Doubts about paper (I)

First of all, I wanna thank those who helped me revise the final version of a paper I had to sent a couple of weeks ago, especially MrP, Clive, Davkett, Paco, and Philip. Now, I'm revising another paper and I've got some general doubts about some paragraphs. I'll try to post them in different messages:

1)  "The purpose of the present paper is twofold. First, to examine what beliefs, if any, underlie the Pyrrhonist’s desire for ataraxia and his account of how this state may be attained, as well as what beliefs, if any, motivate his philanthropic therapy which seeks to induce, by means of argument, epoche and ataraxia in the Dogmatists. Second, to determine whether the Pyrrhonist’s quest for, and attainment of, ataraxia and his philanthropia are, as has been generally thought, essential aspects of his stance."

2) "I shall begin by analyzing Sextus Empiricus’ exposition of the Skeptic’s search for, and attainment of, unperturbedness with the object of showing that he is consistently Pyrrhonean. I shall attempt to prove that he does not hold beliefs about the nature of unperturbedness and its connection to suspension of judgment, nor about the nature of perturbation and its relation to the holding of beliefs. In the second section, I shall attempt to show that neither the Pyrrhonist’s quest for ataraxia in matters of opinion nor his attainment of this state must be deemed essential to his philosophy".

3) "In later chapters, he explains the part played by ataraxia in the origin of the Skeptic’s philosophy."

4) "The future Skeptic’s search for unperturbedness is again referred to at PH i 25–26, where ataraxia is explicitly said to be, along with metriopatheia, the telos of Skepticism, and where Sextus describes the unexpected way in which the former state was attained".

5) "For when a person lacks that which he regards as good, on the one hand, he intensely desires to get it and, on the other, he thinks he is ‘persecuted’ by things naturally bad, restlessly trying to escape from them. He then pursues what he considers to be good, but if he acquires it, he is troubled, on the one hand, because he is irrationally and immoderately exalted and, on the other, because he is afraid of losing it".

In 5), is it ok to say simply "on the other", or should I add "hand"?

6) "Finally, Sextus observes that the Dogmatists cannot eliminate the disturbance arisen from the pursuit of the things deemed good and the avoidance of those deemed bad by arguing that a) while the things one has so far pursued have little or no value, there are others which are more valuable and, hence, to be pursued; and b) while there are things of little use that cause many troubles, there are others much more useful that cause few troubles. Sextus points out that, in the first case, one is not getting rid of the perturbation, but rearranging it, since one is not stopping the intense pursuit of that which one considers to be good, but replacing one good by another. Furthermore, this procedure could render the situation even worse, since it makes one believe that the new good one is now pursuing is more valuable than the old one. And in the second case, one is not eliminating the perturbation, but comparing one choice and avoidance with another choice and avoidance. This is absurd because the person who is disturbed wants to get rid of the disturbance, not to know what is more, or less, disturbing."

Cheers,

Sextus

Clive wrote:

2) "I shall begin by analyzing Sextus Empiricus’s exposition

Hi Clive,

I made the mistake a few weeks ago with Sextus in adding an 'apostrophe s' to a proper name that ends in 's'.  Sextus is actually corrrect in writing the possessive form as Empiricus'.  (see http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/punct/apostrophe.html 

Hi Davkett,

Thank you for the interesting response. I've been thinking about it, and I have a few comments.

I'm not familar with the site you quoted, and I don't know its credentials. I don't agree with what it baldly says about Singular Nouns (ending with -s) .... eg James' room or Chris Jones’ dog. I would put an 'apostrophe + s' in both cases. 

However, I looked this point up in Swan's 'Practical English Usage' (Section 505.3 in my edition). He gives as examples Charles's wife but Socrates' last words. He doesn't discuss the matter. 

I also looked it up in Thomson and Martinet's 'A Practical English Grammar' Section 14). They say classical names ending in s usually add only the apostrophe. Note the usually. They continue Other names ending in s can take 's or the apostrophe alone eg Mr. Jones's or Mr. Jones' house.

I also googled a bit on Sextus Empiricus. There are hits both ways, although perhaps fewer with the 's. However, the hits with 's include some sites and articles that look quite scholarly.

Finally, here's my personal opinion. None of these sources seem to discuss the reasons behind their 'rules'. I think it's because of the pronunciation. We say Socrateez and it sounds good, but it's harder to say Socrateezez and it doesn't sound good. For this reason, my feeling is that, for classical names that end in 'es', I'd omit the s in speech, but I'd be quite happy to leave it in a text that is not pronounced aloud, where it would look fine and sound is not an issue.  Now, consider classical names that don't end in es. It seems fine to me to say the Cyclops's eye. It also seems fine to me to say Empiricusez, and it doesn't sound bad.

So, that's why my personal preference is to say Empiricus's  . . .  

Anyway, thanks again for raising such an interesting issue.

Best wishes, Clive

5) "For when a person lacks that which he regards as good, on the one hand (I'd omit the comma here, to show that 'on the one hand' refers to the phrase that follows it and not the one that precedes it) he intensely desires to obtain it and, on the other, he thinks he is ‘persecuted’ by things naturally bad and restlessly tries to escape from them."

If I omit the comma before 'on the one hand', shouldn't I try to do sth. similar in the case of 'on the other'?

6) "Finally, Sextus observes that the Dogmatists cannot eliminate the disturbance arising from the pursuit of those things deemed good and the avoidance of those deemed bad by arguing that a) while the things one has so far pursued have little or no value, there are others which are more valuable and, hence, are more to be pursued; and b) while there are things of little use that cause many troubles, there are others much more useful that cause few troubles.

In this case, should I then say:

Clive wrote:

I've been thinking about it, and I have a few comments.

I respect your approach to the question and defer to your more thorough research.  Part of my delight in this forum is to discover areas where guidelines are more flexible than I may have thought or learned.  It's possible that when Sextus earlier responded to my advice of adding an 's to Annas, he wrote, not that it was incorrect, but that it was optional.  Eventually, I'll get it right.