Talk:Principal Doctrine 20

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An alternate translation of P.D. XX. (I neglect the aorist)
The body assumes/takes (apelabe) the definitions (perata (Arist.)) of pleasure artless(ly) (apeira) indeed (men), and an indeterminate/artless (apeiros) time (kronos) prepares it [i.e. pleasure ] (pareskenasen autên). The mind, by analogy (epilogismon = analogical calculus. Arist & Epic.) of bodily goal and of the (artless) range wherein it get full, by wiping out worries of after-death, gets ready a full/whole life (i.e.: one must live in present time each experience one by one, without comparison/conceptualization with future ones, i.e. distracting things which do not exist), so it doesn't need a limitless time. Nevertheless, the mind does not shun [possible future] pleasure; moreover, when the end of life is preparing, it leaves as if nothing was upside down in the best life possible. [G.Z.'s tr.]

Traditional translations of this maxim suffered the consequences of Platonic and spiritualistic body/sense-phobia. They felt body without homeostasis as they uninhibited it by jolts, and eating (hardly eliminable) tried compensating touch, proprioception, sex. See on the contrary: "What cannot be satisfied is not a man’s belly, as men think, but rather his false i d e a about the unending filling of his belly" (V.S. 59). "Infinite and finite time afford equal pleasure, if one measures its limits by reason" (P.D. 19): i.e. by analogy to our sentient nature: "time is an accident of an accident" (Arist.: accident is no substance), not an idea [Sextus E., confirmed by PHerc 1413, 9 VII, Arrighetti]. A body has no need of guarantee of infinite repeatability and improvement (thereof it isn't either aware/ apeiros) in order to feel pleasurable a meal , when it is hungry; so the mind must do the same in relation to his own pleasures: it is aware but it hasn't to be worried nor to deceive itself about future.
Let's remember that Spinoza too said: "to define is to set a limit". 'Unlimited' means undefined too: a fault for Platonics, not for a Sensualist (nor for the pantheist Spinoza) for whom unaware entails artless, genuine. Epicurus knew the 'aporias' (circularities) of definitions, and evaded them. Mind's “epilogismos” is less 'circular' than definitions because it does not analogise words with words, but past experiences with other behaviours.