Posts by Don

A philosopher's words are empty if they do not heal the suffering of mankind. For just as medicine is useless if it does not remove sickness from the body, so philosophy is useless if it does not remove suffering from the soul. κενὸς ἐκείνου φιλοσόφου λόγος, ὑφʼ οὗ μηδὲν πάθος ἀνθρώπου θεραπεύεται· ὥσπερ γὰρ ἰατρικῆς οὐδὲν ὄφελος μὴ τὰς νόσους τῶν σωμάτων ἐκβαλλούσης, οὕτως οὐδὲ φιλοσοφίας, εἰ μὴ τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐκβάλλει πάθος.

I really want to write a book (in my spare time ) entitled:

Pleasure is not a Four-Letter Word

The Garden Path to Well-Being

and lure people in under the guise of a "self-help" book but - surprise! - it's really an introduction to Epicurus's philosophy.

Ask and ye shall receive...

French: plaisir "pleasure"

Etymology

From Middle French plaisir, from Old French plaisir, from Latin placēre, present active infinitive of placeō. Compare Occitan plaser (“pleasure”), Catalan plaer (“pleasure”), Italian piacere (“pleasure”), Spanish placer (“pleasure”), Portuguese prazer (“pleasure”), Romanian plăcere (“pleasure”).

PLAISIR : Définition de PLAISIR

French:

Look up "enjoy" in Wiktionary and get:

French: (with a noun) profiter de, jouir de, (with a verb) apprécier, prendre plaisir (fr) "take pleasure"

Jouir.

Etymology

From Middle French jouir, jouïr, iouyr, from Old French joïr, from Vulgar Latin *gaudīre (*gaudiō), from Latin gaudēre, present active infinitive of gaudeō. Doublet of gaudir, which was a borrowing.

Doesn't Lucretius use gadeamus somewhere?

I'm personally getting tired of this parsing by English pontificators and writers and cultural "intellectuals" in dancing around "pleasure" as if it's a four-letter word. Enjoyment, happiness, etc = pleasure = voluptas = ηδονή

Thanks for taking one for the team, Cassius .

Dr. Voula Tsouna's The Ethics of Philodemus includes a look at anger.

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Don

Did I hear my name?

Just about every episode!

See, but this way, I get to swoop in at the end without the need to say, "That's a good question!" and get recorded looking up definitions and citations. Consider me your on-call librarian.

Quote from Pacatus

* Don, I seem to recall that aletheia (?) in Greek meant that which was unconcealed/unhidden -- or revealed?

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἀληθ-ής

Also from Wiktionary:

Etymology

In form it would be from ἀ- (a-, “un-”) + *ληθής, from λῆθος (lêthos, “*concealment, forgetfulness”) +‎ -ής (-ḗs), thus "unconcealed", "unforgotten".

Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leh₂- (“to be concealed”) (whence λήθω (lḗthō), λανθάνω (lanthánō) and more)

Adjective

ᾰ̓ληθής • m or f (neuter ᾰ̓ληθές); third declension

(of things) true, real, genuine

(of people) truthful, honest

385 BCE – 380 BCE, Plato, Symposium 217e:

οἶνος […] ἦν ἀληθής

oînos […] ên alēthḗs

Wine is truthful. (in vino veritas)

Lucretius and the Epicurean View That "All Perceptions are True" (forthcoming, but still a DRAFT version)

The well-known and controversial thesis that «all perceptions are true» is endorsed by all Epicureans. At least three general interpretations of it have been…

www.academia.edu

PS: So, the etymology is something like "not concealed" or "not forgetful" but etymology doesn't always equal definition 1:1. As LSJ says for αληθής: "unconcealed, so true, real, opp. false" So, the opposite of αληθής is "false" ψευδής not "hidden."

Trivia: The River of Forgetfulness in the Underworld is named Λήθη Lethe.

"of bodies some are composite, others the elements of which these composite bodies are made."

σωμάτων τὰ μέν ἐστι συγκρίσεις, τὰ δ᾽ ἐξ ὧν αἱ συγκρίσεις πεποίηνται:

συγκρίσεις

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, σύγκρι^σις

πεποίηνται

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ποιέω

"It is upon sensation that reason must rely when it attempts to infer the unknown from the known." (End of verse 39)

καθ᾽ ἣν ἀναγκαῖον τὸ ἄδηλον τῷ λογισμῷ τεκμαίρεσθαι:

τῷ λογισμῷ (Dative case) = through logismōi

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, λογ-ισμός

τὸ ἄδηλον = "the unseen; what is not evident to the senses"

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἄδηλ-ος

τεκμαίρεσθαι = "to judge by signs and tokens"

It does not appear that the phrase "the unknown from the known" is actually in the Greek. The only word is τὸ ἄδηλον "the unseen" so the actual paraphrase would be something like "it is necessary to judge the unseen through reasoning" while also calling back to the previous phrase that talks about the senses.

Did I hear my name?

The Greek for the section you discussed around 8:11 is:

τὸ πᾶν ἐστι σώματα καὶ κενόν: σώματα μὲν γὰρ ὡς ἔστιν, αὐτὴ ἡ αἴσθησις ἐπὶ πάντων μαρτυρεῖ.

The "bodies" are σώματα (sōmata). So...

"the whole of being (τὸ πᾶν) consists of bodies and space (our old friend κενόν (kenon)):. For the existence of bodies is everywhere attested by sense itself."

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, σῶμα

"generally, a body, i.e. any corporeal substance"

Quote from SimonC

In Lucian's "A True Story" there is a description of a battle with troops coming from various stars as well as the sun and moon. So it was possible for Lucian at least to think of stars as habitable places and not just "holes in a sphere".

(The list of troops from the sun and moon also implies that they are large, and not the size of a basketball)

All good points! Thanks!

I'd be curious to look at the vocabulary Lucian uses in the Greek for any clues.

Quote from Cassius

Would it be correct to say that the implication of a "world" is that it constitutes certain areas out of the totality of things (the universe)

I would say "yes" with the continued caveat that "world" does not equal "planet" in the modern sense. "World" seems to consistently translate κόσμος (kosmos) "world system" which sets it apart from - or makes it a subset of - το παν "the all."

I'm not sure if the significance you're ascribing to "revolving" or where that comes from.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, κόσμος

With the change in the understanding of the universe over the past 2,000+ years, it's very difficult to come up with a 1:1 correspondence between κόσμος and our modern scientific "definition" of cosmos (Carl Sagan's and Neil de Grasse Tyson's TV series notwithstanding).

To the Greeks, κόσμος encompassed the Earth at the center with our sun orbiting around us with the stars embedded in or as holes in the surrounding sphere. So taking that route, κόσμος to us, is the visible universe. However, it would seem to be that, to the ancients, each planet (other Earths) would have its own sun. When Epicurus/Lucretius says there are other worlds, he's using κόσμοι (plural) which implies that arrangement. The "gods" supposedly live "between" kosmoi, so by definition, they don't seem to be "living" IN a world-system. They are said to live *between* world-systems. BUT each κόσμος has its own home planet at its center.

That LSJ definition includes:

Philos., world-order, universe, first in Pythag., acc.to Placit.2.1.1, D.L.8.48 (cf. [Philol.]21), or Parm., acc. to Thphr. ap. D.L.l.c.; “κόσμον τόνδε οὔτε τις θεῶν οὔτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ ἔσται πῦρ” Heraclit.30; “ὁ καλούμενος ὑπὸ τῶν σοφιστῶν κ.” X.Mem.1.1.11: freq. in Pl., Grg.508a, Ti.27a, al.; “ἡ τοῦ ὅλου σύστασίς ἐστι κ. καὶ οὐρανός” Arist.Cael.280a21, cf. Epicur.Ep. 2p.37U., Chrysipp.Stoic.2.168, etc.; “ὁ κ. ζῷον ἔμψυχον καὶ λογικόν” Posidon. ap. D.L.7.139, cf. Pl.Ti.30b: sts. of the firmament, “γῆς ἁπάσης τῆς ὑπὸ τῷ κόσμῳ κειμένης” Isoc.4.179; “ὁ περὶ τὴν γῆν ὅλος κ.” Arist. Mete.339a20; μετελθεῖν εἰς τὸν ἀέναον κ., of death, OGI56.48 (Canopus, iii B. C.); but also, of earth, as opp. heaven, “ὁ ἐπιχθόνιος κ.” Herm. ap. Stob.1.49.44; or as opp. the underworld, “ὁ ἄνω κ.” Iamb.VP27.123; of any region of the universe, “ὁ μετάρσιος κ.” Herm. ap. Stob.1.49.44; of the sphere whose centre is the earth's centre and radius the straight line joining earth and sun, Archim.Aren.4; of the sphere containing the fixed stars, Pl.Epin.987b: in pl., worlds, coexistent or successive, Anaximand. et alii ap.Placit.2.1.3, cf. Epicur.l.c.; also, of stars, “Νὺξ μεγάλων κ. κτεάτειρα” A.Ag.356 (anap.), cf. Heraclid.et Pythagorei ap.Placit.2.13.15 (= Orph.Fr.22); οἱ ἑπτὰ κ. the Seven planets, Corp.Herm.11.7.

So, even that is a somewhat vague, wide-ranging definition.

So sum up, neither Martin nor @Nate are wrong in their modern analogies, but it could also be said that neither are quite correct either.

@Nate , yes, that's my take as well. A κόσμος kosmos includes the spherical Earth at its center surrounded by the vaults of the sky with the stars etc embedded in it.

Observable universe is a good modern analogy.

Then "The All" includes other kosmoi. The gods then would live somehow in that area(?) between kosmoi?

Great post, Scott . Thanks for the comments. Your mentioning "home" made me think of another Ancient Greek word: Ο ΟΙΚΟΣ (ho oikos) which had a range of meanings encompassing home, the physical building(s), estate, and also all the members of the "family" (husband, wife, children, slaves).

The later Byzantine/Modern pronunciation of "eekos" gives English the eco- of ecology and economics.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, οἶκος

I think the Latin equivalent would be domus.

Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, dŏmus

Quote from Cassius

So the Epicurus wiki puts preconceptions there but the others do not? Possible to tell why?

That must be where once long ago I thought I read that.

It's there in 124.

[124] οὐ γὰρ προλήψεις (prolepseis) εἰσίν ἀλλ᾽ ὑπολήψεις ψευδεῖς (hypolepseis pseudeis "false opinions") αἱ τῶν πολλῶν ὑπὲρ θεῶν ἀποφάσεις,

Quote from Godfrey

Typically, the gods fail to protect those with wrong ideas of them.

That idea comes in with the section that follows the section you quoted:

Quote

One is not impious who does not take up the gods of the hoi polloi; but the one who attributes the beliefs of the hoi polloi to the gods. [124] For what they believe are not prolepses, but rather the judgements of the hoi polloi concerning the gods which are false, hasty assumptions. So, they believe the greatest evils are brought to the wicked from the gods as well as the greatest aid to the good, because the hoi polloi are believing that the gods accept those who resemble themselves who are similar through all excellences and goodness; all those not of their sort are strange and alien.

For another comparison, here's the Epicurus Wiki which gives an interesting take: http://wiki.epicurism.info/Letter_to_Menoeceus/

Quote

But do not believe anything about divine nature other than what is congenial for an eternally happy existence. The gods do exist because we have preconceived notions of them. But they are not like how most people describe them, because they do not retain the notion of the gods that they first receive. Rejecting the popular myths does not make one impious. Impious is one who upholds popular beliefs about the gods, because those pronouncements are false opinions rather than actual preconceptions.

And Saint-Andre's:

Letter to Menoikos, by Epicurus

Quote

Do not ascribe to god anything that is inconsistent with immortality and blissfulness; instead, believe about god everything that can support immortality and blissfulness. For gods there are: our knowledge of them is clear. Yet they are not such as most people believe; indeed most people are not even consistent in what they believe. It is not impious to deny the gods that most people believe in, but to ascribe to the gods what most people believe.

Your underlined section in the translations takes into account :

Quote

οὐ γὰρ φυλάττουσιν αὐτοὺς οἵους νοοῦσιν. ἀσεβὴς δὲ οὐχ ὁ τοὺς τῶν πολλῶν θεοὺς ἀναιρῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ τὰς τῶν πολλῶν δόξας θεοῖς προσάπτων.

An even more literal translation of these lines would be:

γὰρ... For, because... (has to be second word in phrase for arcane grammatical reasons)

φυλάττουσιν αὐτοὺς οἵους... they are protecting/defending/maintaining/preserving them (appears to refer to the gods)

οὐ νοοῦσιν they (the hoi polloi) are not perceiving/conceiving/seeing

ἀσεβὴς δὲ οὐχ ὁ τοὺς τῶν πολλῶν θεοὺς ἀναιρῶν "for impiety is not that which is ordained/appointed/taken up by the hoi polloi"

των πολλών is simply the genitive case of 'οι πολλοί (hoi polloi) "the many" which means exactly what it does in English: the masses, the common people. τας δόξας (tas doxas) are the beliefs or doctrines, same word in the Principal Doctrines. So, "One is not impious who does not take up the gods of the hoi polloi; but the one who attributes the beliefs of the hoi polloi to the gods."

So .. the charges of cannibalism against the early Christians was "substantially" correct? Or is that specious?

FYI The "sum of things" in the original is ΤΟ ΠΑΝ (to pan). Here's a link to a thread on this phrase:

Post

ΤΟ ΠΑΝ: The Sum of All Things

I was just reading the Letter to Herodotus in working on my personal Epicurean outline and realized I had forgotten how much I love the word Epicurus (and other ancient Greeks) used for the universe:

τὸ πᾶν

Transliterated, this is:

tò pãn or simply "to pan"

This is the same "pan" as in "panhellenic" or "pantheism."

I've seen it translated as:

• the sum of all things
• the sum total of all things
• the universe as a whole
• the whole of being

... among others, sometimes using several of these in the same…

Don

March 9, 2020 at 11:47 PM