sub species aeternitatis
jsqu...@gmail.com
it translated and interpreted in a variety of ways.
Apparently "species" is the acc. plural of the
5th declension. (I believe that, strictly speaking,
there is no acc. pl for "species", but that Spinoza
means the acc. pl anyway in his usages)
That means that "sub" should
only have the meanings which syntactically
call for the accusative case. That should be a clue
in figuring out which of the many, many meanings
of "species" Spinoza meant to be using.
A straight forward translation would be
"under the forms of Eternity"
but, altho that is correct in terms of the Latin
per se, I don't really like it in terms of the rest
of what Spinoza seems to be up to. I am
inclined more toward those meanings which
are cognate to "aspect", "looking", etc.
So....
does anyone have something to say as to
what Spinoza meant with his uses of the
phrase "sub species aeternitatis"?
B. T. Raven
I think it should be "sub specie ..." (ablative sing.). For some reason
Google doesn't honor the space in (quoted) "sub species" so that that
you get more hits than for "sub specie" but most refer to the taxonomic
term subspecies. CL may not have used acc. plural but it should be
acceptable in neo-Latin and thus in universal Latin. You can have a kind
of trees and kinds of trees.
Sub specie aeternitatis is "under the aspect (from the coign of vantage)
of timelessness."
Eduardus
jsqu...@gmail.com
Right you are! I have checked the actual Latin text.
Those who write about Spinoza commonly
use "sub species aeternitatis" as tho it is
exactly the phrase Spinoza used. DeLeuze, for
example, does this.
I find the meanings of "species" which go with the ablative case
fit better with what Spinoza seems to be getting at
than do those which go with the accusative.
Thanks for straightening me out.
Evertjan.
> For some reason
> Google doesn't honor the space in (quoted) "sub species" so that that
> you get more hits than for "sub specie"
try this search string:
"sub species" -"subspecies"
Still, you cannot filter out sub-species.
--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)
Ed Cryer
<jsqu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:002ee2c3-42d7-427d...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
COROLLARIUM II: De natura rationis est res sub quadam æternitatis specie
percipere.
DEMONSTRATIO: De natura enim rationis est res ut necessarias et non ut
contingentes contemplari (per propositionem præcedentem). Hanc autem
rerum necessitatem (per propositionem 41 hujus) vere hoc est (per axioma
6 partis I) ut in se est, percipit. Sed (per propositionem 16 partis I)
hæc rerum necessitas est ipsa Dei æternæ naturæ necessitas; ergo de
natura rationis est res sub hac æternitatis specie contemplari. Adde
quod fundamenta rationis notiones sint (per propositionem 38 hujus) quæ
illa explicant quæ omnibus communia sunt quæque (per propositionem 37
hujus) nullius rei singularis essentiam explicant quæque propterea
absque ulla temporis relatione sed sub quadam æternitatis specie debent
concipi. Q.E.D.
Corollary II.--It is in the nature of reason to perceive things under a
certain form of eternity (sub quâdam æternitatis specie).
Proof.--It is in the nature of reason to regard things, not as
contingent, but as necessary (II. xliv.). Reason perceives this
necessity of things (II. xli.) truly,--that is (I. Ax. vi.), as it is in
itself. But (I. xvi.) this necessity of things is the very necessity of
the eternal nature of God; therefore, it is in the nature of reason to
regard things under this form of eternity. We may add that the bases of
reason are the notions (II. xxxviii.), which answer to things common to
all, and which (II. xxxvii.) do not answer to the essence of any
particular thing: which must therefore be conceived without any relation
to time, under a certain form of eternity.
*****************
Ed
jsqu...@gmail.com
This is a fascinating observation. I will verify what you
say. It seems to me that Google and other aspects
of an evolving non-human complexity must show puzzling behavior. Why,
I
cannot say, but my intuition tells me so it must be.
I often find myself playing with changes in the words I
feed Google just to see the sometimes surprising
differences in its responses.
We are here as on a darkling plain
And of on windows frost forming.
B. T. Raven
That's not as bad as what the Harvard trained lawyers around here are
guilty of:
'Amickus [curiae], that is with stress on antepenult and short i. This
is only marginally more intelligible than sighknee digh for "sine die."
Luckily these people won't be able to avail themselves of benefit of clergy.
I constantly see the same thing in otherwise reasonably servicable
English prose. The proofreaders of David Levering Lewis' _God's
Crucible_ get the spelling of Latin tags, titles, names, quotations,
etc. wrong more often than right.
Eduardus
Evertjan.
> On Mar 15, 2:11 am, "Evertjan." <exjxw.hannivo...@interxnl.net> wrote:
>> B. T. Raven wrote on 15 mrt 2008 in alt.language.latin:
>>
>> > For some reason
>> > Google doesn't honor the space in (quoted) "sub species" so that
>> > that you get more hits than for "sub specie"
>>
>> try this search string:
>>
>> "sub species" -"subspecies"
>>
>> Still, you cannot filter out sub-species.
[please do not quote signatures on usenet]
> This is a fascinating observation. I will verify what you
> say. It seems to me that Google and other aspects
> of an evolving non-human complexity must show puzzling behavior. Why,
> I
> cannot say, but my intuition tells me so it must be.
> I often find myself playing with changes in the words I
> feed Google just to see the sometimes surprising
> differences in its responses.
The problem is the somewhat crazy English habit
of separate words into smaller parts.
Google tries to reconstruct the original,
by allowing "sub species"
to make hits on "subspecies".
You could say it is a mistake of Google,
but the problem is in the above habit.
> We are here as on a darkling plain
> And of on windows frost forming.
"windows frost forming"?
A good example, it would be one word in many an other language.
Ed Cryer
"Evertjan." <exjxw.ha...@interxnl.net> wrote in message
news:Xns9A63C996...@194.109.133.242...
Google asks "Did you mean xxxxxxxxxx?" and then, usually, goes on to
give hits for the string you've entered.
But in this case it asks the question, and lists hits for that question.
I figure that's wrong. It should list hits for what you've entered.
Ed
Ed Cryer
In German, maybe, but not in the Romance languages I know.
Ed
Evertjan.
>> The problem is the somewhat crazy English habit
>> of separate words into smaller parts.
>>
>> Google tries to reconstruct the original,
>> by allowing "sub species"
>> to make hits on "subspecies".
>>
>> You could say it is a mistake of Google,
>> but the problem is in the above habit.
>>
>
> Google asks "Did you mean xxxxxxxxxx?" and then, usually, goes on to
> give hits for the string you've entered.
Only if it suspects a mistake.
The above category is not in that class, they think, methinks.
> But in this case it asks the question, and lists hits for that question.
Sometimes it askes and corrects at the same time.
> I figure that's wrong. It should list hits for what you've entered.
Since when Google listens to reason in stead of to the majority of users?
Erare humanum, sponte et iniussu corrigere disputandum.
jsqu...@gmail.com
As usual, you offer some very perceptive and thought
provoking input. We seem to converge in that we
both seem to see Google as being, to a significant degree,
about language itself, not just information per se.
Have you read "The Singularity is Near"? It seems to
me that the author, Kurzweil, projects some of what
we are here discussing into a not too distant future.
Evertjan.
> As usual, you offer some very perceptive and thought
> provoking input. We seem to converge in that we
> both seem to see Google as being, to a significant degree,
> about language itself, not just information per se.
Outside this NG, language is only a means to [broad]cast information.
Google points to information, mainly.
The breaking of words in modern English,
though it may be acceptable idiom,
is a hindrance to this intelligentpointing.
For the multiglots:
There is a nice website fighting this in-Dutch-unacceptable behavour:
<http://www.spatiegebruik.nl/index2.php>
> Have you read "The Singularity is Near"? It seems to
> me that the author, Kurzweil, projects some of what
> we are here discussing into a not too distant future.
Kurzweil?
For a short while.
Ed Cryer
Well, I put in ghju iopr ty;
and it trundled away and came up with 17 hits; although it asked;
Did you mean: ghju iop ty.
One of the hits was this site;
http://i30www.ira.uka.de/~kutzner/allwords/allwords.html
which contains some fascinating stuff.
What analysis and linguistic conclusions has it made? Its suggestion
appears merely to have knocked off the "r" from my "iopr".
Ed
Ed Cryer
"Ed Cryer" <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote in message
news:frm8t9$gaj$1...@aioe.org...
And then I tried Skamdangling, and got;
Your search - Skamdangling - did not match any documents.
Now, if your theory about Google doing some kind of John Searle's
Chinese Room look-up processing on the input parameters is correct, then
it must have concluded that Skamdangling was a good word but it just
couldn't get any hits on the Web.
Ed
jsqu...@gmail.com
> "Ed Cryer" <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:frm8t9$gaj$1...@aioe.org...
>
>
>
>
>
"....Outside this NG, language is only a means to [broad]cast
information. .."
I have to disagree because agreeing puts me in the conundrums
of X/X-ing/X-er which I see as an artifact of language grammar
and not the way things really are. For example, we essentially get
rapidly
back to the infinite recursions of the classic choice/choosing/
Chooser.
Otherwise, I suspect that I will agree with almost all
that you say, once I have given it some thought.
Your directly experimental approach is great.
Evertjan.
> "....Outside this NG, language is only a means to [broad]cast
> information. .."
>
> I have to disagree because agreeing puts me in the conundrums
> of X/X-ing/X-er which I see as an artifact of language grammar
> and not the way things really are. For example, we essentially get
> rapidly
> back to the infinite recursions of the classic choice/choosing/
> Chooser.
>
Tese forms are only inherited in English from earlier Germanic forms,
like in AngloSaxon, Dutch, Frisian, etc.
In general it feels like an abstraction as also seen
in Latin, Greek, of extending "Cheese" to
"Cheesemaker", "Cheeseeater", "Cheesevendor","Cheesesayer".
[This is broken by the thought that they should be written as seperate
words, adding to a dualisticity{?] with those sentences where the two words
should really be seperated]
In Hebrew [ancient Hebrew I mean, for those who think Hebrew=Ivrit],
the whole word concept is abstracted to a usually 3 consonant stem,
having a basic meaning, but unpronounceable as such,
with vowels to "extend" to the compound meaning.