Author Archives: David Pierce

Mathematician & logician; amateur of philosophy; relation of journalists; alumnus of St John’s College (USA); living in Ankara & Istanbul since 2000

NL XLV: The Germans

February 21, 2019 – 9:14 am

Index to this series

At the end of Collingwood’s New Leviathan (1942), we reach a chapter whose theme is that of my more recent articles on grammar.

By August Macke – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, Link

As history, Collingwood’s last chapter is difficult, for the reasons that trouble Herbert Read at the beginning of his Concise History of Modern Painting (revised 1968, augmented 1974). Read opens his first chapter with a passage from Collingwood’s Speculum Mentis (1924):

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NL XLIV: The Turks

February 20, 2019 – 7:47 am

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The last part of Collingwood’s New Leviathan (Oxford, 1942) is “Barbarism.” The first chapter of the part is “What Barbarism Is”; the remaining chapters describe examples of barbarism in turn. The fourth and last example is the one that Britain is fighting as Collingwood writes.

Sun behind mosque on cover of The Ottoman Centuries (Lord Kinross, a.k.a. Patrick Balfour) Continue reading →

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A Defense

January 12, 2019 – 1:27 pm

Here is the defense (savunma) of Ayşe Berkman before the 36th Heavy Penalty Court (Ağır Ceza Mahkemesi) of Istanbul, January 10, 2019, against the charge of making propaganda for a terrorist organization (terör örgütü propagandası yapmak).

Crowd of mostly smiling people outside a courtroom

The crowd from the courtroom when the session was over.
From a tweet of the Peace Academics

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Logic of Elliptic Curves

January 6, 2019 – 8:49 pm

In my 1997 doctoral dissertation, the main idea came as I was lying in bed one Sunday morning. Continue reading →

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On Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

December 15, 2018 – 8:43 am

This is an appreciation of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem of 1931. I am provoked by a depreciation of the theorem.

In the “Gödel for Dummies” version of the Theorem, there are mathematical sentences that are both true and unprovable. This requires two points of clarification. Continue reading →

Posted in Categorical Thinking, Descartes, Euclid, Hitchens, Mathematics, Philosophy, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Antitheses

December 13, 2018 – 10:18 am

The Antitheses are the six parallel teachings, delivered by Jesus of Nazareth in the Sermon on the Mount, as recounted in Chapter 5 of the Gospel According to St Matthew, starting at verse 21. I summarize:

  1. Do not kill people; do not even get angry with them.
  2. Do not commit adultery; do not even fantasize about it.
  3. In divorce, follow the established procedure; do not even divorce.
  4. Do not forswear yourself; do not even swear.
  5. Keep retribution commensurate with the crime; do not even seek retribution.
  6. Love your neighbor; love even your enemy.

For better or worse, these are part of the cultural heritage of many of us; they are at least a commentary on the cultural heritage (the Mosaic Law) of more of us.

I write now specifically, because I think the Antitheses can illustrate or illuminate some contemporary philosophical concerns, Continue reading →

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NL XLIII: The Second Barbarism: The ‘Albigensian Heresy’

October 13, 2018 – 7:01 am

Index to this series

Summary. Suppose your society has certain rites and customs, perceived as essential to its functioning. When some persons among you reject those rites and customs, what are you going to do? Persecution would be the normal response of a society that aimed to preserve itself. In the example to be considered here, the society is medieval Christendom, where

  • buildings called churches were customarily the abode of friendly spirits, and
  • the rite of swearing an oath was a sign of special commitment.

Oaths and churches were rejected by persons called Paulicians, or Bogomils, or Albigensians. Their beliefs were Manichaean. These persons were persecuted so successfully that we do not understand them very well. Therefore we must leave open the question of whether they were barbarists.

Here I am going to review, among other things,

  • what it means to fight barbarism;
  • the response to German bombardment described in Goodbye, Mr. Chips;
  • what Jesus Christ says about swearing;
  • how the United States accommodates various beliefs (as by allowing affirming instead of swearing, or allowing Muslims to swear on a Quran);
  • the threat of a lying President;
  • the threat of ignoring climate change;
  • the etymology of heresy;
  • the discussion of mythos and logos in Pirsig.

Fire temple, Yazd, Iran, September 2012. See “Duty to Nature”

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NL XLII: The First Barbarism: The Saracens

October 1, 2018 – 5:49 am

Index to this series

Executive summary: The barbarians who overran the Western Roman Empire were not barbarists in Collingwood’s technical sense. However, “in the seventh century a movement inspired by hostility towards everything Roman … and everything Christian, flared up on the south-eastern frontier of the Roman world” (42. 22). This movement was therefore barbarist. Failing to conquer Europe, either from the east at Constantinople, or from the west at Tours, the movement settled down and ceased being barbarist—by the account in Chapter XLII, “The First Barbarism: The Saracens,” and later, in Collingwood’s New Leviathan. I check this account against more recent sources; it is barbarist to think that the “movement” in question, or indeed any movement, must always be barbarist; I look at the “civilization” of the British Empire as portrayed in a story of Maugham, and I compare a character of the story to Collingwood.

Collingwood’s historical account of barbarisms is a minefield, if one wishes not to sound like a barbarist oneself. The four examples will be

  1. the Saracens,
  2. the “Albigensian Heresy” (or the Bogomils),
  3. the Turks, and
  4. the Germans.

The very formula “the X”—definite article followed by national or quasi-national adjective—this has a barbaric use in branding a people with indelible features. A retort then is “not all X,” as in “not all men.” Collingwood issues such a proviso himself:

45. 68. Please observe, Reader, that I am not talking about all Germans. I do not say that all Germans are liars. I know of some who are not; those heroes, for example, who continue in spite of everything the Nazis can do to run their secret wireless station and keep on printing Das Wahre Deutschland.

Das wahre Deutschland, from a Swiss antiquarian bookshop, Antiquariat Peter Petrej

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Posted in Collingwood, Galileo, History, Maugham, New Leviathan, Philosophy, Philosophy of History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

NL XLI: What Barbarism Is

September 27, 2018 – 6:22 pm

Index to this series

Civilization being agreement, barbarism has no chance in the long run (41. 67):

41. 76. For barbarism implies not only a quarrel between any barbarist and any civilized man; it also implies a quarrel between anyone barbarist and any other; and that any state of harmony between them is merely this quarrel suspended.

The barbarist is somebody “who imitates the conditions of an uncivilized world” (41. 53); but an actual attempt to bring about those conditions will need cooperation, and this will be a step towards civility. Here perhaps we should distinguish cooperation from the kind of coerced organization seen in a fascist state. Specific examples will be considered in the later chapters of Part IV of the New Leviathan. We are now considering “What Barbarism Is,” in general terms.

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NL XL: Peace and Plenty

September 25, 2018 – 8:46 am

Index to this series

With “Peace and Plenty,” we reach the end of the account of civilization in Collingwood’s New Leviathan. What remains is the account of barbarism. Strictly speaking, we little need it. Civilization quâ ideal of civility is the positive end of civilization quâ process, and as was pointed out on Chapter XXXII, “Society and Nature in the Classical Politics,” the positive end is the primary thing to know in conducting a process (32. 35–6).

“May Day, 1929,” V. V. Kuptsov

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