Ataraxia

@fmf said
So why do you think one would have to leave the planet to achieve a sense of peace akin to ataraxia?

Jeez FMF. The idea is, since we're on the planet, and this is what we know, with all its attendant stresses and strifes, you would have to leave the planet to escape it all.

Or try with all your might to achieve ataraxia in some form or level, or turn to God for strength to endure.

Sooner or later we're all going to face the ultimate challenge.

Will you be ready?

@josephw said
The idea is, since we're on the planet, and this is what we know, with all its attendant stresses and strifes, you would have to leave the planet to escape it all.

I don't see how this is true. Attaining something akin to "ataraxia" ~ which you might do through your faith, for example ~ is a way of mitigating the "stresses and strifes", here and now, in this life. It is not necessary to "leave the planet".

@josephw said
Sooner or later we're all going to face the ultimate challenge.

Will you be ready?

I am as ready as I can be to face the fact that I will die. I hope I do so before my wife does and certainly before my children do, otherwise, some industrial-strength ataraxia is going to be needed.

@fmf said
I don't see how this is true. Attaining something akin to "ataraxia" ~ which you might do through your faith, for example ~ is a way of mitigating the "stresses and strifes", here and now, in this life. It is not necessary to "leave the planet".

I thought you'd see it that way.

Without a degree of stress one may as well be a vegetable. Life is difficult. One can't just ignore trouble. Everyone has it. Learning to handle stress is essential to human development.

You use "ataraxia" religiously. I don't believe it's attainable by human effort. Like some kind of religious exercise.

I prefer God's peace through adversity. Attainable by faith.

@fmf said
I am as ready as I can be to face the fact that I will die. I hope I do so before my wife does and certainly before my children do, otherwise, some industrial-strength ataraxia is going to be needed.

I know just what you mean.

@josephw said
You use "ataraxia" religiously.

No, I don't.

@josephw said
Without a degree of stress one may as well be a vegetable. Life is difficult. One can't just ignore trouble. Everyone has it. Learning to handle stress is essential to human development.

So you can handle this stress without "leaving the planet" and through your faith, right?

@vistesd2

Good posts, thank you. I see that a lot of research has been done on Pyrrhonism since I last looked into this. I read Sextus and Diogenes Laertius as an undergrad, oh, about 150 years ago. I interpreted Pyrrho's philosophy to mean unwillingness to commit to any of the various competing 'schools' of philosophy which grew up principally in the Greek-speaking world at that time, such as Plato's Academy, which were engaged in speculative metaphysics. Such metaphysical speculation merely troubles the mind without leading to any tangible benefit. Or, as Wm. James would later say, "ontological wonder sickness" is the disease of philosophy itself which philosophy is supposed to cure but seldom does.

@moonbus

Thank you! And thank you for stimulating my thinking and inquiry further (as did divegeester and FMF).

I hadn’t come across the phrase “ontological wonder sickness” – it seems so apt! (I think Wittgenstein was talking about the same kind of thing – but I’m just an interested lay-schlock 😉 ). Good to read your stuff! 😊

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Just as a small riff from my own reading: Epicurus also thought that ataraxia was crucial to eudaimonia. My recollection is that Sextus really liked Epicurus -- but only objected to his "dogmatic" position on the nature of the physicalist universe. I'm probably a kind of neo-Epicurean with some neo-Pyrrhonian tendencies ...

@vistesd2 said
@moonbus

Thank you! And thank you for stimulating my thinking and inquiry further (as did divegeester and FMF).

I hadn’t come across the phrase “ontological wonder sickness” – it seems so apt! (I think Wittgenstein was talking about the same kind of thing – but I’m just an interested lay-schlock 😉 ). Good to read your stuff! 😊

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J ...[text shortened]... e physicalist universe. I'm probably a kind of neo-Epicurean with some neo-Pyrrhonian tendencies ...

Yes, there is definitely a strain of Pyrrhonism in the later Wittgenstein's philosophy. Especially his idea of attending to ordinary language as kind of therapy for intractable philosophical conundrums. "The real discovery is the one which makes me capable to stopping doing philosophy whenever I want to. The one which gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself into question" Wittgenstein wrote (P.I. section 133).


I think Pyrrho was also tending to appeal to ordinary customs and mores to avoid getting lost in abstract theories of The Good For Man (with capital letters).

@moonbus

To say that “I agree” would be hubris on my part. (Seriously.) But thank you especially for that quote (I remember it once you quote it, but it – like so much – got lost in my unstructured wanderings through Wittgenstein).

I think the best way to understand Pyrrho is in terms of bringing what he learned from (nondogmatic) Buddhism into a Greek paradigm. Kuzminski essentially compares later Pyrrhonism (ala Sextus Empiricus) to Madhyamika Buddhism (ala Nagarjuna) – without the denial (expressed by some) that Pyrrho was really a Pyrrhonist. You might enjoy the read.

Anyway, thanks for your kind response.