Posts by Don

My translation and interpretation are my own, informed by all the scholarly materials referenced above as well as Bailey's commentary on this Principal Doctrine in his Extant Remains.

I want to first look at several individual words.

ἀσφαλείας

"assurance from danger, personal safety"

ἀσφαλείας is about personal, individual safety from danger, one's own personal safety from harm. It's not an abstract concept of "Safety" or "Security" writ large. It asks, "How do I keep myself free from harm?"

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἀσφάλ-εια

ἐξερειστικῇ & δυνάμει

Epicurus Wikis "the ability to repel" through one's own power/strength δυνάμει (dynamei, compare English dynamo, dynamite) is good.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, δύνα^μις

ἐκχωρήσεως τῶν πολλῶν

Epicurus Wiki has just "of withdrawal from the many." τῶν πολλῶν is simply the genitive plural of hoi polloi, the many, the rabble, colloquially the mass of average people out on the street. This is the exact phrase Epicurus uses to describe those who hold erroneous views about the gods in the Letter to Menoikeus.

ἐκχωρήσεως I found interesting after digging in. LSJ gives "retirement, withdrawal from" and even cites PD 14. But I tried to break it down further. ἐκ is the prefix for "out of, away from, etc." So if we take that off, we get χωρήσεως, which has to be a form of χωρέω "go, make way, make room, withdraw, etc." This verb is related to χώρα and χώρος (χῶρος (khôros, “place”) +‎ -έω (-éō)) that mean, as one of their senses, "land, country as opposed to the city; field, farm, estate."

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=xw%3dros1

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Χ χ, , χωλός , χώρα

This would relate right back to the characteristic of the sage in that they are fond of the country as opposed to the city. That uses a different word for "country'' but the connotation is exactly the same. In deference to Cassius, it's not a cave! It doesn't convey the mountains or wastelands. I'm seeing this more as connoting a country villa or retreat, maybe think Villa of the Papyri outside Herculaneum or The Garden. I would also note that the original Garden was not some remote location. It was just outside the city walls directly along the road to the Academy.

ἡσυχίας From Strong's: "descriptive of the life of one who stays at home doing his own work, and does not officiously meddle with the affairs of others," 2 Thessalonians 3:12 Thessalonians wasn't written until the mid-late 1st century CE, but the connotation would be there earlier, just maybe less emphatic. The LSJ has stillness, ease, leisure, rest, quiet.

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, ἡσυ^χ-ία

I could see this as also referring to our being a synonym for ataraxia.

[NOTE: Aristophanes personifies Hesykhias Ησυχίας in line 1321 of The Birds, glossed here as "gentle peace." http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/h…19,006:1321&lang=original ]

εἰλικρινεστάτη superlative, "most unmixed, purest"

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

This aligns with the characteristics I included in my translation of the characteristics of the sage under the heading Living Unknown https://sites.google.com/view/…living-unknown?authuser=0

In my opinion then, Bailey and Saint-Andre get closest to a literal translation adhering to the original Greek. I will say it can't be solitude PD14 is talking about since Epicurus stressed the importance of friendship. There's going to be people around you. But this PD seems to stress the quiet life, not being troubled by the hustle and bustle of the hoi polloi.

I was just about to post that too

Here's the link:

http://wiki.epicurism.info/Principal_Doctrine_14/

I think the commentary there is very good as well per their translation.*

The Greek above in #2 agrees with Bailey/Usener so I'm good with that.

*PS: I'll have something to say about some of their interpretation however.

In all honesty, my go-to resource is the Perseus Digital Library http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

Quote from camotero

How come it hadn't come up as one of the top recommendations?

I think one of the issues is that it's an anthology and all the texts are available elsewhere.

Quote from Cassius

. I always prefer the originals when possible.

That's why I liked the Internet Archive and HathiTrust so much. They have the originals

Quote from Cassius

The Epicurus reader is well respected

Agreed.

I'd be wary of Yonge and Hicks too, but all of them are going to have their idiosyncrasies per our conversation above. You can't rely on one translation, which is what makes the plethora of online editions so beneficial.

In listening to the podcast, I was reminded - in reference to the section on the gods and lightening - this seems to be an argument against the beliefs in the gods as held by the hoi polloi - the many - as mentioned in the Letter to Menoikeus. There, Epicurus writes about the gods - being good - bestow good things to good people and vice versa. This section in Lucretius is a direct attack on that view. And I really liked the fact that hoi polloi *is* what they're called: οι πολλοί. So that phrase was directly adopted into English.

Quote from Cassius

That might be better but I doubt it will suit us as a final position. This is something that is going to take some long thought and discussion probably.

As my high school English teacher told me:

"You can't revise something until you have something to revise." Consider this the VERY rough first draft.

Here's the moon video!

Mea culpa! I forgot about this post of mine from awhile ago: RE: Did Epicurus Advise Marriage or Not? Diogenes Laertius Text Difficulty

Seems I spoke too hastily. It's the difference between those letters that's the controversy. So, yes, I fully agree that needs footnoted or something in any translation.

Well, the original does say:

Original text: Καὶ μηδὲ καὶ γαμήσειν καὶ τεκνοποιήσειν τὸν σοφόν....

Here marriage is specifically mentioned: γαμήσειν "to be married" and τεκνοποιήσειν "to bear children" and μηδὲ is negation so..

And neither marry nor bear children..

But the following phrases seem to say that "under certain circumstances" the wise one will turn aside (from this course) and marry.

Good comparison side by side. I agree with the importance of μεγέθους there.

Quote from Cassius

I think if I were buying one I might go with Loeb too, for the benefit of the side-by-side Greek text.

As for the Bailey edition, that would be Bailey's "Extant Remains" which would be good to have if you can find a used copy, and would have a lot more material on it about Epicurus.

Agreed on Loeb.

The question also depends on whether one just wants Book X - in which case Bailey would need fine - or of you want the entire Lives to see all of Epicurus's mentions plus all the other philosophers.

To purchase, I'd mention Loeb Classics edition or Mensch.

PS You can get an idea of Hicks, Yonge, and Mensch from my website https://sites.google.com/view/epicureansage

Here is Brian Cox doing the dropping things in a vacuum experiment, bowling ball and feather:

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Don

I'm not sure I have a better one than "feeling" but I'm searching.

As important as this "of the ____________ there are two" is, it's probably worth putting some real effort into finding a way to convey this more clearly, or at least a way to explain why whatever term is used should not carry all the connotations that we place on it in modern English.

What about something like "Epicurus taught that we can only react to things in two ways: with pleasure or with pain. There is no neutral reaction. Some pleasure and pain will be intense, some not so much. But there is no such thing as a neutral reaction to that which happens to us. We use those feelings of pleasure and pain to determine what path to follow in our choices and what actions to avoid or flee from."

That is all just off the top on my head btw... Not attached to any of it.

Quote from Cassius

What do you see as the preferred translation of "pathe"?

Passion? Or what?

LOL. You have a couple hours?

The problem is that the literal meaning, and one that some translators grapple with, is "that which happens to someone" (as opposed to that which someone does, an activity).

It's related to the verb πάσχω http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/h…1999.04.0057:entry=pa/sxw

so if you read that definition, you'll get an idea of the connotations and complications behind that word.

Feeling isn't a bad translation. But you get that ambiguous English connotation. I know I've advocated for "reaction" before. I'd avoid passion since it gets tied up with sex and love. I'm not sure I have a better one than "feeling" but I'm searching.

Quote from Cassius

but we have a communication mismatch to deal with between English "feeling" of which there are many, and Greek "Pathe" of which there are only two.

Well, the famous declaration about the "pathē are two, pleasure and pain" is clear; however, of I remember correctly, Epicurus and Philodemus use pathē and its derivatives in their extant writings to refer to things other than pleasure and pain. So, I think "The Declaration of The Two" (yes, I just coined that ) is extremely important, there's more going on with the word pathē. It could very well be as problematic as the word feelings in English.

My bad! I clicked Related articles, not Cited for Nikolsky. Here's the correct link:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=6253070204066435775&as_sdt=5,36&sciodt=0,36&hl=en

Quote from Godfrey

I'm not sure about that though; the circumplex and kinetic/katastematic are two completely different models and it's probably a stretch to equate them too closely.

See, that's where I'm not so sure anymore. We've been so conditioned to read that as "moving"/"static" and I'm not sure that is the way Epicurus intended. It seems to me that he did use the words, but Nikolsky makes a good case that they're not hard and fast categories or divisions. Especially katastematic as "static", I'm needing to delve deeper into the original texts where that and its derivations are used. I'm beginning to think that's a mischaracterisation. I should also do a search for what papers cite Nikolsky to see if we can expand on his ideas with other (of any) authors.***

Quote from Godfrey

Understanding the interaction of degrees of pleasure and arousal is useful in finding guidance from your feelings. As LFB explains, our feelings are often influenced by things we don't expect. The more we understand and notice about our feelings, including whether or not we have a neutral state, the better we can use them for guidance.

Quote from Godfrey

Getting back to the original post in this thread, I believe the Dopamine Nation author stated that there is a neutral state of dopamine (arousal, production, reaction?). I may be way off base, but I think that this corresponds to one axis in the circumplex model.

Agreed. Even in listening to the podcast, it struck me that she wasn't really describing a "neutral" state as much as a state of balance. To muddy the waters even more, mayhaps a state of eudaimonia? Neutral to me has connotations of numb. Balance has a connotation of pleasure.

***PS: I don't know why I didn't do this before posting Here are the papers that cite Nikolsky per Google Scholar. Looks like some interesting ones at first glance:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:v5L1bDhex1YJ:scholar.google.com/&scioq=Nikolsky+on+pleasure&hl=en&as_sdt=0,36

****This one was interesting:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://wiki.gonzaga.edu/alfino/images/e/e8/Splawn_UpdatingEpicurus.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjdxcm25NXyAhWLAZ0JHck3B-QQFnoECB4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw3HpCa_CMvrYxD5iUtdxDpz