spin

Certainly would deal with my first gripe.


spin

Vorkosigan

Plump, which article applies the methods Carrier discusses?

Vorkosigan

Plump-DJ

Vork, (& spin)

It looks to me like he is applying one of the criteria Carrier speaks of. 'The appeal or Argument to the best explanation'. Is that, or is that not a 'criteria' or 'method' used in historical investigation?

Perhaps, though, I had my wires crossed afterall. Perhaps Craig is merely fighting philosophy with philosophy.

spin

I don't see it as a criterion used in a historical methodology per se.

That's sort-of how it appeared to me.


spin

Vorkosigan

It's a method, certainly, but I think one cannot be so....um....certain of one's sources as Craig appears to be.

Vinnie

I would not apply it to miracles in an attempt to prove them. It resorts to "Yes, the ABE is that gravity or some set of established laws governing the universe just stoppd working." Even granting an empy tomb we might as well say Aliens stole the body or that it rapidly disentegrated, or it disappeared or that all the early Christians lied and absurdly spread their lies for the rest of their life, some maybe even suffering death for it. These are all "as likely" on an historical-probability-level as the laws of physics overturning. History cannot touch the miraculous. Bottom line.

Vinnie

Toto

William Lane Craig has argued that a supernatural resurrection is the "best explanation" of what he alleges are historical facts. But his argument is based on a number of false premises and false conclusions. He assumes that there was an empty tomb because there is a consensus of historians that there was an empty tomb, and then decides that a supernatural resurrection is the best explanation, without considering that there are many better explanations, including mistaken documents, mistaken historians, etc.

There have been previous discussions of this and there are articles in the library.

Vinnie

I would be willing to grant for sake of argument, every single aspect of his reconstruction--down to the very guard at the tomb! And I'd and still tell him that the laws of physics stopping is not the best historical reconstruction of anything. Any theory is just as probable as a supernatural one in historical research. We might as well say Aliens stole the body or it simply disappeared into thin air or the Guard at the tomb unsuspectingly started a huge chain of events by their little innocent hoax to hide the body and mess with the followers of Jesus.

My simple question: why is not any explanation just as good, on a probability scale, as the laws of nature deciding to stop for an instant?

Its apologetics, not history. History should stick within the confines of how the world "normally operates". You cannot reconstruct the past without this control. Now, if we had better data maybe I would grant this possibility. But using ancient texts to argue that nature stopped for an instant is not a good practice. This does not mean nature did or didn't stop. Just that historical reconstruction cannot hope to even begin to tell us if it did or not.

Vinnie

Richard Carrier

Toto: Thank you. That was a good call. I have responded in the appropriate thread and made a request to the webmaster by email that my original post be emended. I should have said, and meant, "many" religionists, not all (or even most).

Richard Carrier

spin: I agree I am only here talking about criteria for epistemic assessment, and not the meat and bones of historical procedure (though in my talk I do briefly discuss the latter).

But you do remind me to point out a common misunderstanding:

Your "two categories" are not very well-demarcated in most cases. What you call "primary evidence" is often no less "literary efforts that come to use from after the event" than what you call "secondary evidence." If you think epigraphy and numismatics aren't very often post hoc literary exercises like any other, you aren't adequately familiar with these fields. Falsifying propaganda and fanciful fictionalization is no less likely in these media than in much historical prose written in the same period. Conversely, though "later" literary compositions often seem less trustworthy, not only for being so much later, but also for surviving only through countless copying by fallible and sometimes mischievous human hands, adequate methodology can remove such objections in some cases, beyond at least a reasonable doubt.

For example, a very solid case can be made that (though this is not true of all ancient historians) Arrian's history of Alexander the Great, though written five hundred years later and surviving today only after a thousand more years of constant copying, nevertheless preserves many examples of what we can reasonably trust to be eye-witness testimony to the campaigns of Alexander the Great--as reasonably as we can trust that, say, any given coin of Alexander's reign is not a forgery (and I mean modern or ancient forgery, for there were both), or not lying, or erring, or whatever. So the difference between the record preserved in Arrian and the record preserved in coins is not that great after all--and what difference there is, is far outweighed by probative value (far, far less can be discerned about any historical facts from the numismatic evidence than the literary--for example, do the coins depicting the god Glycon represent any stronger proof that Glycon really existed than the "biased" eye-witness testimony of Lucian that he was just a trained snake with a puppet-head?).

This holds even for the one clear example of a fundamentally different kind of evidence that you provide: "archaeological indications." Though certainly far less prone to any of the distorting factors present in all other kinds of evidence, bare archaeological facts are only remotely useful in themselves for reconstructing actual history.

Instead, I divide evidence in two ways: by function and category.

By function I distinguish primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Primary sources encompass all actual evidence (of any kind that has a credible claim to being actual evidence and not pure forgery or fabrication). Secondary sources encompass actual scholarship (credible conclusions competently arrived at through a coherent analysis of a large body of data, whatever that data may be). Tertiary sources encompass reference materials drawn up by confirmed and trustworthy professionals, to reflect well-established knowledge and findings in any given field, including the reigning consensus and disputes.

By category, I divide evidence in six ways, and each category can range across the whole gamut that you mention: (1) evidence pertaining to historical-causal necessity, (2) physical evidence (more in reference to the existence and creation of physical objects themselves, than in reference to any writing they may contain, though these are not always exclusive), (3) biased eye-witness testimony, (4) biased post hoc critical testimony, (5) non-biased or counter-biased eye-witness testimony, and (6) non-biased or counter-biased post hoc critical testimony. Within each category one can find the whole gamut from the completely trustworthy to the completely bogus, and from inscriptions to romances.

There are other factors that distinguish evidence within each category. As just one example, evidence produced by a government vs. that produced by a freelance writer: though a government is no less prone to lies and distortion, it can rightly be argued that a government has different motives than a freelance author and so will lie and distort at different times and in different ways. And certainly I would also cut the evidence in other ways: between evidence of particular historical claims, and evidence of historical generalizations (for example, ancient fiction contains few of the former, but tons of the latter, a fact often overlooked); or also simply by genre, since genre determines expectations regarding content, purpose, and motives, according to otherwise confirmed historical generalizations. Hence there is a predictable difference between private and public correspondence--contrast the letters of Pliny or Seneca with actual recovered papyrus letters from Egypt--or between critical biography and didactic hagiography, etc.

And I've only barely touched the tip of the iceberg here--not only in identifying all the categorizations one must know to make, and also know the actual significance of the differences and the effect this has on historical conclusions, but also in explaining all you would need to know in order to competently arrive at a sufficient bounty of either knowledge. Indeed, the actual "procedure" of historical methodology takes years--I would say even a decade or more--of concentrated study to truly master. It cannot be conveyed to an audience in a single 40-minute speech.

I sometimes think, and I suspect this is also your point, that this fact is not adequately respected by amateurs, just as amateurs often disregard the crucial importance of field-familiarity, i.e. that one must have a long and deep acquaintance with a particular time and culture in order to make reliable judgments about the probable and improbable, the expected and unexpected, and all the other background assumptions necessary to understanding the significance of any particular fact or claim--in short, one must be cognizant not merely of the literary context of a statement, but its entire socio-historical context as well. And that is no easy thing to achieve.