"But if the early Greek mentality was neither metaphysical, nor abstract,
what then was it, and what was it trying to say? The resources of epigraphy
[the study and interpretation of ancient inscriptions], marshaled in the first
instance of [Rhys] Carpenter, supplied the next clue. For epigraphy pointed
to the conclusion that the Greek culture was maintained on a wholly oral basis
until 700 B.C. And if this were true, then the first so-called philosophers
were living and speaking in a period that was still adjusting to the conditions
of a possible future literacy, conditions which I concluded would be slow of
realisation, for they depended on the mastery not of the art of writing by a
few, but of fluent reading by the many.
"Those few who had elected themselves to be the prototypes of future
philosopher did so by virtue of their attempt to rationalise the sources of
knowledge. What then had been the shape of knowledge when preserved in the
oral memory and stored there for re-use? At this point, I turned to the work
of Milman Parry, and thought I saw the outline of the answer, and an answer
also to the problem why Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, to take the
first three thinkers who survive, spoke in the curious ways they did. The
formulaic style characteristic of oral composition represented not merely
certain verbal and metrical habits but also a cast of thought, or a mental
condition. The Presocratics themselves were essentially oral thinkers,
prophets of the concrete linked by long habit to the past, and to forms of
expression which were also forms of experience, but they were trying to devise
a vocabulary and syntax for a new future, when thought should be expressed in
categorie
s organized in syntax suitable for abstract statement. This was their
fundamental task, and it absorbed most of their energies. So far from
inventing systems in the later philosophical manner, they were devoted to the
primary task of inventing a language which would make future systems possible.
Such was the new picture which began to emerge. ..."
(Havelock, Eric A., 'Preface to Plato', pp. ix-x)
Marsha:
I don't know how deeply this book will address literacy as the instrument in
the making of 'time' and 'space' into objective and static patterns, but it
surely looks to be an exciting adventure. RMP did state that the rules of
grammar were contained in the intellectual level; this tome might offer insight
to that statement.
Marsha
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org/md/archives.html
