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Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

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Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#221

Post by v4dok »

prox wrote: post #207
v4dok wrote: post #143

I've always seen the appeal of ancient Greek culture in the West as a cultural bedrock on which Christianity and Enlightenment built upon. The very fact that we consider democracy as the best political system shows that clearly the ideas resonated with us from a historical and cultural point of view. However, in the modern age it seems like metamodernism has become king, and that is something that does not play well…

I also see deconstruction, nihilism and post-modernism as an abused tool. It was understandable after the non-sensical WWII. Many people do not know, but pre-WW2 people believed heavily in the perfection of mankind through technology and other means (such as architecture and so on) This was not only a thing in Nazism where this is very apparent, but it was a kind of embedded in that time. Ofcourse after the wars, peo…

Πάν μέτρον άριστον. As they used to say. Everything in moderation. All of those things you mention arise on a societal level when the values that were once the guiding principle disappear. My thesis is that capitalism is eating itself by neglecting to appropriately allocate resources in cultural progression, instead it focuses solely on efficiency, and technological advancement.

Wouldn't be far fetched for the humans of our age to be seen as the generation of hubris by a less technologically advanced but ultimately surviving culture in the future.

We need to get our shit together and offer the people in the west a vision worth living for, or we will all happily turn into AI-made paperclips

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#222

Post by Name_Chawps »

denton-scratch wrote: post #213
jaharios wrote: post #192

It is always funny to me, seeing someone speaking about the Greek Language as a dead one. Most of these terms are spoken in everyday life in Greece with the same meaning. Old English are way harder to understand for an neo-English speaker than Homer writings, going back 3000 years, are for a neo-Greek speaker. Does this make English a dead language? Also these terms exist in English in one way or the other, taking ti…

Old English (or Anglo Saxon) is really a different language from modern English, which was hugely changed by the Norman Conquest. Nobody speaks in Anglo Saxon/Old English, so yes: arguably it's a dead language.

Old English is somewhat mutually intelligible with Frisian, so may not be totally dead.

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#223

Post by kej »

woodruffw wrote: post #94
pjungwir wrote: post #25

These are great suggestions. Adding these words to your own internal vocabulary is totally worth it for self-reflection. Less seriously, a grammatical construction I wish we had in English is the Latin future passive participle, typically ending in -ndus, -nda, -ndum. It means that something needs/ought to be done. For instance "Amanda" is "she who must be loved." So if someone asks you why your feature isn't in prod…

> These are kind of lame examples, but once you get the idea you can find places where it'd be convenient several times a day. I, for one, find myself wishing for the destruction of Phoenician cities multiple times a day[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est

To bring it full-circle, you just reminded me of one of my favorite HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447851

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#224

Post by dr_dshiv »

amon22 wrote: post #209
dr_dshiv wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eudaimonia means “good demons.” Plato used it to refer to the source of Socrates’ inspiration. Etymology of daimon might have it mean the apportioners, dividers or rationers. “With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon” — Elon Musk Let’s hope for good demons! I’ve been thinking about it lately, and in a world that many believe is filled with intelligence and consciousness at different levels, it might ma…

Mathematics (can) model reality, not the other way around. I have immense respect for the humanities but your lecture looks like a lazy attempt to ride the AI hype.

Reality models mathematics! That’s a great way to put it. That’s why there are no perfect spheres in a material world—yet billions of material entities teleologically approximating spheres. Clearly the ideal sphere is ontologically prior to any specific material approximation.

You have immense respect for the humanities—but will casually call me a lazy hype monger? Pity.

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#225

Post by [deleted] »

egypturnash wrote: post #220
dr_dshiv wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eudaimonia means “good demons.” Plato used it to refer to the source of Socrates’ inspiration. Etymology of daimon might have it mean the apportioners, dividers or rationers. “With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon” — Elon Musk Let’s hope for good demons! I’ve been thinking about it lately, and in a world that many believe is filled with intelligence and consciousness at different levels, it might ma…

The Ancient Greek word "daimon" doesn't mean "demon". Daimon or Daemon (Ancient Greek: δαίμων, "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy. The word is derived from Proto-Indo-European daimon "provider, divider (of fortunes or destinies)," from the root da- "to di…

[deleted]

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#226

Post by Jolter »

alfnor wrote: post #173
afunk wrote: post #115

From a fun book I have “Philosophy in 40 Ideas” Eudaimonia THIS IS AN ANCIENT GREEK WORD, normally translated as 'fulfilment', particularly emphasised by the philosopher Aristotle. It deserves wider currency because it corrects the shortfalls in one of the most central terms in our contemporary idiom: happiness. The Ancient Greeks resolutely did not believe that the purpose of life was to be happy; they proposed that…

And a similar word: "In Ancient Greek philosophy, ataraxia (Greek: ἀταραξία, from "a-", negation and tarachē "disturbance, trouble") is a lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry. In non-philosophical usage, ataraxia was the ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle. Achieving ataraxia is a common goal for Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism, but the role and…

Permit me to quote the article you’re commenting on.

> 10. Ataraxia (Greek: ἀταραξία) > Ataraxia literally translates as “unperturbedness”, but is generally considered as “imperturbability”, “equanimity”, or “tranquillity”.

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#227

Post by prox »

v4dok wrote: post #221
prox wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also see deconstruction, nihilism and post-modernism as an abused tool. It was understandable after the non-sensical WWII. Many people do not know, but pre-WW2 people believed heavily in the perfection of mankind through technology and other means (such as architecture and so on) This was not only a thing in Nazism where this is very apparent, but it was a kind of embedded in that time. Ofcourse after the wars, peo…

Πάν μέτρον άριστον. As they used to say. Everything in moderation. All of those things you mention arise on a societal level when the values that were once the guiding principle disappear. My thesis is that capitalism is eating itself by neglecting to appropriately allocate resources in cultural progression, instead it focuses solely on efficiency, and technological advancement. Wouldn't be far fetched for the humans…

Great comment. I am big fan of warm capitalism. It means you don’t choose for the cheapest, but the most sustainable.

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#228

Post by roflyear »

afunk wrote: post #115

From a fun book I have “Philosophy in 40 Ideas” Eudaimonia THIS IS AN ANCIENT GREEK WORD, normally translated as 'fulfilment', particularly emphasised by the philosopher Aristotle. It deserves wider currency because it corrects the shortfalls in one of the most central terms in our contemporary idiom: happiness. The Ancient Greeks resolutely did not believe that the purpose of life was to be happy; they proposed that…

No.

Re: Ancient Greek terms worth reviving

#229

Post by mdp2021 »

"«Reviving»"? They are there.

eudaímonia: "a good spirit took you" - it is like saying, "a lucky star".

aretḗ: it is in the "arts", and in the idea of áriston, of the áristos ("aristocracy"). The "arya" is the noble because "artist" - That with a Goal ("artha").

phrónēma: that energetic inside - "frenetic".

kléos: today it would be "inclitus", but for some reason the term (which is present in some post-Latin languages) did not reach English. Edit: I am surprised (did not notice), the root of 'kléos' is the same of 'listen'.

And so on for the rest (still reading the list).

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