Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jeffrey Gibson · 11-07-2007, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

The actual meaning of which you have no real or definitive means of determining or understanding, yes, since you have no person of that era or that culture available to consult with to see if your reading/understanding of the text (and context) is valid and not subjective, yes?

No, Jeffrey Gibson. With a sizable corpus to work from you can learn a lot about the culture that produced it. To do history with the corpus you need to be able to relate it to an existing historical framework. You can compare what you find in the texts with archaeological and epigraphic indications from the period in order to ascertain any historical content.

I thought we were taking about cultural and signification (mental associative) contexts -- that which allows us to understand what authors of ancient texts were saying and claiming, what values and cultural assumptions they were affirming, when they spoke of someone being hUIOS TOU QEOU.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 11-07-2007, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

You do -- in the admission that our interpretations of what our sources (texts) were saying of necessity always be subjective since in principle their accuracy can not be conclusively checked by consultation with with someone from the time in which the texts were written. This is where your position gets you.

Jeffrey

I pointed out the error of your interpretation at the end of post #70.

ETA: Can you "extract significance from idiomatic phrases they have never seen before from an ancient text"?

How do you know what phrases are idiomatic? Without someone to tell you directly that they are, you may have missed them. Or worse, thought something must be an idiom when it wasn't.

And how does seeing them, even numerous times after the first encounter with them, give us a sense of what they mean, especially since the meaning of an idiom is, by definition, is not transparent just by looking at it and is assumed, not given -- as you yourself admitted when you prescinded from telling me what the British one's I sent you meant. You yourself said that to be sure of what they meant, you'd have to go to a living native British speaker to find out.

How are you going to do that with ancient idioms without an ancient to consult?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 11-07-2007, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Interesting. You deem it "waffle" without having read it.

When you start with misrepresentation, as you have, what can make anything based on your error of any value to us?

You'll have to read the thread to see, won't you, especially since my post generated discussion of historians claims to have knowledge of the past.

Poor tactics, Jeffrey Gibson: go off to some other bunch, misrepresent the position you are trying to deal with, come back and say that your bunch agrees with you, so there.

If that's what I did, then I agree with you. But it's even poorer tactics to claim that I said what you claim I did when I did no such thing. What I said was:

Quote:

I decided to ask Classicists on the Classics List what they thought of your historiographical position.

You might be interested in the discussion it's generated.

So please show me where I said here that the "bunch" I went to with my purported misrepresentation of you "agrees with me" ((let alone ever said "so there!"

).

But the question still is whether I have misrepresented your position (did you go on to read my clarification on the Classics List of what I thought you were saying?). To quote you roughly, saying so doesn't make it so.

I honestly don't think you see what sort of conclusion your own assertions about how, to gain the sense of what is being said by ancient texts we should place them within what your own logic states can only be interpretations of what other ancient texts say, logically entails and logically commits you to.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey

spin · 11-07-2007, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

No, Jeffrey Gibson. With a sizable corpus to work from you can learn a lot about the culture that produced it. To do history with the corpus you need to be able to relate it to an existing historical framework. You can compare what you find in the texts with archaeological and epigraphic indications from the period in order to ascertain any historical content.

I thought we were taking about cultural and signification (mental associative) contexts -- that which allows us to understand what authors of ancient texts were saying and claiming, what values and cultural assumptions they were affirming, when they spoke of someone being hUIOS TOU QEOU.

We've touched on various things. If you want to talk, would you please do so in a more orderly fashion? Your going back to grab a phrase from here and there to pick at, often out of context, doesn't reflect a conversation at all.

I would like to see you express some of your own ideas, rather than rehashing others'. Doing so may help keep you aloof, but it also leaves you liable to getting the rehashed ideas wrong. If you deal with your own ideas and those of the person you are talking with, there is always the hope of clarification of any misunderstandings.

One of the things we did touch on is how one can get significance from ancient texts. I challenged you to explain how you would extract meaning from idiomatic phrases you haven't seen before in those texts. As this seems to be the basis of what caused you to go to the classics list with an apparently misguided request, you might like to deal with it as an interim issue, so that it can be shelved and we can get on with other things.

spin

spin · 11-07-2007, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

How do you know what phrases are idiomatic? Without someone to tell you directly that they are, you may have missed them. Or worse, thought something must be an idiom when it wasn't.

If you know what all the words mean, yet the significance of the phrase is not transparent, you have a good candidate.

ETA: Shit, Jeffrey Gibson, you are supposed to know this stuff.

spin

spin · 11-07-2007, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

When you start with misrepresentation, as you have, what can make anything based on your error of any value to us?

You'll have to read the thread to see, won't you, especially since my post generated discussion of historians claims to have knowledge of the past.

Poor tactics, Jeffrey Gibson: go off to some other bunch, misrepresent the position you are trying to deal with, come back and say that your bunch agrees with you, so there.

If that's what I did, then I agree with you. But it's even poorer tactics to claim that I said what you claim I did when I did no such thing. What I said was:

Quote:

I decided to ask Classicists on the Classics List what they thought of your historiographical position.

You might be interested in the discussion it's generated.

So please show me where I said here that the "bunch" I went to with my purported misrepresentation of you "agrees with me" ((let alone ever said "so there!"

).

But the question still is whether I have misrepresented your position (did you go on to read my clarification on the Classics List of what I thought you were saying?). To quote you roughly, saying so doesn't make it so.

I honestly don't think you see what sort of conclusion your own assertions about how, to gain the sense of what is being said by ancient texts we should place them within what your own logic states can only be interpretations of what other ancient texts say, logically entails and logically commits you to.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey

Please cite the content of the specific posts that you find relevant to the discussion here.

spin

David · 11-07-2007, 06:20 PM

Jeffrey, you break off discussion with George because you claim he misrepresented your position in his post (which quite frankly is debatable) and then you go ahead and misrepresent Spin's position by by creating an entire discussion thread on the classics list. For goodness sake Jeffrey this is comedy.

I am blown away by this thread....just blown away. You can't stay focused on the topic at hand, you ignore direct questions (or laughably claim they've been answered). Spin has asked you, I don't know how many times now, to express your own ideas yet you can't, or you choose not to . This is unbelievable just unbelievable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Sure, we might find that they do after all contain bits of eyewitness accounts of some obscure guy living in Palestine 2,000 years ago, but that has to be established, it has to be argued for, and not circularly, on the basis that, "oh, it's called a "testament", so it must have some eyewitness stuff in it, and although it was about a God-man called Jesus, and there can't be any such thing as a God-man, yet still and all, because it's called a "testament" it must still contain eyewitness testimony of some ordinary guy called Jesus".

I'm sorry, George, but I will no longer continue this exchange. It is pointless and a waste of time to engage with someone who, to make his case that a position he opposes is wrong, stoops to the tactic of attributing to the advocates of that position arguments they never used to defend it and then chastises them for doing what they did not do.

And it's not only in the above that you do this. It's here.

Quote:

I missed the part where Plato, or subsequent publishers or redactors of Plato, claimed that the sole raison d'etre of his works was that they were special, eyewitness testimony of the existence of certain extremely special and unlikely person-like entities?

You missed it because that's not what was said.

JG

Ted Hoffman · 11-07-2007, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Spin has asked you, I don't know how many times now, to express your own ideas yet you can't, or you choose not to .

<edit>

Amaleq13 · 11-08-2007, 08:28 AM

Please avoid discussing individual members and focus on what is supposed to be the topic of this thread.

Thanks in advance,

Doug aka Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

David · 11-08-2007, 08:46 AM

I, for one, would like to see discussion of the topic resumed.

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11-08-2007, 08:28 AM	#89
Amaleq13 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Eagle River, Alaska Posts: 7,816	Please avoid discussing individual members and focus on what is supposed to be the topic of this thread. Thanks in advance, Doug aka Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

11-08-2007, 08:46 AM	#90
David Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 28	I, for one, would like to see discussion of the topic resumed.

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