Re: Anachronisms in LOTR

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Robert J. Kolker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>Raven wrote:
>> authority-mandated belief.  And their science fell because they were not
>> really democratic; in particular, they had slaves, which led to arrogance
>> against manual work - such as experiments - and applause of purely cerebral
>> work, as befitted gentlemen, and also because they considered science to be
>> the province of an elite of educated nobility, not to be shared with the
>> unwashed masses.  I don't know if this analysis holds water.

>Greek science failed because the philosophers did not check their 
>conclusions by empiricial means. That is why Aristotelean physics is so 
>full of errors. Even whith technology avialble in his time, Aristotle 
>and his students could have check some of their choice notions, such as 
>heavy bodies falling faster than lighter bodies.
>
>Plato never regarded the physical world as real, but a poor imitation of 
>the Ideal World. See his Parable of the Cave in -The Republic-.
>
>The Greeks were bright, clever, very glib and too enamored with their 
>own cleverness. They believed things because they sounded reasonable. 
>Some of the truest things in the world are totally contrary to common 
>sense and reason, such as quantum mechanics.

There is an article in last Sunday's New York Times by Charles
Murray (yes, *that* Charles Murray), who has recently written a
book in which he tries to quantify human achievement.  He was asked
about humanity's "worst accomplishments", and after deciding to
define this as great accomplishments with the worst unintended
consequences (otherwise who would be interested?) he settled on
three people: Aristotle, Newton, and Beethoven.  Newton was credited
with inspiring the idea that human history had laws that were just
as comprehensible as the motion of the planets, and that societies
could be designed from scratch by those who were sufficiently
enlightened.  Beethoven got credit for the idea of the artist as
agonized self-expressive Genius rather than simple craftsman.  Here
is what Murray has to say about Aristotle:

        But [Aristotle's] logic was too dazzlingly compelling for
        its own good.  After Aristotle, the Greek natural philosophers
        ("natural" referring to what we think of as science) fell
        in love with the idea that a few elegantly simple premises,
        combined with deductive logic, could reveal the truths of
        the universe. Empiricism, which previously had maintained
        a rough balance with theory, lost ground. Natural philosophy
        became a smaller part of the total intellectual enterprise,
        overshadowed by moral philosophy.

        We can't be sure of the full magnitude of the loss, but it
        can be argued that the Greeks at the time of Aristotle were
        on the edge of producing the Scientific Revolution then
        and there. So the possibility arises that Aristotle, the
        same man who did so much to bring science to that edge,
        also supplied the tool that distracted his successors from
        taking the last little step and deflected science into a
        2,000-year cul-de-sac.

It's an interesting thought.  I'm not sure it's right to put the
full blame on Aristotle (and Murray doesn't really do that), but
I can easily imagine that a single natural philosopher with the
right attitude -- perhaps one of the many nameless young Greeks
who fell in some battle -- might have been enough to put the Greeks
over the top and into a full fledged industrial revolution.  Anyway,
the full article (for which you have to register with the Times)
is at:

        http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/weekinreview/30MURR.html
-- 
John Brock
[EMAIL PROTECTED]