Sunday, July 29, 2012

Epictetus - a pondering...



Epictetus –Handbook, 5.
2 “Ench”, 1.5.1.1

"Circumstances* do not trouble* men; but [their] conclusions* concerning circumstances do."
         Tara¿ssei tou\ß aÓnqrw¿pouß ouj ta» pra¿gmata, aÓlla» 2 ta» peri« tw◊n pragma¿twn do/gmata.
    
NOTA BENE:

FlexLex (Flexibility lexicon):
* Things/circumstances = facts; deeds; events; circumstances
*trouble = disturb; disquiet; stir up; confound; alarm; frighten; throw into disorder; agitate; distract
*conclusions = decree to be true; judgments; decisions; dogma

PROBLEMS concerning possible word choices: (1) “opinions” has Platonic history; (2) “judgments” has Kantian history

Emphatic formula = Tara¿ssei (verb=disturb)+ do/gmata (subject=opinions)

Several possible translations:
  • “What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things.”
  • Not disturbing to men are things, but rather opinions (cf. Plato) about those things.
  •  Circumstances do not frighten people; but their judgments about those circumstances sure do.
  • Things do not trouble* men; but [their] conclusions* concerning things do.

Commentary: Any limitation we have is the creations of our own minds, which means that our destiny is, truly, in our own hands.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Heraclitus - a (short) reflection

An idea is attributed to Heraclitus (2, 1.1.119.1), which goes something like this: h™qoß aÓnqrw¿pwi dai÷mwn (If this does not look like Greek to you, you will have to install a Greek font on your computer!) In the vernacular (i.e., English) this means, quite literally, that: ‘a man’s habit is his lord’.
Some grammatical considerations, or what one might call a FlexLex (Flexible Lexicon):
*; (to) h™qoß = nominative, neuter; = custom, usage, habit.
*; aÓnqrw¿pwi = dative, masculine; = to or for a man
*; dai÷mwn = nominative, masculine=appositional or compliment; god/deity; fate, destiny, fortune (numen); possibly as adjective = skilled in a thing.

What Heraclitus is clearly drawing our attention to, regardless of how we ultimately translate our phrase, is what we might call an Emphatic formula: h™qoß = dai÷mwn.
Several possible translations:
•    The actions of a man flow from what he values.
•    A man’s action flows from his character.
•    Habit to a man is God.
•    Character to a man is his deity.
•    What we do habitually is who we are or who we become.
Commentary: With this statement Heraclitus provides us with the foundation of both a metaphysic (what is true about the world) and an ethic (how we should act in the world given what is true about the world).