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"Remember that you are mortal, and you have a limited time to live, and in devoting yourself to discussion of the nature of time and eternity you have seen things that have been, are now, and are to come."
One thing I'd like to memorialize from our discussion last night was that thanks to Raphael Raul we got into a discussion once again as to the relationship of "pleasure" as compared to "tranquility" and the uses of those terms.
Bryan brought up something in particular that is worth remembering and would be good to note here while it is fresh.
Bryan could you state again your comparison of the number of times the words "Pleasure" and "Tranquility" appear in the works of Epicurus? I've already forgotten whether your universe of selection was "how many times those words occur in Usener's Epicurea" or "how many times those words appear in Diogenes Laertius Book Ten" or what.
But either way it would be good to mark that down for future reference.
Yes, this was just a quick search in English in Epicurea, where a form of the word "pleasure" is used 477 times, and "tranquility" only 25 times.
I am only 1/6 complete adding the Latin and Greek into Erik's work, but so far I have, looking at specific words: variants of ἡδονή 48 times, and variants of voluptas used 34 times. For tranquility, we have variants of ἡσυχία (including verbal forms) mentioned 8 times, and similarly for ἀταραξία which is also mentioned 8 times. So far, then, it seems pleasure is being referenced in the primary sources 5x the rate of tranquility.
