which is the place I've heard a variation of that view before:
And is ultimately the primary source and confirming bias for Joshua Rothman's New Yorker article and why David Benatar is presented to the public. Once again, just like with physics, much of "modern morality" is just their religious ideas, but packaged to look modern and secular. (Something new was needed once the Christianity scam failed in certain sectors!)
For ὁ μακαρισμός, beyond the difficulty with the main stem " μακαρ" (discussed above), there really is another puzzle with the "ισ."
This is the same difference that changes "wise man" to "sophist," so it is a significant addition.
It is due to this addition of "ισ" that LSJ adds "pronouncing" to the definition of ὁ μακαρισμός, i.e., "pronouncing happy" which makes sense. It almost seems to mean "the hailing toward blessing" or "the pronouncement of blessedness."
I think it is all in the "toil" over a joy that is only "now and again."
If I enjoy playing an instrument, and it is "low toil" and "frequent joy," then I am not his target.
I enjoy playing my banjo (looking into getting a bouzouki) -- but really only at the very end of the day when I have given my greater mental energy to greater things. I do not learn songs, only improvise, every second that I play is the song.
It seems to me, the epicureans could take pleasure in the performance and not need to listen to critical analysis or music theory.
Yes, and not only not take part in music theory -- but also not learn to play an instrument.
P.Herc. 1578 fr. 20, Philodemus (Translated, I think, by D. Blank):
"It is typical of small-minded people with nothing worthwhile to which they can dedicate themselves, let alone which would make them happy, to toil over learning (to play music) in order to amuse themselves now and again, people who do not see the abundance of public performances or the possibility of partaking in them all the time around the city, if they want to do so, and who do not consider that our nature refuses (to listen to music) for too long and quickly tires of it."
Which version did you choose Charles? Which color and base?
Thanks @Eikadistes!
On a slightly related note, it seems that many authors were in the habit of using the plural.
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Heraclitus (fl. f. 50 CE), Allegories of Homer, 4
ὁ δὲ Φαίαξ φιλόσοφος Ἐπίκουρος "ὁτῆς ἡδονῆς ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις κήποις γεωργὸς"
Phaiāx calls the philosopher Epicurus "the cultivator of pleasure in his own gardens"
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Seneca (fl. 35 CE), Letters to Lucilius, 4.10
Accipe quod mihi hodiērnō diē placuit – et hoc quoque ex aliēnīs hortulīs sumptum est:
Receive what has pleased me on this very day – and this too has been taken from little foreign gardens
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Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 21.10
"ecquid bene acceptus es? nōn irritant" inquit "hī Hortulī famem, sed exstinguunt
"were you well received?" he says "these little gardens do not provoke hunger, but they quench it"
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Cicero, On the Laws, 1.13.39
in hortulis suis iubeamus dicere...
In their small gardens let us allow them to speak...
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There are more from Athenaeus and Plutarch.
I ordered another one of these, but they refunded the order and now seem to have shut down the whole shop.
Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero!
This was great all around! The quote from DeWitt on "Epicurus' innovation" is excellent -- as was your treatment of the sorites topic! Thank you.
I always have in mind this quote of Metrodorus (from Plutarch in Non Posse 1091 A):
"This very thing is the good: escaping the bad – because it is not possible for the good to be placed anywhere, when nothing painful or distressing is further withdrawing."
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Full physical contentment is consistently and naturally achieved through our body's internal processes when we have the necessary provisions of food and shelter.
Similarly, full mental contentment can be maintained by recognizing the ease with which physical contentment can be obtained and by cultivating gratitude for this success.
I added a bit of paint, but sticking to gold/bronze/silver turned him into a bit of a ghost, so I'll try again with more realistic colors.
To further support Joshua's argument that starts at 16:00, I wanted to share these two quotes:
Plutarch, Non Posse, 28, p. 1105D: "If then 'The memory of a friend that has died is pleasant from every standpoint' as Epicurus said, indeed already it is possible to understand how much they deprive themselves of joy: believing they [passively] receive and [actively] pursue appearances and films of dead companions – in which neither mind exists, nor sensation – while they are not expecting to be truly united again with them (and to see their beloved father, and beloved mother, and even their helpful wife)."
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 63.7 (apparently quoting Epicurus): "For me, the thought of departed friends is sweet and pleasant: for I had them as though I would lose them – and I have lost them as though I still have them."
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Brilliant juxtaposition about prudence at 37:00! That needed to happen and you did a great job!
I noticed that most of the other statues offered from the same shop have pupils. I have struggled to paint them on other busts, so I asked the shop if they could add pupils to this bust. They said they could and gave this from their program as a sample; so be aware of this option. We'll see how it turns out.
I feel as though a lot of modern psychology, with its focus on problems, makes this error.
Do you have an unpleasant feeling? They will give it a specific name, and focus on its source and ramifications!
Once your own personalized list of problems are labeled -- you can look after those problems more specifically and more effectively make them grow stronger!
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All that is needed is to throw away the TV, and sleep and exercise a lot. Things grow with focus. Focus on the good!
Brilliant! Thank you for sharing! I search etsy occasionally for new busts -- but this one got past me until now.
the philosophers who bear the name of Anniceris
I never think of the Annicerian school!
The Suda says Anniceris was an Epicurean, which is a bit confusing. Link Here
"A Cyrenean, a philosopher, who became an Epicurean despite being an acquaintance of Paraebatus, the student of Aristippus. Anniceris also had a brother by the name of Nicoteles, [sc. also] a philosopher, and his student [was the] famous Posidonius. The sect called Annicerean [sc. originates] from him. He lived at the time of Alexander [sc. the Great]."
Diogenes Laertius says this (2.96):
"The school of Anniceris in other respects agreed with them [sc. The school of Hegesias], but admitted that friendship and gratitude and respect for parents do exist in real life, and that a good man will sometimes act out of patriotic motives. Hence, if the wise man receive annoyance, he will be none the less happy even if few pleasures accrue to him.
The happiness of a friend is not in itself desirable, for it is not felt by his neighbour. Instruction is not sufficient in itself to inspire us with confidence and to make us rise superior to the opinion of the multitude. Habits must be formed because of the bad disposition which has grown up in us from the first.
A friend should be cherished not merely for his utility – for, if that fails, we should then no longer associate with him – but for the good feeling for the sake of which we shall even endure hardships. Nay, though we make pleasure the end and are annoyed when deprived of it, we shall nevertheless cheerfully endure this because of our love to our friend."
The Loeb version of De Officiis says this about Epicurus -- about as accurate as AI.
"The Size Of The Sun Is As It Appears To Be!"
I wanted to share this section of Sextus Empiricus (fl.c. 200 CE), Against the Professions 7 (Against the Logicians/Dogmatists 1) 207-9, where he is arguing from the Epicurean perspective:
"Let us make the reasoning based on visible things in this way: the hard object is not seen as a whole, but only the color of the hard object. Of the color, one part is on the hard object itself (just as in things seen from nearby and from a moderate separation) – the other part is outside the hard object and underlying in the adjacent locations (just as with things envisioned from a distant separation). But this, being completely changed in the intervening space and taking on a particular shape, delivers such an appearance as the kind of thing which it also underlies in truth.
In just the same way, therefore, neither is the sound thoroughly heard in a bronze instrument that is being struck, nor the sound in the mouth of the man who shouted ¬ but rather the sound that is falling upon our sensation.
And in the same way that no one says a person hearing a sound from a small distance hears falsely just because after he has come nearby he instead receives it as louder: in this way I would not say that vision is deceived because from a far separation it sees the tower as small and round, but from nearby as larger and tetragonal.
Vision truly reports. Even when the sensible object is apparent to vision as small and of a certain shape: it really is small and of a certain shape – due to the transmission through the air, as the edges of the films are being broken off.
And when it appears again large and differently shaped, it is again similarly large and differently shaped – since by now both appearances are not established as the same thing. This is what remains of distorted judgment: to suspect that the appearance envisioned from nearby and from far off was the same."
It's πλειονος.
Although I think that would require adding τοῦ before καλοῦ, giving μετὰ [τοῦ] καλοῦ πλείονος, but even then we would expect μετὰ πλείονος [τοῦ] καλοῦ -- all of which is more of a change than from πλειονος to παιωνος.
In further support of this, we do have "τοῦ καλοῦ πλείονος" used here (which is an Usener Edition). I have not been able to find both adjectives put together (but only καλός being made substantive by adding an article).
"to which of the implied subject(s)/object(s) do the articles/pronouns refer?"
I am not seeing a reference to fears. I am seeing "...but whenever what must happen (τὸ χρεών) leads us out: having greatly spat on life and on those who cling to it in vain, we go out of life..."
(Although, of course, τὸ ζῆν is more "living" than "life")
spitting on good (or is it beauty?)
We do have Johannes Stobaeus (fl. f. 450 CE) in his Anthology: volume 3, chapter 17, section 24 quoting Epicurus: "I teem with what is pleasant for this little body – using only water and bread – and I spit on the pleasures from extravagances: not because of them, but because of what is difficult that follows from them"
[Ἐπικούρου] "Βρυάζω τῷ κατὰ τὸ σωμάτιον ἡδεῖ – ὕδατι καὶ ἄρτῳ χρώμενος – καὶ Προσπτύω ταῖς ἐκ πολυτελείας ἡδοναῖς: οὐ δἰ αὐτάς, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὰ ἐξακολουθοῦντα αὐταῖς δυσχερῆ"
