Posts by Godfrey

Seligman's system is based on virtues, and subordinate to the virtues are personal strengths. He determined the virtues by having a team study philosophies from around the world and from various eras for commonality, and from that compiled a list of "universal" virtues. You fill out a questionnaire to find out which are your signature strengths from a list of 24 strengths. Your signature strengths are 3-5 that score highest on the questionnaire. So his method is a combination of objective and subjective, but starts with the objective and determines the subjective from there.

It's an interesting method, but for me it seemed useful more as a brainstorming tool, perhaps useful to get some personal insights just by means of a fresh point of view. It's too formulaic to be of much further use, at least for my taste.

Regarding the article above on happiness, which is from a positive psychology source....

Not long ago I read a book by Martin Seligman (one of the founders of positive psychology) about positive psychology, and I was surprised to learn that he was heavily influenced by Aristotle. Positive psychology appears to fall into the objective approach to happiness, which I found quite interesting at the time as I couldn't put my finger on what bothered me about it.

Coincidentally, I just listened to this podcast which has a conversation on beliefs and science, beginning in the second half of the podcast.

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - James Zimring: Fuzzy thinking and the Big Whopper

Too many of us instinctively feel that a quarter pound hamburger is bigger than a third of a pound. And that’s just one of the mistakes we make in too quickly…

podcasts.google.com

That's a good high school motto BTW.

Quote from Don

but I'm getting bogged down in minutiae.

Ain't that the truth! I've become totally bogged down in my attempt to read the NE. I've been reading through and highlighting, then going back and parsing my highlights. The parsing is where everything grinds to a halt. I've read the first two books, but I'm haven't even made it through parsing the first book.

Keep up the good work! There's interesting stuff in the book, but what a slog!

It works fine on my Android tablet.

This is quite thought provoking Martin !

Overall, I like it. But in the spirit of inquiry, can we really say that we don't have any beliefs without becoming Skeptics? For instance, I believe that I'm not a brain in a vat. Do I know that? I think so, but I could be wrong. I believe what science tells me, to the extent of my understanding as a lay person. Do I know it? Not really, I'm accepting the information provided by people that I consider honest and better informed than me. More "knowledgeable."

belief

1. 1. an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. "his belief in the value of hard work"
2. 2. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something. "I've still got belief in myself"

knowledge

1. 1. facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. "a thirst for knowledge"
   
2. 2. awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. "the program had been developed without his knowledge"

Thanks for posting this: it's a good opportunity to clarify the definitions and ramifications of the terms knowledge and belief.

Cassius since you first mentioned Dynalist a week or so ago, I've been experimenting with it and I'm finding it easy to use and extremely useful for all sorts of things. It is definitely giving me a way to improve my note-taking. I've never used outlining much, but it's turning out to be a powerful tool and this app is a great tool for implementing that tool, if you will.

It's seamless between my phone, tablet and computer. Although the computer version has a bit more functionality, the phone/tablet version has plenty. And it took very little time to get up and running on both versions. Most of the questions that I had, which I hadn't really looked into, you just answered in the above post.

It seems like the simplest way to deal with the discussion on the NE is to have a separate thread for each of the ten books. There may be overlap between the books, in which case maybe there could be an overall thread as well to cover such things. Anyway, that's easy to implement before the discussion gets too far along....

I'm just starting Book 2, so you're comfortably ahead Don !

My very general take is that this is really interesting reading, reading it from an Epicurean perspective. If I was reading this with no other background I think it would drive me batty. There's a lot of value in this, but without a grounding in reality it would very easily lead off into the rabbit hole of absolutes. Epicurus did quite a service in building on the reasonable parts and excising the ungrounded.

Don I just reread your commentary on Book 1. Having started into the book and begun to grapple with the ideas, I have to say you're doing a great job! 👍

Don 's posts here have inspired me to finally delve into the NE, and I'm finding it quite fascinating. I'm working my way through Book 1, where Aristotle at great length dissects various meanings of good in an attempt to determine the good. Even though I don't expect to come to the conclusion that he does, going through his process (which to my limited knowledge is considered the gold standard for this subject) is a good exercise to refine my own Epicurean ideas.

Along the way, various phrases pop out which Epicurus must have latched onto either to agree with or to refute. For me, the most prominent so far is the idea early in Book 1 that the greatest good must relate to the polis (politics) as that encompasses so many other endeavors. Of course Epicurus is often said to counsel against getting caught up in politics: this then becomes fundamental to his critique of Aristotle’s analysis of the good. It would appear that rather than requiring his followers to avoid politics, he's telling them how to think about the good.

At first I was thinking that hekousion and akiusion might have become what the Stoics call giving assent and not giving assent (I can't remember if those are the exact terms) but, reading on, maybe not. Any thoughts on that?

Haven't listened to the podcast yet but I just finished binge watching The Rings of Power. I enjoyed it immensely even though I'm not a serious Tolkien fan: particularly enjoyed all of the design work that went into it. And I kept thinking of the Tolkien fans here!

Quote from Don

I need to read this book. Only recently became aware of it. Does anyone else have a review?

Definitely a good read with lots of good information, particularly concerning Epicurus' reworking of Aristotle as I recall. The major negative, for me, was that Farrington considers Epicurus to be a popularizer and an evangelist rather than an original thinker. Also, because of the title I was expecting the book to be about the Epicurean gods, but that's not the case.

I highlighted a lot in the book, but haven't gotten around to digesting the ideas yet.

Thanks Don , interesting reading!

I really appreciate having your distillation of the material: I intend to read at least this much Aristotle someday, but somehow that someday keeps slipping further into the future. Obviously, the perfect time to read it will be at that time when the present is the mean between the past and the future, weighted toward the future because there is the potential for more people to live in the future than have lived in the past, and therefore the median in time of the combined intellect of the human race will likewise be weighted toward the future. Hmmm, some quick mental calculations indicate that that median point will be well after I'm dead! Maybe I shouldn't weight it! I'll have to find an Aristotelian to help me figure out what to do!

This was by Baldwin Lee, shot in c1983.

This classic photo showed up in a blog post the other day.

Regarding thinking along the lines of atoms and void for the desires, I too was starting to go in that direction but I don't think that it's fruitful. It could easily lead to thinking that an urge or thought comes from the void, which opens the door to the supernatural.

I'm pretty certain that none of us are thinking of anything coming from the void: we all agree (right?) that everything, including desires and thoughts, are ultimately material. But I can envision all sorts of people latching on to the idea that various things come from the void. Well, I don't even have to envision it as all sorts of people already think that various things (gods, angels and all types of woo-woo) come from the void!

Referring to desires or thoughts as "empty" is completely different from relating them to the void, despite any linguistic similarity. At least as far as I can tell.

Would a note-taking app do the trick? I've been using Zettel Notes, but there must be dozens of them.

Thanks for posting these Don ! I've been meaning to read this for quite some time as well, but still haven't got around to it.

One minor detail (correct me if I'm wrong): looking at the dates it appears that Aristotle died after Epicurus was born. Aristotle still would have been an aging (and soon, dead) superstar in relation to the young Epicurus however.