We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look for anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained because of the absence of pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of pleasure. Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing.
And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but will often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure. While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is should be chosen, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good.
Again, we regard independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the pain of want has been removed, while bread and water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate one's self, therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies all that is needful for health, and enables a man to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking, and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of revelry, not sexual lust, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is wisdom. Therefore wisdom is a more precious thing even than philosophy ; from it spring all the other virtues, for it teaches that we cannot live pleasantly without living wisely, honorably, and justly; nor live wisely, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them. — Letter to Menoeceus
We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only — Ye Olde Letter of Obsession
Socrates - GLAUCON
But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal.
True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish-salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.
Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?
But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.
Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style. — The Republic, Book 2
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin...
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
Saint Paul of Tarsus - Epistle to the Romans
Perverse desire belongs to the final category -- not groundless, and not necessary. Epicurus doesn't speak in terms of perversion, but I think this set of categories helps to clarify perversion and that his explanation thereafter -- where he speaks of people habituating themselves to luxury or treating evil as a good -- helps to describe perverted desire. It's technically perverted because there's nothing wrong with, say, sexual desire (I choose sexuality because it's something that should communicate. I believe this holds for other desires of the same category though). It is a natural desire. But it is possible to treat sexual desire as if it's necessary to satisfy, and to become anxious about satisfying sexual desire. To add something to the theory I'd say that sexual desire is such that it can either be satisfied in a simple manner -- which is what Epicurus advocates for in pursuing the tranquil life -- but it can also "run away" with itself. One can become attached not to the satisfaction of sexual desire but rather to its excitement and seek to deepen that excitement and become attached to a luxurious sexuality which is never satisfied (and, hence, would lead to a non-tranquil life, which is evil in Epicurean ethics). — Moliere
A "full" freedom requires that we have control over our desires. This is where Frankfurt's distinction between first order desires "I want to x" and second order desires "I desire that I should want to x," is key. We can also have negative second order desires, i.e., "I want to not desire x," e.g., when a drug addict wants to be free from the desire of their addiction. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The fact] that one desires to combat the vehemence of a drive at all, however, does not stand within our own power; nor does the choice of any particular method; nor does the success or failure of this method. What is clearly the case is that in this entire procedure our intellect is only the blind instrument of another drive which is a rival of the drive whose vehemence is tormenting us . . . While “we” believe we are complaining about the vehemence of a drive, at bottom it is one drive which is complaining about the other; that is to say: for us to become aware that we are suffering from the vehemence [or violence] of a drive presupposes the existence of another equally vehement or even more vehement drive, and that a struggle is in prospect in which our intellect is going to have to take sides.
Then you point to the way in which desire leads to injustice. I think there is a connection, and it is one Nietzsche profoundly misses (or rather refuses to address). If we have people with reflexive and negative freedom, people who have self control, means, and freedom from constraint, they might still desire to do things that deprive others of their freedom. What is missing in Nietzsche but present in Hegel, Honneth, etc. is a conception of "social freedom," as the ways in which desires are harmonized such that they don't conflict. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The impulse toward the community is itself a drive, in competition with the other drives: we never leave the domain of the drives. The drives never exist in a free and unbound state, nor are they ever merely individual; they are always arranged and assembled, not only by moral systems, but more generally by every social formation.
…the fundamental problem of political philosophy is one that was formulated most clearly by Spinoza: “Why do people fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?” The answer: because your desire is never your own. Desire is not a psychic reality, nor is it strictly individual; rather, your drives and affects are from the start part of the social infrastructure.”( Dan Smith)
Is this control over desire or just being at the mercy of one desire over another? Since you mentioned Nietzsche, I thought I’d quote him on the issue of will and desire:
There is no struggle of reason against the drives; what we call “reason” is nothing more than a certain “system of relations between various passions,” a certain ordering of the drives.
What writers like Deleuze and Focault get from Nietzsche is the fundamentally social nature of drives. Because our drives are inextricably bound up within a larger community, the essential question for them is not how to harmonize individual drives to achieve social ethical norms, but how we ever manage to resist those normative chains that bind us
It's control over desire (as a whole) to the extent that a person is deciding as a harmonized unity. Nietzsche isn't wrong to point out the problem of one desire simply acting as a tyrant over others, although he fails to extend the nature of this problem to social relations between people far enough IMO. He sees clearly how a person, as a whole, isn't free if one desire simply lords over the others like a tyrant, but then fails to see how the human tyrant becomes unfree through his tyranny in the interpersonal sphere, how power and the role of Lord becomes a trap — Count Timothy von Icarus
Even if we accept Nietzsche's description of the will as a "congress of souls," we can still suppose that some congresses are more harmonious than others. This is the difference between the person who does a chore they don't like because they have been forced to, because they do not want to be punished, or because they do not want to hurt the feelings of another, versus the person who does a chore they don't like because they have decided that it must be done and is "better," in a holistic sense. This second person is acting out of a positive duty thay they desire as part of their identity. This is the fire fighter who fears a burning building as much as anyone, but who wants to rush in on another level, because he wants his identity to include his duty. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Tyranny and power are not properties of individuals, they are manifestations of affects circulating though a culture , from the bottom up rather than from the top down. Subjects are produced by the way power circulates though a community
You seem to making a leap here from harmonization of desires to normative ethics as altruism.
Deleuze’s Nietzschean-inspired model posits assemblages of desiring elements which produce what he calls a plane of consistency. This plane creates relational connections within the person , and a point of view or perspective, without any overarching synthesis. There is no one self, no one overarching desire, but a society of selves and a society of desires that manifest a relative ongoing thematic unity throughout its changes. — Joshs
As far as I know, Deleuze never applies the term community regarding his theory of desire. For him, the concept of ‘a society of selves and a society of desires that manifest a relative ongoing thematic unity' would display a return to a process of identification, — Number2018
The point isn't that we become free in supporting the society we already have, or even the society we want to have, but that we become free in supporting the evolution of the society that produces the most freedom. And since individuals' freedom is deeply interrelated, this means freedom for all. This, IMO, has sort of been lost in modern philosophy. There is way too much focus on fighting conformity, cutting against the grain, etc. Sure, that's important, but it cannot be an ends in itself. In Nietzsche, it is an ends in itself and in this it becomes a self defeating ideology if applied at the social level. — Count Timothy von Icarus
“Justice, like autonomy, is relational. I cannot be just or unjust on my own. So an action is just or unjust only in the way it fits into the arrangements of intersubjective and social interactions.” “Justice consists in those arrangements that maximize compound, relational autonomy in our practices.” The autonomy of the interaction itself depends on maintaining the autonomy of both individuals. Justice (like friendship) involves fostering this plurality of autonomies (this compound autonomy); it is a positive arrangement that instantiates or maintains some degree of compound relational autonomy.”“Accordingly, although one can still talk of individuals who engage in the interaction, a full account of such interaction is not reducible to mechanisms at work in the individuals qua individuals.”
“As reflected in the definition of interaction, in interactional dynamics recognition depends on autonomy and is undermined by reification; that is, treating the other as an object observed from a third-person perspective. At the same time, individual autonomy diminishes without social interaction; and interaction doesn't exist if the autonomy of any of the participants is denied. Interaction, autonomy, and recognition dissipate in cases of slavery, torture, or terrorism.”
“ As the enactivist approach makes clear, a participant in interaction with another person is called to respond if the interaction is to continue. My response to the other, in the primary instance, just is my engaging in interaction with her—by responding positively or negatively with action to her action. Although research on primary intersubjectivity provides a detailed model of elementary responsivity, it may also be useful to consider Levinas's analysis of the face-to-face relation in order to explicate what this research tells us.” “…according to Levinas, the face-to-face relation primarily registers in an ethical order: the other, in her alterity, is such that she makes an ethical demand on me, to which I am obligated to respond…In contrast to Heidegger who might speak about a system of involvements that constitute the pragmatic world (characteristic of secondary intersubjectivity), Levinas describes a direct embodied encounter with the other.…the failure to enact that transcendence [recognizing the alterity of the other], as when we simply objectify or reify the other person, is also a possibility of relational contingency.”
There is no one self, no one overarching desire, but a society of selves and a society of desires that manifest a relative ongoing thematic unity throughout its changes. Tyranny and power are not properties of individuals, they are manifestations of affects circulating though a culture , from the bottom up rather than from the top down. Subjects are produced by the way power circulates though a community. — Joshs
In the Elements of Philosophy of Right Hegel rejects the idea of freedom simply being the proper prioritization of the passions and ranking of actions, which I think you see in Aristotle and Epicurus to some extent. This is at best a partial freedom because it is still always going to be determined from without to a great extent. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Now above, Paul talks of being "dead in sin," but this is not a biological death. It's a death of personhood that is restored by Christ, the Logos. In a more symbolic reading of how the Logos quells sin and "casts out the Legion within," we approach the more rationalist formulation in Hegel, although we lose something as well.
I've read a lot of Hegel and I think Wallace is spot on in many respects. The idea is that we become free by going "inwards and upwards" ala Saint Augustine is stronger in Plato though. There is a reaching beyond proximate causes that make us their effects, towards self-determination. And to the extent that we transcend our boundaries, reaching out in rationality and dissolving love, we are free.
But then descriptions of Hegel or Plato as pantheists are completely wrong, as are descriptions of them as "anthrotheists." The point is that we are only deified to the extent we are self-determining, free, and we are only free to the extent we transcend, and we only transcend to the extent that we are intellectually determined by rationality and emotionally determined by an open love.
And this seems actually closer to more orthodox religion, Rumi, Saint Paul, etc. than many forms of "philosophical religion." It's the same sort of transcendent attitude you see in "God is love," "God is in us," "living through the will of God," "Christ living in us/us living in Christ," which is smattered across Saint John, Saint Paul, and even to a degree Saint Peter's writing.
Absolute transcendence is crucial for the fullest sort of freedom because to have something that is outside one's self is crucially to be defined by that thing. But if one transcends all boundaries then there can be full self-determination. And I think you see a bit of this intuition in Shankara too. — Count Timothy von Icarus
A woman's desire to bear and raise a child. I don't know of a male philosopher who looks at this seriously: yet it's how the species continues, the heart of the matter. Pleasure/pain cannot account for these desires, or so it seems to me. There is something marvellous involved: the embrace of pain and confinement to enable something else; the desire to create another, to recognise and love that other and to find fulfilment in both the caring for that other, and the eventual letting go of control. — mcdoodle
Sado-masochism. In s/m behaviour a high degree of pain may be the greatest pleasure. And the ethical approaches to such behaviour involve, as the Count outlines in another context, the second order desire: How shall we enact our desires, that will involve being hurt or hurting, in a way that acknowledges and indeed privileges the other? After all, the enactment of such desires on a first order basis would be no more than narcissism, and cruelty. — mcdoodle
I start off taking an analytic approach to these questions, but it seems to me Levinas' explorations of our encounters with the other offer great insights into how we can resolve the analytic problems that arise. — mcdoodle
For Lacan, desire is never fully satisfied. Any material or ‘natural’ need requires articulation and recognition demanded from another. After transferrence onto the general form, desire bears on something other than the satisfaction it can bring. The particularity of a need assumes an irresolvable lack that transcends the given situation and generates a ceaseless sense of incompleteness. Lacan entirely transforms the perspective on transgression and perversion. — Number2018
I can’t speak to perversion and desire. But I am confident that most people don’t know what they want and their active pursuits and ostensible meaning are derived through goals provided by enculturation and marketing. The person who has reflected and worked to transcend these has a better shot at happiness. I suspect this is close to Epicurus. — Tom Storm
Life is perverse. It consumes itself in renewing itself. Mind would like to rise above life, but does so only in self-denial - aka love. — unenlightened
I believe instead that the ethical dilemma we face is not that of recognition vs reification, self-transcendence vs self-interest, the arbitrary conservative thrust of the lure of the familiar vs the compassionate embrace of otherness. When we seem to fail to recognize and maintain the other‘s autonomy this is not a retreat into self but, on the contrary, an experiencing of otherness which is too other to be intelligible. For Gallagher justice is maintaining the autonomy of the other, as if one first glimpses this autonomy and then decides not to honor it. But the other's autonomy can only exist for me to the extent that I can integrate it intelligibly within my way of life, which is itself the ongoing production of a collaborative community. The failure to coordinate harmoniously among competing realtional intelligibilites results in the appearance of injustice, as though there were an intention on the part of one of the parties not to recognize an aspect of the other.
However, it is not autonomous content that we strive to maximize, but intelligible process, and intelligibility is ontologically prior to the actions of an autonomous subject who recognizes or fails to recognize others. When there is disagreement between the victim and the alleged perpetrator about whether an injustice has indeed been committed, who determines, and how is it determined, that someone is closing off another's affordance space and eliminating their autonomy? If it is intelligible ways of going on that are being protected, then from the vantage of the ‘perpetrator', what is being excluded, closed off and eliminated is not a particular content (the other's affordances) , in the service of reifying one's own autonomy. On the contrary, the aim is to exclude from a system of practices that which would render it nonsensical and deprive it of coherent meaning. In other words, from the vantage of the so-called perpetrator, the practices of exclusion and elimination are in the service of rendering justice by preventing the degradation of meaningful autonomy in general.
As Ken Gergen(1995) states:
“... groups whose actions are coordinated around given constructions of reality risk their traditions by exposing them to the ravages of the outliers. That is, from their perspective, efforts must be made to protect the boundaries of understanding, to prevent the signifiers from escaping into the free-standing environment where meaning is decried or dissipated. In this sense, unfair or exclusionary practices are not frequently so from the standpoint of the actors. Rather, they may seem altogether fair, just and essential to sustain valued ideals against the infidels at the gates.” — Joshs
Is the consumption of life to preserve life a perversion, or can you see it as a natural flow which can become perverted? — Moliere
That question suggests, (rightly I think) that perversion is in the seer more than the seen. That is, the first perversion is the cleaving of the individual such that they can stand in judgement of their own desires. And from that judgement comes the repression and then the projection onto the world of whatever is seen to be perverse. Perversion is the buck that is always passed and never stops. It is the human condition. The epicurean is naturally a connoisseur of perversion. Too much would be gross, but a little spice in your girls (or boys) ... — unenlightened
Rather it's accepting oneself as what one is and modifying desires — Moliere
Basically if we're confident that most people don't know what they want, and we know a set of wants which produce happiness, then why bother giving people the freedom to hurt themselves when it's ignorance which is the culprit of their misery? — Moliere
We can't make people take up 'better' or choices. I also don't see who is 'giving' anyone else freedom. People make their choices, the end. If they arrive at a personal understanding that they can do better and be more authentic, then great. But authenticity can't be mandated. — Tom Storm
Is this not a direct contradiction? As the therapist proverbially says, "the lightbulb has to want to change."
But honestly, I don't understand much of what you are saying. I'd better be quiet. — unenlightened
How does that sit with you? — Moliere
I'm giving leeway because I sincerely don't believe in as fixed a human nature as the Epicurean philosophy seems to, and so I believe people have to find these things for themselves. — Moliere
But it's not authenticity that brings about happiness (after all, we could authentically desire to be immortal, and pursue that, and it would cause anxiety because it's a groundless desire), but the pruning of desire such that one can be happy. (though authenticity does seem to be a thing we hold onto, so it relates.) — Moliere
The only interest I have in Epicurus is how I might adapt some of his ideas for myself. I am naturally inclined to many similar approaches - I am a minimalist. I have no interest in luxury. I have never chased ambition or status. I am mostly indifferent to food. This is I believe my authentic orientation. I can't speak for anyone else and, since I am not a very social person, the idea of any kind of an Epicurean community fills me with horror. — Tom Storm
I hear you, but I think authenticity, being who you are, is a better path towards happiness than trying to live up to impossible standards, or following some else's plans for your life. There are of course limits to how far authenticity can take you. But anything can be made to look bad if taken to an extreme example. There big problem with authenticity is how do you determine who you really are? Therein lies the challenge. — Tom Storm
Is this not a direct contradiction? As the therapist proverbially says, "the lightbulb has to want to change." — unenlightened
I'm pretty much taking your word on Lacan here. I've read people influenced by him but never took that plunge. With that being said I'd say the natural and necessary desires would stand out in Lacan's theory of desire, which are re-occurring due to the nature of life but satisfiable. But I suspect that Lacan would take these facts of hunger and thirst and say that due to their reoccurrence they are never fully satisfied. Or, perhaps, just that we have reoccurring desires is enough to generate a ceaseless sense of incompleteness.
In which case I think it'd be safe to say that Lacan's desire runs orthogonally to Epicurean desire. If desire is never satisfiable, if there's is always a lack and a sense of incompleteness, then the Epicurean cure is a fraud. You'd be making the desire for desire itself a groundless desire which cannot be satisfied.
But this is where I think the appeal to nature -- even though it's fallacious! -- is actually a strength. Running along with the philosophy as I did with Sadomaoschistic desire: Surely if the goal is tranquility then building up desires about desire would result in anxiety if our desires about desire lead us to desire things which cannot be satisfied. But if you, instead, come to live with your own nature -- in this case a ceaseless sense of incompleteness due to the nature of desire as a lack -- you can come to see that it's just a little bit of pain, and that pain isn't all that bad to deal with after all. The pain will come again, and so will go away, and the pleasure will fade away, but will come about again. — Moliere
Thank you for your response. You are correct that Lacan’s desire is incompatible with the Epicurean’s... I will not take sides here; I see this discussion as an opportunity to enhance my understanding — Number2018
There is no simple dichotomy for me, with a groundless desire as a lack from one side and a possibility of tranquillity and fulfillment from another. Both perspectives assume
an ahistorical, universalist nature of desire. Yet, for Lacan, any concrete desire co-exists and co-relates with the symbolic order and the primordial pre-conscious and unconscious settings (the mirror stage, etc.). He offers an elaborated modification of Freud’s theory of psychics so that an ultimate lack and ceaseless desire becomes one of the primary human conditions.
Certainly, we cannot clearly define human nature that stands independently from a concrete social situation. Even hunger and pain in certain circumstances can be experienced as satisfactory and positive. — Number2018
Our emotional sphere is penetrated with social forces in such a manner that even the most intimate feelings cannot be separated from collective affective impacts. To state the opposite, one should assert the exceptionality of the chosen ethical and theoretical perspective. Paradigmatic examples of the Sadomasochistic desire as an exemplary perversion and the achievement of the state of tranquillity in an ashram or Enlightenment in a Buddhist monastery show the decisive role of a particular social constellation.
On the other hand, Baudrillard, Deleuze, and Guattari contend that the lack becomes the desire’s ultimate feature exclusively under the historical conditions of a capitalist society.
I want to drop "nature" in the account, but I'm thinking that what is natural -- what the seer sees as the natural place of the object of perversion -- is what helps understand perversion in this very general sense. — Moliere
In a similar way we might say the hammer becomes perverted when it's used as a weapon — Moliere
Hegelian perversion -- so I'd like to think -- is anarchy. Hegel's a funny ethical philosopher because he encompasses all values into a teleological order. So what could possibly be perverted, when everything has a time and a place? I put forward anarchy because I believe Hegel's vision of absolute freedom is the nation-state across the world. This would explain why there are Marxists, Liberals, and Fascists who all claim homage to Hegel: they all are politically dedicated to the nation-state. And the past, within Hegel, can be understood as slowly building towards the international order of states -- the maximum freedom -- but the modern anarchist is a perversion because they are against the telic order. On the whole I think perversion can be understood in each of the political traditions along this way: Marxists, Liberals, and Fascists each see one another as a perversion of their tradition, of the way a state ought to be structured. But for Hegel this is exactly what you'd predict and you'd be looking for the next sublation in the order of thought. But the anarchist sees no sublation, no telic order, no end. The anarchist simply doesn't want teleology or a state or a party. The anarchist demands freedom from teleology.
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