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  • Episode 222 - Revisiting the Relationship Between Happiness and Pleasure

    Here are some of my notes from my preparation for the episode. The first cache:

    Why do I keep harping on the inadequacy on the word "happy"?

    To me, "happy" implies "tra-la-la, skipping through the daisies, fizzy, effervescent feelings." There's nothing wrong with feeling happy!! "Happy" to me is a fleeting of-the-moment feeling. "Happy" gets used for sooooo many words in Greek and Latin that, to me, it obscures what is actually going on. Translators just seem to go "We'll throw that in the 'happy' basket. Done!" Even the "Call no man "happy"" episode with Croesus recounted by Herodotus used ὀλβιώτατος (olbiotatos) and ὄλβιος (olbios) - not eudaimonia, not khara, not makarios - a whole new word! But in the famous quote usually translated as "Call no man happy until he's dead, it doesn't refer to the kind of feeling I get when I hear "happy" (Herodotus 1.32.7 )

    Quote

    Quote

    [7] If besides all this he ends his life well, then he is the one whom you seek, the one worthy to be called fortunate. But refrain from calling him fortunate before he dies; call him lucky.

    ‘ [7] εἰ δὲ πρὸς τούτοισι ἔτι τελευτήσῃ τὸν βίον εὖ, οὗτος ἐκεῖνος τὸν σὺ ζητέεις, ὁ ὄλβιος κεκλῆσθαι ἄξιος ἐστί: πρὶν δ᾽ ἂν τελευτήσῃ, ἐπισχεῖν, μηδὲ καλέειν κω ὄλβιον ἀλλ᾽ εὐτυχέα. ’

    olbios and olbiotatos (the superlative form) " is defined in Liddell & Scott as "happy, blessed, blest; (of things) rich, prosperous" which reminds me more of makarios (the description of the happiness of the gods and the "blessed life") than English "happy." The words come from olbos "wealth, prosperity, riches; happiness, bliss, fortune."

    Which to me also echoes eudaimonia. The Stanford philosophy site gave an explanation of eudaimonia as “The term is perhaps best understood in connection with the success or good fortune a person would enjoy when under the protection of a guardian angel." To me, the concept is better understood as "fortunate, having an inner sense of well-being, resilient, "rich" in the metaphorical sense, confident in one's self-reliance, content (BUT not milquetoast doormat-y contentment), able to appreciate "the little things" and so on. To me, "happy" doesn't fit that semantic hole neatly. Maybe "happiness" or a "sense of happiness." If we can agree that *that* is what "happy" means, I can use the word... but I won't be "happy" about it ^^

    So, Epicurus was not "happy happy skipping through daisies" on his last day. He was content with the way his life had gone. He was satisfied that he had lived a "good" life. He took enjoyment in recollecting the path he had taken, in the friends he had made, and in the pleasures he had experienced. In his letter to Idomeneus, Epicurus calls his last day "blessed" (makarion). And "But the cheerfulness (χαῖρον khairon) of my mind, which arises from the recollection of all our philosophical contemplations, counterbalances all these afflictions." (Yonge's translation with amending "our" instead of "my philosopical...") khairon is a form of the word used for the kinetic pleasure of "joy" khara. And Epicurus doesn't say the "joy" outweighs or conquers the pain of his condition. The word used is Ἀντιπαρατάσσομαι (antiparatassomai) which conveys "holding one's ground against, and in drawing up troops in battle order, side by side, ready to do battle against an enemy." He can do battle with the physical pain with the kinetic "joy" he can experience. I don't want to do down a kinetic/katastematic rabbit hole but there you go.

    That's part of the reason I dislike saying things like "Epicurus was 'happy' on his last day" or "Call no many 'happy' until he dies." It glosses over too much and paints a skewed picture of what is actually being conveyed by the texts.

  • The Art of Remembering

    Quote from Bryan

    but of some mollusc (τινος πλεύμονος) or some other shell-fish like the oyster.

    Note "Πλεύμων" which is the term Epicurus used for Nausiphanes.

    As soon as I read that πλεύμονος, I was like "Hey! Nausiphanes!" and then Bryan did not disappoint.:thumbup:

    PS: *THAT* has to be where Epicurus got that nickname for Nausiphanes. That excerpt from Philebus to me aligns with this snippet from the WP article below: "Furthermore, Nausiphanes was an adherent of Democritus's sceptical side and deemed human judgment as being no more than a realignment of atoms in the mind."

    Nausiphanes - Wikipedia

  • Is 'happiness' a proper translation of the term eudaimonia?

    Quote from Titus

    Although I assume a philologist to be sensible about words, this could simply be an issue of word games because Prof. Erler isn't a native speaker of English. I remember that the tenor in the German literature on eudaimonia tends to interpret the term as "living/having achieved the good life", which is close to your definition, Don.

    But then you're back at square one in needing to define what the "good life" is. Trying to satisfy the tranlated meaning of a word as polysemous* as eudaimonia in any one single word in a target language is going to present problems.

    I would agree that there may be some word games going on, but "flourishing" seems to be the academic consensus of what word to use for eudaimonia. I've seen it used by other professors and academics, including those in involved with positive psychology research and promotion of that discipline (which I agree has some benefits and useful research to impart). I've just never got the same connotation from that word "flourishing" when it comes to applying it to eudaimonia.

    *I can't stop using "polysemous" since, think, Pacatus used it in a recent post. It's a great word that conveys translation issues in one tidy word.

  • Is 'happiness' a proper translation of the term eudaimonia?

    With talk of "blessed" which I can see as a component or adjacent to eudaimonia: the word in PD1 and elsewhere is μακαρίος which appears to have no certain etymology but seems possibly to be derived from the idea of being "wealthy" in a literal and/or figurative sense. The usual translation is something like "blessed, fortunate, wealthy, 'well-off'”.

    So, if you're leading a blessed life, you can say you're leading a rich life, you're a "rich" person (whether you mean that literally or figuratively), you're fortunate (though we don't trust to Fortune).

  • Pros and Cons Of Considering Epicurean Philosophy To Be A "Religion"

    Quote from Godfrey

    1. "in an infinite universe perfection is bound to exist, that there must be some surpassing being, than which nothing is better".

    This strikes me as similar to Aquinas 's fourth argument for God (which, surprise, I don't think works either):

    Quote from Aquinas

    The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaphysics ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

  • Is 'happiness' a proper translation of the term eudaimonia?

    I agree "happiness" is not an adequate translation ofευδαιμονία eudaimonia. However, I also do not like "flourishing" as a translation of eudaimonia.

    Flourishing is primarily defined as (Merriam-Webster) "marked by vigorous and healthy growth" (a flourishing garden); "very active and successful."

    I could maybe accept it if one goes with the sense of "successful" as in " having attained a desired end or state of good fortune" but I don't normally get that sense from "flourishing." To me, that definition is better attached to "well-being" "the state of doing well especially in relation to one's happiness or success"

    Well-being - Wikipedia
    en.wikipedia.org

    I also like "well-being" because it wordplays off of eudaimonia itself: eu "well" + daimon "a being/god/deity".

  • Pros and Cons Of Considering Epicurean Philosophy To Be A "Religion"

    Quote from Bryan
    Quote from Don

    To me the "flaming ramparts of the world" are exactly the outer shell of our cosmos/world-system described by other philosophers of the time. The outer shell - the outer wall/ramparts - are on fire. That's what makes the stars shine. 2:1144 also uses the "ramparts/walls of the world" moenia mundi

    Accepting, as we do, the significance that the "walls" can be little more than currents/pressure and, even if more substantial, can and will breakdown into the infinite space beyond them, I must agree that we have the typical high tolerance for various possibilities:

    (DL X 88) "A world is a circumscribed portion of sky, containing heavenly bodies and an earth and all the heavenly phenomena, whose dissolution will cause all within it to fall into confusion, it is a piece cut off from the infinite and ends in a boundary either rare or dense, either revolving or stationary: its outline may be spherical or three-cornered or any kind of shape" (Bailey)

    "A world is a circumscribed portion of the universe, which contains stars and earth and all other visible things, cut off from the infinite, and terminating [and terminating in a boundary which may be either thick or thin, a boundary whose dissolution will bring about the wreck of all within it] in an exterior which may either revolve or be at rest, and be round or triangular or of any other shape whatever. All these alternatives are possible : they are contradicted by none of the facts in this world, in which an extremity can nowhere be discerned. (Hicks)

    Thanks for the citations. So, Epicurus is talking here in 88 about a κόσμος (cosmos). I agree Epicurus is willing to entertain various shapes for the cosmos/cosmos/world-system/visible universe. But the important thing is that the cosmos is delimited portion of The All (the universe) with a definite boundary ofsome kind enclosing it. Epicurus used his imagination andreasoning and observation to "fly" beyond that boundary out into outer-cosmic space and share what he learned. So, by definition, IF the gods live in the space between cosmoi, they, by the definition of intermundia "between world-systems", they have no world to stand on nor stars to see. There's obviously some matter in that space between worlds but not enough to have a world, otherwise the gods would be *in a cosmos*.

    btw, I have no idea why I'm so fixated on this. I don't believe gods exist in this physical, metacosmic way... Basically because the universe isn't built like this... Like I said unless we go with the multiverse. Even then, we would have no way of accessing the intercosmic/multiverse spaces. That's why I continue to take the Sedley "idealist" position on the Epicurean gods as I understand it. I can at least reconcile that to both a classical and modern understanding.

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