“It is not possible to live pleasantly without [living] practically and properly and peacefully, <nor practically and properly and peacefully> without [living] pleasantly; but one who does not take this sort of initiative to live practically, and properly and peacefully, cannot live pleasantly.”
That is my take on it after some digestion and deconstruction.
I wouldn't dispense with the list altogether, it's too historically ingrained. But a prose version in parallel is definitely worthwhile.
I actually like Cassius 's idea of using superscript "verse" numbers in a prose format. "Chapters " could be topics.
So, we'd have Principle Doctrines 3:2 for example
(I) RESPONSE
[1] Once (down the road) I feel satisfied with my translations, [2] I'd like to put them in a form that we might find in the Bible, [3] like Cassius said in another post that I cannot find at the moment. [4] I documented it here, to demonstrate.
Wouldn't the summit be the summit of pleasure/removal of pain and the bottom the "summit" of pain? At least that's how I read it from Eikadistes 's translation above.
Maybe the bottom could relate to katastematic pleasure.... But that might invite going down another rabbit hole, as it were.
Epicurus explicitly refers to the "greatest extent of pain" as a "mountain peak" in KD4, so I'm deferring to him
And a mountain could be a metaphorical boundary marker, too.
That's a great point: that imagery might even convey the idea of a summit, which might be interesting if we consider the bottom of the mountain to be the summit of pleasure and the top of the mountain to be the peak of pain.
I'll keep that in mind and keep an eye out for "summit" or "some extent of a mountain" elsewhere.
Which brings up the question: which is the best word choice, "quantity" or "magnitude"?
You guys are the experts on the Greek but this is one instance where I am more drawn to Bailey's version.
To my ear "quantity of pleasure" emphasizes a particular dimension, which invites the listener to thing that there is more going on here to consider. The more general "magnitude" variations more clearly invite the connotation of "best" or "height of pleasure." My reading of the issues is that Epicurus has something to say about both perspectives, just as he distinguishes between the "most" pleasure and the "best" pleasure in the letter to Menoeceus where the banqueter chooses not the largest quantity of food, but the most pleasant.
It may very well be that Epicurus was intending to address both perspectives, or maybe only one, so I it will be interesting to see what you guys think as to the Greek. Perhaps quantity is exactly a bad choice because it is not in the text, or maybe it is a great choice because it is. All I know is that Bailey's "quantity" invites the discussion we are having now, which is important to have. A simple "the height of pleasure" or something to that effect would be more easy to interpret as "best" which to a new reader might be misleading.
I picked "the peak" for Ὅρος τοῦ μεγέθους because ὅρος ("limit", "rule", "standard") is nearly-identical to the ancient Greek word ὄρος meaning "mountain", and Epicurus' employment of ὅρος would have invoked the image of a mountain, therein having created a comparison between the notion of "the greatest limit" with a mountain.
Additionally, in KD4, just one sentence later, Epicurus uses the word ἄκρον which literally means "mountain peak" to refer to the "peak" of severe pain, so I have additional reason to believe that Ὅρος τοῦ μεγέθους, which literally means "the greatest limit" is actually a connotation to the ἄκρον or "mountain peak" mentioned immediately thereafter.
TΟ ΔΙAΛΥΘEΝ that which is disintegrated, unwound, and scattered (Note: the definite article)
TΟ AΝAΙΣΘΗTΟΥΝ that which lacks perception
I want to point out that I prefer "that" here rather than "one who" or any similar words. Once one dies, the body is an "it" since it is officially an inanimate object.
I also think "that" is to be preferred because I am reading the disintegrated body as having been a soul, but not necessarily the human form, which is still intact many weeks after the disintegration of the fragile, material soul.
I picture an atomic body that has been reduced to its constituent atoms, so, for me, words like "disintegrate" or "scattered" are robust descriptions of a dying soul that disperses from the body like a fart dissipating into the air, but when I imagine an entire human form, one of the first things that come to mind is a skeleton that can be perfectly preserved in a geometrically complete form for hundreds of millions of years, the same being true of teeth, and, if anthropologists and archaeologists get lucky, very, very tight, very dry skin. We also observe cultures (I believe I am thinking of a group in Indonesia) who mummify their relatives and un-earths them for yearly celebrations. "Disintegrating" or "Scattering" are definitely correct translations (I like disintegrate, myself), particularly because of their implication of a breakdown of a compound into uncuttables, but, in my mind, at least, a sizable % of the mass of a body not only does not disintegrate, but it maintains its recognizable form for, potentially, hundreds of millions of years.
Additionally, since the death that Epicurus observes is a description of an animal that perishes (including non-human animal)s, and since we rarely use the word "who" when identifying individual, non-human animals, employing "that" provides a biological consistency (especially if there are struggling humanoids on other planets).
My older attempt at a formal equivalence translation:
"The limit of the magnitude of pleasure (is) the whole of the removal of that which causes pain. Where that which gives pleasure exists, during the time it is present, there is neither pain nor that which causes pain in body or mind nor either of these together."
Do we think that the exclusion of the to be infinitive is evident of Epicurus' style? Or was it an ancient Greek convention to omit verbs that are otherwise implied? This is my first time really deconstructing an ancient Greek-text word-by-word, and cross-reference the tenses and declensions and parts of speech, so I am curious this is Epicurus' (occasional) style.
I notice that we both made the same observation for this Doxa.
Oh, boy, Don it's that time!
Cassius, Don and I have a bit of a project going to translate the KD and then ultimately include them in the KD Compilation, so I intend on sharing my attempts in these threads:
“The peak of pleasure [is] the excision of all pain; and wherever pleasure is, for the time that it is, there is neither discomfort, nor distress, nor both.”
am of the opinion that translations should, if at all possible, reflect the original texts' wordplay, eg, playing off the original here in PD17's:
δίκαιος vs ἄδικος
ἀταρακτότατος vs ταραχῆς
I agree. As far as KD17 goes, it should be "the greatest troubles."
Well, while we're at it and I'm sculpting my own translator-voice:
“The just [are] serene, but the unjust are full of shit.”
Technically, we as Epicureans might use "Physiology" as the jargon to refer to "the study of the regular generative and destructive activities of particles throughout the void" (as opposed to the academic definition of "Physiology" as "anatomy"). Epicurus' notion of physiologias, the "study of nature" seems to connote something closer to "Biology" and "Chemistry" than to "Particle Physics", which I think they saw as an expression of Canonics or Ontology.
As White translates in Book X of The Lives of Eminent Philosophers: "It is their [Epicurean] custom, however, to rank canonic[s] [κανονικὸν] along with physics [φυσικῷ]; they call it ‘on standards and principles’ and ‘fundamentals’ [στοιχειωτικόν]. Physics [φυσικὸν] they call ‘on generation and perishing’ and ‘on nature’; and ethics [ἠθικὸν] they call ‘on what to choose or avoid’ and ‘on ways of life and the end [τέλους].’ Dialectic [logic] they reject as a distaction, since they think it sufficient for those studying physics to proceed according to the expressions for things” (30).
Display MoreOh, 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.
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."
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)"?
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.
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.
These are awesome Nate - thank you! What program are you using? I have not worked with AI images at all. Is Metrodorus in the mix or did I miss him? Thanks again!
I have been playing with a text prompt on the Deep Dream Generator. I have not made a Metrodorus yet:
<https://deepdreamgenerator.comhttps://http://deepdreamgenerator.com/generator>
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.”
And a few others:
Joshua these are really great. For a long time now I have had this idea to create prayer candles with Epicurean figures on them, expressed using symbolic imagery as has been common in the visual arts throughout the ages.
I'm thinking of making a parallel between Catholic Saints and appropriate Epicurean figures that fulfill the same sort of social, historical, or spiritual role that Christian personalities do throughout Christian history.
The following are AI-generated, which I do not consider to be my intellectual property at this point as far as art goes, so I am just sharing these to share a sort of template, or ideal that I'd like to try to fulfill in doing so:
I'm late to the game here but I'm crafting a response to some of this... Just haven't had a chance to get it finished.
It's possible we should wrap this one up for now and move to discuss PD02. Comments?
LOL!
"wrap this up" Oh, Cassius is so optimistic. Maybe with the addition of "... For now"
Let's do it! I'm ready with a new line:
"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.”
