Best Translaton Of PDO2 To Feature At EpicureanFriends?

I really think that "Death" to modern English-speakers needs to be replaced with "Afterlife".

This is how I read it:

"The afterlife in no way exists for us; for, the sense faculties disintegrate;
but the afterlife that is insensible in no way exists for us.”

Oh, I wouldn't introduce "afterlife."

Death is the way to translate that. If you want "the state of 'being' dead" but we have no "being" after we die .

Death IS literally nothing for us.

We do not exist.

We are not.

There is nothing for us.

Don I agree with you fully but then I also question myself. Rendering ὁ θaνατοc as anything other than "death" does seem to be a stretch - but death does exit. The afterlife does not. It may be worth bending the English a bit?

Same problem in Latin:

nīl igitur Mors est ad nos neque pertinet hīlum

in no way does Death exist to us and does not concern at all

Lucretius · De Rerum Natura III 830

But death does exit. So it cannot be correct to translate Lucretius in such a way. It is the afterlife, I would think, that is the topic. The afterlife does not exit.

Dying exists as something we can experience.

We cannot experience death... Or Death, if you will.

We can't "be" dead. Only in the sense that "Epicurus *is* dead."

No one who has died has experienced or is experiencing or will experience "death."

Death is a convenient shorthand for something that we can talk about.

On a more prosaic note: is "dissolved" the most accurate English word? It's in most of the translations, but I keep associating it with dissolving something in water. Resolved into its elements, dispersed, dispersed into elements, broken down into atoms seem to work. Especially "dispersed into elements".

Quote from Godfrey

On a more prosaic note: is "dissolved" the most accurate English word? It's in most of the translations, but I keep associating it with dissolving something in water. Resolved into its elements, dispersed, dispersed into elements, broken down into atoms seem to work. Especially "dispersed into elements".

I like "disintegrated" personally.

Quote from Cassius

And yet our bodies and our bones exist for a while, and our atoms never go away.

I strongly disagree with this statement. It's not our bodies, our bones nor our atoms. 'Our' ceases to exist the moment we die. Our death is nothing to us because we can't experience it.

When you say:

Quote from Cassius

We can see "dead bodies" in front of us for quite a while. The body that was a few minutes ago animated and alive is still mostly there, it's the consciousness that is gone.

you're talking about death of somebody/something else. We can experience death this way because we're not dead ourselves. PD02 is clearly about OUR death not the concept of death in general. Maybe it would be a good idea to leave a footnote for PD02 making it clear that it's about OUR death.

Quote from Don

Oh, I wouldn't introduce "afterlife."

Death is the way to translate that. If you want "the state of 'being' dead" but we have no "being" after we die .

Death IS literally nothing for us.

We do not exist.

We are not.

There is nothing for us.

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I'm 100% percent with Don on this one.

While "death" is appropriate for translation, to modern English ears, it is painfully insensitive and inadequate.

I signed a living will two months ago as my wife lay dying in a hospital. I have to go with the Existentialists on this one. Death is not only the most important thing in life, it is the only thing by which we derive meaning, because, regardless of the possibility of our own cessation, death is constantly happening around us, and it is constantly heart-wrenching. The notion that death is nothing only works if we omit the definition of Death that includes us experiencing tragedy.

Bigger question:

Does Epicurus distinguish in writing between "My Death (which does not exist)" versus "Your Death (which is suicidally heart-wrenching and so impactful it literally changes every value you have and your entire sense of identity)"?

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Godfrey

On a more prosaic note: is "dissolved" the most accurate English word? It's in most of the translations, but I keep associating it with dissolving something in water. Resolved into its elements, dispersed, dispersed into elements, broken down into atoms seem to work. Especially "dispersed into elements".

I think I will second Godfrey's comment here. It might be best choice, but it does seem to introduce a detail (implication of water) that really is not a part of the thought being expressed. DeWitt's "dissolution" might even be a little better.

"to loose one from another, to part asunder, undo, dissolve"

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

Quote

On a more prosaic note: is "dissolved" the most accurate English word? It's in most of the translations, but I keep associating it with dissolving something in water. Resolved into its elements, dispersed, dispersed into elements, broken down into atoms seem to work. Especially "dispersed into elements".

"Who ever saw his old clothes--his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who could do with less?" -Thoreau, Walden

I agree dissolve doesn't have the same power as disintegrated or dispersed. Disperse conveys to me the dispersal of seeds... Which is a word Lucretius uses for atoms.

Edit:

Other options from LSJ

Break up

Destroy

Part asunder

Untwining (that's a word!)

Quote from Don

Oh, I wouldn't introduce "afterlife."

Death is the way to translate that. If you want "the state of 'being' dead" but we have no "being" after we die .

Death IS literally nothing for us.

We do not exist.

We are not.

There is nothing for us.

Display More

My concern is that "death" could mean (to English ears) either (1) the "state of not being alive", (2) the process of dying, or (3) the existential condition of dealing with someone having died. For sure, (1) is what Epicurus was talking about, because we will most definitely experience (2) the process of dying, and (3) managing grief. So, we run a risk in employing the word "death" of someone mistaking the subject of our proposition to be either (2) illness or (3) grief.

But, at that, it seems redundant to express that "the state of not existing does not exist for us." Rather, it seems crucial to say (especially when this point about death follows a proposition regarding the nature of a divine being): "the descriptions of 'the experience of Death' imagined by our philosophical opponents is incoherent." In modern terms, I am imagining that "Hell is not a real place and it is an absolute waste of time trying to avoid getting an assigned seat in it."

Ο ΘAΝATΟΣ ΟΥΔEΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΗΜAΣ·

TΟ ΓAΡ ΔΙAΛΥΘEΝ AΝAΙΣΘΗTEΙ TΟ Δ' AΝAΙΣΘΗTΟΥΝ ΟΥΔEΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΗΜAΣ.

A strictly very literal translation would be something like:

Death (is) nothing to us,

Because "that which is disintegrated, unwound, and scattered" lacks perception, and that which lacks perception is nothing to us.

TΟ ΔΙAΛΥΘEΝ that which is disintegrated, unwound, and scattered (Note: the definite article)

TΟ AΝAΙΣΘΗTΟΥΝ that which lacks perception

Note that the preposition ΠΡΟΣ used with the accusative case broadly expresses motion or direction towards an object. Here is can be thought of answering what impact does Death have in relation to us: Nothing! Death cannot have any impact or we cannot have any regard for Death after we die. We do not exist. If something cannot perceive or sense the world, it is not alive... it does not exist. To speak of something that does not exist is the same as speaking of nothing.