17 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2019
    1. Two-fold arguments are also put forward concerning the just and the unjust

      Examples here are more oriented toward personal freedom / libertarian values; points out that the same action applied to the same person, can be either potentially just or unjust depending on the circumstances, and also that there will be local conflicts and differences in opinion (e.g. in preventing a friend from committing suicide, they may be angry and disagree that your actions are just, though others may support your decision and think it is indeed just).

      There is no universal sanctity of property rights or freedom from bodily restraint by others; violence is in some cases justified, and in others not.

    2. Since if anyone should ask those who say that the same thing is both disgraceful and seemly whether they have ever done anything seemly, they would admit that they have also done something disgraceful, if disgraceful and seemly are really the same thing.

      In removing the context, the actions become effectively neutral, in that they are simultaneously good and bad; the actions themselves exist without judgment, and the judgment is only the product of the culture in which they take place (or are regarded)

    3. But there is also an argument about the disgraceful and the seemly which says that each is distinct from the other. Since if anyone should ask those who say that the same thing is both disgraceful and seemly whether they have ever done anything seemly, they would admit that they have also done something disgraceful, if disgraceful and seemly are really the same thing.

      Depends perhaps upon in whose eyes we are judged; to consider the judgment of all would result in paralysis, and goes back again to "the right thing" being dependent upon its context and actors.

      One is maybe always simultaneously appeasing certain gods and transgressing against others.

    4. but the right occasion

      The right occasion = the opportune moment; context-specific.

    5. And if you investigate in this way, you will see another law for mortals: nothing is always seemly or always disgraceful, but the right occasion takes the same things and makes them disgraceful and then alters them and makes them seemly.

      No universal truths, however this wisdom is not universally regarded as true, and many would argue that universal truths or laws do exist.<br> Paradox of claiming that there are no universal laws is that in doing so, you are making a claim of a universal law.

    6. against the law

      As examples rise in degree of 'extremity', they brush up against norms and laws, an act that may be celebrated in one culture is punishable by death or ostracism in another, simply based on the geography or time in which it takes place. By keeping location and temporality intact, the author is able to refrain from making absolute claims about any of the actual behaviors and just cite them as things that are, irrespective of judgment. The degree to which the reader judges them may be dependent upon the reader's interpreting the behaviors not as context-specific acts, but as archetypes(?) or fixed representations of those acts which stand outside of time and place.

    7. the most beautiful grave imaginable

      Shifts to more 'extreme' examples, but points out that this perverse (to the greeks) act is BEAUTIFUL and an act of love to others; perhaps their reverence is inversely proportional to the Greeks' horror.<br> Also, in using such 'extreme' examples, the author shows that in fact nothing is truly extreme, because it is all a matter of context, and concepts of extremity introduce limits or constrain these things to a spectrum which is not necessarily accurate; it all depends on the context, and something cannot "depend" strongly or weakly based on the actual act, but only on the context.

    8. I go on to the things which cities and peoples regard as disgraceful

      Switches to point out arbitrary differences in culture; be born in one area and you believe x, be born in another and you believe y, but largely it is a matter of the random happenstance of one's birth. These beliefs are human creations, and vary depending on where the humans live.

    9. (although for men to do so in the palaistra aid gymnasium is seemly.)

      The "good" and the "bad" can be seemingly arbitrarily different between identity groups. Why is it seemly for person of type x and unseemly for person of type y?

    10. And I am not saying what the good is, but I am trying to explain that the bad and the good are not the same but that each is distinct from the other

      Not trying to identify a moral absolute, just point out that it is relative and therefore that there is no absolute.

    11. I think it would not be clear what was good and what was bad if they were just the same and one did not differ from the other; in fact such a situation would be extraordinary

      Is this sarcasm? Is he saying that such a duality would be extraordinary in that it would violate the philosophers' attempts to categorize and assign general rules? Not sure...

    12. But there is another argument which says that the good is one thing and the bad another, and that as the name differs, so does the thing named.

      This serves as a sort of refrain in the verse/chorus structure of the text. It is constructed like a song in some respects.

    13. And death is bad for those who die but good for the undertakers and gravediggers.

      Use of the progressive method of providing examples; in this case, linear from health to death. Further on in the text from mundane to extreme.<br> Examples here shift from the personal (the sick individual) to a class (professions); there is a hierarchy and blending here of sorts in that any member of any of the professions listed could find themselves as the individual afflicted by the example condition/problem, and as such we find that the same person could potentially hold these conflicting opinions at different stages in their life, and that neither is necessarily wrong nor contradictory.

    14. And, further, incontinence in these matters is bad for the incontinent but good for those who sell these things and make a profit. And again, illness is bad for the sick but good for the doctors. And death is bad for those who die but good for the undertakers and gravediggers.

      i.e. it depends on who you're asking; all are likely to express sympathy, but also their livelihoods depend on the decline of the other.

    15. or at one time good and at another time bad for the same person

      Not fixed

    16. Two-fold arguments concerning the good and the bad are put forward in Greece by those who philosophize. Some say that the good is one thing and the bad another, but others say that they are the same, and a thing might be good for some persons but bad for others, or at one time good and at another time bad for the same person.

      Good & bad, or things with which we agree and disagree. They are sometimes put forth as absolutes or dividing lines, but in reality, there may be disagreement about whether things are in fact, good or bad. Instead of arguing back and forth over who is right, the interesting discourse may be in where the differences lie.

    17. Suppose someone should question the man who says this as follows: Why don't you assign your household slaves their tasks by lot, so that if the teamster drew the office of cook, he would do the cooking and the cook would drive the team, and so with the rest ?

      How do these "fish out of water" statements compare back to previous examples? Seems to imply that, if you took an Athenian and placed them in Sparta, that they would consider the Spartan culture still foreign and would be at a disadvantage trying to operate within the context (which is likely)? They would see things through the lens of an Athenian, which, on the other hand, may provide certain perspective that the Spartans take for granted. Perhaps it is a reminder that opportunity is not democratically distributed, and that the moments and circumstances conducive to certain results cannot be manufactured by moving the pieces around, because they depend so much not only on the context in which they happen, but the experience and history of those who find themselves within the situation?