicurus thinks that the highest good is in the pleasure of the mind. Aristippus holds that it is in the pleasure of the body."   - **Lactantius, Divine Institutes, III.7.7**: "Epicurus thinks that the highest good is in the pleasure of the mind. Aristippus holds that it is in the pleasure of the body."
   - **Lactantius, Divine Institutes, III.17.38**: [Epicurus says, in effect:] “Let us serve pleasure, then, in whatever way we can, for in a short time we will be nothing whatsoever. Let us suffer no day, therefore, no point of time to flow by for us without pleasure, lest, since we ourselves are at sometime to perish, the very fact that we live may perish.” Although he does not say this in so many words, however, he teaches this is fact."   - **Lactantius, Divine Institutes, III.17.38**: [Epicurus says, in effect:] “Let us serve pleasure, then, in whatever way we can, for in a short time we will be nothing whatsoever. Let us suffer no day, therefore, no point of time to flow by for us without pleasure, lest, since we ourselves are at sometime to perish, the very fact that we live may perish.” Although he does not say this in so many words, however, he teaches this is fact."
-  - **Porphyry, On Abstinence, I.53**: Epicurus rightly surmised that we should beware of food which we want to enjoy and which we pursue, but find disagreeable once we get it. All rich, heavy food is like this, and when people are carried away by wanting it, they land in expense, illness, glut, or worry. For this reason we should guard against excess even of simple things, and in all cases we must examine what happens as a result of enjoyment or possession, how big a thing it is, and whether it relieves any trouble of body or soul. Otherwise, in every case, tension, such as life engenders, will arise from gratification. We must not go beyond the bounds, but keep within the boundary and measure that applies to such things. 
   - **Plutarch, On Peace of Mind, 2 p. 465F (Johannes Stobaeus, Anthology, 29.79)**: For this reason not even Epicurus believes that men who are eager for honor and glory should lead an inactive life, but that they should fulfill their natures by engaging in politics and entering public life, on the ground that, because of their natural dispositions, they are more likely to be disturbed and harmed by inactivity if they do not obtain what they desire.   - **Plutarch, On Peace of Mind, 2 p. 465F (Johannes Stobaeus, Anthology, 29.79)**: For this reason not even Epicurus believes that men who are eager for honor and glory should lead an inactive life, but that they should fulfill their natures by engaging in politics and entering public life, on the ground that, because of their natural dispositions, they are more likely to be disturbed and harmed by inactivity if they do not obtain what they desire.