Status Updates From What is Good?

Existentialism — a more diverse ifnot fragmented movement of thought than the label by itself suggests — enjoyed a blaze of interest in the two decades following the Second World War, and indeed for most of its adherents, if not for all of its major contributors, that event was a major motive for their interest in it.

Whereas sculpture isthe paradigmatic Apollonian art, based essentially on form and structure, music is paradigmatically the Dionysian art, speaking immediately to the deepest instincts. The Dionysian ethical ideal is one of affirmation of life, a great ‘Yes!’, even in the face of difficulties and sorrows.

Nietzsche characterised his view as ‘Dionysian’ in allusion to the two fundamental principles he saw in Greek culture: the analytic, formal, rational ‘Apollonian’ principle, and the ecstatic, enthusiastic, instinctual ‘Dionysian’ principle.

Fortunately for the Protestant world, these hard views were countered by no less a person than Philipp Melancthon (1497-1560). Before turning to theology under Luther’s influence, Melancthon had taught the pagan classics at Tiibingen University.

- uppenbarligen behöver jag läsa igneom Melanchton igen - jag menade alltid att han var så svartsynt. (pun intended)

The Index of Forbidden Books was no light matter.

Francesco Petrarch, himself coined the term ‘Middle Ages’ to denote the long period which separated his own time from the world of classical antiquity

For Paul a cardinal virtue is charity — caritas; in Greek, agape — meaning ‘love for one’s fellow men’. This notion, which is wholly inclusive — “There isneither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female’ — he takes from Jesus’s own summary of the moral law, which is to love god with all your heart, and your neighbour as yourself.

A threat of force is not a logical ground for accept- ing a conclusion, even if self-preservation dictates otherwise; but self-preservation or, more generally, self-interest is a corrupting reason to accept a moral injunction.

Since this answer consists in a threat, as a reason for obeying god it can only be a prudential one (‘Ifyou do not wish to be punished, do as you are told’), for it is otherwise not a logical reason for obedi- ence, since it commits the fallacy of argumentumn ad baculum, the appeal to force.

the counsel to culti- vate a fortitudinous self-mastery in the face of hunger and illness, poverty and perennial confrontation with pain, was useless.

Yet this very fact explains the weakness of the philosophies. They were too difficult, too dry, too austere, too rational for the vast majority of the populace. Both Epicureanism and Stoicism taught indifference to fortune in order to gain peace of mind; but for ordi- nary people faced by harsh and difficult lives,

for which reli- gion is, mostly, the technology of man’s impotence, originated in earliest times, in the face of an indifferent and often cruel nature.

Not all religions are expressly ethical, even when they have systems of taboos about (for example) when to eat and what not to eat, and elaborate rituals designed to make the spirits, the ancestors, or the gods, perform their functions as required by humans — for example, to provide needed amounts of rainfall, or safe childbirth, or any of the other practical concerns

In The Meditations Aurelius iterates the basic Stoic view of the uni- verse as a living organic unity, in which everything is mutually related, and in which human individuals are ‘limbs’ of the whole.

In extending the Stoic doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man Seneca was far ahead of his times, most particularly in applying this doctrine to an adamant hostility towards slavery, gladiatorial contests and any form of cruelty by man to man.

As noted, Stoicism differs markedly from Cynicism in its attitude to others and society. In line with their belief that the mind of each individual is part of the universal organising reason in things — the ‘world soul’, or divine fire — the Stoics taught that all rational beings, slaves included, are brothers, and merit each other’s respect and concern. --> everyone has a duty of service to their fellow human beings

it seems that Epicurus’s idea of pleasure must at least be unusual; and so itis.To explain ithe gives an account ofhow intellectual and physi- cal pleasures are to be measured relatively to one another, and how we are to rate ‘static’ (aponia, ataraxia) and ‘kinetic’ pleasures (tillfredsställelse, uppnående av statisk glädje).

Statisk över kinetisk. Kinetisk under övervakning. Moderera även din moderation.

But these common conceptions are not wholly satisfactory, for in each case the supposed goods are merely instrumental to an end beyond themselves, which they are supposed to bring within a man’s reach. By common consent, says Aristotle, that highest good is happiness. So the task is to specify what happiness truly is,and how to attain it.

elegant sammanfattning av tre kapitel: Following the familiar Pythagorean classification of types of men, Aristotle says that ‘persons of low tastes (always the majority)’ hold that the greatest good ispleasure, while the businessman thinks itiswealth and ‘the gentleman’ holds that itishonour.

Sokrates: Vad är glädje i ett gott liv? människoklasserna som spegel av detta.

For Socrates, all enquiry was free; and it was all the more important that itshould be free given that the questions it addressed were the most important any man could ask himself.

Both Xenophon and Plato give the reason. They report that as a young man Socrates listened to debates about the views of his predecessors, and became disillusioned on two grounds. (Futility; nature rather then human good)

the Greeks had no sense of sin. They called moral failings amartiai, ‘bad shots’, the sort of things that can happen to anyone and are best put behind one, except as reminders to take better aim next time.