Most of you who read this weblog know that one of my primary preoccupations is how to invest my marginal time in terms of reading to optimize whatever it is I want to optimize (i.e., to "know stuff"). Life is short. So I recently began reflecting on the choices I make in terms of reading "classics," and how great thinkers of the past are remembered. Euclid's Elements for example is still relevant today. Arguably the most successful textbook in the history of the world its usage is obviated by the integration of many of its insights into mathematics as a whole. I know many people who go to the Dover Books website and stock up on a host of out of date texts on math...but the reality is that with math nothing is every really "out of date" unless you're a mathematician or mathematical physicist. Most modern biologists have little fluency with math beyond calculus, a technique deriving from the period of the late 17th century. A given field of math may not be useful to you, but it is not wrong as such because of the passage of time.
In fields outside math it is more complex because there is no universal standard such as proof. When it comes to the literature it seems that timelessness still holds. The Iliad, The Bible and Pride and Prejudice can "speak" to us. In fact, their relative antiquity is not a necessary mark against them, their persistence indicates either their cultural significance or their genuine quality (or both). Of course the arts are subject to fashions, e.g., in From Dawn to Decadence Jacques Barzun notes that the acclamation of Shakespeare as The Greatest is a phenomenon of the last two centuries, prior to which he was not considered of particular exception among the constellation of Tudor era dramatists. But the very fact that the works of Shakespeare were preserved are a testament to their quality on some level. Though one might admit that on the margins the rank order of the Greatness of any given piece of antique literature is subject to whim (stochasticity), the sample space is constrained by the fact that it takes time and energy to copy texts or print books. Humans have general aesthetic preferences, likely derived from our biological propensities, and these parameters will " load the die" in terms of the character of the works of art we produce and preserve.
It is in the gray lands between mathematics and art where age is the enemy. During his life David Hume was most well known as a writer of history. But today his The History of Great Britain is a biographical footnote. Immanuel Kant made some non-trivial contributions to planetary science early on in his life. In fact, his promotion of the Nebular Hypothesis seems far less off the mark than theories such as that of the aether which emerged in subsequent centuries. Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is of historical interest, but not necessarily interesting as a history. Similarly, my own inclination is that Charles' Darwin's The Origin of Species has had its Big Ideas integrated into the framework of evolutionary biology to the point where I haven't read it more than once. On the other hand, I have read The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, because I believe that R. A. Fisher's deductive insights still have some juice left in them. This is not to say that I agree with Fisher on everything; in fact, I agree less with his general stance now then I did after the first reading of his work. But like mathematics Fisher's work has a clarifying effect on my own thinking. Science proceeds through the elaboration and refinement of theoretical frameworks in synthesis with the empirical data. The roots of the superstructure are assumed, it is on the branches where the fresh fruit is. In a less theoretical enterprise such as history progress is simply a matter of increasing the sample space of data. We now know that the Etruscans were likely from Anatolia thanks to the techniques of genetic science; this is not a general theoretical insight, but the resolution of a specific point. Similarly, the emergence of cliometric analyses and more powerful archaeological techniques means that we have moved far past Gibbon's time in terms of understanding how Rome rose and fell. This does not mean that we understand it with the certitude and precision which we understood the heavens after Newton, but we know with more detail where Gibbon was wrong, and where he didn't know he was right.
So there you have it. In math the rigorous nature of the discipline means that prior thought is of interest. In literature the power of stochasticity is dampened by the reality of a modal human nature; very few people prefer a depressing ending to an uplifting one all things controlled. On the other hand, in the natural sciences the relative lack of rigor compared to mathematics means that the past is often rendered irrelevant. The contingency of deductive inferences upon the sample space of data which we are aware of means that theories are discarded on a regular basis, and not all theories which attain widespread acceptance will be eternally integrated into the great body of science. Scientific contingency is provisional. In empirical humane fields such as history there is little theoretical insight, but rather the sharpening focus of our model of the epiphenomenal minutiae which characterized the past. One's interpretation and emphases may bias or alter one's overall general model, but the fact that the Sumerians preceded the Akkadians in ascendancy in ancient Mesopatamia is a fact. Before 1950 no one knew that the peoples of Bronze Age Greece spoke the Greek language; after Michael Ventris translated the Linear B tablets we knew that they did, on the whole, use Greek (at least those who wrote down records).
But there is a final group of disciplines whose status I am not totally clear on. The social sciences such as sociology and cultural anthropology seem exceeding faddish, the consensus at any given time reflecting the Zeitgeist of the society than reality as such. Unlike history these fields are acquainted with theory, but I see quite often no close relationship between theory and a contingent network of ideas fed by facts. Theory seems to be an arcane language utilized in the service of rhetorical combat. An older field which is subject to similar problems seems to be philosophy. The math of Renee Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz is still valid, but who reads their philosophy except philosophers and college students? Do Plato and Aristotle still hold up philosophically, or are they simply the necessary background pieces in any reasonable model of a history of ideas? Should Nietzsche be read as philosophy, or as literature? And is there any difference at the end of the day? Today we read The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius to gain insight into a great man's mind and his period, not to acquire deep philosophical wisdom. If I had to bet 50 years from now I would be willing to hazard that the key interest in Postcolonial Theory from scholar will be to shed light on the outlooks of the "smart set" as opposed to the putative substance which the smart set were engaging.
I think Descartes' program of systematic doubt is a worthwhile read and likely to be good for a long while. I also think the rationalizations that follow it while he reconstructs his system of belief are an interesting example of how hard it is to shake the ideas we are fond of and how easy it is to rationalize to retain them. (in the process that follows his doubt, he reconstructs what seem like fairly conventional ideas about morality and God.) Dunno about the rest of Descartes, so I'm not really challenging your larger point.
Marcus Aurelius wasn't even a professional philosopher. He just thought it was good for him to write. I similarly enjoyed Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel, which is simply the diary of a soldier with some editing later.
I'm fine with reading N. as literature, but there's philosophy in literature too. I like the Presocratics a lot better than what came after and I think the fragments available from them can be read in the same spirit as N.'s aphorisms.
Plato is never worth it. Aristotle's Poetics might be worth reading given the fact that aesthetics doesn't progress at all until Edmund Burke's On the Sublime and Beautiful, and hasn't gone much further since. Sextus Empricus is worth reading more as an antidote to philosophy than anything else; I read Nagarjuna (and the later Wittgenstein) in the same spirit. David Hume is a good read but I'm not sure I could defend him as "fresh". Kant had two good ideas -- that perception is a constructive process and that the test of a good rule is universalizability -- which in no way reward slogging through his reams of awful prose.
Schopenhauer can be a hoot if you read the right bits. Mill's On Liberty is still a reasonably relevant argument for political freedom, I guess. The rationalists are all overrated. Everybody's heard of Descartes and Rousseau but nobody's heard of skeptics like Huet or Foucher or Le Vayer. I feel like I've learned something important from Giambattista Vico (another one rarely heard of) but I'm not sure other people would get what I got out of it.
Which, really, I think is the point: Wittgenstein said the primary purpose of philosophy is to work out one's own conceptual problems. What you get out of it will correspondingly tend to be highly idiosyncratic and distant from application compared to something like math, but that doesn't make it useless. A lot of important mental work involves clearing away your own confusions, and philosophy should be judged by the extent to which it does this. Also this explains why the further back you go, the less relevant it gets: you're staring at the confusions of yesteryear, and we've mostly moved on to more refined confusions.
Marcus Aurelius wasn't even a professional philosopher. He just thought it was good for him to write.
yes. the quality of his philosophy was not notable (his greek wasn't polished either apparently, he, a native latin speaker). but his thoughts are part of the corpus of late stoicism which comes down to us nonetheless because of his personal circumstance....
Hobbes was pretty perceptive, as was Malthus, both still very relevant -- maybe more so, since reigning ideology ignores some simple but elusive truths that they uncovered.
and obviously adam smith.
Sociology and anthropology are relatively young inventions, so there's not much of a theoretical lineage to cite from.
Weber is still extremely relevant, for what it's worth.
Weber is still extremely relevant, for what it's worth.
can you elaborate?
Marcus Aurelius didn't even preserve the interesting bits of the Stoics. (Their theories of logic, signs and interpenetrating fluids, for all their flaws, were at least interesting - in my book there's not much to Marcus Aurelius)
I still break out my Leibniz regularly and I know a lot of folks who still manage to get a lot out of Spinoza. (I don't) Leibniz' ontological consideration of infinity is still very worthwhile I feel. Even if you know your Cantor.
For pure making you think I think Plato is vastly underrated. Most read him as a freshman and never touch him again. But I still think that thinking through Plato takes you through the whole gamut of philosophy.
As to Nietzsche I think his power is as literature even though he's obviously doing philosophy. I think Nietzsche's better for getting people to think about their assumptions than anyone. Even if they get Nietzsche completely wrong. (And, Nietzsche philosophers notwithstanding, I'm not sure anyone gets him right)
Science is more interesting since its very nature is problematic. Still I think geometry is worthwhile to learn and often over neglected. I confess I've not read Euclid but I do plan on going back to Newton and trying to do calculus and mechanics the way he did it. (Rather than following in the path of Leibniz who had a more fruitful method) Everyone I know who has done this has said it was a good thing to do.
There are lots of really old physicists and mathematics that still are worth reading. Although reading them directly is often hard. But study Euler or Gauss and I'm convinced you'll learn a lot about how to think about math and physics in a way you probably wouldn't have learned in college.
Although reading them directly is often hard.
in german or french :-)
BTW - Sun Tzu's The Art of War and then Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Rings are worth reading as well. Not as great as they are made out, but still well worth reading. Ditto with Clausewitz. It's amazing how many people with completely different activities get inspired by these.
Jacques Barzun notes that the acclamation of Shakespeare as The Greatest is a phenomenon of the last two centuries, prior to which he was not considered of particular exception among the constellation of Tudor era dramatists.
If this is an accurate summary of Barzun, then Barzun is wrong. From 1600 through 1700 there might have been some doubt as to whether Ben Jonson or Shakespeare was the greatest English dramatist and poet, but by the 1700s these things were pretty much settled. And even earlier than that, the poets from Jonson himself through Milton to Dryden all esteemed Shakespeare as the peak of English literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare's_reputation
I read M. Aurelius awhile back and was rather surprised at what I found. (At my URL).
The problems of determinism when applied to one's own mind feature in his Meditations. He basically speaks of himself and his readers one way and of other people (controlled by causes) another way. It can be seen to be a power hierarchy; those thought to be capable of thought are the managers or rulers. He was, after all a Roman Emperor, and one of the good ones. (For which reason his advice on how to deal with adversity rings false, though it's possible that he did suffer real adversity on the battlefield occasionally).
I don't argue this much here, but the vast majority of people here would profit from reading more philosophy, history, and social science (and not just economics). I really think, in particular, that despite all the advances in brain science, sociobiology and generics, the dream of coming up with a "scientific" description of human behavior, including the social behavior of small and large groups, will still be a dream a century from now, in large part because an understanding of society is needed to understand individual behavior just as much as an understanding of individual behavior is needed to understand social behavior (i.e., it's a reciprocal and not a one-way cause-effect relationship).
As far as I can tell the attampt to put economics on a "scientific" basis since 1950 or so by mathematization has been somewhat a failure, though economics still has value since many economists tweak the theory to fit the reality. For one thing, economists latched on to an equilibrium theory that was inappropriate to economics and which has become less dominant even in physics.
The math of Rene Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz is still valid, but who reads their philosophy
Three words: Cogito ergo sum. IMHO the single most profound argument ever made in the history of thought.
Good philosophy is just as "eternal" as good maths.
I find tracing the history/philosophy of science to be of great value. I believe Bacon's characterization of inductive reasoning is a worthwhile read because it shows the initial reasoning behind why we do science the way we do.
The limitations of induction, spelled out in Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, are still relevant to understanding how one ought to interpret data. As are the follow-ups made by Popper, Nelson Goodman, and the logical positivists.
If we don't know the logical underpinnings and basic assumptions of the scientific method, then I believe we are asking for trouble in this line of work.
I think the key is whether the field builds on itself. The Elements are true, but you can find much the same material in high school. Maybe you would have been better off reading Euclid instead, but it's too late for that. Sociology is faddish, but that means that whatever good it does is thrown out, so there may be much in old books that is not available in new books. Unfortunately, much bad stuff is in the old books as well; it's probably not worth doing the filtering yourself.
There's something to be said for the history of ideas. But not, I think, so much for primary sources. It's nice to know that Archimedes invented the delta-epsilon proof and that calculus existed for 200 years without it, but now you know it. The less you trust people to understand the field and write surveys and histories, the more you have to read it yourself.
But if I want to understand the world, knowing the leading thought at various times may not be so important as knowing the common thought. Euclid isn't going to tell me what percentage of the population could count. Primary sources in philosophy and social science will do a better job of indicating the common (or elite-but-not-specialist) thought, if only implicitly. Moreover, I think there has been a lot more change in common thought on philosophical and social issues than math and science. And it has a lot more impact on people's actions. Plato seems to be a step backward from where I stand, but it's a step in a direction I never would have considered, and a step forward from a truly bizarre place.
Sociology is faddish and only representing the mindset of its adherents???
People should stop counting nonscientific, whimsy artsy liberal banter as sociology that is the common stereotype. That would be only fair because sociology is defined as a SOCIAL SCIENCE studying human behaviour and therefore is a noble subject! It must be, otherwise we would not call it sociology, just literature.
Razib,
For example, Weber's understanding ethnicity is still entirely valid. He describes it as the belief in common ancestry, rather than the fact. Weber (And Fredrik Barth) are still commonly cited when discussing the topic, and most of the more recent neo-marxian understandings of ethnicity add very little that cannot be drawn directly from earlier works.
deadpost, care to elaborate?
heller, tx.
book of the samurai
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagakure
In math the rigorous nature of the discipline means that prior thought is of interest.
In 1971, when Beyond Freedom and Dignity was published, B. F. Skinner made the opposite point.
On the other hand, in the natural sciences the relative lack of rigor compared to mathematics means that the past is often rendered irrelevant.
The fact that the study of mathematics is resistant to fads just shows that it's harder to confabulate in the mathematical idiom. A progressive or reformer may think the persistence of old ideas is a bug, not a feature.
With each year, the wealth of recorded history expands while the number of instructional hours stay the same. Literally millions of publications are written and distributed, the overwhelming majority of which must be ignored. The result is that what can be taught to an individual student becomes an increasingly smaller and smaller percentage of the total collected works within discipline. If the same old works are referenced for centuries, it could me that the field is very limited in scope. Or maybe its students, instructors, and practitioners are neophobic enough to make the field of study stagnate.
I don't mean to imply that the field of mathematics is stagnant. I'm just pointing out other reasons why an old text might have contemporary readers.
Maybe not so strange, ancient Greek ideas about humans and society have been self-fulfilling to an extent... in contrast, Greek ideas about biology haven't shaped biological facts.
If the same old works are referenced for centuries, it could me that the field is very limited in scope.
Sorry, that should have read: If the same old works are referenced for centuries, it could mean that the field is very limited in scope.
Skinner went on to describe how the public's reluctance to apply the methods of science to the study of behavior differed from the opposition towards the scientific study of other fields.
deadpost, care to elaborate?
Well, if sociology is actually sociology, and not just touchy-feely postmodernistic shit, and not be faddish at all. Why do most people stereotype sociology as a topic for young liberal feminists to rant about their own personal view of the world and society and how it is subjective to them? if so, it would be literature not social SCIENCE. It should be as rigorous as any science. ie. E.O Wilson's Sociobiology is more "real sociology" than over half of the bunk that sociology departments teach.
People, stop using sociology unless it act. It takes the honour out of the term sociology- a field most honourable onto itself!