Posts by Eikadistes

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  • PD05 - Best Translation of PD05 To Feature At EpicureanFriends.com

    Quote from Don

    This is the one I'm having problems processing. To me, Epicurean justice has to do with fairness, not harming others, but making sure to take measures where others don't willfully harm you. We treat others properly.. but that's already being used. Politely doesn't seem strong enough. Maybe peaceably instead of peacefully? I'm going to have to ponder this one before I'm all in.

    This is a great observation. I think I might be making a semantic mistake if "peacefully" implies pure pacifism, because part of the agreement to not harm also includes a prevention against "being harmed", and that might imply force. I think I'll take your suggestion of "peaceably" because it lessens the risk of being interpreted as pacifism.

  • PD05 - Best Translation of PD05 To Feature At EpicureanFriends.com

    Quote from Don
    Quote from Nate

    I understand the sentiment but not sure I fully concur with the translation.... Unless you're going for a functional/dynamic translation rather than a formal/literal.

    In general, my intention is more (as you describe elsewhere) a functional/dynamic interpretation. My attitude is, if someone wants a 1:1 transliteration ... just learn ancient Greek. καλως is only truly accurate as καλως.

  • PD05 - Best Translation of PD05 To Feature At EpicureanFriends.com

    You'e got it. Among others, this doctrine is BEGGING for consonance.

    I take φρονιμως as "practically", though "prudently" would be equally if not more appropriate

    I sort of dislike the idea of καλως because I just haven't been able to digest the idea well. What is "beautiful" that is not also "prudent"? What is "beautiful" which is not also "just"? Surely we are not talking about "physical arousal at the human form", but rather some sort of "appropriate manner in which a lifestyle is lived", so "properly" is what I take. Still, I don't quite like "properly" because it's sounds sort of ... eh ... it's the best word that I've found to translate καλως. Even given my self-imposed "P"-consonance, I think "properly" (so far) best expresses the idea of "living excellently".

    I want to break "justice" as δικαιως down into a familiar idea. Some read "justice" and think "The Second Coming" and "Sinners in Hell". Some read "justice" as "The Thin Blue Line". Neither is appropriate. So, I want to employ a more familiar word that expresses Epicurean Justice, which, fundamentally, is a peaceful agreement between people.

  • What if Kyriai Doxai was NOT a list?

    Quote from Don
    Quote from Joshua

    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.

  • PD03 - Best Translation of PD3 To Feature At EpicureanFriends?

    Quote from Godfrey

    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

  • PD03 - Best Translation of PD3 To Feature At EpicureanFriends?

    Quote from Cassius
    Quote from Godfrey

    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.

  • PD02 - Best Translation To Feature At EpicureanFriends?

    Quote from Don
    Quote from Don

    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).

  • PD03 - Best Translation of PD3 To Feature At EpicureanFriends?

    Quote from Don

    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.

  • More correct to say "Natural Science" rather than "Physics"?

    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).

  • PD02 - Best Translation To Feature At EpicureanFriends?

    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."

  • PD02 - Best Translation To Feature At EpicureanFriends?

    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.

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