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(Quote from Godfrey)

"Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with…

If there's a way to summarize how you think they erred on Aristotle that would be interesting too.

Too kind as usual, Pacatus !

Thank you.

During the extensive research I've performed in preparation for writing a book about Aristotle's conception of human flourishing, I skimmed Gosling & Taylor's book. I did not agree at all with their interpretation of Aristotle, which makes me skeptical…

"No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural, which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to…

Having definitive proof of extraterrestrial life would change our perspective on how we see the Universe and our place in it. Waking up one day from dead universe into alive universe would be yet another nail in the coffin of religions which build their…

"Garçon" is nonsense taught in obsolete French lessons.
Decades ago, this word was already considered as impolite to call a waiter in France.

For me, Epicureanism is about: trying to be free from superstitions, looking for and enjoying satisfaction, recognizing everyday joys as well as identifying the sources of memorable pleasures. It's also to see life as a chance of living as pleasantly as…

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa


Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we

pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.

…

Hi, Kalosyni .
In the case of Epicureanism I think that the goal can be reached with the help of these resources:
* Reflection on epicurean arguments (reading and remembering epicurean letters, for example). Especially, the fact that pleasure is the…

What is the appropriate way to call a waiter in a restaurant?

The french say: "garçon" that means literally "boy" and this has a bad meaning if we read the etymology of the word:

Garcon (n.) c. 1300, "a boy, a youth" (early 13c. as a surname), from Old…

When All Our Words Have Been Turned

When all our words have been turned and turned
like flowers tossed in a stormy breeze
till wind-burnt and bruised, bereft
of the brightness we once beheld in them
when first we set them out in the sun –

I am drawn to…

(Quote from Don)

“All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there.” (A Space Odyssey, 2010: The Year We Make Contact)

I'm pinning my hopes on the Europa mission
https://europa.nasa.gov/

While Don and Elli are posting substantive material on translating Greek, I am posting UFO stories or debunkings of them.

I gather we are entering a season that for some reason possibly unrelated to the actual evidence the topic of UFOs is becoming more…

The translation of the text in the photo that is circulated on the internet is as follows:

Philodemus "on wealth":
You write, Xenophon, that the slave's procreation is a sign of loyalty to his master. Are there no other reasons for procreation?
Is the…

From Aristotle on his treatise "for animals": "Of molluscs the sepia is the most πανουργιότατον (that means the most: clever, invetive, ingenious, and resourseful) only species that employs its dark liquid for the sake of concealment".

The words as…

You are too kind, Elli. This discussion continues to be both pleasurable and enlightening for me as well.

ES 54. We must not pretend to study philosophy, but study it in reality, for it is not the appearance of health that we need, but real health.


ES 74. In a philosophical discussion he/she who is defeated gains more, since he/she learns more.

With…

yep - allegations that are maybe from more credible sources than usual, but still just allegations.

This is only about classified operations and the political struggle around partial disclosures. No evidence regarding alien systems and materials is provided. So, no, it is like the usual story but without any evidence.

That clears that up! Thank you, I was trying to work out how he could have managed that.

Joshua, I'm pretty sure Ada Palmer told me that as she worked on her own book, she and Greenblatt looked at each other's books.

Speaking of manuscripts, I watched this video on the digitization of the Venetus A manuscript of the Iliad and found it really fascinating. It's amazing how many different specialists it takes to undergo this kind of project.

That being said, please do report back with your impressions!

I might be thinking of a video where Greenblatt cites Ada Palmer and not his book, but either way he holds her work in high regard.

I have that book. It's a history and document analysis of the surviving manuscripts, and goes into detail studying scholia and marginalia with a view to understanding how Renaissance readers like Montaigne were receiving the poem as they read it.

It's a…

That actually sounds like a more interesting book than Greenblatt's, since he spent a lot of time on what I would call church history and this one sounds more like mostly philosophy.

Now that our book review is complete let me thank all who participated, and especially Emily Austin who joined in our final session. We'll plan a new program soon and we'll rotate back to "Living for Pleasure" in the future.

One comment I wanted to make…

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/…ection=24&highlight=rotam

in eo etiam putatur dicere in rotam— id est genus quoddam tormenti apud Graecos6—beatam vitam non escendere.7 non usquam8 id quidem dicit omnino, sed quae dicit, idem valent.

6 id est ... Graecos…

"Ixion was expelled from Olympus and blasted with a thunderbolt. Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion was bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the…

The Loeb translation has a footnote referencing a Greek phrase: στρεβλοῦσθαι ἐπὶ τροχοῦ
to stretch on the wheel or rack, to rack, torture

The oldest references to the wheel as an execution tool go back to late antiquity in Germany.
I found no mentioning of execution or torture with the wheel by ancient Romans and Greeks.
Therefore, Theophrastus most likely means something else with scaffold…

I seem to recall that the Wenham article in the Filebase is helpful on this subject as well.

I will add that I liked the take on katastematic and kinetic pleasures in The faith of Epicurus by Benjamin Farrington.
https://archive.org/details/faithofepicurus0000farr

You're welcome. Nikolsky himself credits Gosling and Taylor in their "Greeks on Pleasure" for his inspiration, and I see that Emily Austin in "Living for Pleasure" footnotes that she sides with Gosling and Taylor as well. So other than DeWitt, who…

Cassius Thanks for the pointer to the paper by Boris Nikolsky - that's new to me and I'll read it soon.

The specific activities Epicurus calls out in the letter as saying he doesn't mean these when "we say" pleasure are:
(i) endless strings of drinking parties and festivals
(ii) απολαυσεις of slaves/boys and women
(iii) extravagant tables of fish and other…

(Quote from Don)

Well, please replace the word "benefit" with the word "self-interest" and you will conclude what is going in such kind of relationships, and what Epicurus had in mind, as this issue is timeless (see my epilogue as a conclusion).
IF there…

Thanks for those excerpts Joshua. Both are great, and I bet can tease more meaning out of Horace if we eventually figure out exactly the context in which Horace was making his point.

I probably will have to apologize for a second week for my conduct on…

Regarding the difficult quote from Theophrastus that "The happy man cannot mount the scaffold to the wheel," I found this confession of a 19th century Parisian: "I demand to expiate it; — I accept the responsibility; — I wish to mount the scaffold." This…

And also the poem I wrote in response to that passage from Horace:
______________________________________________


Firewood

While walking in the woods, I am at pains
To pause at each cold circle of burnt stone.
A totemic blending of the profane
And sacred: a…

And we also briefly discussed a passing reference to the 6th epistle of the first book of Horace:

(Quote)

I cited a passage from Thomas More's Utopia:

(Quote)