Abstract
Every pleasure has limits, but we continue our research, looking for something new. Humankind needs new knowledge and new things. The spiritual pleasure is most important and always grows, whereas physical pleasures diminish. Friendship is valuable. It is about the quality and hierarchy of moral values, and how badness and goodness are present in the same human.
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Notes
- 1.
Ibidem, 458–462
- 2.
“Moreover, the natural decline of all things and of the pleasures they afford seems to encourage and perhaps even justify man’s quest for newness, if any justification were felt to be needed.” T. A. Perry, The Moral proverbs of Santob de Carrión (Jewish Wisdom in Christian Spain), Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987, p. 102
- 3.
Ibidem, 463–466
- 4.
Ibidem, 467
- 5.
Among the Epicurean maximum found in the “Vatican sentences” we find: “Any friendship is desirable in itself, but it gains its raison d’être from the need for help.” (no. 18), completed by the subjective security that is achieved through friendship and therefore the pleasure that comes with it: “We do not obtain so much help from that of Friends as through the confidence in his help.” (no. 34). Epicurus, Obras completas, Madrid, Cátedra, 1996, pp. 100–101
- 6.
Sem Tob, Op. Cit., 468–470
- 7.
Ibidem, 471–474
- 8.
García Calvo translates “understanding”, but this means bringing him closer to Platonic intellectualism, while the literal term “sentiment” includes understanding and affection, the heart, and, therefore, in his philosophy, will, i.e. what is understood as specific to being as a person.
- 9.
Sem Tob, Op. Cit., 475–478
- 10.
Ibidem, 479
- 11.
Ibidem, 480–483
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Galán Díez, I. (2017). XV: Pleasures, Newness and Morals. In: The Birth of Thought in the Spanish Language. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 127. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50977-8_27
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