Thomas Yaeger's Blog, page 20

Destroy Nineveh! Wiping Out the Past

A dialogue concerning the writing of history, the study of ideas and cultural patterns through time, and the role of religion, ideology, politics, philosophy, and the human psyche, in our changing understanding of the past. The discussion is set mainly in Berlin between 2001 and 2016. Two extracts from this dialogue in six parts were posted in September 2016 under the title 'A Berlin Conversation'.

A Berlin Conversation (Part Two)
A Berlin Conversation (Part Three)

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A Berlin Conversation (Part Three)

This is Part Three of A Berlin Conversation. A conversation between Drs. Ralf Ganz and Sadiq Kishati, set in  March 2003, in a university office near the Unter den Linden in Berlin.

Sadiq: One of things I’d like to ask is, why is it that the Greeks were the ones who invented philosophy? Why not some other culture elsewhere, or even before?
Ralf: That’s a tough question to answer. A classicist might just refer to the genius of the Greeks and leave it at that.
Sadiq: That wouldn’t be a terri...

A Berlin Conversation (Part Two)

An extract from a dialogue between Dr. Ralf Ganz, and Dr. Sadiq Kishati, on questions which might might be asked about the history of ideas, and cultic life in the ancient world. The dramatic date of the discussion is March 2003. The location is a university office, next to the Unter den Linden in Berlin, within sight of the famous equestrian statue of Frederick II, King of Prussia.


Sadiq: The thing which is really difficult for us to understand, is that we do not want to understand the past,...

A Berlin Conversation

An extract from a dialogue between Dr. Ralf Ganz, and Dr. Sadiq Kishati, on questions which might might be asked about the history of ideas, and cultic life in the ancient world. The dramatic date of the discussion is March 2003. The location is a university office, next to the Unter den Linden in Berlin, within sight of the famous equestrian statue of Frederick II, King of Prussia.

(Part Two)
Sadiq: The thing which is really difficult for us to understand, is that we do not want to understand...

The Knower and the Known

A few years ago I had a disturbing conversation with an Egyptologist I'd known for many years. I'd mentioned a comment I'd made in public about the Pharaoh Akhenaten, to the effect that his heresy was no longer as unfathomable as it once seemed to be. Then, out of nowhere, my qualities as a scholar were attacked, with arguments which had no foundation at all. She knew me well enough to know that her charges were baseless, but nevertheless, the charges were made, and with force. 
One of th...

Keeping the Enlightenment Agenda Alive

The core of the following text was written in 2005 as a short promotional introduction to the draft of The Sacred History of Being, which was written in 2003-4. That draft remained incomplete. The text of SHB which became the published version in 2015 is significantly different in detail, though the essential argument is the same. In the form of an internal memo by a publishing house editor, the following rehearses some of the reasons why the book should not be published
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Not many...

Today's favourite posts on the blog (August 28, 2016)

Marx and Historicism22 Apr 201512
The Babylonian Mis Pi Ritual25 Nov 201512Locke, Newton, and the Rejection of Reality3 Jun 201511
Creation25 Nov 201510





Divination in Antiquity3 May 201510






The Irrationality of Atheism1 Aug 20169






The Idea of the Plenum in Babylon11 Mar 2016, 3 comments8





Sameness and Difference in Plato14 Jun 20167




Language and Abstraction in Egypt and Greece23 Apr 2015, 2 comments6
A Saussurian Approach to Babylonian Epistemology21 May 2016


6

Popular Posts to 16th August, 2016

The most popular posts are listed below. The post on 'Sameness and Difference in Plato' continues its onward march, though it has some way to go before it catches up with 'Physics and the Origins of the Universe'. 
Nearly a thousand people have looked at the page on purchasing copies of The Sacred History of Being since the 24th of July. Thanks to those who followed through and bought a copy. The book is FREE till the end of August, 2016 using the coupon code QT67B (not case sensitive). E...

On Existential War

This paper considers the use of the principle of proportionality in existential war. It explores the development of the idea of proportionality in war from antiquity onwards, through the writings of Augustine and Aquinas (as a component of the idea of a Just War); the Valladolid debate on the conquest of the Americas, and relevant discussion at the School of Salamanca later in the sixteenth century. It also discusses Machiavelli's use of Livy in forming his ideas on the use of disproportionat...

Current and Forthcoming Books

The Sacred History of Being (November 2, 2015)

The Sacred History of Being has as its radical thesis that knowledge was at the heart of ancient religion, both in Greece and the ancient Near East. And that the source of all knowledge was understood to be Being itself.

Formerly argued by classical scholars to have been first discussed by the ancient Greeks in the middle of the first millennium B.C.E., the articulate concept of Being can now be traced as far back as the middle of the second mill...