[quote]orion wrote:
Do you want to be one of these wise men?[/quote]
Not particularly. And even if I wanted to, I think I’d be hard pressed to get even my parents to vote for me.
[quote]Because the only way for me to advance in life is to tell “noble lies” to people.
What you think?
Or, what think you?[/quote]
I think that if I could only advance by lying, I’d learn to be content with where I was.
[quote]orion wrote:
Ok, then tell me what would be noble lie.
Compared to a less noble lie, explaining what constitutes the difference.
[/quote]
Let’s start here: have you read The Republic? Have you read The Prince?
If not, I don’t see how we can have an intelligent discussion about the differences.
[quote]saps wrote:
tedro wrote:
saps wrote:
I graduated from the same high school as ole Barry [different year]. I was born in the same hospital he was in Hawaii too. I’m not voting for him mind you but its kinda a neat little factoid
That, of course, assumes that he was indeed born in Hawaii.
He was[/quote]
Are you sure?
[quote]nephorm wrote:
orion wrote:
Because the only way for me to advance in life is to tell “noble lies” to people.
Or, what think you?
I think that the noble lie, as conceived by the Platonic Socrates, is intended for a different end than the princely deceptions that Machiavelli teaches. And I sincerely doubt that you are advancing in life by telling noble lies. You may advance by telling lies… but not noble ones.
[/quote]
All my lies are noble. Except for just now when I lied about having noble lies. Oh what a noble quandary. Perhaps I will find my advancement in the form of a less confusing thread concept.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Let’s start here: have you read The Republic? Have you read The Prince?
If not, I don’t see how we can have an intelligent discussion about the differences.[/quote]
Why don’t you just summarize it for the plebes.
We can begin the conversation by talking about what great works of fiction the “literati” won’t admit they are and by talking about how their written words have been twisted for the purpose of deception and hegemony.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Why don’t you just summarize it for the plebes.
We can begin the conversation by talking about what great works of fiction the “literati” won’t admit they are and by talking about how their written words have been twisted for the purpose of deception and hegemony.[/quote]
Sounds like first rate scholarship to me.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Why don’t you just summarize it for the plebes.
We can begin the conversation by talking about what great works of fiction the “literati” won’t admit they are and by talking about how their written words have been twisted for the purpose of deception and hegemony.
Sounds like first rate scholarship to me.[/quote]
Is it not so?
[quote]nephorm wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Why don’t you just summarize it for the plebes.
We can begin the conversation by talking about what great works of fiction the “literati” won’t admit they are and by talking about how their written words have been twisted for the purpose of deception and hegemony.
Sounds like first rate scholarship to me.[/quote]
I read the Prince many years ago and have lost the book. Do you know an on-line site that has it? I should probably just order one from Amazon.
My copy of ‘The Republic’ sits happily in my den/office. In fact, I am looking at it now.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I read the Prince many years ago and have lost the book. Do you know an on-line site that has it? I should probably just order one from Amazon.
[/quote]
My recommendation is to just buy the Mansfield translation from Amazon. You can also pick it up at your local B&N. I first read the Modern Library edition… it was absolutely riddled with translation problems.
Project Gutenberg to the rescue:
[quote]pookie wrote:
Project Gutenberg to the rescue:
[/quote]
Translations matter.
I use Gutenberg when I wish to search for a phrase or particular word that I remember from a text, and must find the chapter or surrounding text. But the translations are usually not literal. Especially for Plato, for example, you get much more of Jowett than you ought.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
pookie wrote:
Project Gutenberg to the rescue:
Translations matter.
I use Gutenberg when I wish to search for a phrase or particular word that I remember from a text, and must find the chapter or surrounding text. But the translations are usually not literal. Especially for Plato, for example, you get much more of Jowett than you ought.[/quote]
You could always help, you know.
[quote]Translations matter.
I use Gutenberg when I wish to search for a phrase or particular word that I remember from a text, and must find the chapter or surrounding text. But the translations are usually not literal. Especially for Plato, for example, you get much more of Jowett than you ought.[/quote]
I wouldn’t know… First (and only) time I read it, I read it in French.
Second, you really think people are going to buy the book from Amazon, wait for delivery, read it, think about it… and then come back to discuss it here? You redefine optimism.
The Gutenberg version is better than no version and it’s free.
[quote]lixy wrote:
You could always help, you know. [/quote]
Help with what? My understanding was that the project is primarily concerned with taking extant, public domain translations and doing what amounts to a distributed proof-read after it has been scanned. Are they now trying to do their own translations? How would that even work within their distributed model, if there is no unified voice in the translation?
[quote]pookie wrote:
Second, you really think people are going to buy the book from Amazon, wait for delivery, read it, think about it… and then come back to discuss it here? You redefine optimism.
[/quote]
Actually, I don’t think that people are going to buy it, or read it, or think about it, or discuss it. HeadHunter is an exception.
Depending on the translation, it can be worse than no version.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
lixy wrote:
You could always help, you know.
Help with what? My understanding was that the project is primarily concerned with taking extant, public domain translations and doing what amounts to a distributed proof-read after it has been scanned. Are they now trying to do their own translations? How would that even work within their distributed model, if there is no unified voice in the translation.[/quote]
Not that I know of. I got the impression that you had a version that’s unavailable on PG.
But it could easily work. Just look at the piles of GPLed (or similar license) documentation that get translated to every language there is. Or the way wiki pages are translated.
Many eyes collaborating on translating The Prince beats the hell out of a guy sitting at his desk.
And I prefer the term open model to distributed model.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Not that I know of. I got the impression that you had a version that’s unavailable on PG.
[/quote]
I do, but it is not public domain. Translations are protected by copyright.
I am not sure that democratizing translation is the best way to go, especially considering the varying philosophies involved in translation. One benefit of single or dual editor translations is that they present a unified voice. Frankly, if I had the opportunity to use fresh translations from PG for free, or could pay for what someone with credentials had spent years laboring over and researching, I would most likely choose the latter.
It is distributed in the sense that they separate the pages and send them to volunteers in a distributed fashion. The volunteers work in parallel. Wikipedia is more of an example of open collaboration. But I am not too concerned about the terminology.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Depending on the translation, it can be worse than no version.[/quote]
How bad can a translation be?
[quote]pookie wrote:
Second, you really think people are going to buy the book from Amazon, wait for delivery, read it, think about it… and then come back to discuss it here? You redefine optimism.
[/quote]
I think it is more optimistic to think one is going to find people in real society to discuss it with outside of a university campus.
There are plenty of netizens with no real life just waiting to show off the amount of pedantry they are willing to go through when discussing classical Greek literature and which translations are the best.
And even if there were only two of them…isn’t that enough?
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Are they now trying to do their own translations? How would that even work within their distributed model, if there is no unified voice in the translation?
[/quote]
Thats what footnotes are for.