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Tuesday 29 December 2020
Monday 28 December 2020
The White Goddess, and Apollo's Golden Mean
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 13:47:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: ......@westerncanon.com
Subject: Lecture Hall Message 18
Dated : April 25, 1999 at 13:47:09
Subject: Re: The White Goddess
>I am a junior at Malone College in Canton, OH and I am taking
>Modern British Writers. For our final project, the professor has
>asked us to analyze a poet and his works. My friend and I are going
>to do a type of interview situation, where he is Graves and I am
>the interviewer. We want to focus specifically on "The White
Goddess"
>and "Succubus." If anybody has any information or comments on
either
>of these poems, please share them with me. Also, share what types of
>questions you might ask Graves about these particular poems.
Nicole,
You have given yourselves a very tall order by focussing on
two important poems by Graves, the first of which is of central importance to
the second part of his life. I can however give you a number of pointers about
"The White Goddess" which might help you to narrow down your target.
Another of Graves important poems, "To Juan at the
Winter Solstice", begins with the lines:
There is one story and one story only/That will prove worth your telling
From the mid-forties onwards, much of Graves' prose and
poetry was shaped by this belief. Interestingly there is a passage in "The
Shout", a short story written in 1924, which prefigures this approach:
"My story is true", he said, "every word of
it. Or, when I say that my story is 'true'", I mean at least that I am
telling it in a new way. It is always the same story, but I sometimes vary the
climax and even recast the characters. Variation keeps it fresh and therefore
true".
Graves' stated opinions about the White Goddess, which
resulted in the poem and the book of the same name, should be looked at the
same way. Both Graves' prose and poetry attempt to retell his understanding of
a truth by recasting detail and character. The specific reference is (according
to Graves) always the same, but the incidentals change and the details blur and
intertwine. The poem "The Clipped Stater" for example, can be read in
terms of its references to Alexander, which are explicit, or to the phenomenon
of the Incarnation of Christ, or even to the transformation of T. E. Lawrence
into "Aircraftsman Shaw". In fact it should be read in terms of (at
least) all three: if there is "one story and one story only", the
real focus of Graves' interest is beyond the incidental details of the poem,
and the blurring and braiding of detail allows us to look at the real subject,
as it were, slantwise.
The first two lines of "The White Goddess" [the
version in "Selected Poems", ed. Paul O'Prey, 1986] express Graves'
view that his subject is one uncomfortable to the reasoning mind: and thus a
subject which the dominant forces in European civilization over at least the
past two and a half thousand years have tried to reject ("All Saints
revile her"). Very quickly however (line 3) the poem is about a voyage in
search of the Goddess: this is particularly interesting as Graves' views on
ancient matriarchy surfaced first in "The Golden Fleece" [pub 1944]
(US: "Hercules, My Shipmate" [pub 1945]), and Graves' was working on
his translation of the story of the voyage of the Argo immediately before
writing his monumental study: "The White Goddess" (to which a version
of the poem is prefaced "in dedication"). The sailors sail to find
her "in scorn" of those "ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean".
This might be read as a re-interpretation of the real mission of the Argo, or a
metaphor of Graves' own studies, or more broadly as a characterization of any
attempt to escape from (as Graves believed) the rigid, plodding patterns of
Cartesian thought sanctioned as "valid" by our civilization (the
version prefaced to "The White Goddess" speaks in the first person).
The second stanza continues the speaker's identification
with the crew of the ship:
It was a virtue not to stay/To go our headstrong and heroic way
The following three lines describe the extremes to which
they are prepared to go to find the elusive Goddess. Paradoxically she is then
given a precise physical description, clear enough to pick her out of a crowd.
That it might not be wholly healthy to actually encounter her is suggested by
the striking description of her brow as: "white as any leper's".
In the third stanza it is clear that there have been (and
will be) good times for the Goddess, when all recognise her and the
universality of her significance:
The green sap of spring in the young wood astir/Will celebrate the Mountain
Mother
However the crew of the ship are gifted to recognise,
"even in November", her "nakedly worn magnificence". Thus
the ability to discern the Goddess in her elusiveness is given more importance by
Graves than her mere celebration. Here Graves alludes to the different
qualities required of devotees of the Goddess in secular (i.e., modern) times,
to those qualities required in times when her reality is taken for granted.
The penultimate line reveals that the sailors have
undertaken the voyage, not in ignorance, but in full knowledge of the dangers:
since they have experienced "cruelty and past betrayal". They have
met her before, in one form or another. They are also, like those in love:
Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
"Bolts" are of course more commonly associated in
Greek Mythology with Zeus, king of the gods. But Graves regarded Zeus as a
usurper, and believed that real power belonged to the Goddess (See for example
"The Greek Myths" 9.7: Zeus and Metis, where Graves quotes Jane
Harrison who described the story of Athene's birth from Zeus's head as 'a
desperate theological expedient to rid her of her matriarchal conditions').
Graves more and more came to regard the White Goddess as the
real source of inspiration for poets, so that he began to view poetry written
for any other reason as fakery. In his study "The White Goddess" he
describes her in similar terms to those used in the poem:
...a lovely, slender woman with a hooked nose, deathly pale
face, lips red as rowan-berries, startlingly blue eyes and long fair hair; she
will suddenly transform herself into sow, mare, bitch, vixen, she-ass, weasel,
serpent, owl, she-wolf, tigress, mermaid or loathsome hag. Her names and titles
are innumerable. ... I cannot think of any true poet from Homer onwards who has
not independently recorded his experience of her. The test of a poet's vision,
one might say, is the accuracy of his portrayal of the White Goddess... The
reason why the hairs stand on end, the eyes water, the throat is constricted,
the skin crawls and a shiver runs down the spine when one writes or reads a
true poem is that a true poem is necessarily an invocation of the White
Goddess, or Muse, the Mother of All Living... [TWG: Ch. One, "Poets and
Gleemen"]
Hence it is that Graves' concept of the White Goddess is
entwined with the craft of poetry: poetry is an invocation of the Goddess, and
to write "true poetry" the poet has to love someone in whom the
Goddess temporarily manifests. Graves' book on the White Goddess has to be read
therefore as a braid, made up of a historical reconstruction of poetic grammar,
as well as his personal experience of the Goddess in his association with Laura
Riding, and possibly also his mother, Amalie von Ranke Graves.
The Graves Interview:
You are going to have to do a lot of research to do this
properly! You can find most of what you need in three books: Robert Graves
"The White Goddess" for Graves own account of his ideas; Richard
Perceval Graves: "Robert Graves and the White Goddess 1940-1985" [pub
1995]; and "Robert Graves: The Years with Laura Riding 1926-1940"
[pub 1990]: these last two volumes give the relevant details about Graves'
collaboration with Laura Riding, and his later muse poetry. Other information
about Graves' picture of ancient matriarchy can be found in his novel
"King Jesus" [pub 1946] and "Seven Days in New Crete" [pub
1949] (US "Watch the North Wind Rise"). Some useful critical remarks
about the thesis of "The White Goddess" can be found in Martin
Seymour-Smith's "Robert Graves: His Life and Work" [1982; expanded
edition pub 1995]
Saturday 26 December 2020
Wednesday 23 December 2020
The Wider Scope of Ancient Mathematics (letter to an American Scholar)
Avebury Circle, photographed in 2001
Dear.....,
Hi. I became aware of your short book [.......................] relatively recently. I wish I’d known it earlier.
I have a strong interest in the idea and function of the concept of limit in antiquity. My main object of study at UCL was ancient Assyria (mostly the text corpus). Like the Greeks, they had a strong interest in the idea of limit, which is illustrated on the walls of their buildings, and is also represented in their images of the sacred tree. Limit also serves an important function in setting up their gods in heaven (I’ve written about both Assyrian and Babylonian rituals for this).
This tells us something of the actual basis of Mesopotamian religion, which has an origin which is quite different from what we imagine.
Essentially ancient religions are transcendentalist in nature. In other words, they have their origins in a focus on abstract conceptions (limit, infinity, infinite series,completion, totality, etc). Which makes a nonsense of the idea that the Greeks were the first to grapple with sophisticated abstract thought. Clement of Alexandria created a list of civilizations which practised philosophy, and added the Greeks as the* last* to adopt the practice of philosophy.
Since you might be interested in the wider scope of ancient mathematics, I am writing to you to point you at a couple of articles which illustrate that these concerns were a feature of building projects in Neolithic Britain also. The Horus numbers are there, as the basis of establishing Euler’s number via a geometric construction. Euler’s number being the final result of a convergent infinite series.
Did they get their mathematics from Egypt, or did they develop them themselves? I have no idea. Why Euler’s number? It’s a mathematical stand-in for the extreme limit, which is infinity.
‘At Reality’s Edge’
https://shrineinthesea.blogspot.com/2020/12/at-realitys-edge.html?spref=tw%20%20# (Short article)
‘The Mathematical Origins of the Megalithic Yard’
http://shrineinthesea.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-mathematical-origins-of-megalithic.html (Long article)
Best regards,
Thomas Yaeger
At Reality's Edge
[Some notes I made while I was writing up The Mathematical Origins of the Megalithic Yard in early 2020. The notes conclude with some observations of the importance of the idea of limit in Mesopotamia, and its connection with the Assyrian Sacred Tree, and their notion of kingship. I could have finished up with a short discussion of Egyptian interest in the idea of limit, particularly since we know (from the Rhind Papyrus) that they used the same method of calculation of Euler's number as in ancient Britain. That discussion with follow later.]
***
It has been twenty two days since I started to write up the
article ‘The Mathematical Origins of the Megalithic Yard’ (mid February 2020).
In this article, I suggested that those who designed the. circles came to the
idea of the megalithic yard of 2.72 feet as the consequence of an interest in
infinite series, and particularly those which approach a limit. The most
important of these limits is the one which is known as Euler’s number, which, when rounded up from 2.7218… is 2.72.
This limit was first noticed in relatively modern times in
the context of the calculation of compound interest, but the number, and the
process by which it is arrived at, can be found in many other contexts.
Effectively, the number (when worked out to thousands of
places), is the number as it would be found at infinity. So it can stand as an
indicator of ultimate limit and of infinity. It is associated with the idea of
‘one’, as I’ve discussed in the article, and also as an irrational equivalent
of one, which is a rational whole number.
An irrational counterpart to ‘one’, in a proto-pythagorean
community, would have been easy to understand as belonging to a world beyond
this one – i.e., a transcendent reality which is more perfect than this world,
which is full of irrationality and measures which are incommensurable. The
number may have been understood as being irrational to us because it is being
represented in our finite world, and not irrational.
It also stood for the edge of our reality, and therefore
would have signified the possibility of a joining between the transcendent
reality, and our world of physical reality. Finding ways in which the worlds
could be joined, and the incommensurate made commensurate, seems to have been a
major preoccupation in the Neolithic, as it was also to philosophers and
mathematicians in Greece during the second half of the first millennium BCE.
After I finished the article, I wondered how difficult it is
to construct a series which will arrive at Euler’s number, how it might have
been done, and how long it would take to come to the result.
A little research showed that there were many ways to
construct suitable series of numbers, and a geometric calculation could produce
a reasonable approximation reasonably quickly, without enormous calculations.
We don’t know for
certain what base was used for calculations in the British Neolithic, but they
were certainly aware of base 10, since they used powers of ten in their
construction (ie, instead of a 3,4,5 triangle, they would sometimes use 30,40,
50 as their measures, knowing that the sides would be similarly commensurate
after squaring). If they were using the English foot as their basic measure, it
is likely they were counting to base 12 (ie, in duodecimal). But the
construction of a series only requires whole numbers, arranged as fractions.
1 + 1/100000)^100000 =
2.7182682371923
100,000 is a lot of iterations, so it is unlikely that the
determination was done in this way. The process will result in Euler’s number
with any consistently generated series.
It can be done geometrically, which is much more practical,
and is probably the technique which was used in the Neolithic. Using a sequence
such as:
1/2 + 1/4
+ 1//8 +
1/16 + ... = 1
Those who generated such a geometrical figure did so knowing that the series converged on a limit from observing the initial results. What they wanted was to find out a reasonably accurate value for the limit itself. The square could therefore be of any size (read as the value ‘one’), and might well have been created in a large field, with the fractions indicated by small stones.
I’ve written elsewhere about the importance given to limits
and boundaries in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, particularly in connection
with sites connected with the gods, and the rituals for the installation of the
gods in Heaven. Sometimes aspects of the design of the Assyrian Sacred Tree
were unwrapped, and represented on pavings as lotuses, alternately open and
closed. Which is a way of indicating at these edge points that both
possibilities are open, and even perhaps that opposing states are commensurate
with each other in infinity.
It has already been identified that the Sacred Tree represents a form of limit, and consequently of the nature of divinity which has its true existence in a world beyond the constraints of finitude. The design of the alternating lotuses also was used to separate the registers of images adjoining the collosal Lamassu statues which guarded the entrances of royal palaces. There was an image of the sacred tree, with two winged genies behind Assurbanipal’s throne, which seems to indicate that the king was understood to embody the transcendent reality which lies behind the world of the here and now.[the identification of the king with the divine reality appears in various royal letters] He is the perfect man, and the very image of God
[March 8, 2020]
Wednesday 9 December 2020
Revolt in Athens in the late Seventh Century BCE (A letter to SemprePhi)
At 19:12 29/11/2020, Thomas Yaeger wrote:
[.......]
Hi. I didn't mean to do any work on the DoP [Death of Pan] today, but it was a quiet Sunday,
and I decided in the morning to explore expanding the content headings into
sections. This is a much more abstract discussion than in the earlier books,
but that is how imagined it would be. So I need a lot of references to existing
articles and chapters, enabling readers to have access to real detail. The
article 'An Appetite for Knowledge' will be the basis of this, but much expanded.
So far I've argued that a great deal of intellectual and philosophical input to
Greek civilization comes from Mesopotamia and Egypt, which is the case. But
I've been arguing in terms of a sixth century BCE input, via Pythagoras, just
to open the door to an acceptance of the possibility of an east-west
transmission. Plato's determination to get hold of the three volumes concerning
Pythagorean doctrine offered for sale by Philolaus, tells us that he understood
that they contained information useful for the understanding of cult doctrine
in Greece.Something had been lost along the way.
Martin Bernal argued, on the basis of comparisons of Egyptian and Greek words,
that the Greek vocabulary was heavily indebted to Egyptian, and that the
borrowings probably dated back to the mid-2nd millennium, when there were major
population movements from Egypt and North Africa. Some of those ended up in the
Peloponnese and in Anatolia. I think that he is right about that line of
transmission.
But there is a third route of transmission. After the second millennium, but
before Pythagoras. I mentioned it in a chapter which didn't make it into SHB
for one reason and another, but which has since been published. There is an
obscure quote preserved in Eusebius, which says that the Assyrian king
Sennacherib captured Athens. This would have been around 701-700 BCE. Any
classicist reading that will find it deeply shocking. Generally I try not to
mention it.
[……………] This story is [likely to be] true because it explains a peculiarity in
Sennacherib's campaign records - half of them are missing from the archives in
Assyria. The quotation goes on to mention that Sennacherib built a temple in
Athens, which he filled with brazen statues, and that his exploits were
recorded in cuneiform on the statues. Now we know why they were missing.
It takes a while to build a temple, and to fill it with brazen statues, so
Sennacherib and his troops were there for a while.
I sent the completed chapter to Simo Parpola, and asked if he had anything else
to add to the pot. He replied *the same day* with an article he'd contributed
to a volume of conference proceedings in 2004, in which he was able to trace
the westward expansion of the Assyrians across Anatolia, from their records,
all the way to Ionia, which of course was part of greater Greece at this time.
They were always aiming for Greece. He didn't know they made the mainland. But
they did.
How long were the Assyrians in Athens, and in Attica? I guessed five years or
so. But I started to look for some kind of end point to the Assyrian
occupation. I could find nothing. Parpola had pointed out in his article
that a number of features of Greek political and social organisation looked
like borrowings from Assyrian organisation, such as naming eponyms for each
year, and the institution of Archons. So I looked further, and found an
interesting account of a tyrants revolt in 632 BCE (revolt of Cilon). The Greeks
recorded tyrants often with very little detail. They were tyrants if they
opposed the established authorities. The detail we have is that conspirators
were hunted down by the Archons and killed (their grave site has been
excavated, and it isn't pretty - the skeletons are in manacles and their mouths
have been stopped up with stones).
The date is significant. The last important king of Assyria was Ashurbanipal,
who disappears entirely from the record in 632-1 BCE (the empire staggered on
till about 609). Possibly as the result of a palace revolt. We don't know. But
this would be the right time to rise up against a hated occupying force.
If the revolt and the collapse of the Assyrian empire are connected, this would
mean that the Assyrians were in Athens for nearly *seventy
years.*
[..........................................................]
I'll deal with the Assyrian occupation in a couple of papers further down the
line.
Best, Thomas
Tuesday 8 December 2020
Mathematics and Calculation in Antiquity (letter to a Cambridge Scholar)
To: .............cam.ac.uk
From: thomas yaeger
Subject: Mathematics and Calculation in Antiquity
Dear........,
I’m supplying here the address of an article which may be of interest to you, since a) you are interested in early examples of sophisticated human cognition, and also b) in examples of ideas, languages and cultures being transmitted west to east in deep antiquity. This article addresses both of these areas.
The article took seven years before it assumed its current form. It started off as a relatively minor component in a project on the presence of abstract ideas in the ANE and the Levant before the Greeks, which resulted in my book, ‘The Sacred History of Being’ (2015).
What the article argues is that the mathematics which can be found in the vast majority of megalithic rings in Britain, France and elsewhere, show that builders had a grasp of infinite series and Euler’s number from very early on (late 4th mill. BCE onwards, up until around 1400 BCE, which is when they seem to have stopped constructing them).
The pattern of their distribution around Europe and the Mediterranean suggests the original builders travelled westwards, and then north to Britain.
One of the reasons why no-one has considered the presence of Euler’s number in these structures (2.72, supposedly first discovered by Bernoulli), is of course, why would they know this number? It is also assumed that the number would have been too hard to calculate in such ancient times, even if they did have a loose grasp of infinite series.
This is not actually the case – it can be established geometrically with a relatively small number of iterations (less than a dozen). Interestingly the procedure for doing this can be found in the Rhind Papyrus, which dates from around the 17th century BCE, but was originally compiled earlier. In a publication issued by the British Museum in the late eighties, Gay Robins and her husband identified that the Egyptians were working with an understanding of infinite series. And showed the Egyptian diagram, illustrating how it was done.
The geometric process for establishing Euler’s number can be done on the ground, using small stones. I explored the Avebury complex pretty thoroughly in 2001 and 2002, and noticed brickish sized stones collected together, on the edge of one of the circles, almost lost in the grass. I had no idea why they might be there at the time, but they may have been what they used in the geometric construction . Effectively, the small stones are telling us what the whole structure is for.
The article is at:
http://shrineinthesea.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-mathematical-origins-of-megalithic.html
The short book on the Rhind Papyrus is at:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rhind-Mathematical-Papyrus-Ancient-Egyptian/dp/0714109444
My book is available from CUL (and elsewhere) in eBook format.
[text correction, December23, 2020]
Best regards, Thomas Yaeger.
December 6, 2020.
Best regards, Thomas Yaeger.
December 6, 2020.
Tuesday 24 November 2020
The Prisoners in the Cave
@SemprePhi drew my attention to the following book review on the 23rd November:
Phillip Sidney Horky, Plato and Pythagoreanism 2013.
Reviewed by Simon Trépanier bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2014/2014-05-1…
#brynmawr
#philosophy
I responded in four short posts, which I’ve now augmented
with further discussion.
@SemprePhi Hi. Thanks for the pointer to Horky's book and
the review. Where to start! You cannot rely on Aristotle for accurate
information about the Pythagoreans. Huffman has been occupying academic space
for thirty years, and won't cross the boundaries. 1/
Note the whole
argument is based on the idea that philosophy in Greece is an autocthonous
development. Not invented elsewhere. I've shown that Pythagoras derived many of
his ideas from Mesopotamia. And that these influences are reflected in Plato.
They just don't want to see. 2/
Or they fear to
step outside the accepted paradigm for fear of committing heresy, and having to
pay for their sin. There is much information about what Pythagoras brought back
from the east in Greek writing. But scholars don't know what it is, and why [it]
is important. 3/
In order to stay
within the acceptable paradigm, or 'episteme', they don't read the full range
of sources which are available. Consequently it is difficult to make sense of
the sources that they do read. If you read the full range of sources, it is an
eye-opener. 4/
Philosophers and
Historians are nervous about crossing the boundaries of their subjects, not
just because of the risk to their reputations. They are happiest when sense can
be made of what they are looking at. That sense isn’t always the sense that
things made in antiquity. Modern scholars make fictions, and sit upon the pile
they have made.
The philosopher
Adrian Moore wrote a history of the infinite in 1990, and presented a series on
BBC radio in 2016 on the same subject. Both discuss the problems and issues
around the human response to the idea of the infinite. However Moore’s idea of
the history of man’s relationship is strangely structured. Writing about the
broadcast series I pointed out that:
We get many clues about the Greek understanding
of the infinite and the unlimited from a number of Plato’s dialogues,
including The Timaeus, The Sophist, The
Republic, The Theaetetus, The Laws, and The
Parmenides. In skipping Plato, the first reference to Parmenides and his
notion of the universe as simply one and one alone, is as an introduction in
the first episode to his pupil Zeno of Elea, and his response to paradox. There
is no discussion of Plato’s demolition of Parmenides arguments, no discussion
of the Platonic forms, no discussion of the relationship of the forms to the
form of the Good, which is another way of talking about what is infinite, and
no discussion of what amounts to a different logical modality in the pages of
Plato (where he discusses things passing into one another by means of their
similitude), which is a way of understanding the relationship of finite things
to the infinite.
What Moore has constructed is a
Catholic perspective on the idea of the infinite, since it is viewed from the
perspective of Thomas Aquinas and Bishop Anselm. What made sense to those
scholars, makes sense to Moore. Plato was largely unavailable to any
scholars of that period (with the
exception of some sections of the Timaeus). But to write now about the infinite
as if the writings of Plato are unknown to us, or of no importance to our
understanding of the human response to the infinite, is difficult to fathom. I
summarised part of this first episode of the series as follows:
Essentially Aristotle’s rapprochement, which Moore
characterises as an attempt to make the concept of the infinite more palatable
to the Greeks, involved dividing the idea of the infinite into two. As already
mentioned, one of these was the potential infinite, and the second was the
actual infinite. As outlined in the first episode, Zeno’s paradoxes depended on
the idea of an infinite divisibility, which seemed to make the idea of any kind
of movement impossible, since that would require a universe of infinite
complexity. Zeno therefore regarded all forms of movement as illusion. Since in
order to travel a certain distance, you would have to travel half the distance
to your destination, and then half of the distance remaining, and then half of
that, and half of what still remained, and so on. Which would result in an
infinite number of steps. Which would be impossible.
Aristotle’s response was that though the various
stages of the journey could be understood in such a way, the stages were not
marked, and did not have to be considered in making a journey. The idea of
limit is however a crucial point. What Aristotle was saying is that there are
two ways of looking at the idea of what a limit is. Essentially there is
limitation which is defined by what a thing is, and there is limitation which
is not. In the first case the limit of a thing cannot be transcended without
the nature of that thing turning into something else.
The essence of this argument is that there are forms
of limit which can be ignored. One of which is the actual infinite: instead we
should deal with the potential infinite. The actual infinite, by its nature, is
always there. But we cannot deal with it. The potential infinite we can work
with, since it is not always there, and spread infinitely through reality. So
we can count numbers without ever arriving at infinity, or ever being in danger
of arriving there. Moore mentioned that this conception of infinity more or less
became an orthodoxy after Aristotle, though not everyone accepted that his
argument against actual infinity was solid. Which is something of an
understatement. Aristotle’s distinction between the potential infinite and the
actual infinite is between what is, in practical terms, something we can treat
as finite, and what is actually infinite.
Moore has defined
himself as an Aristotelian finitist, meaning that, since (he argues), man
cannot deal with the actual infinite, only the potential infinite can make any
sense to us. And so, much ancient discussion is swept away, as of very little
interest or importance. This is why we cannot easily understand much of the
intellectual world of antiquity. Instead we choose to write unflattering
fictions about it.
I said that we
cannot rely on Aristotle for accurate information on the Pythagoreans. This is
not because I regard him as a poor scholar. Both Plato and Aristotle taught in
the Academy in Athens. They were both dealing with a body of traditional
doctrine (there are many passages where a comparison shows this – their discussion
of the importance of the liver, for example). But they had quite different ways
of discussing doctrine. Plato gives the reader real information about the
subject, but hedges it about with other arguments, and sometimes talks in terms
of images and myth (the account of the prisoners in the cave, in the Republic,
for example). So his work makes sense to those who already know the doctrine,
and intrigues those who don’t. Aristotle on the other hand, seems to have had
the job of sifting through students to find those who might have the
intelligence to be able to grasp the
essence of the doctrine (when properly instructed). He did this sometimes by
constructing complex sophistical arguments which actually contradicted
doctrine, and sometimes even rational sense.
Two examples: The
first is Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, originally a series of
lectures, ends up concluding the gods cannot act in the world, but only
contemplate. Imagine the response to that argument in the ancient world! Why
did Aristotle argue like this? He was looking for students who could provide critical
rational responses to the argument, and who could see that it did not make any sense in a reality
which was (at the time) populated by divinities expected to play a constructive
role in the world. The second example is Aristotle’s comments on logical
modality (mostly in the Metaphysics), which I’ve discussed elsewhere (in
‘Logical Modality in Classical Athens’). This also contradicts traditional
doctrine which underpinned the human relationship with the divine. And not just
in Greece. Plato discusses the logical modality which enables contact and
engagement with the divine, and other authors do too. We ignore all of this information
concerning doctrine, because we prefer the unfathomable shadows on the wall.
However, despite
the occasional tricksiness of Aristotle, he tells us something important,
which, if we are familiar with relevant texts by other authors, we can figure out.
I quote again from my critical review of Adrian Moore’s broadcast History of
the Infinite, concerning the arguments of Zeno:.
The idea of limit is however a crucial point. What
Aristotle was saying is that there are two ways of looking at the idea of what
a limit is. Essentially there is limitation which is defined by what a
thing is, and there is limitation which is not. In the first case the limit of
a thing cannot be transcended without the nature of that thing turning into
something else.
Aristotle’s discussion references the doctrinal view which
is also discussed by Plato. Which is that there is an important connection
between the idea of limit and the infinite. The infinite is just another way of
specifying what is unlimited, and beyond the physical world. Paradoxically, it
is the actual limit of what is, and what can be. This does not represent a
retreat from commerce with the actual infinite, but actually tells us how that
commerce was supposed to work.
However the physical and finite world is also full of
limits. These sometimes function as boundaries, and serve to close off access. Some
limits you can choose to pass beyond, and there are others which you cannot
pass. And in some cases, because of the nature of the limit, it is the
nature of the limit itself which allows commerce with the ultimate limit of everything,
which is where the Gods were once understood to have their existence.
This is the most important thing to understand about
antiquity, both east and west. For Moore, the actual infinite is simply
something which defies our understanding. In antiquity, the actual infinite was
something of vital importance, and which we could have commerce with through
its earthlly analogues (totalities, completions, limits. etc). Aristotle, in
talking about Zeno’s paradox, is referencing the key doctrinal point, which is
that reality has a double nature. And that we have (if we are properly
informed), a choice about how we respond to that double nature.
In modern times, we no longer have this choice, since the
doctrine concerning actual infinity has been mostly lost, and in fact entirely
lost to those who function in the modern successors of Plato’s Academy. We are
stuck in a world that imagines it must deal with everything in terms of
calculable finitudes. Effectively we are, to quote the Mesopotamian king
Esarhaddon, “blind and deaf ” for the whole of our lives.
It was not always so.
Monday 23 November 2020
'The Shout' and Other Stories
This is a particulary
interesting question. Graves' short stories are quite different from most of
his novels, in that the stories reflect aspects of his personal experience in a
significantly modified form. The novels by contrast are reworkings of existing
narratives, usually with some interpretative spin (Graves spoke of I,
Claudius as an interpretative biography). His most famous short story
is 'The Shout', written not sooner than his period of professorship in Egypt
(and not, as stated by Graves himself in his 1965 preface to the Collected
Short Stories, dating from 1924). Exactly why Graves wrote 'The Shout' is
unclear: the couple in the story is loosely based on himself and his wife
Nancy, but no known incident in his life up until its writing seems to fit.
There is a later incident however, which does seem to reflect aspects of the
story: the breaking up of Schuyler Jackson's marriage by Laura Riding.
In the Introduction to
the Collected Short Stories Graves acknowledges that:
"Pure fiction is beyond my imaginative range: I fetched back the main
elements of The Shout from a cricket-match at Littlemore Asylum, Oxford."
However elsewhere he says that the idea of the story occurred to him "one
day while I was walking in the desert near Heliopolis in Egypt and came upon a
stony stretch where I stopped to pick up a few mis-shapen pebbles; what virtue
was in them I do not know, but I somehow had the story from them." [see
Richard Perceval Graves, The Years with Laura Riding 1926-1940, Ch.
7: 'Seeing Ghosts'; and note 73 to the Chap.]. Given the way Graves worked his
material, both accounts are likely to be correct, and 'The Shout' is a
composite of these elements forged together in part by his unconscious (during
the twenties Graves was heavily influenced by Freudian ideas, and wrote a book
on the meaning of dreams). The story also reflects an interest in whether or
not the soul is bound to the body during every moment of life - perhaps
prompted by a wish to explain the phenomena of the shared dream, premonitions,
and also ghosts.
My own guess is that the
man with the 'terror shout', Charles, actually represents Laura Riding, who was
in Egypt with Robert and Nancy. The story would therefore reflect the
destructive impact of Riding on the relationship between Robert and Nancy.
Except that, in the story, 'Charles' is exorcised by the breaking of the stone
which holds his soul. In real life the outcome was quite different.
The same technique
(incubation of an idea in the unconscious) seems to underlie much of Graves
poetry. 'The Clipped Stater,' which is notionally about Alexander the Great,
utilises elements from a number of sources, including events in the life of
T.E. Lawrence. This braiding together of ideas could of course, in theory, be
done consciously, but Graves felt that poets who wrote in this way, under the
tutelage of the god Apollo, were frauds.
In Fairies and
Fusiliers (1917), Graves included a poem (available on the web) which
is an example of the fantastic intruding into reality: 'Corporal Stare'. It
appears to recount an incident which happened during his time in the trenches:
a man who had been killed appeared to Graves and his companions while they were
having a meal:
Then through the window
suddenly,
Badge, stripes and medals all complete,
We saw him swagger up the street,
Just like a live man - Corporal Stare!
Stare! Killed last May at Festubert.
Caught on patrol near the Boche wire,
Torn horribly by machine-gun fire!
He paused, saluted smartly, grinned,
Then passed away like a puff of wind
In the later Goodbye
to All That Graves recounts an incident which seems to be the basis of
the poem:
At Béthune, I saw the ghost
of a man named Private Challoner... When he went out [to France] with a draft
to join the First Battalion, he shook my hand and said "I'll meet you
again in France, sir". In June he passed by our 'C' Company billet, where
we were just having a special dinner to celebrate our safe return from Cuinchy...
Private Challoner looked in at the window, saluted, and passed on. I could not
mistake him, or the cap-badge he wore; yet no Royal Welch battalion was
billeted within miles of Béthune at the time. I jumped up, looked out of the
window, and saw nothing except a fag-end smoking on the pavement. Challoner had
been killed at Festubert in May.
[Chapter 14 of the 1957 edition]
In the same passage Graves
gives details of the civilised menu of the dinner: in the circumstances, an
equally fantastic intrusion into the unreal reality of the war in France.
Not much has been changed
here - perhaps because the incident has power and meaning in itself, in its
strangeness, without the necessity of a literary metamorphosis to make the hair
on the back of the neck stand. Graves has however altered the rank and name of
the soldier, collapsing together the ghost and his reaction to the apparition.
Graves is unusual as a poet
in supplying a good deal of useful detail about his working methods: to some
extent his writings on poetry illuminate aspects of his prose technique also. I
would recommend that you consult: the Collected Writings on Poetry,
edited by Paul O'Prey, 1995; The White Goddess, (1961
edition); The Meaning of Dreams, 1924; and also Poetic
Unreason and other Studies, 1925. Richard Percival Graves three volume
biography is probably the best available for the study you propose, followed by
Martin Seymour-Smith's Robert Graves: His Life and Work, 1982;
expanded edition, 1995].
Sunday 22 November 2020
Seven Days in New Crete
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 23:00:15 +0000
Subject: Re: "Seven days in New Crete"
>I am an Italian university student. I am specializing in
English
>literature at the University of Pescara, Italy and, for my thesis, I am
>preparing a study on Robert Graves' fiction... I have found this archive
and I have
>thought to call for help. In a chapter of my thesis I have to tell about a
Graves'
>novel, called "Seven days in New Crete", but in my country I was
not able to
>find any news about it. It would be great to have some critical comments
>on this novel and any link it could have with another novel, called
>"1984" by George Orwell about the utopian thematic. I would be
very happy
>if somebody paid attention to my help request. Thanks a lot, Alessandra.
Alessandra,
'Seven days in New Crete' is one of several works in which
Graves explored his thesis that the original theological and social structures
of the human race were matriarchal. In other words,that the principal divinity
- in fact the only original divinity - was once 'The Goddess', and that,
formerly, social organization had feminine characteristics, as contrasted with
the 'masculine' social structures of the modern world.
The principal discussion of this thesis can be found in 'The
White Goddess', first published in 1948. The idea first surfaced in 'The Golden
Fleece'. It quickly dominated Graves thoughts, and 'The Golden Fleece' was put
aside while Graves wrote the first draft of 'The White Goddess' (originally
titled 'The Roebuck in the Thicket'). The matriarchial idea also plays a
significant role in the novel 'King Jesus'. Graves translated Apuleius' 'Golden
Ass' in the same decade, and Apuleius' work seems to have confirmed Graves in
the belief that he was on the right track. The 'Goddess' is a key figure in
Apuleius's novel, though in his work it is a specific goddess who is referred
to (Isis), rather than 'The Goddess' of Graves' thesis.
The novel fits broadly into the category of science fiction,
and explores a utopian future. Graves began planning a utopian novel in the
summer of 1940 [see: Richard Perceval Graves' 'Robert Graves and the White
Goddess': 'Work in Hand', p18] whose ideas of social and political organisation
were founded chiefly upon former ideas of Laura Riding which he hoped would
eventually inspire a 'practical organization of decent people'. He told his son
David of his idea for the novel: David was however not impressed, and said that
'any practical organization of decent people would be suppressed at once by the
government' and that he thought it 'time this Western industrial civilization
was ended'. Possbily because of this criticism, the novel was laid aside for
nearly seven years.
New Crete is divided into kingdoms, but powers of the kings
are 'entrusted to them by their queens'. The governing principle is a custom
based 'not on a code of laws, but for the most part on the inspired utterances
of poets' who receive the guidance of the Muse (the Goddess). The system is run
by women who 'act directly on behalf of the Goddess'. Thus women are
'naturally' treated by men as the superior sex. RPG comments that:
'This is a society living in harmony with the natural world;
and each individual is allocated to one of the 'five estates' not by birth but
by capacity. Money has been abolished; different villages have different social
customs, so that one may live in a monogamous, polygamous, or even polyandrous
society and yet be perfectly virtuous; there are even 'bagnios', brothels which
it is no disgrace to visit, and 'where one goes when one isn't in love with
anyone in particular but feels unhappily lecherous'; while war has become
ritulalized into a kind of moderately violent rugger, so that the only deaths,
apart from those by natural causes, occur as part of the ritual of
goddess-worship.' [Richard Perceval Graves' 'Robert Graves and the White
Goddess' p143-4].
'Seven Days in New Crete' is not in fact a serious utopia:
its inhabitants are unhappy with its complacency and indifference: the New
Cretans do not possess 'the quality that we prize as character: the look of
indomitability which comes from dire experiences nobly faced and overcome'.
Therefore the rulers have deliberately introduced 'a seed of trouble... since
true love and wisdom spring only from calamity'. Graves novel is therefore
anti-utopian.
On the face of it, there isn't much to connect Orwell's
'1984' and Graves' utopian novel. They were both composed in the late 1940's,
and both result from an anxiety about evident tendencies in the modern world.
Orwell's literary sources included Wells, London, Huxley and Zamyatin
(principally Zamyatin): I do not know whether or not Orwell read Graves' book.
However both works are responses to the political and social dislocations of
the early twentieth century. Both men wished for the creation of a new social
order, but were rather pessimistic about the practicalities of this. Graves was
particularly influenced by Laura Riding's ideas on politics and society during
their time together, though afterwards he reacted against them: it is therefore
interesting to speculate on the nature of 'Seven Days in New Crete' had Graves
written it while still under the spell of Riding. It might have been
whole-heartedly utopian in outlook.
Are there significant parallels between the novels? In both
novels society is split up into different areas and levels, which have
different rules of behaviour, as if they were autonomous societies: in Orwell's
novel these are the 'zones of influence'; and in Graves' future society
different areas of New Crete have different customs and mores. War has been
ritualised in both societies: in '1984' it serves to underpin inequality and to
soak up overproduction. Also, in both Orwell's and Graves' novels there is a
social hierarchy: in '1984' membership of the oligarchy (the party) is
presented as essentially non-hereditary - this is because the oligarchy's
purpose is to preserve itself, rather than the families of its members; in
'Seven Days in New Crete' status is acquired on the basis of 'capacity'. Both
societies continue because the ruling elite has the power to nominate its
successors. Thus in both cases the society is totalitarian, in that all the
reins of power are in the hands of a small oligarchic group, whatever the
outward appearances of difference and diversity.
Friday 20 November 2020
The Nazarene Gospel Restored
A response to an email inquiry about Robert Graves book 'The Nazarene Gospel Restored'. It dates from November 1999, and has been missing from the web for several years. The book has been reissued by Carcanet (2010), and edited by John Presley, though it is not currently available from them. However the reissue means that it is a little easier to find than it was. Its page is at: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857546675. There is a review of this edition by Peter Costello from 2011, at: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?showdoc=1184;doctype=review
Thomas Yaeger, November 20, 2020.
Subject: The Nazarene Gospel Restored
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 22:01:29 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4
>I'm interested in finding "The Nazarene Gospel Restored"
>which I have been searching for a long time.
>I think it is part of a trilogy he wrote along
>with "King Jesus" and "Jesus in Rome". So far my
>search has been unsuccessful. I'd appreciate
>any information about this book.
The Nazarene Gospel Restored (published by Cassell, London, 1953; and Doubleday in New York, 1954) is one of the most difficult (but not *the* most difficult) of Graves' works to find. Estimates as to how many were printed vary: the largest estimate I have come across is 5,000 copies in all. I have seen only two copies for sale, one in Oxford, and the other in London, and I now own one of those. You may eventually find a copy through one of the specialist book dealers listed on the appropriate page of the Robert Graves Archive, or you may find it by pure chance (as I did). However, the book is available in academic libraries (there is a copy in the Mocatta Library at University College, London, for example), and it is also scheduled for republication in the Carcanet 'Robert Graves Programme' series in a couple of years.
It is not, as you suggest, part of a formal trilogy. The book deals with much of the same New Testament material, but it was written significantly later than King Jesus (which was published in 1946 by Cassell), and with the assistance of his co-author, Joshua Podro, a skilled Hebraicist and Biblical scholar. King Jesus by contrast leans heavily in the direction of the researches which produced The White Goddess: there is a good deal in the novel about Graves' ideas of the sacred king, and also the tree alphabet, for example, which does not reappear in The Nazarene Gospel Restored, though Graves had made the aquaintance of Joshua Podro by the time he came to write King Jesus.
Jesus in Rome is, like The Nazarene Gospel Restored, not a work of fiction, and also co-authored with Joshua Podro (published by Cassell in 1957). It might be regarded as an extended addendum to the earlier study of the Gospels.
One of the most interesting of the speakers at the August 1995 Centenary Conference in Oxford was Hyam Maccoby. He was there principally to acknowledge his indebtedness to Graves' work in the area of New Testament studies. Maccoby contributed a paper to the first issue of Gravesiana (June 1996) which was based on what he had to say at the 1995 conference, titled: 'Robert Graves and the Nazarene Gospel Restored'.Maccoby explains that:
In King Jesus, the main preoccupation of Jesus is to combat the Goddess. His death is the revenge of the Goddess, whose reign he has challenged in the name of Jehovah, the patriarchal God. All this has disappeared in The Nazarene Gospel Restored. Instead, Jesus is simply an apocalyptic Jew, whose aim is to fulfil the prophecies of the Old Testament about the coming of a human liberating Messiah, and thereby [to] release his people from slavery to Rome. His death comes about not in combat with the Goddess, but with the imperial power of Rome.
Maccoby also throws light on the poor reception accorded to The Nazarene Gospel Restored, pointing out that
From the standpoint of New Testament scholarship, The Nazarene Gospel Restored belongs to ... the Tuebingen school founded by F. C. Baur. This school of thought builds on the insight that the early Christian Church was split into two warring factions, the Jerusalem Church (sometimes called the Petrine Church) and the Pauline, or Gentile Church. ....The Jewish-Christians of the Jerusalem Church, on this view, regarded themselves as part of the general Jewish community, not as a new religion. They saw Jesus as a human Messiah... who never claimed divinity.... The Pauline Church on the other hand, had turned Jesus from a Jewish messiah into a Hellenistic saviour-god, substituting mystical identification with the death of the god for the Jewish belief in the revelation on Mount Sinai..
.
Thursday 12 November 2020
Conversations in Mathematics, Physics, Cosmology and Philosophy
I compiled this list of broadcasts in the BBC R4 series 'In Our Time', which has now been running for more than 20 years, and is moderated by the author Melvyn Bragg. The full list of broadcasts is now around 900 shows. I'm gratetful for whoever compiled the full list of shows, which made this compilation fairly straightforward to do.
Why did I make this compilation? I wanted to assemble a body of discussion for the purpose of comment. I will provide this as and when I've listened to a particular broadcast. I've listened to quite a few of these over the years, but not remotely the majority of them. I will take them in no obvious order, according to what is of interest to me at the time. The commentary will be added in the form of footnotes.
Those who are familiar with my work will know that I challenge a number of aspects of the history of ideas, sometimes accepted uncritically, and those narratives that are built on conventions which have little in the way of substantial foundations. The reason for challenging our view of our intellectual history is twofold: what we think we know about that history constrains what we can understand about the past, and therefore what we can do and think in the future.
Having gone through the entire list of broadcasts, there are some striking omissions, though these may be more apparent than real. Cantor's work on the infinite and set theory may be discussed in the broadcast on Bertrand Russell, or in the broadcast on the concept of the Infinite. The absence of a programme about Frege may be explained in a similar way.
There is also a large set of returning contributors, (Roger Penrose puts in a number of appearances, which of course is no bad thing). And some subjects have been discussed more than once: discovering why may be interesting.
Each individual show can be accessed by clicking on the date of broadcast.
Thomas Yaeger, November 12, 2020.
|
The
Universe's Origins |
Martin
Rees, Astronomer Royal and Royal Society Research Professor in Astronomy
and Physics, Cambridge University |
|
|
Ted
Honderich, philosopher and former Grote Professor of the Philosophy of
Mind and Logic, University College London |
||
|
Time |
Neil
Johnson, theoretical physicist at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University and Royal Institution Christmas
Lectures 1999 on the subject of Time |
|
|
Brian
Greene, Professor of Physics and Mathematics, Columbia University and Cornell University |
||
|
Laws of
Nature |
Mark
Buchanan, physicist and author of Ubiquity |
|
|
Mathematics and Platonism |
Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics
and Gresham Professor of Geometry, University of Warwick |
|
|
John
Gribbin, Visiting Fellow in Astronomy, University of Sussex |
||
|
Martin
Rees, Astronomer Royal – 2001, Professor of Physics and Astronomy
at Cambridge University |
||
|
Jim
Al-Khalili, Senior Lecturer in Physics at the University of Surrey |
||
|
Martin
Rees, Royal Society Research Professor in Astronomy and Physics, Cambridge University |
||
|
Physics of Reality – Quantum Mechanics |
Roger
Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics, Oxford University |
|
|
Chaos Theory – was
the universe chaotic or orderly? |
Susan
Greenfield, senior research fellow, Lincoln College, Oxford |
|
|
Supernovas –
the life cycle of stars |
Paul
Murdin, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge |
|
|
James Clerk Maxwell – great 19th century
physicist |
Simon
Schaffer, Reader in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge |
|
|
Infinity –
a brief history. |
Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics
at the University of Warwick |
|
|
Rutherford – the father of nuclear physics |
Simon
Schaffer, Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge |
|
|
Theories of Everything – still the
holy grail of physics? |
Brian
Greene, Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University and author of The
Fabric of the Cosmos |
|
|
Zero –
everything about nothing |
Robert
D. Kaplan, co-founder of the Maths Circle at Harvard University and author of The
Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero |
|
|
Pi – the number
that doesn't add up |
Robert
D. Kaplan, co-founder of the Maths Circle at Harvard University |
|
|
The Second Law of Thermodynamics –
the most important thing you will ever know |
John
Gribbin, Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex |
|
|
Dark
Energy – the unknown force breaking the universe apart |
Martin
Rees, Astronomer Royal and Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Cambridge University |
|
|
Magnetism –
an attractive history |
Stephen
Pumfrey, Senior Lecturer in the History of Science at the University of Lancaster John
Heilbron, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley |
|
|
The Graviton –
the quest for the theoretical gravity particle |
Roger
Cashmore, Former Research Director at CERN and
Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford Jim
Al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey |
|
|
Prime
Numbers – the building blocks of mathematics |
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics and Fellow of Wadham College at the University of Oxford Robin Wilson, Professor of Pure
Mathematics at the Open
University and Gresham Professor of Geometry |
|
|
Negative
numbers – how they spread across civilizations |
Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics
at the University of Warwick Colva Roney-Dougal, Lecturer in Pure
Mathematics at the University of St Andrews |
|
|
Galaxies –
extra-galactic nebulae, black holes, stars and dark matter |
John
Gribbin, Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex Carolin
Crawford, Royal Society University Research Fellow at
the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge |
|
|
The Poincar̩ conjecture Рhow a 19th-century
mathematician changed how we think about the shape of the universe |
June
Barrow-Green, Lecturer in the History of Mathematics at the Open
University Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics
at the University of Warwick |
|
|
The Speed
of Light – a cosmic speed limit? |
John Barrow, Professor of Mathematical
Sciences and Gresham Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University Iwan
Morus, Senior Lecturer in the History of Science at The University of Wales, Aberystwyth |
|
|
Indian
Maths – laying the foundations for modern numerals and zero as a number |
George
Gheverghese Joseph, Honorary Reader in Mathematics Education at Manchester University Colva Roney-Dougal, Lecturer in Pure
Mathematics at the University of St Andrews |
|
|
Symmetry –
the pattern at the heart of our physical world |
Fay Dowker,
Reader in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford |
|
|
Gravitational
Waves – a new window on the universe |
Jim
Al-Khalili, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey Carolin
Crawford, Royal Society Research Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridgee |
|
|
Antimatter –
where has it all gone? |
Val
Gibson, Reader in High Energy Physics at the University of Cambridge Frank
Close, Professor of Physics at Exeter College, University of Oxford |
|
|
The Fibonacci Sequence – – the numbers in
nature |
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford Jackie
Stedall, Junior Research Fellow in History of Mathematics at Queen's College, Oxford |
|
|
The Multiverse –
the universe is
not enough |
Martin
Rees, President of the Royal Society and Professor of Cosmology and
Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge Fay Dowker,
Reader in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College |
|
|
Newton's Laws of Motion – they put a
man on the Moon |
Simon
Schaffer, Professor in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Fellow
of Darwin College Raymond Flood, University Lecturer in
Computing Studies and Mathematics and Senior Tutor at Kellogg College, Oxford |
|
|
Probability –
heads or tails? |
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford Colva Roney-Dougal, Lecturer in Pure
Mathematics at the University of St Andrews |
|
|
Gödel's incompleteness theorems –
the dirty secret of maths science |
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at Wadham College, University of Oxford John
D. Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Gresham
Professor of Geometry |
|
|
Heat: A
History -from fire to thermodynamics |
Simon
Schaffer, Professor of History of Science at the University of Cambridge and Fellow
of Darwin College Hasok
Chang, Professor of Philosophy of Science at University College London |
|
|
The Physics of
Time – does time even exist? |
Jim
Al-Khalili, Professor of Theoretical Physics and Chair in the Public
Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey Monica
Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open
University |
|
|
The Measurement problem in Physics – Man is
not the measure of all things |
Basil
Hiley, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Birkbeck, University of London Simon
Saunders, Reader in Philosophy of Physics and University Lecturer in
Philosophy of Science at the University of Oxford |
|
|
The Vacuum of
Space – a programme about nothing? |
Frank
Close, Professor of Physics at Exeter College, Oxford Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Visiting Professor in
Astrophysics at Oxford University |
|
|
Leibniz vs Newton –
who first calculated the calculus? |
Simon
Schaffer, Professor of History of Science at the University of Cambridge and Fellow
of Darwin College Patricia
Fara, Senior Tutor at Clare College, Cambridge |
|
|
The
Discovery of Radiation – from radio waves to gamma rays |
Jim
Al-Khalili, Professor of Theoretical Physics and Chair in the Public
Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey Frank
Close, Professor of Physics at Exeter College, University of Oxford |
|
|
Pythagoras and
the Pythagoreans – maths and mysticism |
Ian Stewart, Emeritus Professor of
Mathematics at the University of Warwick Serafina
Cuomo, Reader in Roman History at Birkbeck College, University
of London |
|
|
John
D. Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Professor
of Geometry at Gresham College, London Colva Roney-Dougal, Lecturer in Pure Mathematics
at the University of St Andrews |
||
|
The
Cool Universe |
Carolin
Crawford, Member of the Institute of Astronomy, and
Fellow of Emmanuel College, at the University of Cambridge Paul
Murdin, Visiting Professor of Astronomy at Liverpool John Moores University's
Astronomy Research Institute |
|
|
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University Ian Stewart, Emeritus Professor of
Mathematics at the University of Warwick |
||
|
A.
C. Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London Peter
Millican, Gilbert Ryle Fellow in Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford |
||
|
Tim
Barrett, Professor of East Asian History at the School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London Martin
Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education
and Culture |
||
|
Random and Pseudorandom |
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford Colva Roney-Dougal, Senior Lecturer in Pure
Mathematics at the University of St Andrews |
|
|
Martin
Rees, Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics
at the University of Cambridge Carolin
Crawford, Member of the Institute of Astronomy and Fellow of Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge |
||
|
Frank
Close, Professor of Physics at Exeter College at the University of Oxford Susan
Cartwright, Senior Lecturer in Particle Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Sheffield |
||
|
Angie
Hobbs, associate professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public
Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Warwick Peter
Adamson, Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's College London |
||
|
Simon
Schaffer, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge John Worrall, Professor of the
Philosophy of Science at the London School of
Economics and Political Science |
||
|
Kristen
Lippincott, Former Director of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich Jim Bennett, Director of the Museum of the History of Science at
the University of Oxford |
||
|
Angie
Hobbs, associate professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public
Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Warwick Peter
Adamson, Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's College London |
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Ian Stewart, Emeritus Professor
of Mathematics at the University of Warwick Andrew
Colman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Leicester |
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John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy at
the University of St Andrews Peter
Millican, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford |
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Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics & Simonyi
Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford Vicky
Neale, Fellow and Director of Studies in Mathematics at Murray Edwards College at
the University of Cambridge |
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Judith
Howard, Director of the Biophysical Sciences Institute and Professor of
Chemistry at the University of Durham Chris
Hammond, Life Fellow in Material Science at the University of Leeds |
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A.
C. Grayling, Master of the New College of the Humanities and
a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford Mike
Beaney, Professor of Philosophy at the University of York |
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Simon
Schaffer, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge Stephen
Blundell, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford |
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Martin
Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education,
and Culture Caroline Humfress, Reader in History at Birkbeck College, University
of London |
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Carolin
Crawford, Gresham Professor of Astronomy and
a member of the Institute of Astronomy at
the University of Cambridge Alan Watson, Emeritus Professor
of Physics at the University of Leeds |
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Ruth
Gregory, Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Durham University Martin
Rees, Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor
of Cosmology and Astrophysics at
the University of Cambridge |
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Jessica
Frazier, [30] Lecturer
in Religious Studies at the University of Kent and a research fellow
of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies at
the University of Oxford Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, [31] Professor
of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Lancaster University |
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Ian Stewart, [36] Emeritus Professor
of Mathematics at the University of Warwick Jeff
Johnson, [37] Professor
of Complexity Science
and Design at the Open University |
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|
Peter
Millican, [69] Gilbert
Ryle Fellow and Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford Tom
Stoneham, [70] Professor
of Philosophy at the University of York |
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Andrea
Sella, [75] Professor
of Materials and Inorganic Chemistry at University College London Athene
Donald, [76] Professor
of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge |
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Colva Roney-Dougal, [119] Reader in
Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews June Barrow-Green, [120] Senior
Lecturer in the History of Maths at the Open
University |
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Philippa
Browning, [134] Professor
of Astrophysics, Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics,
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester Steve
Cowley, [135] Professor
in Plasma Physics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Physics Imperial College, London |
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Tim
Barrett, [148] Emeritus Professor at Department of the
Study of Religions, SOAS, University of London Lucia
Dolce, [149] Numata
Reader in Japanese Buddhism at SOAS, University of London |
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|
Simon Glendinning, [160] Professor
of European Philosophy in the European Institute at the London School of Economics Joanna
Hodge, [161] Professor
of Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University |
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|
Jessica
Frazier, [166] Lecturer
in Religious Studies at the University of Kent and a research fellow
at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies Naomi
Appleton, [167] Chancellor's
Fellow in Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh |
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|
Frank
Close, [169] Professor
Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford Wendy
Flavell, [170] Professor
of Surface Physics at the University of Manchester |
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|
Carolin
Crawford, [181] Public
Astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge Carlos
Frenk, [182] Ogden
Professor of Fundamental Physics and Director of the Institute for
Computational Cosmology at the University of Durham |
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|
Ruth
Gregory, Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Durham University Frank
Close, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford |
||
|
Colva Roney-Dougal, Reader in Pure Mathematics
at the University of St Andrews Timothy
Gowers, Royal Society Research Professor in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge |
||
|
Geoffrey
Cantor, Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the University of Leeds Laura
Herz, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford |
||
|
Val
Gibson, Professor of High Energy Physics at the University of Cambridge and fellow
of Trinity College Andrew
Harrison, chief executive officer of Diamond Light Source and Professor in
Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh |
||
|
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi
Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford Serafina
Cuomo, Reader in Roman History at Birkbeck, University of London |
||
|
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi
Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford Barbara
Sattler, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews |
||
|
David Wootton, Professor of History at
the University of York Ulinka
Rublack, Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow
of St John's College |
||
|
Colva Roney-Dougal, Reader in Pure Mathematics
at the University of St Andrews Peter
Pormann, Professor of Classics & Graeco-Arabic Studies at the University of Manchester |
||
|
Frank
Close, Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College, Oxford Michela
Massimi, Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh |
||
|
Angie
Hobbs, Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield M.M.
McCabe, Professor of Ancient Philosophy Emerita at King's College London |
||
|
Marcus
du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi Professor for the Public
Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford Colva Roney-Dougal, Reader in Pure Mathematics
at the University of St Andrews |
||
|
Frank
Close, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford Helen
Heath, Reader in Physics at the University of Bristol |
||
|
Keith Ansell-Pearson, Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Warwick Emily
Thomas, Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Durham University |
||
|
Steven
Bramwell, Professor of Physics at University College London |
||
|
Andrew
Coates,Professor of Physics and Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System
at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London |
||
|
Graham Farmelo,
Biographer of Dirac and Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge |
||
|
Richard
Serjeantson, Fellow and Lecturer in History, Trinity College, University of Cambridge |
||
|
Leslie Ann Goldberg, Professor of Computer
Science and Fellow of St
Edmund Hall, University of Oxford |
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