Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jeffrey Gibson · 07-24-2008, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

What is involved in a paradigm shift?

Have you read Kuhn's book?

Come on, Doug! You ought to know better than to ask Pete if he reads books, especially if they are not on the web!

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 07-24-2008, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

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Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Only if one considers intellectual honesty a hegemon.

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In other words, historians don't argue about burden of proof because they all assume they have it themselves.

Historians assume that the evidence on the table of history is sufficient to support the theories of its historical relationships which they themselves put forward,

Could you please back this claim up with some quotations from respected historians that demonstrate that this is what historians assume?

I'm reading the new book by Oxford historian Brian Ward-Perkins on the fall of Rome. He assumes no such thing. (Nor do other historians I know from Oxford and Cambridge and U of C and elsewhere.) So I wonder what it is that you, as wonderfully credentialed and skilled and widely read as you are, know that he doesn't?

On top of that he notes that people often misinterpret or distort or are incapable of accurately dealing with the "evidence" that is on the table (good example is you with Arius and Julian). So the assumption that it ithe evidence on the table is sufficient is dangerous -- as you yourself keep claiming when you assert ad nauseam that what is ordinarily taken as evidence for Christianity prior to Constantine cannot be taken as such.

Looks to me like we have another "Pete claim" that's cut from the same cloth as was his one about Ross having had a reputation of being a good classical scholar.

Jeffrey

mountainman · 07-24-2008, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Historians assume that the evidence on the table of history is sufficient to support the theories of its historical relationships which they themselves put forward,

Could you please back this claim up with some quotations from respected historians that demonstrate that this is what historians assume?

I'm reading the new book by Oxford historian Brian Ward-Perkins on the fall of Rome. He assumes no such thing. (Nor do other historians I know from Oxford and Cambridge and U of C and elsewhere.) So I wonder what it is that you, as wonderfully credentialed and skilled and widely read as you are, know that he doesn't?

Take careful note of point number two Jeffrey since I think you may need to read this a few times so that it sinks in .....

ON PAGANS, JEWS, and CHRISTIANS

--- Arnaldo Momigliano, 1987

Quote:

Chapter 1:

Biblical Studies and Classical Studies
Simple Reflections upon Historical Method

p.3

Principles of Historical research need not be different
from criteria of common sense. And common sense teaches
us that outsiders must not tell insiders what they should
do. I shall therefore not discuss directly what biblical
scholars are doing. They are the insiders.

What I can perhaps do usefully is to emphasise as briefly
as possible three closely interrelated points of my
experience as a classicial scholar who is on speaking terms
with biblical scholars.

1) our common experience in historical research;

2) the serious problems we all have to face because of the
current devaluation of the notion of evidence and of the
corresponding overappreciation of rhetoric and idealogy
as instruments for the analysis of the literary sources;

3) what seems to me the most fruitful field of collaboration
between classical and biblical scholars.

Let me admit from the start that I am rather impervious to
any claim that sacred history poses problems which are not
those of profane history.

p.7

One is almost embarrassed to have to say
that any statement a historian makes must
be supported by evidence which, according
to ordinary criteria of human judgement,
is adequate to prove the reality of the
statement itself. This has three
consequences:

1) Historians must be prepared to admit
in any given case that they are unable
to reach safe conclusions because the
evidence is insufficient; like judges,
historians must be ready to say 'not proven'.

2) The methods used to ascertain the value
of the evidence must continually be scrutinised
and perfected, because they are essential to
historical research.

3) The historians themselves must be judged
according to their ability to establish facts.

The form of exposition they choosen for their presentation
of the facts is a secondary consideration. I have of course
nothing to object in principle to the present multiplication
in methods of rhetorical analysis of historical texts.

You may have as much rhetorical analysis as you consider
necessary, provided it leads to the establishment of the
truth - or to the admission that truth is regretfully
out of reach in a given case.

But it must be clear once for all that Judges and Acts,
Heroditus and Tacitus are historical texts to be examined
with the purpose of recovering the truth of the past.

Hence the interesting conclusion that the notion of forgery
has a different meaning in historiography than it has in
other branches of literature or of art. A creative writer
or artist perpetuates a forgery every time he intends
to mislead his public about the date and authorship
of his own work.

But only a historian can be guilty of forging evidence
or of knowingly used forged evidence in order to
support his own historical discourse. One is never
simple-minded enough about the condemnation of
forgeries. Pious frauds are frauds, for which one
must show no piety - and no pity.

And ...

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On top of that he notes that people often misinterpret or distort or are incapable of accurately dealing with the "evidence" that is on the table (good example is you with Arius and Julian).

Have you been recently notified that Julian's invectives have a satisfactory explanation in the field of ancient history with a consensus of opinion? If so, what is the explanation? Ditto for the consensus of the explanation of the Arian controversy. Give us a break Jeffrey, all I am trying to do is fit the pieces of the vidence together into a picture that makes sense. A top-down-emperor cult flowing out of the Nicaean council, along with its tax-exemptions and special privileges of the imperial ROman court, the establishment of the basilicas by Constantine along with the crosses and the propagandist literature ... all this is just a common pattern of facts the world has seen age after age. There is nothing divine about Constantine. Is there Jeffrey?

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So the assumption that it ithe evidence on the table is sufficient is dangerous -- as you yourself keep claiming when you assert ad nauseam that what is ordinarily taken as evidence for Christianity prior to Constantine cannot be taken as such.

We have the evidence. The big problem is we also have our own postulates, some of which are unexamined, because we may not be conscious of them. Pick any citation from the evidence on the table. Each observer and/or commentator often sees in it somehting different. Why? And who is more correct? This is no argument from authority.

The implicit reliance upon the Eusebian framework of chronology for the history of the prenicene epoch is one of these. My claims in this have been made with respect to the detailed citation which I have listed and refered to numerously. Which one of these evidentiary citations did you have in mind to discuss?

Best wishes,

Pete

mountainman · 07-24-2008, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

What is involved in a paradigm shift?

Have you read Kuhn's book?

Yes. Have you read Philostratus' book?

Doug Shaver · 07-25-2008, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

What is involved in a paradigm shift?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Have you read Kuhn's book?

Yes.

Then why ask me the question? Kuhn answered it for you.

Jeffrey Gibson · 07-25-2008, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Could you please back this claim up with some quotations from respected historians that demonstrate that this is what historians assume?

I'm reading the new book by Oxford historian Brian Ward-Perkins on the fall of Rome. He assumes no such thing. (Nor do other historians I know from Oxford and Cambridge and U of C and elsewhere.) So I wonder what it is that you, as wonderfully credentialed and skilled and widely read as you are, know that he doesn't?

Take careful note of point number two Jeffrey since I think you may need to read this a few times so that it sinks in .....

I've read it several times. In fact, if memory serves, I was the one who -- because you rarely if ever actually look at books or get off your butt to go to a library-- supplied you with the text you quote. And I cannot for the life of me figure out why it is you think that what you quote supports the claims you've been making. M argues against your claims. So if anyone has a need for what M says to sink in, it's you.

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Have you been recently notified that Julian's invectives have a satisfactory explanation in the field of ancient history with a consensus of opinion?

Have you actually ever got in touch with experts on Julian to see whether your Greekless and "it's been interpolated" take on the object and import of his invectives has any support from them?

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Ditto for the consensus of the explanation of the Arian controversy.

OK, Pete, let's get this clear. Would you admit -- yes or no -- that if your reading of the object of Julian's assertion about "fiction" and of Arius' assertion about what it was that "was not" are incorrect, your thesis would be seriously damaged?

all I am trying to do is fit the pieces of the vidence together into a picture that makes sense. A top-down-emperor cult flowing out of the Nicaean council, along with its tax-exemptions and special privileges of the imperial ROman court, the establishment of the basilicas by Constantine along with the crosses and the propagandist literature ... all this is just a common pattern of facts the world has seen age after age. There is nothing divine about Constantine. Is there Jeffrey?

I'll be whipped with a wt noodle if it can be pointed out to me where I ever said there was.

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So the assumption that it ithe evidence on the table is sufficient is dangerous -- as you yourself keep claiming when you assert ad nauseam that what is ordinarily taken as evidence for Christianity prior to Constantine cannot be taken as such.

Quote:

We have the evidence.

Curiously M says just the opposite:

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Historians must be prepared to admit in any given case that they are unable
to reach safe conclusions because the evidence is insufficient; like judges, historians must be ready to say 'not proven'.

Quote:

The big problem is we also have our own postulates, some of which are unexamined, because we may not be conscious of them. Pick any citation from the evidence on the table. Each observer and/or commentator often sees in it somehting different. Why?

Leaving aside the question of whether your claim is true (didn't you just speak of a scholarly consensus about Arius and the Arian controversy?), when there is a difference it is, as M says, because these observers/commentators are like you in their lack of possession of the linguistic and other the skill sets necessary to "do history" well.

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And who is more correct? This is no argument from authority.

It is an argument, as M. notes, from competence.

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The implicit reliance upon the Eusebian framework of chronology for the history of the prenicene epoch is one of these.

I fail to see how the Eusebian framework for chronology has any bearing on what it was that either Arius or Julian was asserting in the texts of theirs you use as "evidence" that Christianity did not exist before Constantine.

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My claims in this have been made with respect to the detailed citation which I have listed and refered to numerously. Which one of these evidentiary citations did you have in mind to discuss?

Respect???:rolling::rolling:

Can you show me one citation from someone who knows Greek and who is familiar with the primary evidence vis a vis the Arian controversy, which backs up your claim about what Arius was asserting (and what his opponents and his supporters) took him to be asserting) when he claimed that there was a time when the Logos was not?

Jeffrey

Mendelhop · 07-25-2008, 02:35 PM

Mountainman promotes those who hate Jesus, like his teacher Momiliarno.

Toto · 07-25-2008, 02:56 PM

Nobody hates Jesus. If you don't think Jesus existed, you can't very well hate him, can you?

Everybody loves Jesus so much that everyone has their own stories about him.

Mendelhop · 07-25-2008, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Nobody hates Jesus. If you don't think Jesus existed, you can't very well hate him, can you?

Everybody loves Jesus so much that everyone has their own stories about him.

How dare you question the Lord our Christ, by whose grace you yourself exist.

Jeffrey Gibson · 07-25-2008, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mendelhop

Mountainman promotes those who hate Jesus, like his teacher Momiliarno.

Momigliano was most certainly NOT Pete's Teacher. Pete never met or had any kind of contact with Momigliano. Pete certainly doesn't understand what Momigliano wrote when he actually gets around to reading him (which is generally only if Pete can find something of Momigliano's online) and he frequently reads into what little of Momigliano he has read things Momigliano does not say and which Momigliano would not support.

I was fortunate enough to have met the man at Oxford and I can say with the utmost confidence after having attended a few of Momigliano's lectures there, that Momigliano would be aghast to see what use Pete has made of his views. He certainly would think that Pete's "scholarship" is not worth the electrons used up in conveying it.

Jeffrey

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07-25-2008, 02:35 PM	#37
Mendelhop Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Union City, NJ Posts: 7	Mountainman promotes those who hate Jesus, like his teacher Momiliarno.

07-25-2008, 02:56 PM	#38
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Nobody hates Jesus. If you don't think Jesus existed, you can't very well hate him, can you? Everybody loves Jesus so much that everyone has their own stories about him.

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