Introducing the Mystic Simone Weil.

At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is above all that is sacred in every human being. Simone Weil

Simone Weil is one of the important thinkers of the modern era. She was a brilliant philosopher and mathematician who died in relative obscurity of TB in 1943 aged only 34.   The impetus for a complete publication of all Weil's writings was largely the result of Nobel laureate Albert Camus' discovery of Weil's writings.

Weil had great influence on his philosophy, since he saw her writings as an "antidote" to nihilism. Camus described her as "the only great spirit of our times”. Others to follow were such notable scholars as John Dewey and Richard Rorty. Both John Dewey (1859 - 1952) and Simone Weil (1909 - 1943) were philosophers in the original sense: in their writings can be found a genuine love for wisdom. She was a scholar and inspired activist who believed one’s thoughts must be put into action.  

For Veil wanted to discover the truth about why there is evil in the world. In Weil’s view creation could only take place by the withdrawal of the ONE to make way for that creation.

Put another way, in the beginning there was only GOD who was everything so that creation could only take place from a withdrawal not an expansion. You might say it began from a renouncement. So that Weil doesn’t want to make a distinction between Good and Evil but only to offer a reason why all that is GOOD cannot flourish in the world as a fait accompli of creation.   She believed if she pursued the truth she would discover Jesus who enters into the world of suffering just as she experienced that visit in her suffering. So that it is important to understand this underpinning to her thinking before examining her philosophy.     

In a nutshell that spark of divinity is in everyone but is overshadowed by our will to satisfy our desires rather than the good.  That sense of obligation to ensure she put action to overcome evil was to dominate her thinking.               

Introducing her early life and thought  

Raised as a secularized Jew, Weil was in effect a Christian Platonist who critiqued the foundations of modernity of her native France and championed a radically different social order. She was a moral idealist whose philosophy was based on caring for others, especially those who were suffering.  True liberty is found in the relationship between thought and action. This is achieved by paying attention to the subject matter to the extent one avoids engaging purely on one’s egoistic intentions. Pragmatically She accepted the fact that societies do need rules for the common good, but they must not diminish liberty and their purpose must be clear. An intelligent application to existence isn’t simply about fulfilling our desires but rather about being mentally engaged in the production of one's life.

The getting of wisdom requires our attention seen through the eyes of Weil   

For Weil, wisdom was centered on a love of truth that involved a certain way of applying one's attention to a concrete or theoretical problem.  She believed nature was subject to a divine wisdom and that a truly democratic society had supernatural roots which lay in the reverent interaction within the environment. It was difficult, if not impossible, to conceive a self-separate from our interaction which defined it. The surrounding conditions were the backdrop that brought a self into relief, and without the environmental backdrop which sustained it, the self would disappear. The interaction was a composite of the self within its environment–each acting on the other. Nevertheless, this composite self was divided, craving to be unified, to be whole, to have integrity:
I am always a dual being, on the one hand a passive being who is subject to the world, and on the other an active being who has a grasp on it; .... Can I not attain perfect wisdom, wisdom in action, that would reunite the two parts of myself? 
Hence, Weil saw wisdom developing thought through action. One’s actions not only revealed the degree to which one possessed wisdom as a force that unified the self–that tied the habits together so that these actions created that very self. Weil was emphatic about it: “...my existence as I know it is not a feeling but my creation”. Activity which exhibited a grasp on the world might look passive to someone looking from the outside, just as passivity which exhibited the world’s grasp on the self might appear as activity to the same observer. Thus, the term, “acting out,” denotes such a passive state where anarchic desires are given “freedom.” 

We cannot change habits directly: that notion is magic. But we can change it indirectly by modifying conditions, by an intelligent selection and weighting of the objects which engage attention and which influence the fulfillment of desires. 
this was her expression of the wisdom of the Socratic dictum: to know oneself was to reveal and to re-fashion oneself through the indirect action of work.
“Science and Perception in Descartes” is divided in two sections: the first part is a third-person commentary on Descartes; the second part, Weil’s own Cartesian journey of doubt, is appropriately–given the nature of her task–written in the first person

And so outside of effective action, when the body, in which past perceptions are inscribed, is re- lived from the necessity of exploration, human thought is given over to the passions, to the kind of imagination that conjures up God, to be receptive to reasonable-sounding arguments. Science, then is more helpful in the manner prescribed. Instead of imposing its proofs it is taught in the way that Descartes called analytic. In other words, for each student to follow the same order he would follow if he were methodically making discoveries himself. That is to be less inclined to receive instruction than to teach himself.

Weil believed she was being faithful to the spirit of Descartes by undertaking her own journey of self-instruction.

To be a Cartesian, according to Weil, is to doubt everything, and then to examine everything in order; without believing in anything except one’s own thought insofar as it is clear and distinct, and without trusting the authority of anyone.

Wisdom and the Divided Self
Weil examines her own thinking from the inside and cannot allow her “self” to disappear because she is more explicitly both spectator and participant. Her “self” is a dual seeking unity through self-mastery

That unity is a painful struggle where her active part–the being which can affect a grasp on the world through work–seeks to diminish the weight of the passive part in so far as it is subject to the world. Weil’s quest is identified her “true self” with the active part

She maintains, there is something “sacred” within each- within a human being, and it has nothing to do with personality or personhood:

At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being.

Wisdom and Thinking Clearly
She doubts every- thing at the outset except one thing–her own thought “insofar as it is clear and distinct”. The important issue for her was not whether the thoughts belonged to her as a form of intellectual property, but whether the thoughts were true. For her, clarity was the initial–though not necessarily the final–criterion of truth. Clarity impelled her to examine the truth of an idea in her existential experience.

She involved herself first hand with trade unions aimed at ensuring   workers were educated in being able to achieve steps towards liberation. In Addition to her duties as a high school teacher, she instructed railway workers to examine this notion. Why were the Communist unions unable to challenge Nazism? – she demanded a visit to Germany. Was the Soviet Union simply another form of oppression for the working class? She tested her hypothesis in a long argument with one of the Russian Bolsheviks, Leon Trotsky.

Convinced that the Republican militia were fighting for Spain’s “famished peasants against landed proprietors and their clerical supporters” , Weil joined up and soon discovered how the justice of one’s cause can quickly be obscured in war and how the initial noble objectives disintegrate into cruelty. The end result becomes a wanton disregard for the value of human life: “People get carried away by a sort of intoxication which is irresistible without a fortitude of soul which I am bound to consider exceptional since I have met with it nowhere”.  In asking the question “Is manual labour a path to wisdom? She elected to work in a factory and in a vineyard to experience this for herself.
Her whole intellectual journey, prior to her 1930 student dissertation until her death only 13 years later, was based on a trust of clear and distinct thoughts. They were tested in the furnace of existence, purified, modified, or discarded from her experience.
She exhibited a confidence born of her mystical experiences which she articulated in a Christian idiom, and, far from being threatened by religious superstition, her early confidence in clear thinking was connected to her developing view of supernatural truth.

The overriding underpinnings to her thinking was the ability to pay attention as her preferred method of discerning clear ideas– whether or not provoked by the imposition of a problem or contemplating an object of beauty.
She rejected the is idea that thinking is explained as a natural product issuing forth from a progressively sophisticated pattern of material forces.

As a platonic philosopher she maintained that “the imperfect cannot give rise to the perfect or the less good to the better”  Rather she believed that the connection between thought and action would remain an unfathomable mystery despite advances in neuroscience or psychology: “The extreme complexity of vital phenomena can perhaps be progressively unravelled, at any rate to a certain extent; but the immediate relationship linking our thoughts to our movements will always remain wrapped in impenetrable obscurity”.  

Weil agrees on what wisdom is from a psychological point of view. Wisdom begins to take root in mindful work–when activity is diverted from immediate outward expression through inward deliberation towards mediated, indirect action. For both, the test of experience is essential in verifying or modifying ideas and developing wisdom.

Weil however experiences a binary tension within interactions where the self and its environment are linked in a wrestling match: her active self seeks to increase its grasp on the environment while her passive self allows the environment to encroach. Impelled to achieve mastery of oneself the active part overcoming the passive part. Weil maintains that clear thoughts (the only thing she trusts at the outset) are secured through the active work of attention.

Weil loves experiential wisdom as it reveals clear thoughts that act as stepping stones on the way to truth.

How Is Wisdom Connected to the Social Dimension of Experience?

Weil maintains that humans are social beings, and that the wisdom of moral deliberation entails taking into account connections that bind a self to others.

Weil believed that wise deliberation kept the social dimension constantly in view. Weil followed Marx in emphasizing that society was the fundamental human fact. Although debunking the Marxist formula that “social existence determines consciousness,” she appreciated his attempt to analyse the relation- ships of force in reference to human society in the manner of a physicist who analysed these relationships in reference to inert matter.  

She re-framed Marx’s position to keep the relationships of social forces intact while maintaining that humans understood as individuals were relatively free as active beings although constrained by the structure of the society. The social structure can never be modified except indirectly. The structure of society, analogous to the structure of the moral self, could only be transformed indirectly through work, which from a social perspective meant conjoint activity channelled through the means of production.

How could it be mastered? Weil answered:
... to gain mastery over it means to subject it to the human mind, that is to the individual. In the subordination of society to the individual lies the definition of true democracy and that of socialism as well. The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labour which characterizes the society we are aiming at.

This union between manual and intellectual labour had to begin at a very young age in a school system where abstract thinking was grounded and tested in existential experience.

Weil was wary of the social dimension. This was part of the reason she never joined the Communist party nor the Catholic church: “As soon as a party finds itself cemented not only by the coordination of activities, but also by unity of doctrine, it becomes impossible for a good militant to think otherwise than in the manner of a slave”. But she found the spirit of the resurrected Christ in her suffering and her quest for truth. I did not seek Christ but he came to me in my suffering.     

She saw how a community of relatively free individuals could become unthinking cogs in a collective machine. Nevertheless, her notion of freedom was not the romanticised ideal of individualism. All that an individual owned–even her sense of worth, self-esteem–was derived from the social element as her experience as an anonymous factory worker removed all doubt on that score. Therin the individual could think in a way a collective never could. “A collective is much stronger than a single man; but every collectivity depends for its existence upon operations, of which simple addition is the elementary example, which can only be performed by a mind in a state of solitude”.

She pointed out that when thinking clearly and effectively, a person had to focus on an issue or problem without being intimidated by the presence of others or what others might think.

Weil’s methodology for measuring freedom and democracy in a society was the extent to which the patterns of relationships among individuals could be understood by each thinking individual: a society in which collective existence would be subject to men as individuals instead of subjecting them to itself. A form of existence wherein only efforts exclusively directed by a clear intelligence would take place to imply each worker had control, without reference to any external rule, not only the adaptation of his efforts to the piece of work to be produced, but also their coordination with the efforts of all other members of the collective. That then became her idea of the  sacred nature of work according to those ideals.  

In The Need for Roots, Weil’s blueprint for a democratic society was built on a startling assumption that challenged the principles of the French Revolution: rights were from a social phenomenon and existed only when obligations were exercised by humans toward each other. Hence, obligations were prior to rights: A right can only be construed in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider themselves as being under a certain obligation toward him. 

For the Christian Platonist Weil, keeping an obligation was a duty whose roots lay in a supernatural realm beyond the immediate and changing context of a specific situation. The sacred nature of existence which creates the obligation for good.

Weil argued, “we owe our respect to a collectivity, of whatever kind–country, family, or any other–not for itself, but because it is food for a certain number of human souls”

Concluding remarks. 

We must recognise each human being as having that capacity to goodness. But it also has the capacity to become the guiding light to existence according to Weil. That reflection is analogous to the same thinking of Albert Schweitzer who talked about the renunciation of the self to live a life of service.  

Weil considers the superiority of attention over the will as the ultimate tool of self-transformation:

We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.

Put another way, in the beginning there was only GOD who was everything so that creation could only take place from a withdrawal not an expansion. You might say it began from a renouncement. So that Weil doesn’t want to make a distinction between Good and Evil but only to offer a reason why all that is GOOD cannot flourish in the world as a fait accompli of creation.   She believed if she pursued the truth she would discover Jesus who enters into the world of suffering just as she experienced that visit in her suffering. 

 

 

Postmodernism

Firstly, let me define postmodernism as a movement against modernism that preceded it and arose around the sixties. It was given impetus with the student uprising in France and Germany in the late sixties

The primary driver was a rejection of many aspects of the positive and orderly approach of modernism circa from the ending of hostilities from the first World War. But there exists an overlap between their respective movements, as paradoxically it is a rejection of parts of modernism combined with its extension.

Modernism

As a unitary movement it embraces just about everything- philosophy, religion, the arts (music, painting, architecture, literature etc) which was discussed and performed in accordance to the rules and conventions.

That position assumed a good outcome and permeated teaching in most of the educational institutions all over Europe against which the students saw reasons to rally against since that status quo had not avoided the ravages of war.    

Notwithstanding Modernism had its beauty of course because of that unity- for instance Art Deco buildings, the Sydney Opera building and Books written with a beginning and end.

It brought enjoyment and order but excluded expression outside of those set boundaries. For instance, a priest or minister might make minor changes to the liturgy, but must start generally within the framework of a given model.

A familiar image was the triple-fronted brick veneer.  I recall our family home in that modernist design but unrecognisable given it has since undergone major extensions. Today it is barely recognisable. Hence you could only make minor changes inside the house, but not outside the house, or you wouldn’t have a triple-fronted brick veneer anymore.

Postmodernism

A good example of postmodernism is Federation Square in Melbourne, whose recent changes don’t impinge on recognitiom for it retains its Postmodern creation. Hence Federation Square has been described as being part of a deconstructivism style. In that respect post-modern architecture involves a clever manipulation of structure to provide a more enhanced multidimensional perspective.

Note there is an emphasis on various aspects of human interactivity. You may have noticed, as I have, how the square is enveloped by the surrounding buildings which created for me a feeling of safety and intimacy. Buildings are also designed with multiple axis points; each entrance can be a transition zone, encouraging one to wander off almost accidentally to the next place or passage. 

The materials used are bluestone that matches the footpaths in Melbourne and the rich ochre-coloured sandstone blocks that reflect the Australian outback. Hence, we could say Postmodernism incorporates many individual separate pieces, making up the total in a seemingly haphazard way. 

Another typical aspect of Postmodernism is the ‘pinching’ of ideas (the pieces) from anywhere, like the classics, the Romantics etc.

An excellent example is the film ‘Moonwalker’ with Michael Jackson. In this film scenes are stolen from other genres including the music to nevertheless retain its postmodern creativity.This is exemplified as it features a montage of clips of children in Africa, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, Jesus Christ, kids in graduation, and other historical figures.

Postmodern writing, including Slaughterhouse-Five, tends to present a self-conscious critique of culture, society, politics, economics, and religion.  The resulting works can usually be described as fragmented, discontinuous, and even chaotic.

In visual art, the works of Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock are held up as prime examples of postmodernism. In film, classic examples include The Matrix and Blade Runner.

Precursor to post modernism.  

It is important to remember that Postmodernism, although dated to the late sixties, was prepared well before that time by various philosophers including Kierkegaard, Nietzsche Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Sartre.Derrida especially underpinned post modernism both with his philosophy and his insight on ‘reading’ and analysis.

A typical approach for cold bloodied textural analysis independent of the author's meaning was regarded as important.

Now, deconstructionism extends that analysis to determine the underlying ideologies, religious concepts in the use of words and sentences, i.e. language, which are often inferred but hidden. A political speech would be a great example, in which sometimes nothing is said but the political ideologies. All hidden by the use of certain language, words and sentences.

In a nutshell, while modernism adopted idealism and reason, postmodernism challenged or was highly sceptical of any ideas that involved universal certainties or truths. The principal idea was to reject modernism's unshakable belief in progress championed by the likes of Hegel's idea of the thinking spirit that meant each generation would learn from the past. This led to changes in the way we see ourselves but more so for society at large and philosophy. For instance, the existential movement was more about creating your own meaning and the self-whilst post-mortem thinking concerns were society's at large rejection of those modernists’ themes previously mentioned. But postmodernism arose from Continental Philosophy.      

The Historical Background- Continental Drift – why the analytics fiercely contest the continentals and vice versa  

A serious rift between the two traditions occurred at the beginning of the 20th Century with the work of G.E.Moore and Bertrand Russell. At that time, a Continental style, Hegelianism, ruled the world, dominating not only on the continent itself but also in England and America. Russell's reaction probably made the biggest impression and, in doing so, in a sense gave us what we now call ‘analytic philosophy’. The Moore-Russell movement instituted a concern with clarity, logic, and language and a prosaic, precise approach to philosophy as a reaction against what it took to be the ‘grandiose nebulosity’ of German Idealism and Hegelianism. It was a hard, precise, ‘masculine’ approach to philosophy, whereas Hegelianism might be dubbed more fluid, complex, and ‘feminine’. This set the tone not only for the way Analytic philosophy developed (from Russell and Moore to logical positivism and Wittgenstein and after), but also for the curriculum in university philosophy departments. Philosophy was studied up to the ‘crucial figure of Hume’, then a sudden jump was made (which totally ignored Continentals like Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx and Husserl) to Russell and Moore. This gave the impression that nothing very important had happened in philosophy between Hume and Russell.

Continental philosophers, the clarity and precision of the Analytic style, they argue, are actually a mark of its myopia, parochiality, lack of real depth, and inability to see the limitation of the Analytic framework and programmed. They posit Analytic philosophers have not read, or properly understood, the criticisms levelled at Analytic philosophy by certain key figures

The movements, some of whom are from their own tradition: Nietzsche, Heidegger, the later Wittgenstein, Derrida and the deconstructive movement, Richard Rorty.

There have been many attempts to modify and undermine Wittgenstein’s conclusions, but there is no agreement as to how successful these have been.

NIETZSCHE –

He represents the end of German Idealism, being the man who replaced Schopenhauer’s ‘will to live’ with his own ‘will to power’ as the essential description of reality. (This is how Nietzsche was regarded, especially by the Analytic tradition, for a long time, but that today is generally regarded as true.

For he is a sceptic and relativist and pro -Derrida’ who, by a series of ‘genealogical tracings’ deconstructs the truth-seeking enterprise of philosophy, as well as its passion for reason and precision, by showing the murky psychological roots of such enterprises, praising instead the unconscious, emotion, instinct, the body.  That appeals to many Continental and Feminist thinkers, and goes some way towards explaining the bewildered astonishment with which Analytic philosophers respond to the more ‘radical’ texts in contemporary continental thought.

Whether or not Nietzsche’s philosophy is consistent – and whether that even matters! – is one of the moot points at issue between contemporary Analytic and Continental philosophy.

Heidegger’s ‘primordial’ return to the ‘ground of metaphysics’, they feel, has surely made the whole framework in which Analytic philosophers discuss things inadequate, since it has shown that the entire subject-object distinction is a secondary and artificial construct that obscures rather than illuminates Being.

The later Heidegger is essentially a philosopher of mysticism, and his basic message would surprise neither Buddha, Lao-tzu, or St John of the Cross.

Mysticism has always taught that while there is an ego differentiating a world, the truth, or at least, reality, escapes it. The position is a recurrent one in both philosophy and theology, and Heidegger’s is the most recent version of it.

Heidegger salvages functions in terms of a move towards an ethics and a politics that would tend towards ‘letting beings be’, and being more circumspect about that ‘will to will’ that drives our technological ‘in framing’ of the modern world.

The figure of Jacques Derrida has probably aroused more adulation and fury in this debate between the traditions than any other. His detractors – mainly Analytic philosophers – either regard him as an incompetent charlatan or else generously grant that he has some reasonable philosophical points to make, only unfortunately Wittgenstein (or sometimes Nietzsche) made them all first.

Richard Rorty has described himself both as an American Pragmatist and a ‘postmodern bourgeois liberal’. He is significant for being one of the few Analytic philosophers who has seriously tried to take on board Continental philosophy, and who can claim a high degree of competence in both traditions.

What can we learn from both traditions and the conclusion.  

Each has something to contribute- Analytic philosophy and continental philosophy each play an important role.

Philosophy is a historical movement which seeks to provide answers to social and political questions as well as more technical problems of logic and epistemology. To assume that analytic philosophy is above the social and historical currents of its time is to ignore the wider reality. 

Continental philosophy also needs to recognize that logic is important in ensuring we provide clarity for language is connected to the ability to convey meaning, to ensure we are making propositions we know are correct and justified. 

It seems obvious that existence and being are vital to philosophy, yet analytic philosophers might ask how we know that to be true. Continental philosophy may be forgetting those basics necessary for intelligible experience. Science, logic, and the analysis of language are not the only things that matter, but neither are literature, art, and history. The balance between love and knowledge, the knowing and the doing of the good, can only proceed with a degree of humility. 

Ashbourne via Woodend - Macedon Ranges

We stayed recently on a deligtful 20 acre property called 'Amryhouse'. 

Below is the reproduction of a Miners Cottage we occupied and the surrounds.  

Their homestead is further down. There is a lake, tennis court and croquet lawn surrounded by a privet hedge grown purely from the old convent cuttings. 

All was constructed from bushland by the owners.     

The Philosophy of History

A few quotes to consider:    

· Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

         George Santayana.

· History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Napoleon Bonaparte.

·We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

Martin Luther King.

As far as my conclusion is concerned you may query is it really about truth as I suggest? Is the truth possible?

Truth telling.    

I believe history in a nutshell boils down to our ability in truth telling. That’s improving in modernity given the ability to validate writers based on styles, archaeological references and carbon dating. That allows historians to modify history as a consequence of these improved historical analysis tools. 

At the same time, paradoxically, we seem to be less interested in the subject now that potentially such tools shed more light on our past so much better than previous generations? 

Hence, regardless of whether or not an accurate linear progression of events and their probable causes is best or just a mode of investigation or speculative or analytical approach is undertaken, the historical philosopher’s quest, in my view, must be to discern as far as possible the truth.

Mythical narratives   

That doesn’t mean we dismiss myths that inform us of how cultures attempt to make sense of existence but we do need to know that they are myths in the first instance.  

In this way lessons can be gained for future reference and enrich one's sense of wonderment to promote discussions. In a nutshell we need to determine the truth from whatever best tools complement your narrative.

History conducive to existence   

However history can be used to support particular aspects such as was talked about by Nietzsche e.g. 

For instance Nietzsche constructs three forms of history that can be conducive to life: monumental history, antiquarian history, and critical history. The first favours myths and action and the belief in great men and events. The second can help to affirm life through an affirmation of one's roots, traditions, and identity. The third can be used to liberate those who feel oppressed by tradition. Nietzsche also suggests remedies for the exaggerated concern with history in the nineteenth century that is, emphasizing the unhistorical and the over-historical. With the latter, which is closely akin to the metaphysical, Nietzsche meant that which he believed transcends history, such as religion and art.   

Although Truth for Nietzsche might be considered a relative matter, dependent upon our interpretations- at first glance we might be inclined to say he is a postmodernist which however he isn’t. His idea of truth depends upon whichever interpretation prevails at a given time which is a function of power.  Page 45 - What Nietzsche Really Said - Solomon / Higgins.

A historian in truth ideally aims to discern the prevailing thinking that permeated society then and to talk about the veracity of claims based on the best analytical tools available.        

First early roots and emergence of the concept of eternal recurrence  

But prior to civilization and stretching back as far back as the great migrations (triggered by severe climatic conditions) the oral history tradition formed their cultures which was integral to ensure meaning could be attributed to their existence.  Anthropologists now believe we came very close at one stage to extinction, as a consequence of severe climatic change. Subsequently in the aftermath it's very likely wisdom streams (in whatever early conscious states they existed) filtered through into the cultures of the first nation’s people. Those ideas, underpinned by survival, later on formed the deterministic ideas of eternal recurrence we associate today in indigenous communities throughout the world.    

Discerning the truth from divergent sources inclusive of the diaries and everyday accounts of ordinary people and oral sources.

In this respect many Historians, up until fairly recently did not properly understand First Nations people and their rich culture in Australia. I vividly recall descriptions of First Nations people from my early school books depicted as small groups of nomadic hunter gatherers, solely reliant on stone implements and spears whose only shelter from the elements were temporary ones, constructed from branches and the bark of trees. Whilst that may have been true, by way of necessity for the more arid areas, they occupied, it was certainly not so for the more densely populated areas in around the coastal areas where game was more plentiful and farming was undertaken. Evidence exists of what must have been similar to maize harvested and stored in certain areas. We also have evidence of stone buildings where they stayed during the season of eel farming.

The significance of dreamtime stories which gave meaning to successive generations and ensured an ongoing affinity with the land was mostly overlooked, as was their complex system of law, extensive kinship and spirituality.  

Hence, from this multiplicity of  ideas the reality, I believe, is for the modern  historians to aim to discern  the truth from whatever sources are reasonably available and particularly from the diaries and everyday accounts of ordinary people and any relevant oral sources. Early historians in Australia could have avoided such inaccurate accounts if they consulted more widely with First Nations people. The same was true for early anthropologists who had no idea of the structures of skin types within clans and nations that underpinned their existence. 

I suggest this view of history applies equally to nations throughout the world but now is being reversed as historians are so much better equipped to discern the truth and provide more accurate conclusions now on ancient times than those only a few hundred years after such events occurred to which they sought to describe. 

The reason being advances in science and translation, writing styles and so forth.         

The History wars

But of course such direct sources are to be complemented by those luminaries who likewise seek the truth. 

Hence, perhaps it is not surprising we have the history wars, as those respective warriors see themselves as having all the answers from prior sources whose sparse resources see history through the lens of the colonists. History then in effect, needs to aim to be a true representation to see ourselves then as we were, in the context of that era to potentially underpin lessons learned for the future.  

A failure to question immorality.

I once, in an effort to better understand the reason why slavery persisted for so long (and continues even in modern day derivatives) undertook an examination of its history. 

I attempted to trace what was talked about and evolved firstly paradoxically principally as civilisation flourished in ancient Greece, from a factual perspective to why it continued on for so long notwithstanding its detractors. 

Why do such eminent thinkers and nations founded on freedom and democratic principles either endorse slavery or turn a blind eye to it. ?

How is it possible to reduce humans to the status of goods that could be bought and sold in markets or acquired in conflict? 

I found the failure to question slavery’s immorality (as in seeking the truth) was the dominant theme that emerged from the multiplicity of other reasons. One finds errors in translations, confused thinking and constraints on the authors imposed by rulers at various times, making face value assessments very risky. So too was the idea that those  enslaved will have their suffering rewarded in the next life- to justify acceptance of their current plight. 

However Aristotle’s position was somewhat nuanced as he talks about slaves, who by their nature are best ruled by masters. What he said is ‘those human beings that are by nature suitable to be ruled, but (are) unwilling (is) by nature just. 

He tells us why ‘those who are different (from other men) as the soul from body or man from beast and their work is the use of the body, and this is the best that can come from them, are slaves by nature.’ 

Ironically Aristotle left instructions on his death for all of his slaves to be freed. This practice was known as Manumission and for the few there was always the prospect that, at any time, owners could grant freedom. The reason for manumission was complex and varied. It could be purely benevolent as was most likely in the case of Aristotle by way of gratitude as prescribed in his will. It was also used to incentivize slaves to work harder, given the prospect of release as a reward. 

His ideas on slavery were virtually unchallenged for thousands of years. 

Aquinas then endorsed this same idea that served to justify its existence and help foster that ongoing ambivalent attitude to its immorality. This was also true of most of the enlightenment philosophers who failed to confront the immorality of slavery whilst endorsing freedom as a right to be drafted in a constitution. 
Simply put, my conclusion was that its continuity occurred because the obfuscation created by a concoction of ideas which formed the basis of later hideous arguments was a significant contribution augmented by greed and ignorance. 

But we need to rescue any idea that truth is relative to the extent truth and truth telling is irrelevant - rather its essential just as it is for historians. 

In short, truth is far from empty, as Davidson claimed; and the theory of truth is not “a set of truisms,” as J.L. Austin said scornfully. Truth is rich, and the theory of truth complex. This is precisely what we might expect, as the nature of truth touches on what is most distinctive about us. Of all the creatures in the universe who experience what is the case, we are the only ones who make explicit what is the case, and assert that it is the case. We are explicit, or truth-bearing and falsehood-bearing animals, and to see truth truly is to see ourselves truly. 

Quote from Raymond Tallis in Philosophy Now. 

Turning to the activity 

Activity So then, what is history?

I think history is the attempted reflection of how we see ourselves at various points of time or events and their causes. 

Is it something which moves us along? A time-stream in which we float, imagining we act freely but in reality not with any directional control?

The extent we learn from it and move along as truth seekers is a moot point. That should be the aim but often is not the reality

A truth seeking narrative does yield life changing outcomes and history teaches us when we go off the rails.

Can you do history personally?

That’s available to everyone. 

What’s positive about the way you do science?

Archeological and improvements in translation and research methodologies means today we are in a far better position in modernity to much better understand people’s views today than in much earlier period. 

Or is there something about history which needs a different approach?

Carbon dating and a host of other tools support a rewriting or confirmation of many historical events and their truth. The narrative on truth seeking underpins an adaptive approach by historians 

Are there laws of history as there are physical laws in science?

The only concept of a law rests with the idea of eternal recurrence analogous to the Hindus religion. 

If there are laws of history, if we know them and can apply them, then we should be able to predict the future, don’t you think?

Certainly one might stretch the imagination and talk about that possibility given the idea of eternal recurrence and the nature of energy that goes from one state to another but never actually disappears. 

Lots of interesting ideas can ensue along those lines. 

References

Please look for details on Toynbee at https://www.britannica.com  

Psychohistory- a derivation.

https://psychohistory.com

Patrick Lancaster Gardiner, Emeritus Fellow in Philosophy, Magdalen College, University of Oxford. Author of the Nature of Historical Explanation

https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Patrick-Lancaster-Gardiner/1025

Stanford University  

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/history/

History Wars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_wars