Slave, Scholar, Stoic

http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2017/05/slave-scholar-stoic.html

by diodorus • 9 years ago

63 18 9 years ago

blogs.bl.uk

quickben• 9 years ago

In the same vein, I would warmly recommend Marcus Aurelius notes to anybody wondering what all that and this was/is about.

kornish• 9 years ago

The Gregory Hays translation of Aurelius' Meditations is especially good.

Shawnecy• 9 years ago

Seconded.

There's an online version I like (which is also available in markdown and json format) [1]. I can't comment on the translation quality as I'm no expert on the source matter.

[1] = http://directingmind.com/meditations

jtth• 9 years ago

It's really worth reading: http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

gloriousduke• 9 years ago

It's interesting that Trump became the leader of free world by embodying the opposite of many of these precepts (he'd probably call someone adhering to them a loser or weakling). Epictetus would not be surprised, nor care.

Amygaz• 9 years ago

I have been thinking to write a book about leadership and use the opposite of what my managers are doing, and I am pretty certain that many on this board could do the same. But then, do I really care? Would that change anything? There are plenty of books andstories providing good leadership examples.

There are also plenty of studies supporting the observation than cheaters have an easier time making financial gains, no matter how good or bad they actually are at their job, as long as they can pretend and manipulate the opinion of a group of enablers.

I refuse to be a cheater or an enabler. That I do care, and that is something I can do, and have done.

jackhammer2022• 9 years ago

I like - A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine, provides a good overview of stoicism.

jacobolus• 9 years ago

I was very disappointed in this book after hearing so many positive recommendations. It seemed like a lazy repackaging of famous stoic writings, dumbed down to appeal to a mass pop-science type audience, plus some projection the author’s personal opinions and ideas onto other writers, in a way that felt kind of forced and sloppy.

Just go to the primary sources.

fapjacks2• 9 years ago

I first picked up the stoics in my early twenties many years ago when I started going to war, and I can't recommend them enough. What you get out of stoic philosophy will definitely depend on the translation you pick up. Every time you read a new translation, you'll get something new out of it. I would recommend researching the various translations, or even just buying a variety of translations on Amazon because they're so cheap. You can get all of the typical stoic works (Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca) for the cost of shipping on Amazon. That is incidentally amazing to me. There's a joke about the world in there somewhere. Anyway, I suggest starting with the translation which you find most digestible. Some of them can be extremely difficult, especially if you've never had to read archaic translations.

ashark• 9 years ago

I did as thorough a comparison of translations of Meditations as I could as a non-Greek-speaker a couple years ago, and settled on Maxwell Staniforth's for being highly readable while also holding much closer to the original than most. The only hardcover available (at that time) was from Folio Society, so a little pricey even used, but I'm pretty sure there's at least one paperback in print.

There was, notably, one popular recent translation that tried to give it more of a "quickly-jotted notes" feel to capture the flavor of the original, or so it claimed, implying greater fidelity to the original. In doing so it took far too many liberties with the text—which, to my Greekless eye aided by some online tools, didn't read that way at all, and was typically much wordier than this translation and generally closer to basically any translation but this one. Be wary of anything like that.

Just throwing that out there in case anyone finds it useful.

literallycancer• 9 years ago

I've read this one[1] a while ago, and remember being annoyed at the usage of some words, like 'nature'. Is it different in other translations?

Then there's also the irony of the most powerful man in the world writing a book where he recommends the reader to be content with their station and to preserve the status quo.

1 - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Thoughts_of_the_Emperor_M...

terravion• 9 years ago

Totally agree with the above. It is hard to capture ancient Greek in English. There are verb moods that we just don't have. This lets the authors play with ambiguity in a way that we have trouble doing... a neat concept that you can dial up and down the ambiguity of what you're saying and the listener would understand that as at least partially intentional.

And totally, a readable translation is the most important, because in reality, what's readable is probably doing a better job of capturing the writers intent than a super-precise and consistent translation.

Also interesting that there seem to be a bunch of veterans on the stoics thread. Not surprising, but interesting nonetheless.

nradam123• 9 years ago

Enchiridion of Epictetus is the best book I have read on Stoic Philosophy.

briancleland• 9 years ago

Perhaps the most incisive work of philosophy ever written. Short, funny and out of copyright. What's not to like?

hkon• 9 years ago

Audiobooks from Audible on the subject is also worth a listen. I listen to epictetus/seneca/aurelius at least once a year.

Luc• 9 years ago

Here's a cool side-by-side comparison of the English translations of the Enchiridion: https://enchiridion.tasuki.org/display:Code:twh,twr,gl,pem,s...

Pick your favourite!

Jun8• 9 years ago

Thanks! And for those for which Ancient Greek is "within their power" here's the first sentence

τῶν ὄντων τὰ μέν ἐστιν ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, τὰ δὲ οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν.

from Perseus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...).

Actually you don't have to know anything at all, you can just click on each word and it will show you the meaning. You can then judge yourself which translation you like best. Note, for example that the word control is not used.

Slave, Scholar, Stoic

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