Dear Mathias,
Do you think that "to ergon" is really the best translation for "reality"?
Is "Wirklichkeit" used in German to translate it? In my mind, "to ergon"
(das Werk) is a human artifact and therefore a product of art ("he techne")
and thus not a term for reality as a whole. My first inclination would be to
translate "reality" with "to on" or "to einai," or perhaps with the Platonic
"to ontos on." I think that it is interesting that "realitas" does not
appear in my classical Latin dictionary and that St. Thomas does not seem to
use it either, though, of course, he uses the noun "res," the adjective
"realis," and the adverb "realiter." I am not sure that either the Greeks or
the Latins had a word for the abstract term "reality" understood as the
totality of what is. My suspicion is that it entered academic Latin during
the Renaissance or later. In any event, perhaps "ta onta" or "ta pragmata"
would give the sense of "reality" as the totality of what is. What do you
think?
Stephen
P.S. O.k. this is really off topic but interesting to me. I apologize.
----- Original Message -----
From: ""Mathias Rösel"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Lute List" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 2:29 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: No guts no glory
>can all think up to say "Blissfully out of touch with
>reality" in ancient Greek. I look forward to a
>wonderfully fascinating discourse.
Best I can do with an online dictionary and no knowledge of spoken Greek,
ancient or modern.
Eutuchps ek omilin aletheia
Ancient: eudaimones tou ergou apechomenoi chairomen
Mathias
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