To Pedanticus

Thanks for your answer. Finally, I can send the paper till Monday-Tuesday (end of the month). I have some more doubts. Here they are:

1) “We say that the causal principle of the Skeptical is the hope of becoming unperturbed. For men of talent, perturbed by the anomaly in things and being in aporia as to which of them they should rather assent to, came to investigate what is true and what is false in things so as to become unperturbed by means of this distinction.” I thought of “should rather”. Maybe this is better and has the same sense.

2) “Thus, it seems that we must not put the emphasis on the idea that a shadow always and necessarily follows a body when the body blocks light, but rather on the idea that a body’s shadow is closely tied to it. Sextus’ intention is then to emphasize that at least up till now the state of ataraxia has been closely tied to the Skeptic’s epoche.” Well, it seems that I will never finish with this one. Now I thought of “tied”, which is perhaps better.

3) “He must be understood as affirming that…” You suggested “understood to be affirming”. Evidently I cannot compare my English with yours, but it still seems to me that that one can say it the way I do.

4) “Despite what Sextus says in some of the passages just referred to, he considers neither that the Skeptic is free from all perturbation nor that all perturbation is due to the intense pursuit and avoidance of the things considered to be good and bad respectively.” You told me that here something was missing (I had ended the sentence at “avoidance”). Maybe now is better.

5) “In any case, the Skeptic is better off to deal with the unpleasant affections forced upon him than the Dogmatist, since he lacks the additional disturbance induced by the belief that such affections are bad by nature, and it is precisely the absence of this belief which makes those affections moderate and more easily borne”. Here I had used “better condition”. You suggested “position”. Then I thought this one (“better off”) or maybe “better situation”.

6) “This difficulty cannot be resolved by arguing that such a disturbance is in reality the result of the future Skeptic’s search for the truth, since the full-fledged Skeptic does not rule out the possibility of discovering it in the course of a particular investigation. At all events, this difficulty would not worry Sextus, since he would argue that this is just the way things have happened to him and that he limits himself to describing it, without trying to construct a theory purporting to give a rational explanation of what has occurred”. This is a paragraph that was in the article, but I added and modified quite a few things.

7) “This passage is relevant both to the present issue and to the previous question of the relation between epoche and ataraxia. For if Sextus thought that ataraxia [is][> was] by nature good and that epoche necessarily [entails][> entailed] it, he would certainly assert that epoche too [is][> was] something good in itself, since it would be precisely that state of mind which [brings][> brought] about ataraxia.” I confess that I don’t see why you changed the present tense by the past.

8) “A common way of accounting for the texts in which Sextus seems to be espousing negative dogmatic views consists in applying to them some of the clarifications he sometimes makes.” Before, I used “warning remarks”, but then I thought that “clarifications” is better.

9) Regarding the use of the word “end” with the meaning of “goal” or “aim”, it’s true that it is not very common, but I’ve seen it used this way, and also it appears in the English dictionaries. In any case, in the English translations, some use “end”, others “aim” to translate the Greek telos.

10) I finally replaced “argumentative strategy” by other expressions:
a) “I wish to point out that there is no reason for thinking that Sextus is not being serious when advancing the philanthropic explanation of the Pyrrhonist’s style of argumentation.” Is there a problem with the term “argumentation”, because I think that some native speakers don’t like it very much. Maybe they find its use incorrect.
b) “The two aspects with which I am primarily concerned are precisely the Pyrrhonist’s quest for ataraxia and the philanthropia underlying his therapeutic use of arguments”.
c) “Section five will be centered on the only passage of Sextus’ extant work which presents the notion of philanthropia as key to the understanding of the Skeptic’s use of different sorts of arguments.”
In any case, I found this expression in an interpreter: “But the practice of argumentative inquiry is so considerable a part of the sceptic’s way of life that…”.

11) “I claim that in Sextus’ writings one finds a peculiar non-dogmatic form of ethical relativism I label ‘agnostic’ or ‘phenomenological’ (this latter term understood in a broad sense so as to include that which appears both to the senses and to the mind).” Is it correct to say in this case “understood”, maybe “taken”?

12) “Needless to say, this does not commit the Skeptic to the belief in the objective validity of his judgments based on the way things appear to him.” You suggested “a belief”, then I thought that “the belief” is better.

13) “If philanthropy was natural in the sense of wholly involuntary and inevitable, it would be related to the Pyrrhonist’s involuntary affections.” Should I use “were” instead of “was”? This point has never been completely clear to me.

14) “However, in the final analysis it is not completely adequate to characterize it as such, because I think that the Skeptic sees a crucial difference between the involuntary affections and the moral principles by which he guides his everyday actions. For it appears to him that he could eliminate the influence of the latter factor, but not that of the former”. What do you think of this sentence?

15) “I then think that Sextus is aware of these facts, and hence that the Skeptic could stop acting and feeling in a philanthropic way and become more individualistic and uncaring, just as he could stop being pious and become impious.” Should I repeat “aware”? I ask this because in the first part I say “aware of” and then I use “that”.

By the way, another book of tales by Borges is “El Aleph”; probably you have already read it. I must confess that I don’t like García Márquez at all: neither his personality nor his writings (though I have read a couple of them). But most people think he is quite good.

Saludos,

Sextus

Hi MrP, how’s it going?

1) I finally thought of this possibility, which I reckon eliminates the problems:
“Thus, it seems that we must not put the emphasis on the fact that a shadow always and necessarily follows a body when the body blocks light, but just on the fact that in these circumstances there has been a close connection between them. Sextus’ intention is then to emphasize that at least up till now the Skeptic’s epoche has been closely followed by the state of ataraxia.”

2) “For if Sextus thought that ataraxia [is][> was] by nature good and that epoche necessarily [entails][> entailed] it, he would certainly assert that epoche too [is][> was] something good in itself, since it would be precisely that state of mind which [brings][> brought] about ataraxia.” The point is that here I’m using the second conditional and, as I’m using the present everywhere when referring to Sextus’ point of view, I reckon I can keep the present. Is it clear what I mean?

3) “A common way of accounting for the texts in which Sextus seems to be espousing negative dogmatic views consists in applying to them some of the clarifications he sometimes makes.”
Could you think of a synonym for “clarification”? Maybe “elucidation”?

Maybe you’re right about Borges. I don’t know if you know that he was bilingual. I think one of his grandmothers was British. So he learned the language when he was a kid. He also knew a lot of English literature. Well, he knew about almost any kind of literature. But I believe it’s also possible to detect a strong influence of Spanish literature, not only in the subjects he treated, but also in the way of writing. By the way, there’s a tale in Ficciones entitled “El fin”, which you can only understand completely if you know “El Martín Fierro” by José Hernández, an Argentinian writer from the 18th century. It’s precisely a book about the “gauchos”. The book is just excellent: it’s written in verse and it’s precisely the story of a “gaucho”, but the vocabulary is quite difficult, even for us. Well, that tale intends to be the “end” of the book. Maybe you already knew all that.

Cheers,

Sextus

Hi MrP,

I think “caveat” is just the perfect word. But I don’t know how to use it in the following two sentences. Should I use “make” or “give” or something else?

1) “A common way of accounting for the texts in which Sextus seems to be espousing negative dogmatic views consists in applying to them some of the caveats he sometimes makes”.

2) “What must be emphasized is that this text is a caveat Sextus makes before starting his Skeptical inquiry into the topic at issue, so that if at some point of his exposition he seems to affirm or imply that ataraxia is really good or worth pursuing, and that tarache is by nature bad or to be avoided, his words must be understood in the sense that they appear so to him.”

I have three more doubts, and I think with this I'm ready:

3) “However, there is no reason why the Skeptic’s supposedly ‘natural’ philanthropy should be restricted to the suffering that arises as a result of the holding of beliefs. For the fact, mentioned by Annas, that Sextus only refers to the Skeptic’s curing by argument just points to Sextus’ need to explain why he has employed a particular style of argumentation in a book which, we must not forget, is philosophic, not to the Skeptic’s lack of concern for others’ mundane troubles (though it must be noted that the perturbation arisen from, for instance, superstitious beliefs is perfectly ordinary).”
What do you think of the paragraph?

4) “The topics discussed at 162–166 do not correspond with those dealt with at PH i 25–30 (‘What is the end of the Skeptical ?’), but rather with those treated at PH i 21–24 (‘The criterion of the Skeptical ’).”
I think that in this sentence, my use of “correspond with” is correct, but I cannot figure out what the difference between it and “correspond to” is.

5) “He refers to this passage when examining the coexistence of a radical and a moderate form of skepticism in AM.”
I’m not sure whether “skepticism” is correct, but the plural form doesn’t sound correct to me.

Regarding Borges, I have to confess that I don’t know these writers you mention. I mean, I obviously know the names, but haven’t read his works, so I couldn’t compare Borges with them. García Márquez… what can I say? I think Borges is much better. But I’m not a specialist in literature. Anyway, I’m not the only one who thinks so. Some weeks ago the French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet came to Argentina and in a talk he gave he said that he read Borges and liked it, but that he didn’t used to read G. M. He said that G. M. wrote only one good book (“Cien años de soledad”), and that it was said that he wasn’t his real author. I have heard lots of things of this sort about his being the real author of his books. This may probably be bullshit (I don’t know what other word I can use). Be that as it may, I don’t tolerate the writers who behave like stars. This is the case of G. M. and the Portuguese writer Saramago (another Nobel Prize winner), who came some days ago to attend here in Argentina to the “III Congreso de la lengua”, and these guys just want to be on TV, etc. I almost forgot: maybe you're right about the similarities between Borges and G. M.

Cheers,

Sextus

Hi Mr. P. Many thanks for your suggestions, which are really useful.
Shoot! It seems that I’ll never stop having doubts with the bloody article. Here I have some new doubts:

1) “Throughout Sextus’ other writings one finds the Skeptic’s distinctively agnostic attitude coexisting with negative conclusions.”
I’m not completely sure about the difference between using “distinctively” or “distinctive”. In theory, before an adjective one should use an adverb, but one could perfectly well say (or so it seems to be): “the typical Skeptical attitude”.

2) “Now, in the event that this change of end took place, it would still be the Skeptic who searches for the new tevlo", so that the fact of giving up unperturbedness as his aim would not entail that he stops being a Skeptic.”
Is it ok to use the present tense (searches for, stops)?

3) “For if this is the case, why would Sextus be ironic when saying that the Skeptic’s choice of arguments is determined by the effects they have upon those he wants to persuade, given that his aim is precisely to persuade them?”
It seems to me that “if this is the case” is ok, but it occurred to me that perhaps I should say “were the case”, or “was the case”.

4) I have some doubts with my use of "make" and "caveat" in these sentences:

a) "First, it is clear that what is said here also applies to the Skeptic –that is, that there are things which appear to be good to him–, given the caveat Sextus makes at AD v 18–20. "

b) "At PH i 4 Sextus makes a much stronger caveat which reveals his extreme caution".

5) May I say either "philosophy book" or "philosophic/philosophical book", or is there any difference?

As we have been talking a little about literature, is Camus read over there? I started reading him while I was at high-school, and even now (or particularly now) I can't help finding his works as masterpieces. I mean, not only he handles French in an excellent manner, but above all his perception of the problems or situations he talks about is magnificent.

Sextus

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