Pea Sized Lump Under Chin And Sore Throat

MT Cicero, Del Bien y del Supremo Supremo Mal

Josep Traverso

comentario-reviews to: MT Cicero,

Del Bien y del Supremo Supremo Mal, 2002, 1st reprint, Editorial Gredos, Biblioteca Clásica, Madrid. (JT note: even though the character Joe Traverso insiste interim notas yet, the public. The course is acumulan START tareas y las ...)

Just to clarify that the walk "picture" is wrong, the man who appears this is not so Joseph Traverso (who like him) but MT Cicero.

Writing.

The

DeFinibus Cicero written year 45 is composed of five books. In the first and second debates with Torcuato Cicero and Epicureanism Triario on these defenders. It is the second book in which Cicero presents a forceful critique of Epicureanism. In the third book, Cato presents the Stoic doctrine in the presence of Cicero and Lucullus. In the fourth book, Cicero criticizes the stoicism. Finally, the fifth book, Ram represents the views of academic and peripatetic and Cicero makes the critical and open discussion. This fifth book is set in Athens in the gardens of the Academy.

1 .- It is not a stoic Cicero, approaches in some aspects, especially in its claim to virtue as the highest good for human life and, in general terms , that live by the nature claimed, among other schools, the Stoics. But away from them deeply in the same design as those were of virtue. Bigger seems to be the distance that separates him from the Epicureans.
2 .- Cicero will develop in the second book in a powerful theory about morality and virtue to a social impression, public is not in any way or Marcus Aurelius in Epictetus.

In this second book is also a strong critic of the Epicureans and their conception of pleasure as the supreme good, "the term itself has no noble pleasure" (II, 75), Cicero has proposed tearing to Epicureanism, the concept of pleasure, he tells us, why so mean really hidden, speaks with a certain arrogance. If Rome he had located in the center of their morality, nothing would have been the same, and throws a Torcuato (dialectical opponent) a string of great men who acted for the good of the country regardless of pleasure, but the virtues the great virtues, justice, temperance, wisdom ... "all those who suffered, endured, proved incorruptible austerity and honesty ..." he declares proudly, "this is my tradition, it is written in the annals, however you, Epicurean , what are your guarantees? "

" Yourself, Cicero Torcuato-tops that are next to the consulate, when asked about the purposes to guide your insurance mandate will not say "you in the exercise of the judiciary and your life will work only for your own benefit, [the contrary] the words of the Peripatetic and the Stoics do not you fall off the face in court and Senate: duty, fairness, dignity, loyalty, righteousness, morality, actions worthy of the boss, worthy of the Roman people, face any danger the republic, to die for the fatherland, when you say these words, we, fools, we were astonished, as you undoubtedly are you laughing on the inside. Because among these so wonderful and great words there is no place for pleasure, not just the one you call pleasure in movement and that all men of the city and everyone in the field, all in short, when they speak Latin, call pleasure But even for that other stable, that nobody but you, [no pain] called pleasure. "(II, 23, 76/77) 3 .- In the critical school skeptical, to Pyrrho and Aristo, Cicero says that they, "to make all consist only of virtue, so far as to strip it of any possibility of choice between things and not give it a base from which arise or in which is supported, destroyed the very virtue that embraced "(II, 43) This is already one of the main criticisms launched Cicero stoicism, virtue lock in a bubble and isolate it from real life, think that man is pure soul and not a composite of soul and body. (Surely Cicero is attacking a key issue in Stoicism, one that prevents him from becoming a social moral)

The source of the disputed sociability of mankind is nature that has made us as we are social beings, "The same reason the man did get the men and induced him to settle with them in character, language and customs, so that starting from the love of family and yours, is becoming more widespread and joins in partnership first with his fellow citizens, then all mortals and, as Plato wrote to Archytas, remember that it was born to him only, but for the country and yours, so it's very little of which he is. "(125)

4 .- TEXT:

"We understand that what is moral, irrespective of any utility, regardless of awards or benefits, may be justly praised for himself. What is the nature of this can be explained not by the definition just given, though it helps a lot, and by the common view of all and by the inclinations and actions of the best men, they do many things only because they are decent, because they are straight, because they are moral, although they know they will not get any advantage. "(II, 45) a whim. I particularly like this text and would require special comment. He has criticized the philosophies that do not pay attention to definitions, logical partitions and other issues. Proposes a definition, then warns the reader about the possibilities of understanding the subject for a definition, "although it helps a lot," but what is central in "the common view of all" and the actions of men better " . Everyday life? Social life, land of philosophy? Here you decide the ultimate good?

5 .- You can not doubt that in Cicero morality has action, which is in political life, and in the remainder of personal life, where is the ground of morality. It's nature is our nature.

6 .-

There is an issue that is somehow present from the earliest stoicism, a refusal to half measures in terms of virtue or it is virtuous or not is, it's who has one virtue has them all because in the wisdom of the wise is a new position that does not support the compromise. This topic should make it difficult work with the disciples because it seems to exclude the student's progressive path toward a virtuous life and certainly the issue was attenuated along the Stoic discourse. Appearance strongly criticized by Cicero.

7 .- With the Stoics, especially the first, appeared an important question of language: the creation of new words. Should be very innovative because it drew attention and even centuries later commented. Cicero speaks of the problems that may create a language "new" as Latin, create new terms and accept and use some of those from the Greek, especially those that have become popular for use. Why was this inflation of new terms in ancient Stoicism? So innovative was its proposal that required all new terminology in this regard? Cicero seems to accuse them of camouflage behind the new words the old ideas.

Cicero seems to understand its role in the collection of a tradition and the discharge to a new society with the problems that seem to carry, including issues of language.

8 .- There is a "natural morality" that is installed inside the sage, "the god within" which he acknowledged by his intelligence and thus

opens the door to the highest good, virtue , supreme good that it does not stop, "[...] there are plenty of shameful actions, but for the great power of natural morality, it would be easy to prevent from storming the wise." (II, 117)

9 .- Sometimes, studies must look up, away for a moment the object studied not to overlook issues of importance, and when discussing Epicureanism, stoicism, natural morality, natural law ... we lose sight of that whether we pursue pleasure as if we put our lives in the service of virtue, a willingness to recognize the way our lives, to make sense and unity. These philosophies pursue self-creation of the individual, "regardless of gods and destiny", the search for meaning in life.

This task was born in Greece, the polis and continued in these philosophies that appeared when the cops had already been destroyed, and in the binomial individual self-creation and social self-constitution, the second element was profoundly changed, the Stoics, for example, seems they opened a road that led from the individual to mankind. here may also pull up the contradictions of Stoicism, that shift to the interior which will be installed in the body of philosophical over the centuries, that "nothing external can affect you"

taken to the extreme with the statement destroys your body but your soul can not touch, shall remain in happiness.

10 .- The criticism of Stoicism is developed throughout the book IV. The first point of conflict

has to do with the philosophical tradition and with stoic unnecessary disruption, its fundamental principles were already proposed earlier by the schools of the academic and peripatetic, Cicero says that the old philosophers and "had established a body of doctrine with sufficient breadth and elegance so I would not Zeno, after listening to Polemon, reason for leaving him and former teachers." (IV, 2.3)

Your input be poor or nonexistent, "Now this is the dialectic and knowledge of nature as the supreme good, as I said, then try and spend all our discussion to develop this theme. However, in these two parts of philosophy had nothing to wish strongly Zeno change, all was well established as a part as another. "(IV, 4.8) The second fundamental question is not so much on the centrality of virtue and life according to nature but in the encapsulation of virtue itself that produced the Stoics, their isolation from the issues of body, as if virtue itself enough outside self, as if human beings have a soul and not only was a complex soul and body, "Well, is universally accepted that all the duty and function of wisdom consists of perfect man, one (so do not think that I speak only against the Stoics) argue theories that put the highest good in the category of what is beyond our reach, as if he were some inanimate, others, however, as if the man had no body, only care about the soul despite the very soul or is a something inconsistent (for this I can not understand), but was included in some kind of body, so that even she is satisfied with virtue alone, but seeks no pain. "(IV, 14.36)

10 .-" For what it [nature] with the grain that, when led from the grass stem, leaves and grass is nothing, it does with the man when it has led to the use of reason. He always supports the new without giving up the first thing they gave. And so, said the reason and senses, got the right, left no sense. "(IV, 14.37 / 38)

interesting text that speaks of stratification the human being, an idea in mind, for example, Lukacs or

Hartmann ...

11 .- The live according to nature is an achievement that makes the human being through wisdom but has an intuitive basis and vital, are the principles that Mother Nature puts in us when we are born, the path of wisdom and happiness would go from this vital principle, species into an awareness of who we are, "In First, recognize that nature has instilled the love of ourselves and that the first wish has put in us is our own conservation. On this we of agreement, coming after becoming aware of who we are, so we can keep ourselves as we should be. "(IV, 10, 25)

12 .- It seems that we can say as a feature already present in ancient Stoicism that no man is a slave by nature. "But everything we have been talking moral nothing is so glorious and which extends more broadly than the union of men with men, the kind of society and community of interest and that love of mankind that originated at the time birth, as parents love their children and the whole family is united by the bonds of marriage and the lineage, is spread abroad, first by kinship, then affinities, then by friends, later by neighborly relations, and subsequently by citizens and those of friends and political allies, and, finally, by the union of all mankind. "(V, 23, 65)

13 .- Joaquín Miranda says that this book of Cicero was used by French students as a textbook on stoicism, no wonder, Cicero's knowledge about it seem very broad, and not just the stoicism, but in the philosophical tradition inherited from Greece, the Stoics, but also peripatetic, platonic, skeptical ... a large river of thoughts, philosophies, which is central to the debate on the highest good. And that trend appears to us particularly lively, the differences are real and not invented, the match also, one and the other having to do with the ways of life, with the highest good, to virtue and happiness. And includes an entire effort to give meaning to human life, social life, a mighty effort by self-constituted in itself a tradition.

14 .- Books like this require us to fundamentally review the way we approach the know, if we focus "excessively" in the mind of an author we can lose sight of underground stream running through it, and "know" a lot but do not understand anything.

15 .- There is, I think, in the Stoics and Cicero, something I call a genetic theory of virtue, ie the transformation of that kind of conatus with we are born until a streamlined acceptance and achievement of virtue as adults. The

realization that every being from birth he loves himself, wants to stay in his life without understanding the reasons that move to, "the truth is that nature is from the principle beautifully hidden and can not be penetrated or known, but, with advancing age, we gradually and rather late, to have some kind of knowledge of ourselves. "(V, 15, 41)

That way

culminates when, as adults, we realize our nature and our plan adjusted to her life, "not without cause in children see that kind of spark of virtue to which I referred, to be lit with the reason of the philosopher, to follow, as a divine guidance, reach the ultimate goal of nature. [...] Have to penetrate, therefore, knowledge of nature and thoroughly examine what she calls, otherwise we can not know ourselves. [...] Now, get to know ourselves is to know the powers of our body and our soul, and keep that kind of life that's full enjoyment of these powers. "(V, 15, 41 - 16, 44).