(An extract from correspondence with the philosopher Adrian
W. Moore, concerning The History of the Infinite).
From: Thomas Yaeger
Sent: 16 April 2017 18:46
To: Adrian W. Moore
Cc: Thomas Yaeger
Subject: A History of the Infinite, and
The Sacred History of Being
Dear Adrian,
I still haven't got round to writing a compact review of
your radio series on 'The History of the Infinite', but I will get around to it
eventually. In the meantime the ten episode summaries have been accessed 1266
times as of this afternoon, which is not bad for a blog page on such a
specialised subject.
When we were corresponding last autumn about the series, I
didn't say much about myself. I have a background in philosophy, classics, and
also ancient Near Eastern History. I studied mainly at UCL and SOAS. I was
particularly interested in your series in order to understand how the question
of the infinite in history is currently being handled by academia. The series
gave me an excellent overview of that, for which thanks.
However, there are real problems with the current and
conventional view of how the infinite was understood by ancient civilizations,
the cultural function it served, its geographic spread, and who adopted it
first. It doesn't look problematic from the point of view of those academics who
specialise in ancient Greece and classical civilization, because they have
grown up with the idea that the business of dealing with abstractions in a
philosophical way is firmly established as a Greek phenomenon, and an
incontrovertible fact.
Most of the evidence to the contrary never passes before the
eyes of classicists and specialists in ancient philosophy, precisely because
they are specialists in their subject. The evidence is elsewhere. In addition,
we select the evidence which is available, in order to provide support for the
current model of how the practice of philosophy started, how ideas of infinity
and Being came to be discussed, and not to undermine that view. This process
has been going on since the Enlightenment.
Since I studied Mesopotamian history, culture and thought, I
have a different perspective. I spent quite a few years in careful study, and
came to the conclusion that the origin of philosophy is not down to some
autocthonous burst of intellectual genius in ancient Greece in the sixth and
fifth centuries, B.C.E, but is the result of the development of patterns of
though associated with divine cult around the Mediterranean during the 1st and
2nd millennia B.C.E.
So you have looked at the history of the infinite from the
point of view of the established history of philosophy. I have looked at the
history of the infinite from the point of view of other cultures around the
Mediterranean, principally the Assyrian and Babylonian oikumene, and Israel. As
a consequence, our pictures of the cultural history of the idea of infinity are
radically different.
It is true that we have no formal discussion of philosophy
from Mesopotamia as we find in the pages of Plato and Aristotle, but we know
that the ideas of infinity and Being were present because so much information
survives about Mesopotamian culture in the form of historical records, ritual
texts, liturgies for their festivals, their art, iconography, sculpture, etc.
And their extensive literature. These things give us many clues as to the meaning
and purpose of divine cult in Mesopotamia. The questions and conjectures that
underpin divine cult are philosophical ones about the nature of the infinite,
the nature of reality itself, and of Being.
In fact, it is philosophy in Greece which seems oddly
isolated, as not being closely associated with Greek religious practice, and
with the other phenomena which form part of their extensive cultural life –
divination, augury, magic, sacrifice, the worship of divine images and statues,
and the rituals of everyday life.
This isolation of philosophy in Greece from Greek cultic
life is more apparent than real however. For 150 years in the 1st Millennium
B.C.E. (7th and 8th centuries), Assyria is the best documented civilization in
antiquity. Many things survive from there which do not survive elsewhere, such
as rituals for the inauguration of divine images. We have none from Greece.
Close comparison of these ritual texts with Plato’s discussion of the Forms,
spread across several of his dialogues, shows that he is talking about a
widely-spread philosophical rationale for divine cult, and in fact the theory
and practice of idolatry. The parallels are very striking.
I’ve written a book on the subject – The Sacred History of
Being (2015). This looks at why we frame our intellectual history the way we
do, and sketches out an alternative construction of that history. I would
be happy to send this to you, if you would be interested in an alternative view
of the history of the infinite, which explores the idea in its original
cultural context.
Currently it is available as an eBook, and can be read using
Adobe Digital Editions (freely downloadable from Adobe’s website) which is
available for a wide range of hardware platforms. It is around 3.5 mb in size,
and travels well as an email attachment.
Best regards,
Thomas Yaeger
At 10:52 17/04/2017, you wrote:
Dear Thomas,
Many thanks for your message. Yes, I would be very
interested in receiving a copy of your book, and I thank you in anticipation.
Best wishes,
Adrian Moore
Episodes of my BBC Radio 4 series A History of the Infinite
can be heard at:
Dear Adrian,
Ok then. The ePub format file is attached.
I would recommend reading the chapters in sequence on the
first reading, since many of the chapters supply information which is useful
for understanding subsequent chapters. As you will see from the chapter list,
much of the Mesopotamian discussion is in part three.
The main purpose of the book is to bring to the attention of
specialists in western philosophy, classics, and ancient history, the presence
of ideas in Assyria and Babylon which show strong parallels with those
present in Greece. So the reader is at no point hit with a wall of cuneiform
script. Or indeed, any at all. The quality of the writing has already been
commended - I worked hard to make the text readable.
Take your time - you have other things to do, and I can wait
until you are ready to respond. Thanks for your interest.
Best regards,
Thomas Yaeger.
***
[Evading the Infinite, the chapter published in 'Man and the Divine', a critical review of both Moore's BBC series on Radio 4, and his argument, is available at: http://shrineinthesea.blogspot.com/2017/10/obscured-by-clouds-critical-review-of.html]
Page updated October 5, 2018.
Page updated October 5, 2018.
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