Posts by Don

FYI I'm in the process of creating a revised edition of my Menoikeus translation & commentary... More hopefully soon.... Of course, I have additional thoughts on απολαυσεις etc in 131 & 132. Stay tuned...

Like this?

And scanning exercise into the details!

Quote from Cassius

So the second of those two videos is using the double slashes to indicate separations while the first video does not seem to use such separations when reading(?) Is one more clearly correct than the other?

Dactylic hexameter - Wikipedia

That double bar is a caesura. It's there whether it's marked or not. Luke Ranieri just didn't mark the scansion. Ranieri's is more fluid, but the the second is just emphasizing or demonstrating the meter far more. They're both "correct." :

"Almost every hexameter has a word break, known as a caesura /sɪˈzjʊərə/, in the middle of the 3rd foot, sometimes (but not always) coinciding with a break in sense. In most cases (85% of lines in Virgil) this comes after the first syllable of the 3rd foot, as in ca/no in the above example. This is known as a strong or masculine caesura."

See also:

Scansion | Dickinson College Commentaries

Help with Latin texts: Introduction to scansion

Although we now approach ancient texts primarily through the written word, they were originally meant for performance. Poetry in particular was probably…

libraryofantiquity.wordpress.com

If you're interested at all in Latin and Ancient Greek, I **highly** recommend Ranieri's YouTube channels Scorpio Martianus and PolyMathy (and now there's a PolyMathy+).

PS. I also just realized that the first, Ranieri's, is using the Classical pronunciation while the second is using the Ecclesiastical pronunciation. Note the difference in those as you're listening. Personally, I prefer the Restored Classical pronunciation.

Nicely done, Bryan! You've inspired me to think again about going back and trying to record the Philodemus epigram of the invitation to Piso to join in the 20th!

You might be interested in these, too:

Thought this may be of interest, too:

Skeptic's Annotated Bible / Quran / Book of Mormon

LOL! He uses an image of Seneca to illustrate Lucretius.

The medieval Christians were "properly" curious.

To use the Barron's words: "C'mon, give me a break!"

Thanks for sharing, Joshua!

btw, just because I think he defined what the summum bonum is accurately doesn't imply I agree with anything else he says! A broken clock is right twice a day.

PS.:

Sorry, can't let this go. I also freely admit that it's been quite awhile since I read Greenblatt's book, so this is more a response to Barron then a defense of Greenblatt's work.

Barron brings up Bocaccio's Decameron. This is from Bocaccio's Wikipedia article: "he challenged the arguments of clerical intellectuals who wanted to limit access to classical sources to prevent any moral harm to Christian readers. The revival of classical antiquity became a foundation of the Renaissance, and his defense of the importance of ancient literature was an essential requirement for its development."

"Chaucer's attitudes toward the Church should not be confused with his attitudes toward Christianity. He seems to have respected and admired Christians and to have been one himself, though he also recognised that many people in the church were venal and corrupt." (Wikipedia)

If Barron is dismissive of Greenblatt's thesis, Barron seems a little free and easy with his interpretation of medieval Catholicism, too.

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I think Epicurus scored the winning goal on that playing field.

Yes I think you are right but this is our task - to explain the reasoning to the "hearts in darkness."

Tell them to turn on the light!

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All the to'ing and fro'ing befuddles me to no end.

What do you do with that priest in the video when he reaches the "uncaused cause" part of his chain of reasoning, and suggests to you that that is "God?"

I suspect that you have a good answer to that, but I also expect that 95% of the world does not.

Oh, that? I think he's deluded and indoctrinated and unwilling to honestly assess his preconceived notions. There's no need for an "uncaused cause." As Joshua pointed out in an historical antidote in the last episode of the podcast, there's no need for that notion in physics.

My point is that if you're trying to counter the unmoved mover claim, you've already ceded the argument to them.

I do not believe answering the summum bonum question in any way cedes the field to anyone. I think Epicurus scored the winning goal on that playing field.

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We have to be alive - we have to exist! - to feel pleasure or pain.

And that's exactly why I would say that it makes sense to emphasize the "life" aspect as part of the equation, so that no one gets the idea that pleasure or pain are themselves disembodied forces or god or of nature or ideals that exist apart from the living being.

None of this has any meaning for things that don't exist! Pleasure and pain are feelings *of living beings.*

I truly and sincerely don't understand the knots into which we tie ourselves in these discussions about the "greatest good," the summum bonum, the telos, etc. To me it's simple and clear as day:

All those terms simply mean "What motivates your actions when you keep asking why you do what you do?" Epicurus answered, correctly in my opinion, pleasure. Pleasure, both in the short term and the long term, motivates all our actions. Full stop. Stoics answered virtue. Epicurus could come back with, why do you act virtuously... Because it brings you pleasure!

All the to'ing and fro'ing befuddles me to no end.

Quote from Cassius

I doubt there is a way to be sure of this question but for example sitting at dinner for thanksgiving and looking forward to the meal might be something I would consider to be a type of hunger that is pleasure.

I'd say the anticipation of tucking into the feast is the pleasure, not the feeling of hunger itself.

Quote from Cassius

I think DeWitt is asking, however, whether that was not the direction that Epicurus was going, and once one "thinks like an Epicurean" in equating life in the absence of pain to be pleasure, then equating "being alive" with "pleasurable experience" is a natural association, and a good way to think.

I think DeWitt is just mistaken, especially in light of his "Latin doesn't have a definite article" hobbyhorse in his summum bonum paper. I do not think this was the direction Epicurus was going. It's not "life in the absence of pain = pleasure", it is simply "the absence of the feeling of pain = pleasure" and conversely "the absence of the feeling of pleasure = pain." Adding "life" to the equation doesn't add anything. We have to be alive - we have to exist! - to feel pleasure or pain.

Quote from Cassius

And I really don't know that I think that natural cycles of developing natural and ordinary degrees of hunger or thirst should be considered to be "pain.". Seems to me that these are aspects of normal functioning and only situations where abnormal hunger or thirst develops would really be considered "painful.". That goes along with our earlier discussions where some argue that not every unfulfilled desire is a matter of pain.

I'd say by definition that feeling hungry is pain because it's not pleasure to feel hungry... And the feelings are two. In modern neuroscience terms, you either feel positive (pleasure) or negative (pain) affect. It might not be very high arousal in the negative direction if you're just feeling "noshy" but it's negative/pain all the same.

I don't think you can answer "Why did you do that?" with "Because I'm alive" and have it have any real meaning.

By definition, if you're dead you don't exist; you can't perform any action if you don't exist.

If I say, "Because it gives pleasure" or "it gives me a pleasurable feeling," and you ask why; then I can say "Because of biology and natural selection, etc." but that's gilding the lily to my mind. But biology and natural selection can't be motivating factors. They are the scaffolding that makes my living possible, but they don't answer "why"... Maybe "how." We feel because we're alive. When we're alive, we feel. Our *feelings* answer the why, if we're honest with ourselves.

I've watched Alex O'Connor's work on YouTube for awhile and came across this episode of his podcast. Y'all are welcome to react to the episode as a whole of you wish, but the Catholic bishop talks about the summum bonum at around 14 or 15 minute mark. His explanation is exactly how I understand the term: keep asking "why?" and the answer at the end is your summum bonum. I can see the answer being "it brings me pleasure" Her didn't, of course. But I thought this was a good explanation of the term summum bonum. Which is why I balk at Dewitt's "life is the greatest good" because it seems a tautology to answer why I do something as "because I'm alive."

Anyway, it's an interesting conversation.

Even though JRR Tolkien fully embraced a Catholic worldview, I found this post on Instagram interesting. Even he can't get away from the fact that he created his world of Middle-earth because he found the creation process pleasurable.

@tolkien.worldwide on Instagram: "J.R.R. Tolkien passionately conveyed that the act of creating his world brought him immeasurable pleasure and joy. The crucial lesson we should all learn is that striving for perfection should never be driven by the…

421 likes, 6 comments - @tolkien.worldwide on Instagram: "J.R.R. Tolkien passionately conveyed that the act of creating his world brought him immeasurable ..."

www.instagram.com

Quote from Cassius

Philodemus in "On Signs / On Methods of Inference"

Maybe there's a podcast episode or two in the future?

Quote from Cassius

So to avoid drawing any improper conclusions from the "absence" of divisions, it would be necessary to know of some ancient texts where divisions *were* used. If everything in ancient Latin and Greek was in fact run together without much break then not much can be inferred.

Personally, I think the fact that there were lists of 44 and 40 PDs floating around shows there was no "standard" list. I'm also curious to look at the Latin translations to see if they offered any gaps in the text for topics or paragraphs.

Again, for my notes as much as anything (but happy to share!):

Principal Doctrines begins in manuscript Grec 1758

(Publication date : 1401-1500) on folio 206 (left side), 12 lines up from the bottom, right side of the text:

Grec 1758

Grec 1758 -- 1401-1500 -- manuscrits

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